Kill/restart application when another one starts/terminates?

STRESSED · 01 Dec 2020

I use a utility that I find really handy, except that it causes problems when I play games. I find myself manually disabling the application before starting a game, then enabling it afterward. This is a hassle.

Is there an elegant way to terminate the process when a given process (i.e. a game) is started, and then restart it afterward? The only method I know of that I could knock out readily is a command script that loops, but that's not what I would call "elegant". I can't see a way to accomplish this with Task Scheduler, either.

dalchina · 02 Dec 2020

In what way does the utility cause issues, and what is it? Is there an alternative?

The looping script is the obvious solution, but would need a test for each such game of course.

The 'easy' bit - but would need replication for each such game- would be to launch the games in question with a shortcut pointing to a script that kills the utility and launches the game.

Without a looping script the difficulty is then to relaunch the utility. That would appear to need some sort of repeating test.

Whilst you could use the task scheduler to launch repeated tests for the presence of any of the games, that's pretty much the same as the looping script. No magic answer.

It might be possible to use the task scheduler triggered on process termination, although some discussion suggests process logging would have to be enabled, and you'd still have to decide which process was terminated (one of your games). That sounds excessively complicated.

STRESSED · 02 Dec 2020

The utility is AltMove (deskex.com) and it interferes because it uses keyboard/mouse combinations that are very convenient during normal use of Windows, but very inconvenient when the same keyboard/mouse combination is performed during a game.

I will write a script that scans every 60 seconds when no game is running, and then more frequently when it is. I figured there was no better way. I was hoping someone knew of a utility or something, since I just don't feel like dealing with this right now. I have snippets from previous scripts already, so it won't be a huge deal, but I'm lazy.

Thanks.

dalchina · 03 Dec 2020

Hi, now I know what the utiltiy is, I can suggest another - Altdrag. This comes with a process blacklist- and even a drag and drop target to easily exclude a program.

Thus you simply add the games or whatever you wish to the list so the key/mouse combos are not effective.

Here'sa comparison:

Kill/restart application when another one starts/terminates?-1.png

Blacklist: