Minimizing or closing a program with batch script

Question

I am writing a batch script intended for handling some tasks in my (and a few colleagues) windows startup. The main thing that needs to happen is the killing of a few processes that do to this being a large corporate environment are started as default. They interfere with our work so we have to kill them... I know it's stupid but thats beside the point. This is can not be changed and we have to make due.

I thought about adding some more useful functionality to the script, like starting up certain programs and so on. This all works decently well but the problem i have is that the OUClient won't start minimized. It doesn't open a window (so it is minimized to some extent) but it still appears in the alt-tab list, witch it doesn't when i minimize or close it manually. This is the script:

@echo off
C:
cd "C:\Program Files\SysInternals\"

pskill flxps12.exe
pskill flxps17.exe

start /minimized "" "C:\Program Files\Osiris Data\OUClient\OUClient.exe"
start "Outlook" "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\OUTLOOK.EXE"
start "Explorer" "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe"

cls
@exit

So the question is: How can I make the OUClient minimize, or even better close to the system tray (like if you clicked the red x in the upper right) after it is started.

We are running this on Windows XP SP2.

EDIT: Everything works fine except the /minimize on OUClient.

Answer 1

The minimized switch has a forward slash, not a backslash.

I don't know if OUClient will respect that, but it should.

Answer 2

Have you had a look at the TASKKILL command? A basic example would be

TASKKILL /IM /F iexplore.exe

(yes, who wouldn't want to kill iexplore? ;-))

Best.

Answer 3

There is no way to do this from batch files directly, but you can write a little helper program which finds a window and then uses ShowWindow to minimize it. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be easily available from VBScript which would have made this a little easier.