NsExec plug-in

nsExec will execute command-line based programs and capture the output without opening a dos box.

Usage

nsExec::Exec [/OEM] [/TIMEOUT=x] path
Pop $ExitCode

or

nsExec::ExecToLog [/OEM] [/TIMEOUT=x] path
Pop $ExitCode

or

nsExec::ExecToStack [/OEM] [/TIMEOUT=x] path
Pop $ExitCode
Pop $StdOutText

All functions are the same except ExecToLog will print the output to the log window and ExecToStack will push up to ${NSIS_MAX_STRLEN} characters of output onto the stack after the return value.

Use the /OEM switch to convert the output text from OEM to ANSI.

The timeout value is optional. The timeout is the time in milliseconds nsExec will wait for output. If output from the process is received, the timeout value is reset and it will again wait for more output using the timeout value. See Return value for how to check if there was a timeout.

To ensure that command are executed without problems on all windows versions, is recommended to use the following syntax:

nsExec::ExecToStack [OPTIONS] '"PATH" param1 param2 paramN'
Pop $ExitCode

This way the application path may contain non 8.3 paths (with spaces)

Return value

If nsExec is unable to execute the process, it will return "error" on the top of the stack, if the process timed out it will return "timeout", else it will return the return code from the executed process.

nsExec::ExecToStack '"${NSISDIR}\makensis.exe" /VERSION'
Pop $0 # return value/error/timeout
Pop $1 # printed text, up to ${NSIS_MAX_STRLEN}
DetailPrint '"${NSISDIR}\makensis.exe" /VERSION printed: $1'
DetailPrint ""
DetailPrint "       Return value: $0"
DetailPrint ""

Copyright info

Copyright (c) 2002 Robert Rainwater
Thanks to Justin Frankel and Amir Szekely