C++ Windows CreateChildProcess - hide/do not show the child process' console window

Question

I need to create a child process as a socket listener/server for my main process and I use this call to achieve the goal:

bSuccess = CreateProcessA(NULL, 
            cmdLineArgs,   // command line 
            NULL,          // process security attributes 
            NULL,          // primary thread security attributes 
            TRUE,          // handles are inherited 
            HIGH_PRIORITY_CLASS,             // creation flags 
            NULL,          // use parent's environment 
            NULL,          // use parent's current directory 
            &siStartInfo,  // STARTUPINFO pointer 
            &piProcInfo);  // receives PROCESS_INFORMATION 

Could anyone state what needs to be done in order for the child process' window not to show up? It's undesirable to have a visible process window each time the main, central process creates a child.

LATER EDIT I used:

HWND hWnd = GetConsoleWindow();
if (hWnd != 0) 
{       
    ShowWindow( hWnd, SW_HIDE);
}

in the child process main function, but this isn't really the best solution as the window still shows up for a fraction of a second. If one has several child processes, each with its own window bubbling onto the screen, it is still not elegant. Are there any flags to set for the compiler to produce a "console-less" output?

I'm using Visual Studio 2010.

Answer 1

The CREATE_NO_WINDOW flag is used for just this purpose.

You can add it to the dwCreationFlags bitmask like so:

bSuccess = CreateProcessA(NULL, 
            cmdLineArgs,   // command line 
            NULL,          // process security attributes 
            NULL,          // primary thread security attributes 
            TRUE,          // handles are inherited 
            HIGH_PRIORITY_CLASS | CREATE_NO_WINDOW,  // creation flags 
            NULL,          // use parent's environment 
            NULL,          // use parent's current directory 
            &siStartInfo,  // STARTUPINFO pointer 
            &piProcInfo);  // receives PROCESS_INFORMATION