Call .com file with parameters using VBA WScript.Shell - excel

Question

I'm using Excel to upload some files onto an server with WinSCP.
This example works:
Sub FTP_upload()
Dim logfile, ftp_login, file_to_upload, upload_to_folder As String
logfile = "D:\temp\ftp.log"
ftp_login = "ftp://ftp_mydomain:mypassword#mydomain.com/"
file_to_upload = "D:\tmep\myfile.txt"
upload_to_folder = "/myfolder/"
'upload the file
Call Shell("C:\Program Files (x86)\WinSCP\WinSCP.com /log=" & logfile & " /command " & """open """ & ftp_login & " " & """put " & file_to_upload & " " & upload_to_folder & """ " & """exit""")
End Sub
I now want Excel to wait until the shell has closed.
Using the information from Wait for shell command to complete, I put it together this code:
Sub FTP_upload_with_wait()
Dim wsh As Object
Set wsh = VBA.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Dim waitOnReturn As Boolean: waitOnReturn = True
Dim windowStyle As Integer: windowStyle = 1
Dim errorCode As Integer
Dim logfile, ftp_login, file_to_upload, upload_to_folder As String
logfile = "D:\temp\ftp.log"
ftp_login = "ftp://ftp_mydomain:mypassword#mydomain.com/"
file_to_upload = "D:\tmep\myfile.txt"
upload_to_folder = "/myfolder/"
execute_string = "C:\Program Files (x86)\WinSCP\WinSCP.com /log=" & logfile & " /command " & """open """ & ftp_login & " " & """put " & file_to_upload & " " & upload_to_folder & """ " & """exit"""
errorCode = wsh.Run(execute_string, windowStyle, waitOnReturn)
End Sub
Unfortunately, this doesn't work. Excel reports:
run-time error '-2147024894 (80070002)'
Automation error
The system cannot find the file specified
When I replace the string this way, it works:
execute_string = "notepad.exe"
It seems that wsh.Run doesn't like the quotation marks.
How can I make this work?

Answer 1

The path to WinSCP contains spaces, so you need to wrap it to double-quotes (which need to be doubled to escape them in VBA string):
execute_string = """C:\Program Files (x86)\WinSCP\WinSCP.com"" ..."
But that's only the first set of quotes that is wrong in your command.
The correct command would be like:
execute_string = """C:\Program Files (x86)\WinSCP\WinSCP.com"" " & _
"/log=" & logfile & " /command " & _
"""open " & ftp_login & """ " & _
"""put " & file_to_upload & " " & upload_to_folder & """ " & _
"""exit"""
Assuming that none of logfile, ftp_login, file_to_upload and upload_to_folder contains spaces, in which case would would need a way more double-quotes.
Read ore about WinSCP command-line syntax
The Call Shell must have some heuristics that adds the quotes around C:\Program Files (x86)\WinSCP\WinSCP.com. Though it's just a pure luck that the rest of the command-line works, the quotes are wrong there too. So even your first code is wrong. It runs the following command:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\WinSCP\WinSCP.com" /log=D:\temp\ftp.log /command "open "ftp://ftp_mydomain:mypassword#mydomain.com/ "put D:\tmep\myfile.txt /myfolder/" "exit"
(Note the misplaced quotes around open)