Not a Win32 application error

[ivandokov]

I am having issues using this library in an Electron application. I am using electron-vite on Windows 11 (not in WSL) and when I start the dev environment (pnpm exec electron-vite dev) the app crashes.

I haven't found a lot of resources about this issue but those I found are mostly stating the issue when the app is packaged, but I am having issues with the app even starting for development.

I have tried using @electron/rebuild but no success.

I reinstalled all node_modules used in the project using npkill to make sure I haven't brought something OS specific in the project from my other computer (mac).

The simplified code I am using to invoke win32-api is:

// service class listening for ipcMain events
import { FindWindowEx } from 'win32-api/util';

export class  IPCService {
    constructor() {
        ipcMain.on('app:notepad', async (event) => {
            const hWnd = await FindWindowEx(0, 0, 'Notepad', null);

            console.log(hWnd);

            event.returnValue = hWnd;
        });
    }
}

// native preload script
import { contextBridge, ipcRenderer } from 'electron';

contextBridge.exposeInMainWorld('electron', {
    app: {
        notepad: (): string => {
            return ipcRenderer.sendSync('app:notepad');
        },
    },
});

// React component 
export const App = () => {
    const getNotepad = () => {
        console.log(window.electron!.app.notepad());
    };

    return (
        <div>
              <Button onClick={getNotepad}>Notepad</Button>
        </div>
    );
};

The moment I comment FindWindowEx and the import for it the app launches just fine.

The issue has to be electron specific because I tried running this code in a simple file and it provides the expected results:

import { spawn } from 'child_process';
import {
    FindWindowEx,
    GetDefaultPrinter,
} from 'win32-api/util'

const printerName = await GetDefaultPrinter()

const child = spawn('notepad.exe')
const hWnd = await FindWindowEx(0, 0, 'Notepad', null)

console.log(printerName);
// Microsoft Print to PDF
console.log(hWnd);
// 0
// Also launched Notepad

[waitingsong]

I don't the reason about Electron , maybe you can try npm instead of pnpm