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invoke exe during installation - custom action issue

Gmorn everyone,
I'm using VS 2005. I've got an installer package that outputs an msi. The app is an IE add-in so a base requirement is to kill all iexplore (IE)processes during installation and then start a new browser session when the app is installed. I'm handling this request through 2 exe's. My first one is initiateKill.exe(code: KillProcess iexplore.exe) which references a second exe called KillProcess. The two exe's work great together and the iexplore processes are killedupon execution. I've tried executing the exe's in the custom action section and currentlyit's notworking, no error just rolls through installation. The exe's are bundled with the installation of my app, so I'm trying to figure out how to reference the initiateKill so it will see it's friendKillProcess. I've attempted to call theinitiateKill in the post build event cmd on successful build and whenI build it, it fails with an exception. Can anyone recommend a sequence on when/how to execute my exe's.
Thanks in advance,
cg

cg73 Wednesday, November 19, 2008 5:16 PM

I wouldn't do this at all. My experience with setups is that what you're doing is completely unfriendly, killing Internet Explorer sessions where people might be in the middle of something critical (you're going to kill my bank transfer or shopping cart purchase, clickonce install, java applet?). Just do a custom action that says "You need to restart Internet Explorer to use ....etc". I havenever seen an install that does what you want to do, destroying people's IE sessions.

PhilWilson Wednesday, November 19, 2008 9:51 PM

Thanks for the quick response phil... well I currently took a few steps back and went a different direction. Instead of using someone else's exe(KillProcess) with my exe, I'm now calling my "ieKill.exe", which consists ofthis simple line of code:

%windir%\System32\TASKKILL /F /FI "IMAGENAME eq iexplore.exe"

We're assuming 95%+ of customers use XP, so this could possibly fail and just not do anything for Win2k machines. It does close down all instances of IE instantly, which is very cool, BUT, I mentioned your concern of a forced shutdown of all IE sessions when a user is working on something.. Their response is that we need a prompt. Is there bat syntax to call a windows prompt to warn the user of immediate shutdown before I execute the above line?

Thanks again,

cg73 Wednesday, November 19, 2008 10:21 PM

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