Classic asp VB Wscript output

Question

Thanks for reading / helping. On an old win2003 server, in this scenario:

Const WshRunning = 0
Const WshFinished = 1
Const WshFailed = 2
Dim shell, exec, strOutput

Set shell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set exec = shell.Exec("cmd.exe /c echo hello world") ' << this line changes in each example

If exec.Status = WshFailed Then
    strOutput = exec.StdErr.ReadAll
Else
    strOutput = exec.StdOut.ReadAll
End If
response.write strOutput

I get the perfect response: "Helllo world", both in CMD and in ASP. also with

Set exec = shell.Exec("cmd.exe /c ping 127.0.0.1")

Again, perfect response, both in CMD and in ASP.

But I need to know how big a pdf is. So I tried 2 tools:

Set exec = shell.Exec("cmd.exe /c qpdf --show-npages c:\utils\b.pdf")
Set exec = shell.Exec("cmd.exe /c pdfinfo -v c:\utils\b.pdf")

Both work in cmd, it outputs what I want to know, but I get no response in asp. Both tools have IUSR rights. What am I missing? Thanks a lot,

Alex

My comments below properly readable:

Good point. I forgot to mention that I did include in the system variables:

var: pdfinfo val: c:\Program Files\Utils\xpdf\pdfinfo.exe

var: qpdf val: c:\WINDOWS\system32\qpdf.exe

relevant part of PATH:

%SystemRoot%\system32;

C:\Program Files\Utils\xpdf\;

C:\utils\;

But, funny enough:

Set exec = shell.Exec("cmd.exe /c pdfinfo -meta c:\utils\b.pdf")

CMD.exe starts, that's all. But, on your suggestion, I tried

Set exec = shell.Exec("cmd.exe /c ""c:\Program Files\Utils\xpdf\pdfinfo.exe"" -meta c:\utils\b.pdf")

as well: (sometimes, not all the time) Process Explorer shows pdfinfo being started up by cmd as well. Still no response to ASP though. Thank you for helping :-)

Answer 1

The problem has finally been solved. Can't say for 100% certain what solved it, but for anyone reading this: this code

Set exec = shell.Exec("cmd.exe /c qpdf --show-npages c:\utils\b.pdf")

was correct but not working. It started to work after I changed:

• qpdf.exe ( in system32) had full control on IUSR, qpdf13.dll did not. Changed.

• C:\utils\b.pdf had full control on IUSR, but the folder C:\utils did not. Changed the test to folder C:\test\ which did have Full Control on IUSR.

• restarted just in case.

Thank you for the help!