Removing or disabling Chrome’s Task Manager with a batch-file

Question

I am trying to find a way to either disable or completely remove Chrome’s Task Manager.

My proposed solution involves using a batch-file running in the background to detect if the Chrome Task Manager is open, and shut down Chrome if it is. Unfortunately, I do not know batch programming and am low on time for this problem to be solved.

Here’s a couple of ideas I had for this:

• This command detects how many instances of Chrome are running:

  tasklist /nh /fi "imagename eq chrome.exe" | find /i "chrome.exe" >nul && (wmic process where name="chrome.exe" | find "chrome.exe" /c

• This command kills all Chrome processes:

  taskkill /im chrome.exe

This does not work because Chrome does not create a new process when the Task Manager is opened, though it does create a new window. (There is no change in the Processes tab of the Windows Task Manager, but there is one in the Tasks tab.)

I will settle for a program that shuts down Chrome if it detects two windows of it open, even partial solutions are welcome at this point.

Answer 1

This should get you some of the way there.

For detecting if Task Manager is open - use something like this:

tasklist /fi "WINDOWTITLE eq Task Manager - Google Chrome" /v | find "chrome.exe"

In a batch file you will probably need to escape the pipe character:

tasklist /fi "WINDOWTITLE eq Task Manager - Google Chrome" /v ^| find "chrome.exe"

Then use an %ERRORLEVEL% check to see if you it found it and kill them all:

if "%ERRORLEVEL%" == "1" TASKKILL /IM chrome.exe /F

I'll leave you to loop in batch (consider adding a sleep too).

Answer 2

It would be better to merely close the Chrome Task Manager window rather than killing the whole browser, which seems to be your goal anyway.

If you’re not committed to a batch-file, then an easy way to accomplish this is to use an AutoHotkey script:

;Script paramters
#SingleInstance, force
#Persistent
SetBatchLines, -1
Process, Priority,, High

;Set up window hook
Gui +LastFound
hWnd:=WinExist()
DllCall("RegisterShellHookWindow", UInt,hWnd)
MsgNum:=DllCall("RegisterWindowMessage", Str,"SHELLHOOK")
OnMessage(MsgNum, "ShellMessage")
HSHELL_WINDOWCREATED:=1
Return

;Hook function
ShellMessage(wParam,lParam)
{
    if (wParam=HSHELL_WINDOWCREATED)               ;Window created
    {
        WinGetTitle, Title, ahk_id %lParam%        ;Get window title
        if  (Title="Task Manager - Google Chrome") ;Check if Chrome Task Manager
            WinClose, ahk_id %lParam%              ;Close it
    }
}

(Of course if you are looking for security and trying to lock the browser down, then this is not the right way to go. Unfortunately I’m not sure that Chrome natively supports a secure lock-down mode.)