Bat file task popup, powerscript or autoHK?

win10 up to date

They changed something in windows a couple years ago, now my batch based tasks are all screwed up. I use taskill, wait/pause
and exit command lines. So of course it creates a cmd window that never goes away now.


What I need is a more in depth or option rich task utility, I'm a dumb ass(dyslexic) I can not do command line and scripts worth a damn but can fart around in a Gui window long enough to get crap done and not destroy the PC or universe..

So since I can not use bath files anymore, least for not for dism/sfc, what I need is to have the task system itself do what I need the bat to do, mainly to turn on a program on as close to start up as it can, then kill and restart the program every hour.

Yes the programs I use are buggy and either lock up or give out a ton of error windows(link bar spits out gdi errors when resolution changes or some back from the screens being off). SuperF4 will lock up now and then, I'm already angry enough when I am forced to use superf4 to kill a program(mostly becuse the screen is locked in full screen mode), I don't need another straw to break this camels back when windows has either broke or de evaluated it....and yes..... somehow it manages to get put out of admin mode but still works... thus why I use the task/bat to restart the program in admin mode every couple of hours.


I guess the main reason why I can no longer us bat file tasks is it puts focus to the cmd window which is very distracting.... which it never use to do I been using these things for a decade now...

Now from what I am read powerscript may be my hope, but unsure if it will popup the same as the cmd.exe. But I am bad as complicated script, that said I have used auto hotkey before, would that work, to just run a couple simple programs in admin mode every few hours with no popups?

Also now that I think I'd rather use auto hotkey(if it will work) than bat to exe, as kaspersky and malwarebytes ate all my self made exe's twice already......


also anyone know of a link bar alternative? Its a nice and simple program, but the gdi errors are annoying.

Try3 said:

It's difficult to give precise answers to such vague yet interconnected statements.

Please post the batch file you referred to in "I use taskill, wait/pause and exit" along with a text descriptions of what it is supposed to do, what it used to do and what it is doing now.

Denis

Ah my bad, its late, been in bed half the day due to sinus, blah.

This will either will not run the program(can not find program), or for a few months a year or so ago, it ran the program but did not close the window, would not work with timeout or exit, so while the bat file gave no error it would not close automatically.

I got so fed up with it I just added the damn thing to system32, it works now, but its not ideal, I don't want third party programs running from system32 or the appdata folder, those locations should be no fly zones for any third party app, much less appdata folder.... but the more I look around the more auto hot key seems like the best choice for my woes, it can start and end a program without loss of focus. I should be able to run it in admin mode, to cycle kill then run script.

Old buggy bat, that worked for years
--------------------------------
@ echo off

taskkill /f /IM SuperF4.exe

B:\PROGRAMS\SuperF4\SuperF4.exe


exit

--------------------------------
==========================================================================

This works fine, since I put supferf4 in system32, the loss of focus is annoyiong, I run the task every 2 hours
-------------------------------
@ echo off

taskkill /f /IM SuperF4.exe

SuperF4.exe

/exit
exit

--------------------------------
==========================================================================
this one works fine, but cmd takes focus away
------------------------


taskkill /f /IM Linkbar64.exe

C:\Users\username\Documents\Linkbar\Linkbar64.exe

exit

---------------

Could kaspersky foul up something in windows to cause bat files to no wonky?? Or user/permission corruption to do that, once I put superf4 in system32 it worked fine.

Oh...I have tried it without the @ echo line, also may has added / to exit, but that never seemed cause an issue, as the other bats work fine with and without the /.

Tho I would not be surprised if I messed up another line, testing for a few hours straight without getting anywhere can lead you to make worse mistakes LOL

Like I said things kinda work now , but cmd.exe stealing focus is something that's just to annoying to deal with and thees no way around it as far as I know, even if up for less than half a second it still steals focus and minimizes full screen stuff your working on sometimes(mainly older games), theres nothing you can do but make a c++ script and other crap, I'll just use auto hot key if I have to.

Try3 said:

If you had omitted the @echo off line

then you would have seen the error generated by /exit

All the best,
Denis

The odd thing was, it ran fine for years. Tho focus was an issue, I had fewer batch tasks, like run dsim at start, with the SSD, I want to run dism 1-2 times a week at most so I have it going every 3 days. I know its not an ideal way to maintain system stability, but ever since I started using it 5-8ish years ago, I've had fewer BSOD, now I just worry about windose update eating something....

I will try suggestions and get back to you, thank you so much for the help!

Try3 said:

I had one BSOD about five or six years ago.
I believe that my experience is normal.

/exit never ran fine. It always generated an error.

SuperF4 has not been updated since Windows 10 Version 1809. I have no idea if that is significant or not.


Denis

well with the /exit thing, it came into being when I spent hours trying to fix normal exit/timeout, it may be an error on my part but it only came into being because other things stopped working.

SuperF4 runs fine 90% of the time, but after a few days of being on it can lock up and stop working, so when I am stuck in a full screen game that crashed, its hard to get out of it to end the process, as sometimes task manager will not popup over the game or full screen application.

So having superF4 restart periodically helps ensure I am not forced to hard reboot.



I did manage to get a bat file to run minimized.

I have a side question, do you know of a way to put a bat file in the taskbar? I managed to get one in the star menu, but even a shortcut to it will not go in the taskbar, I really hate that steamlinks and batfiles no longer work in win10 taskbar, but are fine in win8 and win7.

Also another dumb question if I may, is there a way to turn, run a task schedule into a proper shortcut?

Again thank you for your time.