vb6: how to run a program from vb6 and close it once it finishes?

Question

basically vb6 launches a process but the problem is closing it when it finishes.

shell \"something.exe\"

when the external program displays msg

Answer 1

If you know the title or class name of the program, then you can use FindWindow and PostMessage API calls to close it.

Private Declare Function FindWindow Lib "user32" Alias "FindWindowA" (ByVal lpClassName As String, ByVal lpWindowName As String) As Long
Private Declare Function PostMessage Lib "user32" Alias "PostMessageA" (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal wMsg As Long, ByVal wParam As Long, ByVal lParam As Long) As Long
Private Const WM_CLOSE = &H10 

Dim hwnd As Long
hwnd = FindWindow(vbNullString, "WINDOW CAPTION HERE")
PostMessage hwnd, WM_CLOSE, CLng(0), CLng(0)