Question

I want to kick off a process (we’ll use notepad for simplicity) without the console window popping up.

I’m sure I’ve missed something very simple, here is my most simplified test case:

#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <tchar.h>

void _tmain( int argc, TCHAR *argv[] )
{
    STARTUPINFO si;
    PROCESS_INFORMATION pi;

    ZeroMemory( &si, sizeof(si) );
    si.cb = sizeof(si);
    ZeroMemory( &pi, sizeof(pi) );

    // Start the child process. 
    if( !CreateProcess( NULL,   // No module name (use command line)
        "notepad",        // Command line
        NULL,           // Process handle not inheritable
        NULL,           // Thread handle not inheritable
        FALSE,          // Set handle inheritance to FALSE
        CREATE_NO_WINDOW,              // No creation flags
        NULL,           // Use parent's environment block
        NULL,           // Use parent's starting directory 
        &si,            // Pointer to STARTUPINFO structure
        &pi )           // Pointer to PROCESS_INFORMATION structure
    ) 
    {
        printf( "CreateProcess failed (%d).\n", GetLastError() );
        return;
    }

    // Wait until child process exits.
    WaitForSingleObject( pi.hProcess, INFINITE );

    // Close process and thread handles. 
    CloseHandle( pi.hProcess );
    CloseHandle( pi.hThread );
}

Answer 1

You are creating a new process(notepad.exe) from a parent process(your console application), and let parent process wait for child process to finish. The console window is the main window of your parent process. You can hide and restore is as show below.

// Notice how hiding the console window causes it to disappear from
// the Windows task bar. If you only want to make it minimize, use
// SW_MINIMIZE instead of SW_HIDE.
void _tmain(int argc, TCHAR *argv[])
{
    ShowWindow( GetConsoleWindow(), SW_HIDE );

    // create a new process and wait for it to finish

    ShowWindow( GetConsoleWindow(), SW_RESTORE );
}