Question

I’m trying to run a batch file on a server via an ASP.Net page, and it’s driving my crazy. When I run the below code, nothing happnes – I can see from some log statements that this code runs, but the .bat file that I pass to the function never runs.

Could anybody please tell me what I’m doing wrong?

public void ExecuteCommand(string batchFileLocation)
{
   Process p = new Process();

   // Create secure password
   string prePassword = "myadminpwd";
   SecureString passwordSecure = new SecureString();
   char[] passwordChars = prePassword.ToCharArray();
   foreach (char c in passwordChars)
   {
       passwordSecure.AppendChar(c);
   }

   // Set up the parameters to the process
   p.StartInfo.FileName = @"C:\\Windows\\System32\cmd.exe";
   p.StartInfo.Arguments = @" /C " + batchFileLocation;
   p.StartInfo.LoadUserProfile = true;
   p.StartInfo.UserName = "admin";
   p.StartInfo.Password = passwordSecure;
   p.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
   p.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;

   // Run the process and wait for it to complete
   p.Start();
   p.WaitForExit();
}

In the ‘Application’ Event Viewer log on the server, every time I try to run this, the following issue seems to occur:

Faulting application cmd.exe, version 6.0.6001.18000, time stamp 0x47918bde, faulting module kernel32.dll, version 6.0.6001.18000, time stamp 0x4791a7a6, exception code 0xc0000142, fault offset 0x00009cac, process id 0x8bc,application start time 0x01cc0a67825eda4b.

UPDATE

The following code works fine (it runs the batch file):

Process p = new Process();
p.StartInfo.FileName = batchFileLocation;
p.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory = Path.GetDirectoryName(batchFileLocation);
p.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;

// Run the process and wait for it to complete
p.Start();
p.WaitForExit();

This however doesn’t (when i try to run as a specific user):

Process p = new Process();

// Create secure password
string prePassword = "adminpassword";
SecureString passwordSecure = new SecureString();
char[] passwordChars = prePassword.ToCharArray();
foreach (char c in passwordChars)
{
      passwordSecure.AppendChar(c);
}

p.StartInfo.FileName = batchFileLocation;
p.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory = Path.GetDirectoryName(batchFileLocation);
p.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
p.StartInfo.UserName = "admin";
p.StartInfo.Password = passwordSecure;

// Run the process and wait for it to complete
p.Start();
p.WaitForExit();

Answer 1

A little google on “Faulting application cmd.exe” points me to this IIS forum.

It seems that you cannot create a new process in the background under IIS, unless you use the CreateProcessWithLogon method. (I have not tested this).