VBA Excel command doesn't work when called with Shell, but works when copy-pasted to cmd directly

Question

I'm trying to run a program with an input file.

Dim command, cfx5_exe_path, cfx_file_folder, cfx_file_name As String

command = cfx5_exe_path & " -cfx " & cfx_file_folder & cfx_file_name & ".cfx "
Shell command

so it gives an error. the resulting value of the command in the debugger is

"c:\"Program Files"\"ANSYS Inc"\v150\CFX\bin\cfx5pre.exe -cfx c:\Users\Username\Arbeit\Programming\A321_tail_flow.cfx"

If I copy-paste that into windows cmd directly and remove first/last quotation signs, then it works perfectly. What is the problem with Shell?

Paul Ogilvie · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-14 14:24:07Z

1

The documentation says:

If the Shell function successfully executes the named file, it returns the task ID of the started program. The task ID is a unique number that identifies the running program. If the Shell function can't start the named program, an error occurs.

and it gives a small example:

Sub test()
    Dim RetVal
    Dim command As String
    command = "C:\WINDOWS\CALC.EXE"
    RetVal = Shell(command, 1)
End Sub

Here I get Error 53: file not found as calc on Windows 7 resides somewhere else. Do you get this error?

Providing the right path to calc starts the program and returns a unique ID.

However, quoting a part of the correct path will throw the error:

    command = "C:\WINDOWS\""SYSTEM32""\CALC.EXE"

but quoting the full path does not:

    command = """C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CALC.EXE"""

So you must remove all embedded quotes and then quote the full path once.

answered Apr 14, 2016 at 14:24

Paul Ogilvie

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2 Comments

DDR Over a year ago

Yes, I get the same Error 53. Why did you qoute system32? I quoted Program Files as there is a space in the folder name.

Paul Ogilvie Over a year ago

I quoted it just as a try. It seems it only accepts quotes around the full path when there is a space in any part. So quoting only the parts with a space leads to the error.

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