Prevent multiple opening of the same program in Windows?

[BulmaSoft]

Hello

Sometimes it happens that I double-click on an icon of a (any) program and - nothing happens.
Then I double-click on it again, and (in a couple of seconds, or more) - to my surprise - that program then opens twice!

This usually happens when the computer's CPU is high, and it needs a couple of seconds (or more) to launch the first instance of the application.

So, I wonder, is there any utility program that will perhaps:
- Detect the memory proces of already started application, and
- prevent, or pop-out a warning-message when initiated twice (or more!)

Is there something of this kind already available?

Best regards

[ImnoGuru]

This sounds very similar to a problem that I am having with my Dell desktop.

Both Allan and Superdave have made suggestions to me about how to tell what processes are consuming all the CPU and or memory use and making it slow to get into Windows and programs thereafter.

Perhaps there might be some useful information here


Alternately you can use the Ctrl Alt Del ( press all three at the same time, you need two hands to do this unless you have very long fingers) to bring up a "Windows Security' screen. Select the "Task manager" icon. It will bring up the Task Manager box.

Then select in the top row "Processes", from there you can see what processes are running on your computer. There is also a selection for "Performance". This will give you an idea of how hard your computer is working.
It sounds like there is a program running in the background that is stealing all the memory available.

If you go to "Control panel" and open "System" click on that and select "Hardware" in the system properties box that comes up. You will see in the top area "Device Manager", click on that. This will open another box that shows all your computers components. Check in the left hand column whether you see any yellow warning icons.
You can also click on the plus signs to open each of the titles to see if there is a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark in it. These warning signs mean there is a problem with this item.

[kyle_engineer]

To answer your question directly - No. I don't know of any existing software that does that.

You could write a script fairly easily (in any number of languages), but I'm assuming that you'd probably not want to do that. Also, while it is quite simple to make a taskkilling script (even with a .bat file), it will require a bit of good logic to filter what is user error and what is system necessity. For example "svchost.exe" is supposed to run multiple times. Killing all svchost instances results in a forced system shutdown. That's just one example of things needing multiple instances. The other thing to consider is that if you have a script or program running that is cross-checking the task list it's going to then hog more resources and delay the launch of the app even more! So yeah...

Honestly, the simplest and best solution - upgrade your hardware (or do some software debugging if needed) or just wait the 10-20 seconds to launch.

Making sure that you primary HDD is less than 50% full is a good place to start. Cleaning our un-needed programs (and especially toolbars and stuff) is a good place too.