Shell

Runs an executable program asynchronously and returns a Double containing the new process’s task ID, or zero if the program could not be started.

Syntax: Shell( pathname [ , windowstyle ] )

pathname
required Variant (String). Name of the program to execute, optionally including a directory or drive, plus any required arguments or command-line switches.
windowstyle
optional A VbAppWinStyle value specifying the style of window in which the program is run. If omitted, the program is started minimized with focus (vbMinimizedFocus).

If Shell successfully launches the named program, it returns the new process’s task ID — a unique number identifying the running program. If Shell can’t start the named program, a run-time error is raised.

Note

By default, Shell runs other programs asynchronously: a program started with Shell may not have finished — or even fully started — by the time the statements following Shell are executed. To wait for the program to finish, retain the returned task ID and poll the process via the Win32 OpenProcess/WaitForSingleObject APIs (or use a higher-level helper).

Example

This example uses Shell to run Notepad with a normal-sized focused window.

Dim TaskId As Double
TaskId = Shell("C:\Windows\Notepad.exe", vbNormalFocus)

See Also