[System.Diagnostics.Process]::Start(“notepad”).WaitForExit()\nWrite-Host “Notepad has terminated.”\n<\/PRE>\nAs you can see, there\u2019s not much to this thing. (Which, of course, is one of the beauties of Windows PowerShell: you can often carry out tasks using just a couple lines of code). In line one, we\u2019re using the .NET Framework class System.Diagnostics.Process<\/B> to start Notepad; in addition, we\u2019ve tacked the WaitForExit<\/B> method onto the start call. Why? Because WaitForExit instructs PowerShell to simply sit there and wait until the process we just started has terminated. As long as that instance of Notepad remains up and running, our PowerShell script will do nothing at all. The moment Notepad terminates, however, the script resumes with the next line. Which, in this case, simply echoes back the fact that Notepad has ended.<\/P>\n
Alternatively, you could also perform this same task using code like this:<\/P>
Notepad | Out-Null\nWrite-Host “Notepad has terminated.”\n<\/PRE>\nThat works equally well, but it\u2019s not very intuitive; that\u2019s why we used the .NET Framework approach instead. Besides, it never hurts to learn as much as you can about the .NET Framework and what you can do with it.<\/P>\n
Here\u2019s another variation on starting a process and then waiting around for awhile before resuming the script. In the following bit of code, we start the Windows Calculator, then pass the value 10000 to the WaitForExit method:<\/P>
[System.Diagnostics.Process]::Start(“calc”).WaitForExit(10000)\nWrite-Host “Calculator has ended, or 10 seconds have elapsed.”\n<\/PRE>\nWhat\u2019s the point of that? Well, the 10000 represents 10 seconds (10,000 milliseconds). That means we\u2019re going to start Calculator, wait a maximum 10 seconds, then proceed with the rest of the script. In other words, we start Calculator. If Calculator terminates after a few seconds, we then go ahead and run the next line in the script. Ah, you say, but what if 10 seconds have elapsed and Calculator is still running? In that case, we just let Calculator do its thing and go ahead with the next line in the script anyway.<\/P>\n
Give it a try and you\u2019ll see what we mean.<\/P>\n
We hope that answers your question, AD, and we hope that answer was good enough to get you to sign up for the Scripting Guys group on Facebook. No doubt a few of you are wondering why we decided to create a Facebook group in the first place. \u201cWe noticed that there\u2019s a TechNet group and it has 45 members.\u201d You point out. \u201cWe also noticed that there\u2019s an MSDN group, and it has 73 members. You guys wouldn\u2019t be doing this just so you could try and get more members in your<\/I> group than in the TechNet and MSDN groups combined, would you?\u201d<\/P>\n
Please; do you really think the Scripting Guys would be that shallow and that competitive? Well, you\u2019re right: we are<\/I> that shallow and that competitive. Admittedly, we do<\/I> think that this group gives us some new and interesting ways to interact with our readers. But, hey, if we can kick a little TechNet and MSDN butt while we\u2019re at it, well, that\u2019s just the frosting on the cake.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hey, Scripting Guy! In Windows PowerShell, how can I start another application, then have my script pause until that application has terminated?— AD Hey, AD. Before we answer today\u2019s question, we\u2019d like to make an announcement: the Scripting Guys need friends! No, not those kind of friends. Well, come to think of it, we could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":595,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31,87,3,45],"class_list":["post-63473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-operating-system","tag-processes","tag-scripting-guy","tag-windows-powershell"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"
Hey, Scripting Guy! In Windows PowerShell, how can I start another application, then have my script pause until that application has terminated?— AD Hey, AD. Before we answer today\u2019s question, we\u2019d like to make an announcement: the Scripting Guys need friends! No, not those kind of friends. Well, come to think of it, we could […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/595"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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