Closing applications from the command line

Harrigan · 18 Sep 2006 at 16:19

This is probably really simple, but I googled for about 40mins and found nothing useful. Maybe im really bad a googling, who knows. Anyway, I have written a hilariously simple file to replace my winamp shortcut with this "openwinamp.cmd":

START E:\"Program Files"\Winstick\Winstick.exe

START E:\"Program Files"\Winamp\winamp.exe

Thus opening both winamp and winstick (a program i need to open with winamp to use my remote) with a single shortcut. Now I need to extend this slightly so I have a PAUSE command, then afterwards tell winamp and winstick to close, so i can close them both when im done by just pressing enter, so it would look something like:

START E:\"Program Files"\Winstick\Winstick.exe

START E:\"Program Files"\Winamp\winamp.exe

PAUSE

(close winstick)
(close winamp)

Problem is I dont know how you tell a program to close from the command line. Can anyone help?

Harrigan · 18 Sep 2006 at 16:33

And literally minutes after writing that post I discover the TASKKILL command, now my file looks like:

START E:\"Program Files"\Winstick\Winstick.exe

START E:\"Program Files"\Winamp\winamp.exe

PAUSE

TASKKILL /im winamp.exe

TASKKILL /im winstick.exe

Just wondering if taskkill safely shutsdown the application or is it akin to the "end process" thing?

The_KiD · 18 Sep 2006 at 18:43

Same as killing the process in Task Manager, but for winamp and the like then there's no reason not to really

Pinkeyes · 18 Sep 2006 at 18:47

Also, check out PsTools - a freeware set of *very* useful command line tools for doing similar things. Most of which allow you to do them to the local and networked machines.

Harrigan · 18 Sep 2006 at 18:49

Thanks for the relpies, that pstools thing looks kind of interesting. Does anyone know of a "safe shutdown" command I could use though?

Pinkeyes · 19 Sep 2006 at 08:40

Harrigan said:
Thanks for the relpies, that pstools thing looks kind of interesting. Does anyone know of a "safe shutdown" command I could use though?

How do you mean "safe" ?

Standard windows 'shutdown' command will do a safe shutdown. Go to a command prompt and type shutdown /? for the parameters.

Harrigan · 19 Sep 2006 at 08:49

I kind of mean instead of killing the process (TASKKILL), I'd rather send it the message that I would like it to close, so it has time to "finish up" whatever it was doing, like when you just click the x to close a program, instead of going to task manager and killing it.

bledd · 19 Sep 2006 at 09:19

got a better way for ya

make a shortcut to winamp and place it in c:\windows\system32

call it say "amp"

then, go start, run, amp, press enter and it'll open

now download pstools as said above, put pskill.exe into system32, now make a bat file that says..

pskill winamp.exe

save that in the s32 folder also, as say killamp.bat

now start run, killamp will end winamp

taskkill /IM winamp.exe will do the same and its part of windows by default

-edit, reread what you asked for, and its a bit different, lol, but taskill is your friend and it won't 'hurt' winamp