How to handle this scenario when deploying C# application?

Question

Yesterday I was trying to get a list of files opened by a particular process but it seemed to be a gigantic task to do using C#. Someone pointed me to this nifty program called Handle by Mark Rusinovich.

The program seems to suffice my needs but the licensing prevents me from redistributing it (which from what I understand means that I cannot compile my program along with that binary because then I would be redistributing it). I was initially thinking of just using the program to generate the output and then parse the output for my own use but now I guess that's not possible.

So what should I do now? When my program starts, pop up a box telling the user to first download this program from Microsoft's website first before using my program? Can someone suggest a possible solution that I could use if I want to deploy it?

PS: My application is a freeware

Answer 1

I think the authors are doing you a favor by not allowing you to redistribute it, but regardless of whether they are or not, you can't redistribute it. As I understand it, it's a fundamentally grisly task that requires you to iterate through every open file and see if your particular process happens to own it or not. If Handle does what you need, I'd go with the popup box on startup idea that you mentioned - should work fine.

You may not want to exclude customers who don't have Internet access, but how many copies are you going to sell to those 2 guys anyway?

Answer 2

You need to go with popup ideas, so that the users will aware that they are using some third party...

And it's fair, don't create any problem as well