A tiny VB module to start a process and return its stdout text

ProcessReader.vb

Public Module ProcessReader

    Public Function StartProcessAndGetOutput(filename As String, Optional args As String = "") As String

        Dim startInfo As New ProcessStartInfo() With { _
         .CreateNoWindow = True, _
         .RedirectStandardOutput = True, _
         .RedirectStandardInput = True, _
         .UseShellExecute = False, _
         .Arguments = args, _
         .FileName = filename _
        }

        Dim p As New Process()

        p.StartInfo = startInfo
        p.Start()

        p.WaitForExit()

        Return p.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd()

    End Function

End Module