title: Run a server-side exe from ASP (beginner)
body: <p>I have what should be a simple thing but my unfamiliarity with .NET and web programs is hindering me.  I'm a straight up old-school C programmer who has been programming ASP and ASP.NET lately for an ecommerce site.</p>
  
  <p>I have an ASP program that synchronizes 2 databases.  I also have a VB.NET program compiled down to an EXE that fills the source database before the synch happens.  In the back of my mind I know I should be able to link the VB &amp; ASP .NET programs together since that's the power of .NET.  Alternatively, if I could run the EXE from ASP it would be just as well for my project.  I do have the source to both programs.  The ASP script was written with a text editor - the VB was in VB 2008 Express.</p>
  
  <p>Please assume I know nothing of linking assemblies and such because I don't - I just read that in an article. I'd prefer ASP but if necessary I could use the ASP.NET script to launch the EXE.  The code is legacy ASP with VBScript so all our ASP.NET stuff is the VB flavor as well.  C# makes my other programmer's head hurt so for his sake this will have to remain VB.</p>
  
  <p>Is there a way I can relatively easily launch the EXE pre-sync program and have it run when the ASP synch script starts?  </p>
  
  <p>The server is MS Windows Server 2003 SP2 / IIS 6.0 / the .NET version is 2.0.50727.3603.  Thanks!</p>
  
  <p>By the way - I'd love to "learn to use .NET properly" but time is short for this project and in-depth research will have to wait.</p>
  
  <p>EDIT: Aaron's answer below gets me most of the way to the solution but I'm getting:</p>
  
  <p>Exception Details:   System.ComponentModel.Win32 Exception: Access is denied<br>
  Source Error: Line 17: process1.Start();<br>
  Ideas anyone? </p>
  
  <p>SOLUTION: Aaron's answer below plus the knowledge that ~/ in MapPath is the virtual root of the website and the file to run is relative to that.</p>