Executing commands may hang on Windows XP for some programs

[GoogleCodeExporter]

It's a PHP bug 44942:
https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=44942

When executing wmic.exe to fetch software/hardware information, it will hang:

  ob_start();
  $ret = system("C:\Windows\System32\wbem\wmic.exe path win32_computersystemproduct get uuid");
  $output = ob_get_contents();
  ob_end_clean();

Tried using WScript.Shell COM object and its method Exec() instead, but it 
failed as well.

We may introduce ExecuteCommand function to javascript API.

Another option is to create a helper executable for eg. exec-cmd.exe that would 
work around the PHP bug, it would be called like this:

  system("exec-cmd.exe \"C:\Windows\System32\wbem\wmic.exe path win32_computersystemproduct get uuid\"");

Original issue reported on code.google.com by czarek.t...@gmail.com on 3 Oct 2014 at 3:56

[GoogleCodeExporter]

In PHP bug 44942 there is a comment by claudix with a supposedly workaround fix 
by making calls to session_start() and session_write_close(), and using 
proc_open/proc_close functions instead of system().

Original comment by czarek.t...@gmail.com on 3 Oct 2014 at 5:09

[GoogleCodeExporter]

[deleted comment]