Screen Saver and Shell Question

[huskerdon]

Help! I'm desperate. I'm attempting to create a screen saver that is basically a launcher for another EXE. I'm checking the registry and other things when the screen saver starts, and then it shells to the appropriate EXE.
This works fine in Win 98 - don't know if it's the OS, or just the slower speed that allows it to work there. Anyway, on XP (Pro - 1.3 Mhz), whenever the screen saver starts, you can see the EXE start up but then it IMMEDIATELY closes when the screen saver itself is unloaded. Even if I put a message box on the form load, you can hear the beep and flash of the msgbox, but then the EXE immediately closes. I even tried delaying the close of the ss for several seconds, but as soon as it ends, the other app ends also!
I'm using the shell command, and DoEvents, to allow the new app to start, before unloading the screen saver form and ending it. I have tried every possible combination of event orders with no success on XP. Could this be an issue of the shelled EXE is on the same thread?? as the screen saver, and when the ss is closed, the other EXE is also?
If anyone has any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you!

 

[vbrocks]

Check the task manager to see if you have something like this ....

first app
second app

This means they are sharing the same memory space and are dependent.