PowerPoint process keeps running after my application has quit

[jskeet]

I'm writing a WPF application.

If I run this code, a process is created but then cleared up:

// Assigns to a field
application = new NetOffice.PowerPointApi.Application();

// Now POWERPNT.exe process is running

// Then later...
application.Quit();
application.Dispose();

// POWERPNT.exe process is gone

Whereas if I actually start a presentation, the process stays alive:

// Assigns to a field
application = new NetOffice.PowerPointApi.Application();

// Now POWERPNT.exe process is running

// Start the presentation, assigning to fields
presentation = application.Presentations.Open(@"path\to\slides.pptx", readOnly: MsoTriState.msoTrue, untitled: null, withWindow: MsoTriState.msoFalse);
var settings = presentation.SlideShowSettings;
settings.ShowPresenterView = MsoTriState.msoFalse;
slideShowWindow = settings.Run();

// Later
slideShowWindow.Dispose();
presentation.Close();
presentation.Dispose();

// Later still
application.Quit();
application.Dispose();

// POWERPNT.exe is still running

PowerPoint keeps running even after my WPF app has finished. Is there some way of really closing it, hard? (I can use Process.Kill, but I'd prefer something a little more controlled...)

[jozefizso]

Hi @jskeet, you memory profiling tools to ensure you are cleaning the resources correctly.

[jskeet]

Hi @jskeet, you memory profiling tools to ensure you are cleaning the resources correctly.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. But all the methods above are executing successfully.

However, I've now set the fields to null (and explicitly called GC.Collect(), just for testing) after disposal and that seems to be helping.

[jskeet]

Hmm... while setting fields to null helps in my little test app, it's still flaky in my real application (which is doing rather more work).

Currently I've got code to kill any leftover processes after giving them a couple of seconds to die of their own accord, but that's far from ideal.