Daily Cup of Tech

One of the frustrations that I have experienced in the past is the unstoppable application. This might be a virus or spyware or that annoying program with the “fingernails on the chalkboard” sound effects. Any way you look at it, I’ve always thought that it would be wonderful to be able to kill these programs as soon as they started (not to mention the possibility for pranks is endless). So I wrote a program!

The You’ve Been Warned Paragraph

Be very careful with this program. It is possible to configure this program so that you can never run Windows properly again! Use this program wisely and responsibly.

The Script

This is a relatively simple AutoIt script. It grabs two things from an INI file called AppKill.ini. The first is a pause setting. This tells the program how often to check for new applications.

The second is a list of applications that should not be allowed to run. When ever one of these applications is found, it is automatically killed.

Here is the code:

; Application Killer
Dim $AppArray
Dim $ConfigFile
Dim $Pause
TraySetToolTip("Application Killer")
$ConfigFile = _GetConfigFile("AppKill.ini")
$Pause = Number(IniRead($ConfigFile, "General", "Pause", 10))
$AppArray = IniReadSection($ConfigFile, "Applications")
While 1
	For $Count = 1 To $AppArray[0][0]
		If ProcessExists($AppArray[$Count][1]) Then
			ProcessClose($AppArray[$Count][1])
		EndIf
	Next
	Sleep(1000 * $Pause)
WEnd
#region Functions
Func _GetConfigFile($filename, $silent = False)
	Local $configfilename
	$configfilename = @ScriptDir & "\" & $filename
	If Not FileExists($configfilename) Then
		If Not $silent Then
			MsgBox(16, "File Missing", "The file " & $filename & " is not available." & @CRLF & "Please ensure that it is located in the " & @ScriptDir & " directory." & @CRLF & "The application will now exit.")
			Exit
		EndIf
		SetError(1)
		Return "Error"
	EndIf
	Return $configfilename
EndFunc   ;==>_GetConfigFile
#endregion

Download this code: AppKill.au3

If you don’t want to have to compile the script yourself, here is the precompiled executable.

The example INI file provided checks for new applications every 1 second and will not allow Notepad.exe to run.

[General]
Pause=1
 
[Applications]
Application1=Notepad.exe

Download this code: AppKill.ini

Conclusion

While this is a relatively simple and quick script, it is also a very powerful one that can help you to keep your system under control. But, as I’ve warned you, use it wisely.

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No Responses to “Stop Applications From Running”

1. Daily Cup of Tech Says:
   March 28th, 2007 at 5:18 pm

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