Launch if Process Not Running, Windows Command Line

Question

I want to auto-launch an application (specifically Outlook.exe) if it is not already running. I wanted to do this through the Windows 7 task scheduler, which meant the solution here did not work when I tried to execute it on one line by replacing the newline with &. It would launch outlook no matter if it was running or closed.

tasklist /FI "IMAGENAME eq outlook.exe" 2>NUL | find /I /N "outlook.exe">NUL & if "%ERRORLEVEL%"=="0" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\OUTLOOK.EXE"

As mentioned in this alternate version of the question, `tasklist.exe` can truncate program names. https://superuser.com/a/1536680/311792 — Dave, Dec 10 '20 at 22:55

Yakov Kantor · Answer 1 · 2017-02-14T21:22:36.620

3

Just to make a quick fix so the batch exits after successfully opening the file.

I added start ""

cmd.exe /c tasklist /FI "IMAGENAME eq outlook.exe" | find /I /N "outlook.exe" ||start "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\OUTLOOK.EXE"

edited Feb 14 '17 at 21:22

answered Feb 14 '17 at 05:19

Yakov Kantor

39
7

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:30

I found this, which the second answer gave greater detail on the & and | options.

This is what ended up running well for me: cmd.exe /c tasklist /FI "IMAGENAME eq outlook.exe" | find /I /N "outlook.exe" || "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\OUTLOOK.EXE"

More details: || [...] command1 || command2 Use to run the command following || only if the command preceding || fails. Cmd.exe runs the first command, and then runs the second command only if the first command did not complete successfully (receives an error code greater than zero).

Launch if Process Not Running, Windows Command Line

2 Answers2