Question

Is there a way to automagically determine if a program is running and close it at scheduled time, say 3 am every day?
Maybe use task scheduler to close said application? if this is possible any direction would be appreciated.

Vista or Win7

Answer 1

Many ways to go about doing this. A simple solution would be to simply use Task Scheduler to run a batch script like this at 3 am every day:

taskkill /f /im programname.exe

save as something like closeprograms.bat and substitute programname.exe with the name of the executable you wish to kill. Set Task Scheduler up to run this batch file whenever you want.

Answer 2

To schedule a program from the Windows command line use this command:

AT hours:minutes /every:date command

So if you want to schedule something for 3:00 AM every day.

AT 03:00 /evry:M,T,W,Th,F,S,Su "command"

For more help check AT /?, CMD /? and http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb491071.aspx.

TASKLIST list the applications that are running(type TASKLIST /? for help), but I don't know of a way to combine this two commands to get the result you want or if there is other way to do it, check the site above and google for batch files and VBScript(I don't really use windows so I never bother learning to much).