That's the way we synchronously create a process on Windows.

This commit was SVN r11326.

opal/util/few.c

@@ -30,6 +30,8 @@
 #endif
 
 #include "opal/util/few.h"
+#include "opal/util/basename.h"
+#include "opal/util/argv.h"
 #include "opal/constants.h"
 
 int opal_few(char *argv[], int *status)
@@ -82,24 +84,24 @@ int opal_few(char *argv[], int *status)
 
 #else
 
-    /* Welcome to windows land. This is apparently a simple fork() exec() 
-       procedure and hence should not be too difficult to implement */
-       HANDLE new_process;
     STARTUPINFO si;
     PROCESS_INFORMATION pi;
     DWORD process_stat;
-
+    char* command  = argv[0];
-       /* it does seem as if the environment is getting propogated, so I 
+    char* exec_command;
-          will follow the same procedure in my code */
-
-          /* ANJU: Have to implement signal handling */
 
     ZeroMemory (&si, sizeof(si));
     ZeroMemory (&pi, sizeof(pi));
 
+    _flushall();  /* Push all output */
+
     GetStartupInfo (&si);
+    argv[0] = opal_basename( command );
+    exec_command = opal_argv_join( argv, ' ' );
+    free( argv[0] );
+    argv[0] = command;
     if (!CreateProcess (argv[0],
-                           argv, 
+                        (LPSTR)exec_command,
                         NULL,
                         NULL,
                         TRUE,
@@ -108,15 +110,18 @@ int opal_few(char *argv[], int *status)
                         NULL,
                         &si,
                         &pi)){
-         /* actual error can be got by simply calling GetLastError() */
+        *status = (int)GetLastError();
         return OPAL_ERROR;
     }
 
     /* wait for child to die */
     WaitForSingleObject(pi.hProcess, INFINITE);
-       GetExitCodeProcess(pi.hProcess, &process_stat);
+    if( 0 == GetExitCodeProcess(pi.hProcess, &process_stat) ) {
+        *status = (int)GetLastError();
+        return OPAL_ERROR;
+    }
+    *status = (int)process_stat;
 
-       SetLastError(process_stat);
     return OPAL_SUCCESS;
 #endif
 }