Auto close and restart a program [closed]

Question

I am looking for a way to automate the opening and closing of a program based on a timer.

What I am looking for would look like this:

1. Open program
2. Run program for 5 minutes
3. Close program
4. Do the above again and again

Answer 1

Create a scheduled task using the task scheduler tool. You can specify the start time (every 5 minutes) and set the "Stop task if it runs longer than" box at 5 minutes!

Create a trigger like this: on the scheduled task to start and stop the task.

Answer 2

You can do this using the free program autohotkey.

Essentially, you would create a loop consisting of opening the program, setting a timer for x minutes, then closing the program.

You will need to look at the following autohotkey commands:

1. Loop
2. SetTimer or Sleep
3. Run
4. WinClose

You can also find useful snippets on SuperUser using the autohotkey tag.

Below is a very simple autohotkey script that would need minimal changes on your part to run what you're needing. Lines starting with a semi-colon are comments and can safely be removed:

; Below line keeps this script running until you close it
#Persistent

Loop 
{
    ; Edit the below line to add your program
    Run, C:\Program Files (x86)\Example Program\Example_Program.exe

    ;300000 on the line below is 5 minutes
    Sleep, 10000 

    ; Edit the below line to add your program's "Window Title"
    ; Note this is not the same as the program's name
    WinClose, Example Program
}