VBA script to close every instance of Excel except itself

Question

I have a subroutine in my errorhandling function that attempts to close every workbook open in every instance of Excel. Otherwise, it might stay in memory and break my next

Answer 1

You should be able to use window handles for this.

Public Sub CloseAllOtherAccess()
    Dim objAccess As Object
    Dim lngMyHandle As Long
    Dim strMsg As String

On Error GoTo ErrorHandler
    lngMyHandle = Application.hWndAccessApp

    Set objAccess = GetObject(, "Access.Application")
    Do While TypeName(objAccess) = "Application"
        If objAccess.hWndAccessApp <> lngMyHandle Then
            Debug.Print "found another Access instance: " & _
                objAccess.hWndAccessApp
            objAccess.Quit acQuitSaveNone
        Else
            Debug.Print "found myself"
            Exit Do
        End If
        Set objAccess = GetObject(, "Access.Application")
    Loop

ExitHere:
    Set objAccess = Nothing
    On Error GoTo 0
    Exit Sub

ErrorHandler:
    strMsg = "Error " & Err.Number & " (" & Err.Description _
        & ") in procedure CloseAllOtherAccess"
    MsgBox strMsg
    GoTo ExitHere
End Sub

It appears to me GetObject returns the "oldest" Access instance. So that sub closes all Access instances started before the one which is running the sub. Once it finds itself, it stops. Maybe that's fine for your situation. But if you need to also close Access instances started after the one which is running the code, look to Windows API window handle functions.

I didn't try this approach for Excel. But I did see Excel provides Application.Hwnd and Application.Hinstance ... so I suspect you can do something similar there.

Also, notice I got rid of On Error Resume Next. GetObject will always return an Application object in this sub, so it didn't serve any purpose. Additionally, I try to avoid On Error Resume Next in general.

Update: Since GetObject won't do the job for you, use a different method to get the window handles of all the Access instances. Close each of them whose window handle doesn't match the one you want to leave running (Application.hWndAccessApp).

Public Sub CloseAllAccessExceptMe()
'FindWindowLike from: '
'How To Get a Window Handle Without Specifying an Exact Title '
'http://support.microsoft.com/kb/147659 '

'ProcessTerminate from: '
'Kill a Process through VB by its PID '
'http://en.allexperts.com/q/Visual-Basic-1048/Kill-Process-VB-its-1.htm '

    Dim lngMyHandle As Long
    Dim i As Long
    Dim hWnds() As Long

    lngMyHandle = Application.hWndAccessApp

    ' get array of window handles for all Access top level windows '
    FindWindowLike hWnds(), 0, "*", "OMain", Null

    For i = 1 To UBound(hWnds())
        If hWnds(i) = lngMyHandle Then
            Debug.Print hWnds(i) & " -> leave myself running"
        Else
            Debug.Print hWnds(i) & " -> close this one"
            ProcessTerminate , hWnds(i)
        End If
    Next i
End Sub