#26566 [Opn]: Why does EXEC() have to use CMD.EXE

ID: 26566 User updated by: taomyn at hotmail dot com Reported By: taomyn at hotmail dot com Status: Open Bug Type: Feature/Change Request Operating System: Windows 2000 and IIS 5 PHP Version: 4.3.4 New Comment: Perhaps you could create a new function, or even add an extra optional boolean parameter to EXEC() that would when "true" would not use CMD.EXE? E.g. $no_cmd = true; EXEC("c:\\winnt\\notepad.exe", $result, $status, $no_cmd); This wouldn't break old code? Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2003-12-09 16:50:48] wez@php.net Because we use it as the shell to launch not only external processes, but built-in commands such as dir that are not found in separate binaries. I can see the use, but can't see how to implement it without breaking backwards compatibility. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2003-12-09 16:34:56] taomyn at hotmail dot com Description: ------------ Why does EXEC() have to spawn an extra CMD.EXE when executing a program? For example, to execute NOTEPAD.EXE, WORDPAD.EXE, even ImageMagicks CONVERT.EXE, when called with EXEC() causes a CMD.EXE process to executed which then calls the program requested. It's not needed. Please can we have a version of EXEC that does not use CMD.EXE? It's not always needed and can cause major issues such as hanging sessions and hanging web services. A prime example are users of Gallery by http://gallery.menalto.com - many of their Windows users have this issue which is why they do not "officially" support Windows when it should work. Thanks, Taomyn Reproduce code: --------------- Call any Windows program with EXEC() and you get a CMD.EXE process that then calls the requested program. E.g. exec("c:\\winnt\\notepad.exe",$result,$status); Expected result: ---------------- Only NOTEPAD.EXE should appear. Actual result: -------------- "CMD.EXE /C NOTEPAD.EXE" and "NOTEPAD.EXE" appears in the process list ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at http://bugs.php.net/?id=26566&edit=1