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I am using Visual Basic 2008 and I have a question about it?

I have a.exe and b.exe ( the a.exe is an vbApp, and b.exe is an executable file ). Is it possible to include the b.exe into a.exe and then running it from a.exe? By, for example, importing the b.exe into vbProject and then running it without extracting it.

Nicolas Henneaux
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John
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  • It's tagged as C#, but it could be useful to you: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2176122/how-to-execute-an-executable-embedded-as-resource – Marco Apr 11 '11 at 18:41

2 Answers2

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Try this :
1) Open project of B.exe.
2) Create a new module in project B, add "Sub Main" , then write this
Sub Main(Byval args() As String)
Dim X As New Form1 'replace Form1" with your real startup form
X.ShowDialog
End Sub
3) Open properties of that project B, and uncheck checkbox with name "Enable application framework". And change "Startup Object" to "Sub Main"
4) Compile and close project B.
5) Now open project of A.exe, and use following code to run B.exe in memory:
Dim tmpAssembly As System.Reflection.Assembly = System.Reflection.Assembly.Load(System.IO.File.ReadAllBytes("C:\b.exe"))'Replace "C:\b.exe" real b.exe path
Dim TmpMethod As MethodInfo = tmpAssembly.EntryPoint
If TmpMethod IsNot Nothing Then
Dim TmpObject As Object = tmpAssembly.CreateInstance(TmpMethod.Name)
Dim args() As String = Nothing
TmpMethod.Invoke(TmpObject , args)
End If
Me.Close()

CAUTION! You can run applications on memory only if you have done steps 1 and 2 with those applications. Otherwise you will get errors , which are not solved yet...

Jet
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The question is a bit vague, but you can definitely do something along those lines, in several different ways.

First, you can certainly compile a separate EXE (I'll call it EXEA) into a VB Project (Call it EXEB). When user runs EXEB, it extracts the resource containing EXEA, saves it as a file (likely to the temp folder or someplace with WRITE rights) and then shells to EXEA.

Another possibility would be to compile external functionality into a DLL, call it DLLA, then compile that dll into a VB project (call it EXEB).

When user runs EXEB, it extracts the resource containing DLLA, storing it as a memory stream, then uses ASSEMBLY.LOAD to load the DLL from the memory stream (instead of from a file), and at that point can create objects from that dll, and use it as normal.

In both these cases though, it's probably better to simply compile the second EXE or DLL and include both in an MSI installation project.

More details in the question might help narrow down other possible solutions as well.

DarinH
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