How do I call ::CreateProcess in c++ to launch a Windows executable?

Something like this:

STARTUPINFO info={sizeof(info)};
PROCESS_INFORMATION processInfo;
if (CreateProcess(path, cmd, NULL, NULL, TRUE, 0, NULL, NULL, &info, &processInfo))
{
    WaitForSingleObject(processInfo.hProcess, INFINITE);
    CloseHandle(processInfo.hProcess);
    CloseHandle(processInfo.hThread);
}

There is an example at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms682512(VS.85).aspx

Just replace the argv[1] with your constant or variable containing the program.

#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <tchar.h>

void _tmain( int argc, TCHAR *argv[] )
{
    STARTUPINFO si;
    PROCESS_INFORMATION pi;

    ZeroMemory( &si, sizeof(si) );
    si.cb = sizeof(si);
    ZeroMemory( &pi, sizeof(pi) );

    if( argc != 2 )
    {
        printf("Usage: %s [cmdline]\n", argv[0]);
        return;
    }

    // Start the child process. 
    if( !CreateProcess( NULL,   // No module name (use command line)
        argv[1],        // Command line
        NULL,           // Process handle not inheritable
        NULL,           // Thread handle not inheritable
        FALSE,          // Set handle inheritance to FALSE
        0,              // No creation flags
        NULL,           // Use parent's environment block
        NULL,           // Use parent's starting directory 
        &si,            // Pointer to STARTUPINFO structure
        &pi )           // Pointer to PROCESS_INFORMATION structure
    ) 
    {
        printf( "CreateProcess failed (%d).\n", GetLastError() );
        return;
    }

    // Wait until child process exits.
    WaitForSingleObject( pi.hProcess, INFINITE );

    // Close process and thread handles. 
    CloseHandle( pi.hProcess );
    CloseHandle( pi.hThread );
}

if your exe happens to be a console app, you might be interested in reading the stdout and stderr -- for that, I'll humbly refer you to this example:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q190351

It's a bit of a mouthful of code, but I've used variations of this code to spawn and read.

If you application is a Windows GUI application then using the code below to do the waiting is not ideal as messages for your application will not be getting processing. To the user it will look like your application has hung.

WaitForSingleObject(&processInfo.hProcess, INFINITE)

Something like the untested code below might be better as it will keep processing the windows message queue and your application will remain responsive:

//-- wait for the process to finish
while (true)
{
  //-- see if the task has terminated
  DWORD dwExitCode = WaitForSingleObject(ProcessInfo.hProcess, 0);

  if (   (dwExitCode == WAIT_FAILED   )
      || (dwExitCode == WAIT_OBJECT_0 )
      || (dwExitCode == WAIT_ABANDONED) )
  {
    DWORD dwExitCode;

    //-- get the process exit code
    GetExitCodeProcess(ProcessInfo.hProcess, &dwExitCode);

    //-- the task has ended so close the handle
    CloseHandle(ProcessInfo.hThread);
    CloseHandle(ProcessInfo.hProcess);

    //-- save the exit code
    lExitCode = dwExitCode;

    return;
  }
  else
  {
    //-- see if there are any message that need to be processed
    while (PeekMessage(&message.msg, 0, 0, 0, PM_NOREMOVE))
    {
      if (message.msg.message == WM_QUIT)
      {
        return;
      }

      //-- process the message queue
      if (GetMessage(&message.msg, 0, 0, 0))
      {
        //-- process the message
        TranslateMessage(&pMessage->msg);
        DispatchMessage(&pMessage->msg);
      }
    }
  }
}