C# - Making a Process.Start wait until the process has start-up

I used the EventWaitHandle class. On the parent process, create a named EventWaitHandle with initial state of the event set to non-signaled. The parent process blocks until the child process calls the Set method, changing the state of the event to signaled, as shown below.

Parent Process:

using System;
using System.Threading;
using System.Diagnostics;

namespace MyParentProcess
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            EventWaitHandle ewh = null;
            try
            {
                ewh = new EventWaitHandle(false, EventResetMode.AutoReset, "CHILD_PROCESS_READY");

                Process process = Process.Start("MyChildProcess.exe", Process.GetCurrentProcess().Id.ToString());
                if (process != null)
                {
                    if (ewh.WaitOne(10000))
                    {
                        // Child process is ready.
                    }
                }
            }
            catch(Exception exception)
            { }
            finally
            {
                if (ewh != null)
                    ewh.Close();
            }
        }
    }
}

Child Process:

using System;
using System.Threading;
using System.Diagnostics;

namespace MyChildProcess
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            try
            {
                // Representing some time consuming work.
                Thread.Sleep(5000);

                EventWaitHandle.OpenExisting("CHILD_PROCESS_READY")
                    .Set();

                Process.GetProcessById(Convert.ToInt32(args[0]))
                    .WaitForExit();
            }
            catch (Exception exception)
            { }
        }
    }
}

Here an implementation that uses a System.Threading.Timer. Maybe a bit much for its purpose.

    private static bool StartProcess(string filePath, string processName)
    {
        if (!File.Exists(filePath))
            throw new InvalidOperationException($"Unknown filepath: {(string.IsNullOrEmpty(filePath) ? "EMPTY PATH" : filePath)}");

        var isRunning = false;

        using (var resetEvent = new ManualResetEvent(false))
        {

            void Callback(object state)
            {
                if (!IsProcessActive(processName)) return;
                isRunning = true;
                // ReSharper disable once AccessToDisposedClosure
                resetEvent.Set();
            }

            using (new Timer(Callback, null, 0, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0.5).Milliseconds))
            {
                Process.Start(filePath);
                WaitHandle.WaitAny(new WaitHandle[] { resetEvent }, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(9));
            }
        }

        return isRunning;
    }

    private static bool StopProcess(string processName)
    {
        if (!IsProcessActive(processName)) return true;

        var isRunning = true;

        using (var resetEvent = new ManualResetEvent(false))
        {

            void Callback(object state)
            {
                if (IsProcessActive(processName)) return;
                isRunning = false;
                // ReSharper disable once AccessToDisposedClosure
                resetEvent.Set();
            }

            using (new Timer(Callback, null, 0, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0.5).Milliseconds))
            {
                foreach (var process in Process.GetProcessesByName(processName))
                    process.Kill();
                WaitHandle.WaitAny(new WaitHandle[] { resetEvent }, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(9));
            }
        }

        return isRunning;
    }

    private static bool IsProcessActive(string processName)
    {
        return Process.GetProcessesByName(processName).Any();
    }

public static class WinApi
{

    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    public static extern bool ShowWindow(IntPtr hWnd, int nCmdShow);

    public static class Windows
    {
        public const int NORMAL = 1;
        public const int HIDE = 0;
        public const int RESTORE = 9;
        public const int SHOW = 5;
        public const int MAXIMIXED = 3;
    }

}

App

String process_name = "notepad"
Process process;
process = Process.Start( process_name );

while (!WinApi.ShowWindow(process.MainWindowHandle, WinApi.Windows.NORMAL))
{
    Thread.Sleep(100);
    process.Refresh();
}

// Done!
// Continue your code here ...

You can also check if the started process is responsive or not by trying something like this: while(process.responding)

I'm using these two methods:

    public static void WaitUntilLoad(Process process, int? millisecond = null)
    {
        while ((!millisecond.HasValue || millisecond > 0) && string.IsNullOrEmpty(process.MainWindowTitle))
        {
            Thread.Sleep(100);
            if (millisecond.HasValue) millisecond -= 100;
            process.Refresh();
        }
    }
    public static void WaitUntilExit(Process process, int? millisecond = null)
    {
        if (millisecond.HasValue) process.WaitForExit(millisecond.Value);
        else process.WaitForExit();
    }

Enjoy...

I think Tom was looking for something like this:

Process process = Process.Start(@"MyApp.exe");
Process[] processes;

do
{
    processes = Process.GetProcessesByName("MyApp");
    Console.WriteLine("{0} Processes found.", processes.Length);
    Thread.Sleep(1000);
}
while (processes.Length == 0);

Close(); // Or do whatever you want...