SHELL with spaces in path

[Michael Zimmer]

How can i shell another programm where the path to this program includes spaces (i hate this).

shell "C:\Myfile.exe" => works
shell "C:\Program Files\NotMyFile.exe" => does not work, because it's interpreted as:
Call program "C:\Program" with parameter "File\NotMyFiles"

Any help appreciated.
Thanks.

[Neil J Hosgood]

Hi Michael,
I just ran the following:

SHELL "C:\Program Files\UltraVNC\vncviewer.exe"


worked fine on Vista Business.
What OS are you running ?

How can i shell another programm where the path to this program includes spaces (i hate this).

shell "C:\Myfile.exe" => works
shell "C:\Program Files\NotMyFile.exe" => does not work, because it's interpreted as:
Call program "C:\Program" with parameter "File\NotMyFiles"

Any help appreciated.
Thanks.

[Edwin Knoppert]

You can always make it the shortfilenotation.

[Michael Zimmer]

Hi Michael,
I just ran the following:

SHELL "C:\Program Files\UltraVNC\vncviewer.exe"


worked fine on Vista Business.
What OS are you running ?

Tried on Vista (no SP) and W2K8 Server.
I forgot one thing: need to call a program with paramter

SHELL "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Server\vmware.exe -l"

[Neil J Hosgood]

Tried on Vista (no SP) and W2K8 Server.
I forgot one thing: need to call a program with paramter

SHELL "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Server\vmware.exe -l"

Hmmm, I am running SP1, but just tried:

SHELL "C:\Program Files\UltraVNC\vncviewer.exe test.vnc"


and it worked.
Have you tried shelling a different app ?

[Michael Zimmer]

My fault.
Sometimes it's usefull to reboot.
Works now.

[Michael Mattias]

You can always use ShellExecuteEx (demo:Win 32: Monitor Process with ShellExecuteEx June 22, 2001 instead of SHELL.

(CreateProcess offers same option I think, let me a moment... yes, it does.)

Both these functions let you specify the program name in one var and the parameter in another and the operating system sorts it out for you.

I think you can also do it using the command processor to parse things out for you...

SHELL CMD.EXE /C "programname containing spaces"  parameters

[John Petty]

Tried on Vista (no SP) and W2K8 Server.
I forgot one thing: need to call a program with paramter

SHELL "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Server\vmware.exe -l"

I think the command option should be outside the double quotes ie
SHELL "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Server\vmware.exe" -l
Correction thats only if you are doing it from a command prompt or shortcut, not SHELL in PB

[Michael Mattias]

#include "win32API.INC"
...
...
  LOCAL szShortPath AS ASCIIZ * %MAX_PATH 
  LOCAL szLongPath  AS ASCIIZ * %MAX_PATH
  szLongPath = " whatever  it is " 
  GetShortPathName szLongPath, szShortPath, SIZEOF(szShortPath) 
  SHELL  szShortPath  parameters

(quick thank you to Edwin for suggestion)