Q. Closing an external application?

I`m trying to write a program that will close an 
application after a certain period of time. Running 
the program (i.e. Notepad) seems easy, but I have yet 
to find a statement to terminate it.

A. You can use SendKeys to close a program. The following 
text is taken from the SendKeys example in the online help. 
It runs, uses and closes the calculator, but notepad would 
be very similar.

ReturnValue = Shell("Calc.exe", 1) .
AppActivate ReturnValue ' Activate calc.

For i = 1 To 100
SendKeys i & "{+}", True ' Send keys 
Next i .
SendKeys "=", True ' Get grand total.

SendKeys "%{F4}", True ' ALT+F4 closes

(26-Aug-98 Bob Walsh rlwalsh@capecod.net)

A. Place 2 command buttons on a form and then paste this 
code into your declarations section. 
 
Press Command1 to start up notepad and Command2 to terminate 
it. 
 
Option Explicit 
Dim ReturnValue  
Private Sub Command1_Click() 
ReturnValue = Shell("notepad.exe", 1) 
End Sub  

Private Sub Command2_Click() 
Dim i 
AppActivate ReturnValue ' Activate notepad. 
SendKeys "%{F4}", True ' Send ALT+F4 to close notepad 
End Sub      

(26-Aug-98 Rich ryarnell@andrew.cmu.edu