Wait before ShellExecute is carried out? - delphi

Question

I have a hopefully quick question: Is it possible to delay execution of ShellExecute a little bit?
I have an application with autoupdater. After it downloads all necessary files etc, it renames current files to *.OLD and the new as the previous. Simple enough. But then I need to delete those .OLD files. This 'cleanup' procedure is executed on MainForm.OnActivate (with a check if it is the first activate proc). But this apparently happens too fast (I get False from DeleteFile). This is the procedure:
procedure TUpdateForm.OKBtnClick(Sender: TObject);
const SHELL = 'ping 127.0.0.1 -n 2';
begin
ShellExecute(0,'open',pchar(SHELL+#13+Application.ExeName),nil,nil,SW_SHOWNORMAL);
Application.Terminate;
end;
This procedure is supposed to restart the application. I am certain that the deleting problem is caused by the quick start of the second application, because if I restart it myself, giving it a little time, the files get deleted normally.
tl;dr version: I need to call ShellExecute() which waits a bit (0.1 sec or so) and THEN executes the command.
Note
I tried using the -ping command to try to delay it, but it didn't work.
Thank you very much in advance
Edit: Rephrased
I need this to happen || First app closes; Wait 100 ms; second app opens ||. I need to call ShellExecute first, then wait until the calling application closes itself completely, then execute the shell (i.e. open second application)

Answer 1

You're doing an autopatcher right ?
I've had the same problem and this is how I bypassed it :
You run second app with argument "--delay" or something like that.
Second app handles argument "--delay" and sleeps for 100 ms, then continues running normally.

Answer 2

This routine is some utils code in our game engine. It can run an executable and optionally wait for it to exit. It will return its exit code:
function TSvUtils.FileExecute(ahWnd: Cardinal; const aFileName, aParams, aStartDir: string; aShowCmd: Integer; aWait: Boolean): Integer;
var
Info: TShellExecuteInfo;
ExitCode: DWORD;
begin
Result := -1;
FillChar(Info, SizeOf(Info), 0);
Info.cbSize := SizeOf(TShellExecuteInfo);
with Info do begin
fMask := SEE_MASK_NOCLOSEPROCESS;
Wnd := ahWnd;
lpFile := PChar(aFileName);
lpParameters := PChar(aParams);
lpDirectory := PChar(aStartDir);
nShow := aShowCmd;
end;
if ShellExecuteEx(#Info) then
begin
if aWait then
begin
repeat
Sleep(1);
Application.ProcessMessages;
GetExitCodeProcess(Info.hProcess, ExitCode);
until (ExitCode <> STILL_ACTIVE) or Application.Terminated;
CloseHandle(Info.hProcess);
Result := ExitCode;
end;
end
end;
Here is some code that can check to see if a process exists. So... current app calls the updater and terminates. The updater can check to see if old app has terminated and do it's thing (rename, update, delete, etc):
function TSvUtils.ProcessExists(const aExeFileName: string; aBringToForgound: Boolean=False): Boolean;
var
ContinueLoop: BOOL;
FSnapshotHandle: THandle;
FProcessEntry32: TProcessEntry32;
begin
FSnapshotHandle := CreateToolhelp32Snapshot(TH32CS_SNAPPROCESS, 0);
FProcessEntry32.dwSize := SizeOf(FProcessEntry32);
ContinueLoop := Process32First(FSnapshotHandle, FProcessEntry32);
Result := False;
while Integer(ContinueLoop) <> 0 do
begin
if ((UpperCase(ExtractFileName(FProcessEntry32.szExeFile)) =
UpperCase(aExeFileName)) or (UpperCase(FProcessEntry32.szExeFile) =
UpperCase(aExeFileName))) then
begin
if aBringToForgound then
EnumWindows(#BringToForgroundEnumProcess, FProcessEntry32.th32ProcessID);
Result := True;
end;
ContinueLoop := Process32Next(FSnapshotHandle, FProcessEntry32);
end;
CloseHandle(FSnapshotHandle);
end;

Answer 3

If you can use CreateProcess instead of ShellExecute, you can wait on the process handle. The process handle is signalled when the application exits. For example:
function ExecAndWait(APath: string; var VProcessResult: cardinal): boolean;
var
LWaitResult : integer;
LStartupInfo: TStartupInfo;
LProcessInfo: TProcessInformation;
begin
Result := False;
FillChar(LStartupInfo, SizeOf(TStartupInfo), 0);
with LStartupInfo do
begin
cb := SizeOf(TStartupInfo);
dwFlags := STARTF_USESHOWWINDOW or STARTF_FORCEONFEEDBACK;
wShowWindow := SW_SHOWDEFAULT;
end;
if CreateProcess(nil, PChar(APath), nil, nil,
False, NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS,
nil, nil, LStartupInfo, LProcessInfo) then
begin
repeat
LWaitResult := WaitForSingleObject(LProcessInfo.hProcess, 500);
// do something, like update a GUI or call Application.ProcessMessages
until LWaitResult <> WAIT_TIMEOUT;
result := LWaitResult = WAIT_OBJECT_0;
GetExitCodeProcess(LProcessInfo.hProcess, VProcessResult);
CloseHandle(LProcessInfo.hProcess);
CloseHandle(LProcessInfo.hThread);
end;
end;
After ExecAndWait returns, then you can sleep for 100ms if you need to.
N#