Question

Would anyone happen to know a trick that will keep this MSBuild task from blocking? I really just want the explorer to open and the build script to keep on going. Currently it blocks at the Exec task until the explorer window is closed.

<Target Name="OpenExplorer">
    <Exec Command='explorer.exe "$(DestinationDir)"' IgnoreExitCode="true" />
</Target>

Thanks!

Edit: I was hoping to avoid creating a custom task for this. Perhaps some command line magic exists that could be placed inline for the Command?

Answer 1

You can’t do it with the native Exec. But you can write your own that fires asynchronously, as in this example:

  public class AsyncExec : Exec {
    protected override int ExecuteTool(string pathToTool,
                                       string responseFileCommands,
                                       string commandLineCommands) {
      Process process = new Process();
      process.StartInfo = GetProcessStartInfo(pathToTool, commandLineCommands);
      process.Start();
      return 0;
    }

    protected virtual ProcessStartInfo GetProcessStartInfo(string executable,
                                                           string arguments) {
      if (arguments.Length > 0x7d00) {
        this.Log.LogWarningWithCodeFromResources("ToolTask.CommandTooLong", new object[] { base.GetType().Name });
      }
      ProcessStartInfo startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo(executable, arguments);
      startInfo.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;
      startInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
      startInfo.UseShellExecute = true;
      string workingDirectory = this.GetWorkingDirectory();
      if (workingDirectory != null) {
        startInfo.WorkingDirectory = workingDirectory;
      }
      StringDictionary environmentOverride = this.EnvironmentOverride;
      if (environmentOverride != null) {
        foreach (DictionaryEntry entry in environmentOverride) {
          startInfo.EnvironmentVariables.Remove(entry.Key.ToString());
          startInfo.EnvironmentVariables.Add(entry.Key.ToString(), entry.Value.ToString());
        }
      }
      return startInfo;
    }
  }

which you can then run with:

<AsyncExec Command="..." />