Is there a third-party application available that can automatically close an idle program after so many minutes of inactivity? We have a company wide application that is running on most of our computers. When a user has this application open, it uses an available license. Often this app is running on a user's computer but they are not at the pc or are not using the app. I need a way to close-down this company app automatically after a certain period in inactivity has passed. Does anyone know or recommend any third-party programs out there that can accomplish this? Many thanks in advance!

You could enquire with the guys at RES and AppSense. I would think they could use their tools to kick off a timer when the process is launched and then execute a task kill command if it has not "active"PLEASE MARK ANY ANSWERS TO HELP OTHERS Blog: rorymon.com Twitter: @Rorymon

Use native tools like Powershell by polling remotely every computer in time intervals. However this has drawback, if your application is using shared resources (shared folders, databases) or data are to be saved before leaving application. This make the task a bit more difficult, because of you must be sure that you can finish aplication gracefully. What would be suitable for one application need not be useful for second one. Alternatively check developer forums and search codeplex at <cite>www.codeplex.com </cite>and sourceforge at www.<cite>sourceforge.net</cite> Regards Milos

Thank you for the reply. However I was hoping for someone to tell me of a specific program out there that can be purchased that would do this. I remember seeing a couple available when I did a Google search some months back.

I'm still watching this thread, hoping for the right answer to my original question. Surely there are some third-party programs out there that can do this? I did a search about 6 months ago, and came across one or two but now I cannot find them.

Hi, Base on my research and experience, there no special software from Microsoft can achieve that. And we cannot recommend any third party tools, its out of our responsibility, for we cannot ensure these third party tools are safety or it will cause any unexpected issue. Thank you for your understanding. Regards, Leo Huang TechNet Subscriber Support If you are TechNet Subscription user and have any feedback on our support quality, please send your feedback here.Leo Huang TechNet Community Support

Leo: Thank you for the reply. I have found several products that I am researching as a solution to my problem. However, I cannot see the reason why "we cannot recommend any third party tools" in response to a simple request like mine. I was not asking for a "guaranteed" solution, but recommendations for a simple program that might perform a simple task in Windows. I (and most other users of the forum) realize that this forum at the end of the day is a place where opinions, advice, etc. can be freely given and received. I think most forum users understand that any advice is given "without any warranties, expressed or implied". I see recommendations and mentions of non-Microsoft products on other forums here. I don't see any disclaimers on entering the Technet forums that decree that non-Microsoft products cannot be either recommended or discussed. You may close this thread.