PHP exec giving error while the command runs successfully in bat file

Question

I am running a local WAMP on my Windows 7 with a PHP script that executes a windows command as follows:

`exec('"%CD%\files_for_redistribution\ppt2html5.exe" /i:"%CD%\test.ppt" /o:"%CD%\output.html" /title:title /desc:description /author:author /keywords:keywords',$output,$error);`

The command when run from a batch file does the job well but when run from PHP script, gives an error:Presentation opening error: PowerPoint could not open the file.

The intention of the command is to convert PowerPoint to HTML using a third party software called ppt2html5.exe where test.ppt has to be converted to output.html.

I have found lot of blogs discussing about exec function not working properly but nothing really helped me to deal with this error as it runs the command but cannot open the file. It would be great if somebody could help me with this.

Answer 1

Fixed by adding a folder named Desktop inside C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile.

Source:http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?956457-Windows-2008-PHP-new-COM%28powerpoint-application%29

Answer 2

Check if safe mode is on, because that activates escapeshellcmd and some characters are escaped.

Assuming that the string that you are passing to exec(), including percentage signs, routes and parameters are right, your problem may be related to permission of files and user executing apache + php, check that.