Using a utility that monitors a process and restarts it if it is terminated for any reason is a common need on programs that are driving publicly viewable displays. Were a crash to happen, or if the process were intentionally terminated, we may still need the process to restart. I’ve got several solutions for this, each with their own strengths. I recently needed a solution for this and didn’t have access to my normal solutions. I was able to make what I needed using Windows in-built command line utilities and a batch file. While I have a preference to PowerShell over batch file scripts, I used batch files this time because of constraints from organizational policies. I’m placing a copy of the script here since I thought it might be useful to others.
This script checks to see if the process of interest is running every 10 seconds. If the process is not running, it will start the program in another 5 seconds. Such large delays are not strictly necessary. But I thought it safer to have them should someone make a mistake while modifying this script. In an earlier version of the script I made a type and found myself in a situation where the computer was stuck in a cycle of spawning new processes. Stopping it was difficult because each new spawned process would take focus from the mouse and the keyboard. With the delays, were that to happen again there is sufficient delay to navigate to the command window instance running the batch file and terminate it.
ECHO OFF
SET ProcessName=notepad.exe
SET StartCommand=notepad.exe
SET WorkingDrive=c:
SET WorkingDirectory=c:\WorkingDirectory
ECHO "Watching for process %ProcessName%"
:Again
timeout /t 10 /nobreak > NUL
echo .
tasklist /fi "ImageName eq %ProcessName%" /fo csv 2> NUL | find /I "%ProcessName%" > NUL
if "%ERRORLEVEL%"=="0" (
echo Program is running
) else (
echo Program is not running
timeout /t 5 /nobreak > NUL
%WorkingDrive%
cd %WorkingDirectory%
start %StartCommand%
)
goto Again
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