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Call external program from ASP.NET

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Join Date: Mar 2006

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mikefitz

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Call external program from ASP.NET

Sep 17th, 2006

Hi,
Does anyone know how to run an external program from ASP.NET.
The System.Diagnostics.Process or Shell() functions do not work for opening GUI applications like NotePad. I need my ASP.NET web form to open a Windows application that we be installed on the Client. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Mike

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Join Date: Sep 2006

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leonpwhirl leonpwhirl is offline

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Re: Call external program from ASP.NET

Sep 22nd, 2006

I was able to get this to work using the
System.Diagnostics.Process. I did this by:

string fileLocation = @"filename";
Process test = new Process();
test.StartInfo.FileName = fileLocation;
test.Start();

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Join Date: Sep 2006

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M_K_Higa

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Re: Call external program from ASP.NET

Sep 22nd, 2006

If you want to open an external app on the client, then asp.net won't help. Asp.net is server side. When using System.Diagnostics.Process, you can open external apps, but it opens on the web server, not the clients machine.

If you want to open an app, such as notepad, on the client machine, you need to use client side scripting such as javascript. NOTE: Most of the time, this won't work unless you lossen up the security, so it's very risky.

Anyway, here's a sample code to launch apps on the client.

 Help with Code Tags 
 ASP.NET Syntax (Toggle Plain Text) 
var theShell = new ActiveXObject("Shell.Application");
var theApp = "C:\\Windows\\Notepad.exe";
theShell.ShellExecute(theApp, "", "", "open", "1");
var theShell = new ActiveXObject("Shell.Application");
var theApp = "C:\\Windows\\Notepad.exe";
theShell.ShellExecute(theApp, "", "", "open", "1");

-Mike

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Join Date: Mar 2006

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mikefitz

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Re: Call external program from ASP.NET

Sep 23rd, 2006

That will work just fine. Thanks

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Join Date: Dec 2004

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tgreer

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Made Her Cry

Re: Call external program from ASP.NET

Sep 25th, 2006

That is really only suitable for an intranet application, and an IE-only browser environment.

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Join Date: Sep 2006

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M_K_Higa

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Re: Call external program from ASP.NET

Sep 26th, 2006

You are correct. This is more suitable for an intranet environment. Thanks for the clarification. I'd like to stress, even in an intranet environment, you still have to relax the security requirements a whole lot to make this work.

-Mike

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Join Date: Nov 2005

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ManicCW

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Re: Call external program from ASP.NET

Sep 27th, 2006

My little advice: Never mess with the client computer!
I hate when web pages try to do that.

http://www.manicsite.com

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Join Date: Jun 2009

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tcornejo

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Re: Call external program from ASP.NET

Jun 25th, 2009

I put :

 Help with Code Tags 
 JavaScript Syntax (Toggle Plain Text) 
<script language="javascript" >
 
        function todo()
        {
        var theShell = new ActiveXObject("Shell.Application");
        var theApp = "C:\\Windows\\Notepad.exe";
        theShell.ShellExecute(theApp, "", "", "open", "1");
        }
    </script>
<script language="javascript" >
    
        function todo()
        {
        var theShell = new ActiveXObject("Shell.Application");
        var theApp = "C:\\Windows\\Notepad.exe";
        theShell.ShellExecute(theApp, "", "", "open", "1");
        }
    </script>

and then

<input type = "BUTTON" value = "Push Me!" name = "Command1" onclick="todo()">
but it doesnt seem to work

please helpme.

Last edited by peter_budo; Jun 26th, 2009 at 4:04 am. Reason: Keep It Organized - For easy readability, always wrap programming code within posts in [code] (code blocks) and [icode] (inline code) tags.