Prevent multiple instances of app?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bill Phillips
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Bill Phillips

I seem to remember seeing a program some time ago that was supposed to
prevent multiple instances of the same application from running. Now,
I know this sort of thing is usually implemented in the application
itself -- and often poorly -- but what I am thinking of is some kind
of external thing.

My problem is this: I use Mozilla Firefox 0.8 a lot, and sometimes I
need to exit and restart it (as when adding extensions, etc.) ...
however, the latest version seems to take a lot longer to unload than
previous ones I've used. So sometimes I don't wait long enough, and it
tries to start up while some piece of the previous instance is still
in memory. This causes problems.

Naturally, I've posted about this on the mozilla forums, but nobody
has responded, and I suppose most people don't see it as a big
problem. So, if I could find the (possibly imagined!) software I
mentioned up top, it would be a big help.

Does anyone else remember this, or am I deluding myself?
 
Bill Phillips said:
I seem to remember seeing a program some time ago that was supposed to
prevent multiple instances of the same application from running. Now,
I know this sort of thing is usually implemented in the application
itself -- and often poorly -- but what I am thinking of is some kind
of external thing.

My problem is this: I use Mozilla Firefox 0.8 a lot, and sometimes I
need to exit and restart it (as when adding extensions, etc.) ...
however, the latest version seems to take a lot longer to unload than
previous ones I've used. So sometimes I don't wait long enough, and it
tries to start up while some piece of the previous instance is still
in memory. This causes problems.

Naturally, I've posted about this on the mozilla forums, but nobody
has responded, and I suppose most people don't see it as a big
problem. So, if I could find the (possibly imagined!) software I
mentioned up top, it would be a big help.

Does anyone else remember this, or am I deluding myself?
Click to expand...

For this pv.exe has often been recommended, a command line tool that
comes with PrcView. <http://www.prcview.com/>
You would use it in a batch file, like this:

---------------------------------
@ECHO OFF
c:\prcview\pv.exe notepad.exe >nul
if errorlevel 1 goto StartIt
:ActivateIt
c:\prcview\pv.exe -a notepad.exe
goto end
:StartIt
start c:\windows\notepad.exe
:end
cls

---------------------------------

Or maybe better check out Activate. (Have not tried it myself.)
http://www.tamedos.com/downloads/downloads.htm
http://www.tamedos.com/downloads/activate.zip

"Utility to prevent running multiple instances of a program. It will
send a program to the foreground based on its window title. If the
program is not already running, it can launch the program. Supports
Windows 2000, Windows 9x and Windows NT."

Regards,
Sietse Fliege
 
}"Bill Phillips" <[email protected]> schreef in bericht
}}> I seem to remember seeing a program some time ago that was supposed
to
}> prevent multiple instances of the same application from running.
}
}For this pv.exe has often been recommended, a command line tool that
}comes with PrcView. <http://www.prcview.com/>

Yes, that did the trick, after I puzzled it out for a while. Thanks! I
had to do it differently, since I only wanted a new instance to run
under most circumstances.

}Or maybe better check out Activate. (Have not tried it myself.)
}http://www.tamedos.com/downloads/downloads.htm
}http://www.tamedos.com/downloads/activate.zip

It sounded even better, but it wasn't appropriate.
 
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