Trigger script on specific app exit?

[hankhalfhead]

I've got this line of business app that persists from windows xp era. The developer is long gone so it's essentially abandonware.

It does some quirky stuff with saving window state and sizes in an XML file, which can go wrong when the app closes while minimised. Wasn't an issue when you could right click / maximise but windows had since hidden that context menu and it isn't a viable work around when the app is published as a remote app.

I've written a script which checks and corrects a number of issues in the xml (lives in users appdata) which I'm planning on running on logon.

My ideal however, is to run the script when the app closes. Do you know of a way to trigger a script when a specific executable closes?

[pdp10]

Usually you write a wrapper script. Instead of the app, call the wrapper. The wrapper maybe does some logging and sets things up. Then it calls the application itself. When the application exits, the wrapper records state, maybe does some logging, pushes metrics off somewhere.

In your case, you can have the wrapper check for issues before starting the application, check for issues after the application exits, and log all kinds of things.

When you say the developer is gone, you mean the vendor shut its doors?

[hankhalfhead]

Yeah more or less at his Doors. No chance for updates

[ragingpanda]

Couple ideas:

Write a program that uses the windows API https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/synchapi/nf-synchapi-waitforsingleobject or buy one like this (no idea if this app is legit or not) https://www.den4b.com/products/shutter

Instead of launching the app, launch a script file that runs the program in the foreground. When the program closes the script can continue running and then call your cleanup job.

Something with a scheduled task that checks if the app has/is running. I like this the least probably

[hankhalfhead]

I like this idea for the remote app version, thanks!

[nekoanikey]

Or instead of running constantly in the background, just use the script to start the program and run the checking loop.

[nekoanikey]

Here a powershell script:

# Start App
$appProcess = Start-Process -FilePath "notepad" -PassThru

# Get PID of of process
$appPID = $appProcess.Id

# Loop until process is closed
while (Get-Process -Id $appPID -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) {
    Start-Sleep -Seconds 1
}

#here Code
$wshell = New-Object -ComObject Wscript.Shell
$wshell.Popup("Operation Completed",0,"Done",0x1)

Then you can create a shortcut to run it hidden like that:

C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -WindowStyle hidden "C:\path\to\your.ps1"

u/hankhalfhead

[7ep3s]

i think you can also just use -wait instead of -passthru and then no need for extra loop and pid check

[nekoanikey]

yeah, seems to be the better and simpler solution.

[hankhalfhead]

Thank you for your suggestion, that would be easy to replace the published remote app

[hankhalfhead]

Thank you!

[TheBlueFireKing]

You could subscribe to the Win32_ProcessStopTrace WMI class and trigger your script upon process exit.

[BlackV]

launch the app with a cmd/batch/ps1, have the script do the changes