True Single instance application - WinForms.NET

Post comments    Need help? Introduction This article simply explains how you can create a windows application with control on the number of its instances or run only single instance. This is very typical need of a business application. There are already lots of other possible solutions to control this. e.g. Checking the process list with the name of our application. But this methods don?t seems to be a good approach to follow as everything is decided just on the basis on the application name which may or may not be unique all across. Another way to use remoting to communicate the application together in order to control the instance but this one is not simple and straight forward approach to solve this problem.Tip: Webmasters who choose ASP.net as a base for their website often turn to ASP.net hosting to improve the performance of their site and ensure glitch free work of all the scripts. The SingleInstanceController class This is the main controller class which will take care of application instances. This class needs to be drived from Microsoft.VisualBasic.ApplicationServices.WindowsFormsApplicationBase. Add reference of Microsoft.VisualBasic to you project in order to use this class. using System; using Microsoft.VisualBasic.ApplicationServices; namespace Owf { public class SingleInstanceController : WindowsFormsApplicationBase { public SingleInstanceController() { // Set whether the application is single instance this.IsSingleInstance = true; this.StartupNextInstance += new StartupNextInstanceEventHandler(this_StartupNextInstance); } void this_StartupNextInstance(object sender, StartupNextInstanceEventArgs e) { // Here you get the control when any other instance is // invoked apart from the first one. // You have args here in e.CommandLine. // You custom code which should be run on other instances } protected override void OnCreateMainForm() { // Instantiate your main application form this.MainForm = new Form1(); } } } Now change you main function. Instead of using Application.Run(..) use following [STAThread] static void Main() { string[] args = Environment.GetCommand SingleInstanceController controller = new SingleInstanceController(); controller.Run(args); }