Launching a background script from php in Windows/IIS

Hi,

I'm trying to build a PHP page which launches another php script to be run
in the background. The web page should return immediately, while the
background script may run for 10 minutes or something. Unfortunately I'm
getting all kinds of weird behaviour..

In my main script I'm using exec() (also tried the other options) to start a
..bat file. This actually works, the batch file is launched and is able to
write something to disk.. Now if I put the following line in the batch file:

c:\php\php.exe -q backgroundscript.php

then instantly I'm seeing about 30 php.exe processes being created, but
nothing seems to be happening really. The processes seem to be dying
immediately and replaced by new ones. So apparently php is trying something
but fails and tries again.

Both the script and the batch file work fine from the command line. Group
'Everyone' has read/execute rights for the batch file, the php script and
php.exe. I have tried prefixing the command with START /b or cmd.exe /c but
neither seem to make any difference. Also I tried redirecting stderr, stdout
and stdin to NUL

Server is Win2k, IIS5, php4.3.0. Searched the php docs, tried suggestions
but it doesn't work, maybe because they use Apache.

My guess is that the anonymous user IUSR_* doesn't have the rights to do
something, but I can't figure out what. Please help me if you have an idea..

Bob

"Bob" <nospam RemoveThis @nospam.com> wrote in message
news:<bji9ti$lcd$1@news.cistron.nl>...
 >
 > I'm trying to build a PHP page which launches another php script
 > to be run in the background.
....
 > Now if I put the following line in the batch file:
 >
 > c:\php\php.exe -q backgroundscript.php

....you would be launching the wrong interpreter. The command-line
interpreter on Windows is not c:\php\php.exe, but, rather,
c:\php\cli\php.exe

Cheers,
NC<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->