Restarting current process C#

Question

I have an app that has some installer inside I want to reload everything associated to the app therefor I want to restart the process. I've searched and saw the Application.Restart() and it's drawbacks and wondered what's the best way to do what I need - closing the process and restarting it. or if there's any better way to reinitialize all objects.

Answer 1

I would start a new instance and then exit the current one:

private void Restart()
{
    Process.Start(Application.ExecutablePath);

    //some time to start the new instance.
    Thread.Sleep(2000);

    Environment.Exit(-1);//Force termination of the current process.
}

private static void Main()
{
    //wait because we maybe here becuase of the system is restarted so give it some time to clear the old instance first
    Thread.Sleep(5000);

    Application.EnableVisualStyles();
    Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
    Application.Run(...
}

Edit: However you should also consider adding some sort of mutex to allow only one instance of the application to run at time, Like:

private const string OneInstanceMutexName = @"Global\MyUniqueName";

private static void Main()
{
    Thread.Sleep(5000);
    bool firstInstance = false;
    using (System.Threading.Mutex _oneInstanceMutex = new System.Threading.Mutex(true, OneInstanceMutexName, out firstInstance))
    {
        if (firstInstance)
        {
            //....
        }
     }
}