How do I prevent “end process tree” from terminating the programs mine has started?

Question

I am trying to execute an EXE 'two.exe' from another application 'one.exe' in Delphi XE2 using ShellExecute.

ShellExecute(0, 'open', 'two.exe', nil, nil, SW_NORMAL);

It works perfectly, but whenever I terminate application 'one.exe' (the parent app) from Task Manager's process tab, using the "end process tree" option, the application 'two.exe' also gets terminated.

How can I prevent my ShellExecuted application from getting terminated like this?

Answer 1

Ok, not very nice solution... but tested with success ;o)

ShellExecute(0, 'open', 'cmd', 
  PChar('/C  start "" "' + Application.ExeName + '"'), nil, SW_HIDE);

The first is manually launched... his child with regular shellexecute call... The last one, with the shellexecute + cmd trick...

/C explanation

Answer 2

I think you need to create an intermediate process which in turn spawns two.exe . You then need the intermediate process to terminate immediately, at which point the relationship between the original process and two.exe is broken.