XL5: Macro to Test if Windows Application Is Loaded

• Microsoft Excel for Windows, versions 5.0, 5.0c

SUMMARY

In Microsoft Excel, you can create a Visual Basic procedure that uses the Microsoft Windows API (application programming interface) Library to determine whether Windows application is currently running. This article provides an example of Visual Basic code you can use to accomplish this task.

MORE INFORMATION

Microsoft provides examples of Visual Basic procedures for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. This Visual Basic procedure is provided 'as is' and Microsoft does not guarantee that it can be used in all situations. Microsoft does not support modifications of this procedure to suit customer requirements for a particular purpose. Note that a line that is preceded by an apostrophe introduces a comment in the code--comments are provided to explain what the code is doing at a particular point in the procedure. Note also that an underscore character (_) indicates that code continues from one line to the next. You can type lines that contain this character as one logical line or you can divide the lines of code and include the line continuation character. For more information about Visual Basic for Applications programming style, see the "Programming Style in This Manual" section in the "Document Conventions" section of the "Visual Basic User's Guide."

WARNING: The Declare Function statements listed in the following macro are very sensitive. If used incorrectly, these functions may cause a general protection (GP) fault in Windows or cause serious software problems.

Note that this example will NOT work in 32-bit versions of Microsoft Excel, such as Microsoft Excel 5.0 for Windows NT, Microsoft Excel for Windows 95, version 7.0 and Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows.

Sample Visual Basic Procedure

The following macro tests to see if a Windows application is currently loaded without activating the application:

'Declare the Windows API function "GetModuleHandle"

Declare Function GetModuleHandle Lib "KERNEL" (ByVal App As String) _
    As Integer

Sub IsAppRunning()

   'Call the GetModuleHandle function to determine if Microsoft
   'Word is currently running

   Response = GetModuleHandle("Winword")

   'If Response is 0, then Word is not running. If Response is
   'nonzero, then Word is running.

   If Response = 0 Then
       MsgBox "Application is not running"
   Else
       MsgBox "Application is running"
   End If
End Sub

Note that the application name should be in the form of the name of the application executable without the .EXE or .COM extension. For example, the correct text to test for Microsoft Word for Windows is "WINWORD" (without the quotation marks).

For additional information, please see the following article(s) in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q59296
   TITLE     : Macro to Test Whether Windows Application Is Loaded