Close an application using VBScript

Question

I was trying to open and close an application. I tried like this:

Dim App1 
Set App1 = CreateObject(\"WScript.Shell\")
App1.Run(\"firefox\")
App1.Quit


        

Answer 1

I observed a few ways:

1. taskkill - Worked only if I try to kill the same process, as I run.

   Dim oShell : Set oShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
   oShell.Run """C:\My_Scripts\ddl.exe"" -p1 -c"
   
   'some code
   
   oShell.Run "taskkill /f /im ddl.exe", , True
   

2. SendKeys - Works for all app, if the window name is known.

   Dim oShell : Set oShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
   filename = "C:\Some_file.txt - Notepad"
   act = oShell.AppActivate(fileName)
   oShell.SendKeys "% C"
   

3. WMI object - 2 ways above worked good for me so I didn't try it. You can find an example here:

   Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
       & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\.\root\cimv2")
   
   Set colProcessList = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
       ("Select * from Win32_Process Where Name = 'Chrome.exe'")
   
   Set oShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
   For Each objProcess in colProcessList
       oShell.Run "taskkill /im chrome.exe", , True
   Next
   

Answer 2

Firefox is not a COM object. There is no Firefox COM object. Firefox does not want you to use COM. Or NET. Or Microsoft. That is why you could not create a Firefox object, so you created a WScript.Shell object instead.

WScript.Shell does not have a quit method. If it did, it wouldn't help kill Firefox.

This is an example of using WMI from VBS to start, then kill a process like Firefox.

Answer 3

Good work for this example:

Dim oShell : Set oShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
oShell.Run """C:\My_Scripts\ddl.exe"" -p1 -c"

'some code

oShell.Run "taskkill /f /im ddl.exe", , True

Answer 4

Here is an alternative VBScript implementation:

strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
    & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")

Set colProcessList = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
    ("Select * from Win32_Process Where Name = 'Notepad.exe'")

For Each objProcess in colProcessList
    objProcess.Terminate()
Next

Answer 5

If you want to be able to terminate a process that way you need to use the Exec method instead of the Run method.

Set ff = CreateObject("WScript.Shell").Exec("firefox")
'you do stuff
ff.Terminate