Visual Studio post build events stuck waiting for executable to finish before running app in debug mode

Question

Part of the post build on my project is the execution of a program I wrote for testing the main application. Unfortunately, the post build process in visual studio locks up waiting for the executable to exit. So, i'm stuck closing my test program in order to have the post build process complete and my application run. How do I change this so VS does not wait for the program to return before launching? Thanks.

score 28 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

28

I also found that the start trick didn't work and downloading a separate tool to complete such a simple task seemed excessive. After some additional searching I found this SO post which gave an answer that worked for my needs.

Just replace <actual-command-line-to-run> with your command. Remember to give the full path to the executable and encapsulate it in "quotes" if there's spaces in your path.

powershell start-process <actual-command-line-to-run>

edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

Community

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answered Jan 09 '15 at 20:55

Grinn

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3

This worked for me and imho is the best solution as it requires no external tool. – William Denman Mar 05 '15 at 12:25
2

Same here, the only solution if found that worked without an external tool – misterfrb Sep 02 '15 at 15:37
6

If you are trying to call CMD from the `Start-Process` command with arguments, you need to "double-escape" your quotes - e.g. `powershell start-process "cmd ""/K echo HelloWorld"""` – Coruscate5 Sep 27 '17 at 22:13
After many hours wasted, this actually worked! – Arjix May 09 '22 at 20:27

score 10 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 11 '10 at 01:32

10

Wow, seems VS is really stubborn about this.

You can use this little tool that can launch apps without showing cmd windows (among other things). In your post build event:

c:\path\to\cmdow /run app.exe

answered Dec 11 '10 at 01:32

javs

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This tool WILL run a post build script ASYNCHRONOUSLY! – Garfield Sep 26 '12 at 17:36
Sounds like this is the best solution so far, but requires using a separate tool. I'm looking for a batch command or C# code that would enable such fire & forget command launching from the post build event. – Filip Skakun Mar 07 '13 at 18:11

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 01 '11 at 08:52

4

This seems to be a known issue of VS 2010 (e.g. here and here) and it seems it won't be fixed that soon.

Regarding a possible workaround, similar to the one mentioned by @RichieHindle, one of the MS Connect persons suggests:

START /WAIT cmd /c YourPostBuildTool.exe

answered Jun 01 '11 at 08:52

superjos

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I think this option is better than the powershell version because powershell should not be relied upon being present. Saying that, I guess these days powershell would facilitate cross platform support. – Tyeth Aug 01 '17 at 21:04

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 31 '09 at 08:54

1

Running your test program via start might work. Change your post build step from this:

runtest.exe

to this:

start runtest.exe

answered Aug 31 '09 at 08:54

RichieHindle

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Doesn't work. It just opens the command line. Is the syntax wrong? start "$(ProjectDir)DDEClient\program.exe" original was "$(ProjectDir)DDEClient\program.exe" – max Aug 31 '09 at 10:00
Maybe `cmd /c start "$(ProjectDir)DDEClient\program.exe"` ? – RichieHindle Aug 31 '09 at 10:37
No luck either. I managed to get it to work by writing a autohotkey script that launchs my application using the Run command. Thanks for your help, though. It was appreciated. – max Aug 31 '09 at 10:57
@max: using `"$(TargetPath)"` with and without `start` or `cmd /c` didn't help. Can you please please share the script for running via Run command? – Robin Maben Mar 11 '11 at 12:08

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered May 21 '16 at 00:22

0

I spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure this out. What you need to do is place "cmd" as the first line of your post-build event.

An example might look like this:

cmd
xcopy /Y $(ProjectDir)$(OutputDir)* C:\SomePath\*

answered May 21 '16 at 00:22

David Torrey

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score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 14 '10 at 14:22

If you utilize cruise control for your builds, you could place this in the publishers section which allows the build to finish before running the publisher tasks.

Additionally a custom msbuild task is quite trivial to build, if you know how to spin off a process in .net then it's really simple to do in msbuild. To do this you could edit your .csproj file or your .proj build script to use that custom task.

using System;
using Microsoft.Build.Framework;
using Microsoft.Build.Utilities;

namespace MyTasks
{
public class SimpleTask : Task
{
    public override bool Execute()
    {
//something involving Process.Start
        return true;
    }
}
}

Then in your build script or csproj file you add the using for the task you created and call it.

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jul 07 '11 at 06:49

I uploaded a patch to MSBuild Extension Pack that implements a custom msbuild task called SmartExec that works around this issue.

http://msbuildextensionpack.codeplex.com/workitem/9053
http://msbuildextensionpack.codeplex.com/SourceControl/list/patches
Patch Id 9878

Visual Studio post build events stuck waiting for executable to finish before running app in debug mode

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