vba check if specific process task id is still running

Question

I am using the Shell() function to execute an external application in MS Access. Shell() returns a task ID of the specific process that was started.

I need a way to check if that process is still running or if it has closed. I'm sure that I will need to do some sort of windows API call but I can't seem to find anything just now.

Answer 1

Shell Tasklist (Description at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb491010.aspx) is a good way to do it manually. I'm not sure how you could interact with the list of PIDs by automation, though. That's a bit more difficult.

Tip: If you just want to kill a process, use Shell "TaskKill /F /IM ""excel.exe""" to kill all open instances of MS Excel. Or Shell "TaskKill /F /IM ""msaccess.exe""" to kill all open instances of MS Access (including the Access file that hosts your VBA script, unfortunately). This is how I end my standard issue Error Handler.

Edit

When you run it, you should something like:

Answer 2

A similar question was answered here: http://stackoverflow.com/q/1439200/480767

Answer 3

This is an Access FAQ, and it was answered years and years ago on the FAQ site for comp.databases.ms-access, http://mvps.org/access/.

API: Shell and Wait