Calling paext.exe from SQL

[klgrube]

I'm working in SQL 2005, trying to add a line to a SQL Server Stored Procedure that will extract a small set of text files from a zip file. The following command runs from the command line

D:\Utils\PACL\paext.exe D:\DataAgentTesting\TestOutupt.zip

but hangs when run from SQL.

EXEC master..xp_cmdshell 'D:\Utils\PACL\paext.exe D:\DataAgentTesting\TestOutupt.zip'

On the other hand, the first part of the command actually works . . .

EXEC master..xp_cmdshell 'D:\Utils\PACL\paext.exe'

It displays the normal help information you get if you run just paext.exe from the command line. I've tried a number of different parameters and tried setting various options, but it always just hangs and does nothing, as though it's waiting for some kind of input.

My REAL problem is that I can't get anyone from tech support to help!!! I'm really upset! I have a deadline and I need this to work and I've been trying for over a day now! I hope someone can shed some light onto why the program hangs like that when executed from SQL.

[TBGBe]

Never used SQL shell... but one thing occurs to me; as you are running in a shell perhaps you need to specify the target directory [ -p command ]?