I am trying to run logman.exe for a elevated CMD, for this below code I tried,
var proc = new Process
{
StartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo
{
FileName = #"C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe",
Arguments = "cmd /k logman.exe PerfCounterCustom | findstr \"Root\"",
Verb = "runas",
UseShellExecute = true,
}
};
try
{
proc.Start();
while (!proc.StandardOutput.EndOfStream)
{
string line = proc.StandardOutput.ReadLine();
}
Console.WriteLine("Successfully elevated!");
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Console.WriteLine(ex.ToString());
}
And it's giving error output like,
System.InvalidOperationException: StandardOut has not been redirected or the process hasn't started yet.
at System.Diagnostics.Process.get_StandardOutput()
2 Questions,
when I am running application exe, it's showing 2 CMD window, the 1st one showing error and 2nd one showing result for argument "cmd /k logman.exe PerfCounterCustom | findstr \"Root\"" [Root Path]
how to disable showing both window?
Why I am getting this error?
To your 1st Question: In the ProcessStartInfo set WindowStyle to ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden
An alternative solution to read the output of the command is to write the output to a text file. Therefore you have to add >> "[Name or Path of file].txt" to the end of your command. Then just read the file from C# e.g. with File.ReadAllLines.
Two things to consider here:
If you do that often at Runtime and the command delivers huge amounts of text don't write it to an SSD.
Please check that the file is empty / not existing before, because Windows just appends the output to the end of the file. If you run that in multiple threads use a thread identifier in the file name.
You have to set RedirectStandardOutput of the ProcessStartInfo to true and you have to run proc.WaitForExit() before reading the output.
Please note that this solution causes incompatibilities with running the process as administrator via runas.
Am a Newbie in C# and I have 3 commands(command2, command3 and command4) I need to execute in the elevated command prompt and I will also like to view the execution process as it happens. Currently, the problem is that the code below just opens the elevated command prompt and without executing the commands. I also seek better interpretations of the lines if wrong.
My code and Interpretation/Understanding of each line based on reviews of similar cases: ConsoleApp1
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
string command2 = #"netsh wlan";
string command3 = #" set hostednetwork mode=true ssid=egghead key=beanhead keyusage=persistent";
string command4 = #" start hostednetwork";
string maincomm = command2.Replace(#"\", #"\\") + " " + command3.Replace(#"\", #"\\") ; //I merged commands 2 and 3
ProcessStartInfo newstartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo();
newstartInfo.FileName = "cmd"; //Intend to open cmd. without this the newProcess hits an error saying - Cannot run process without a filename.
newstartInfo.Verb = "runas"; //Opens cmd in elevated mode
newstartInfo.Arguments = maincomm; //I intend to pass in the merged commands.
newstartInfo.UseShellExecute = true; //
newstartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true; // I intend to see the cmd window
Process newProcess = new Process(); //
newProcess.StartInfo = newstartInfo; //Assigns my newstartInfo to the process object that will execute
newProcess.Start(); // Begin process and Execute newstartInfo
newProcess.StartInfo.Arguments = command4; //I intend to overwrite the initial command argument hereby passing the another command to execute.
newProcess.WaitForExit(); //
}
}
This is what I did to overcome the challenge and It gave me exactly what I wanted. I modified my code to use the System.IO to write directly to the elevated command prompt.
ProcessStartInfo newstartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo();
newstartInfo.FileName = "cmd";
newstartInfo.Verb = "runas";
newstartInfo.RedirectStandardInput = true;
newstartInfo.UseShellExecute = false; //The Process object must have the UseShellExecute property set to false in order to redirect IO streams.
Process newProcess = new Process();
newProcess.StartInfo = newstartInfo;
newProcess.Start();
StreamWriter write = newProcess.StandardInput ; //Using the Streamwriter to write to the elevated command prompt.
write.WriteLine(maincomm); //First command executes in elevated command prompt
write.WriteLine(command4); //Second command executes and Everything works fine
newProcess.WaitForExit();
Referrence: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.diagnostics.process.standardinput(v=vs.110).aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.diagnostics.processstartinfo(v=vs.110).aspx
I think an understanding of some properties of the ProcessStartInfo might clear things.
The verb - Gets or sets the verb to use when opening the application or document specified by the FileName property.,
+The UseShellExecute - Gets or sets a value indicating whether to use the operating system shell to start the process.
+The FileName - Gets or sets the application or document to start MSDN Docs
When you use the operating system shell to start processes, you can start any document (which is any registered file type associated with an executable that has a default open action) and perform operations on the file, such as printing, by using the Process object. When UseShellExecute is false, you can start only executables by using the Process object Documentation from MSDN.
In my case, cmd is an executable. the verb property is some thing that answers the question "How should my I run my FileName(for executables e.g cmd or any application)?" for which I answered - "runas" i.e run as administrator. When the FileName is a document (e.g `someFile.txt), the verb answers the question "What should I do with the file for which answer(verb) could be -"Edit","print" etc. also?"
use true if the shell should be used when starting the process; false if the process should be created directly from the executable file. The default is true MSDN Docs - UserShellInfo.
Another thing worth noting is knowing what you are trying to achieve. In my case, I want to be able to run commands via an executable(cmd prompt) with the same process - i.e starting the cmd as a process I can keep track of.
I have a batch file like this
#echo off
xcopy /e %1 %2
I have my C# code as follows:
string MyBatchFile = #"C:\Program Files (x86)\MybatchFile.bat";
string _sourcePath = #"C:\FolderToCopy";
string _tempTargetPath = #"C:\TargetFolder\";
var process = new Process {
StartInfo = {
Arguments = string.Format("{0} {1}",
_sourcePath,
_tempTargetPath)
}
};
process.StartInfo.FileName = MyBatchFile;
bool b = process.Start();
I expect this to copy the source files to target location. But nothing happens. My console window also does not stay for enough time so that I can see the error. Can anyone guide to achieve this. I am new in batch files processing.
Edit
By adding a pause in the end of batch file. Able to reproduce error. Getting error as
Files not found - Program
Running batch file directly does work fine. Just now noticed......when source path has any spaces....I am getting error
What about quoting argument?
Arguments = String.Format("\"{0}\" \"{1}\"", _sourcePath, _tempTargetPath) …
.bat file is a text file, in order to execute it, you should start cmd process.
Start it like this:
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("cmd.exe", "/c yourbatch.bat");
Additional arguments may follow. Try this without c#, in a cmd window, or Run dialog.
try
string MyBatchFile = #"C:\MybatchFile.bat";
string _sourcePath = #"C:\FolderToCopy\*.*";
string _tempTargetPath = #"C:\TargetFolder\";
i.e. add *.* to the source path
and add a 3rd line pause to the batch file
#echo off
copy /e %1 %2
pause
We have a few commands(batch files/executables) on our network path which we have to call to initialize our 'development environment' for that command window. It sets some environmental variables, adds stuff to the Path etc. (Then only whatever working commands we type will be recognized & I don't know what goes inside those initializing commands)
Now my problem is, I want to call a series of those 'working commands' using a C# program, and certainly, they will work only if the initial setup is done. How can I do that? Currently, I'm creating a batch file by scratch from the program like this for example:
file.Writeline("InitializationStep1.bat")
file.Writeline("InitializeStep2.exe")
file.Writeline("InitializeStep3.exe")
Then the actual commands
file.Writeline("Dowork -arguments -flags -blah -blah")
file.Writeline("DoMoreWork -arguments -flags -blah -blah")
Then finally close the file writer, and run this batch file.
Now if I directly execute this using Process.<strike>Run</strike>Start("cmd.exe","Dowork -arguments"); it won't run.
How can I achieve this in a cleaner way, so that I have to run the initialization commands only once? (I could run cmd.exe each time with all three initializers, but they take a lot of time so I want to do it only once)
As #Hakeem has pointed out, System.Diagnostic.Process does not have a static Run method. I think you are referring to the method Start.
Once you have completed building the batch file, then simply execute it using the following code,
Process p = new Process();
p.StartInfo.FileName = batchFilePath;
p.StartInfo.Arguments = #"-a arg1 -b arg2";
p.Start();
Note that the # symbol is required to be prefixed to the argument string so that escape sequence characters like \ are treated as literals.
Alternative code
Process.Start(batchFilePath, #"-a arg1 -b arg2");
or
ProcessStartInfo processStartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo();
processStartInfo.FileName = batchFilePath;
processStartInfo.Arguments = #"-a arg1 -b arg2";
Process.Start(processStartInfo);
More information
Process.Start method
Example of multi command batch file
dir /O
pause
dir
pause
Save this file as .bat and then execute using the Start method. In this case you can specify the argument with the command in the batch file itself (in the above example, the /O option is specified for the dir command.
I suppose you already have done the batch file creation part, now just append the arguments to the commands in the batch file.
Redirecting Input to a process
Since you want to send multiple commands to the same cmd process, you can redirect the standard input of the process to the take the input from your program rather than the keyboard.
Code is inspired from a similar question at: Execute multiple command lines with the same process using C#
private string ProcessRunner()
{
ProcessStartInfo processStartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo("cmd.exe");
processStartInfo.RedirectStandardInput = true;
processStartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
processStartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
Process process = Process.Start(processStartInfo);
if (process != null)
{
process.StandardInput.WriteLine("dir");
process.StandardInput.WriteLine("mkdir testDir");
process.StandardInput.WriteLine("echo hello");
//process.StandardInput.WriteLine("yourCommand.exe arg1 arg2");
process.StandardInput.Close(); // line added to stop process from hanging on ReadToEnd()
string outputString = process.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
return outputString;
}
return string.Empty;
}
The method returns the output of the command execution. In a similar fashion, you could also redirect and read the StandardOuput stream of the process.
The Process.Run method that you mentioned, is that from the Process class in System.Diagnostics namespace? AFAIK, the Process type doesn't have either a static or instance method named Run. If you haven't already I'd try with the Start method on Process, either instance or static
How can I make my C# app erase itself (self-destruct)? Here's two ways that I think might work:
Supply another program that deletes the main program. How is this deleter program deleted then, though?
Create a process to CMD that waits a few seconds then deletes your file. During those few seconds, you close your application.
Both of those methods seem inefficient. I have a feeling that there's some built-in flag or something in Windows that allows for such stuff. How should I do it? Also, can you provide some sample code?
UPDATE: Thanks for all your answers! I'm going to try them, and see where that gets me.
First of all, some people have asked why I'd want my app to do this. Here's the answer: a few days ago, I read the Project Aardvark spec that Joel Spolsky posted on his blog, and it mentioned that the client app would delete itself after the remote session. I'm wondering how this works, and how, if I ever need to do this, I can accomplish such a feat.
Here's a little overview of what's been suggested:
Create a registry entry that tells Windows to delete the file on reboot
Launch CMD with a ping command to wait a few seconds and then delete the file
Both of those, of course, have their disadvantages, as outlined in the comments.
However, would such a method as outlined below work?
There are two executables: Program.exe and Cleaner.exe. The former is the program itself, the latter is the app that deletes Program.exe and itself (if it's loaded into memory, as I'm about to explain). Is it possible for Program.exe (which has dependencies) to load all of Cleaner.exe, which doesn't have any dependencies, into memory and run it?
If this is possible, could Cleaner.exe be packaged inside Program.exe, loaded into memory, and run?
There's a MoveFileEx API, which, when given a MOVEFILE_DELAY_UNTIL_REBOOT flag, will delete specified file on next system startup.
There's a great CodeProject Article about this topic.
Edit: Basically it's a simple cmd-call which will delete the specified files after some seconds.
Process.Start("cmd.exe", "/C ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 3000 > Nul & Del " + Application.ExecutablePath);
Application.Exit();
You will never be able to guarantee that this will work, as long as you require a physical presence on the machine. For example:
What if the app fails to release a resource in a timely fashion while you're trying to delete it? An error occurs, and the app remains.
The behavior of one app starting another which then deletes the first app is very suspicious from an AV perspective. You are likely to trigger defenses on a user's machine which may kill the process that's trying to kill your original app.
If you do something like delete a file at reboot, what if the user moves your file in between or makes a copy? It's not in the original spot anymore, and the app remains.
If your application requires this level of security, consider hosting it on a machine you control (e.g., by providing a web service and letting a stub client access it that way).
On a somewhat related note, one is also tempted to speculate about the motives of someone who (1) requires a physical presence on someone's machine and (2) wants to delete the evidence that the app existed.
A correction to #Bobby answer, in case people will find it useful - executable path needs to be quoted. Additionally, below is setting cmd.exe window to be hidden (otherwise it flashes as a black console window) and converted to run without relying on System.Windows.Forms assembly (the Application class).
var exepath = Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location;
var info = new ProcessStartInfo("cmd.exe", "/C ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 3000 > Nul & Del \"" + exepath + "\"");
info.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;
Process.Start(info).Dispose();
Environment.Exit(0);
There is also FileOptions.DeleteOnClose, but that requires the file to be open for writing. You might be able to do it with a sequence like this (untested):
Program launches as Original.exe, and detects (from its own name) that it needs to trigger the self-destruct function.
Original.exe creates a new file Temp.exe with FileOptions.DeleteOnClose and copies its own content into it, but does not close it yet
Original.exe opens a second, read-only handle to Temp.exe and closes the first write handle. The read-only handle can co-exist with an execute handle, whilst keeping the file open to delay auto-deletion.
Original.exe launches Temp.exe. Temp.exe detects that it has been launched from the temp directory and bypasses the self-destruct sequence and continues normal operation.
Original.exe exits (taking its read-only handle to Temp.exe with it.)
Temp.exe continues running. When it exits, the file Temp.exe will no longer be in use so it will be deleted automatically.
Edit #2: Actually I don't think this is possible, because it relies on the kernel opening the file with the FILE_SHARE_DELETE flag, which is unlikely.
sorted by NJ
c#
the other codes does not work so its simple
if u create bath file that loops to del application and
the batch file itself
u can use takkill command to kill the process if u dont want to use
application.close method
`string delname = "test.cmd";
string fileurl = Application.ExecutablePath;
System.IO.StreamWriter file = new System.IO.StreamWriter(delname);
file.WriteLine(":Repeat");
file.WriteLine("del \"" + fileurl + "\"");
file.WriteLine("if exist \"" + fileurl + "\" goto Repeat");
file.WriteLine("del \"" + delname + "\"");
file.Close();
ProcessStartInfo startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo();
startInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
startInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
startInfo.FileName = delname;
startInfo.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;
Process.Start(startInfo);`
`
Th3 3e3 one is not 3d parts ov one
I5
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Think CMD
int sectosleep = 5000;
string exename = "yourexe.exe";
string location = #"c:\yourexe.exe"
Process.Start("cmd.exe", "/C taskkill /f /im " + exename + " & ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w " + sectosleep + " > Nul & Del /F /Q \"" + location + "\"");
;>
I know reflector deletes itself if you use an old version and choose not to update. You might try to figure out what it does. I would start with FileMon and see if it spawns any processes to achieve this.
Since my application (a Windows Service) is installed via the Windows Installer, I self-delete using this:
Dim uninstall_params As String = "/x {MY-PRODUCTS-GUID} /qn /norestart REBOOT=ReallySuppress"
proc.StartInfo = New ProcessStartInfo("msiexec.exe", uninstall_params)
proc.Start()
Environment.Exit(-1)
Sorry--it's in VB, but it should be easily convertible to C#.
Works in Windows 7 & 8, **ENSURE you run your application with admin privileges or you will get an error.
This code exists elsewhere so I can't take full credit I found I made it work for me by adding "Application.Exit();"
static void autodelete()
{
string batchCommands = string.Empty;
string exeFileName = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase.Replace("file:///", string.Empty).Replace("/", "\\");
batchCommands += "#ECHO OFF\n"; // Do not show any output
batchCommands += "ping 127.0.0.1 > nul\n"; // Wait approximately 4 seconds (so that the process is already terminated)
batchCommands += "echo j | del /F "; // Delete the executeable
batchCommands += exeFileName + "\n";
batchCommands += "echo j | del deleteMyProgram.bat"; // Delete this bat file
File.WriteAllText("deleteMyProgram.bat", batchCommands);
Process.Start("deleteMyProgram.bat");
Application.Exit();
}
This is the Uninstall.exe:
Shutdown.
Wait for 3 sec.
Try to kill that task if it is still running.
Wait for 3 sec.
Delete the app directory with the Uninstall.exe in it.
public void Uninstall()
{
var delPath = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory;
var procId = Process.GetCurrentProcess().Id;
var psi = new ProcessStartInfo
{
FileName = "cmd.exe",
Arguments = $"/C timeout 3 & Taskkill /F /PID {procId} & timeout 3 & rd /s /q \"{delPath}\"",
CreateNoWindow = true,
WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden
};
Process.Start(psi);
Application.Current.Shutdown();
}