Process.waitFor() not waiting for executed shortcuts (.lnk)

Question

In Java I want to execute a .lnk shortcut which it self executes a .exe file.

I run the executable like so:

 String currentDir = new File(game.getGamePath()).getCanonicalPath();

 ProcessBuilder processBuild = new ProcessBuilder(currentDir);
 processBuild.command("cmd", "/c", "start" , currentDir);
 Process = processBuild.start();
     try {
        Process.waitFor();
     } catch (InterruptedException ex) {
        Logger.getLogger(AuroraLauncher.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
     }

I want the waitFor() thread blocking method to wait until the actual executed application (.exe file) terminates before it continues not the shortcut. Is there a way to do this simply or do I have to somehow extract the .exe path from the .lnk? if so how would I do that?

Answer 1

Windows command "start" has an option /wait you must specify to tell him it has to wait for the end of the process. This code run until you close notepad:

    @Test
    public void run() throws IOException {
        String currentDir = new File(System.getProperty("user.home"),"desktop/notepad.lnk").getCanonicalPath();

        ProcessBuilder processBuild = new ProcessBuilder(currentDir);
        processBuild.command("cmd", "/c", "start","/wait", currentDir);
        Process p= processBuild.start();
        try {
            p.waitFor();
        } catch (InterruptedException ex) {

        }
        System.out.println("process terminated!");

    }

Simpler than to parse the lnk file.

Answer 2

"start" launches a separate process, so your process is done. But you can extract the actual executable path from the lnk file. take a look at this post.

Answer 3

Your code certainly won't compile. You should fix it to compile and work as intended:

 Process p = processBuild.start();
 try {
    p.waitFor(); // Ignoring the process result code.
 } catch (InterruptedException ex) {
    Logger.getLogger(AuroraLauncher.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
 }