How to automatically close App_A when I close App_B using batchfile - batch-file

Question

Hi everyone I'm a newbie in batchfiling but loved tinkering and coding every other time. Can I make a batch file that closes two program simultaneously? Example, I created a batchfile that opens two program, App_A (gamepad imulator) is minimized App_B (offline RPG Game) normal window. What I want is when I close App_B App_A would automatically close too so that I don't have to restore the window and manually close the imulator.
this is the code I just did which I also found in this site and got it working:
ECHO OFF
start /d "C:\Documents and Settings\Computer\My Documents\Imulator\PROFILE" SET1.imulatorprofile /m
ECHO IMULATOR STARTED
start /d "C:\Program Files\App_B" App_BLauncher.exe
ECHO APP_B STARTED
ECHO OPERATION COMPLETE
Any comments or suggestions is GREATLY APPRECIATED! THANKS in ADVANCE :)

Answer 1

You can use another batch file with two taskkill lines, one for each of your apps, and launch that.
Otherwise you'd need to have a batch file running all the time in a window, which loops and checks if appB is not running and then it will close appA. It's not very elegant.

Answer 2

I'm not very good using the windows commandline, but I would try the following approach:
start imulator (which should quit automatically after APP_B exited)
start APP_B (using the /wait option - this should pause the batch processing)
kill imulator (using PsKill by name)
You can find details about start, PsKill and other commands at this site.
Hope that helps a bit.
*Jost
...added later...
Another option would be to do regular checks in the background if a process (App_B) is running and continue (with stopping App_A) when it is finished. This approach makes sense when App_B is only a launcher for another process (e.g. App_Launched_By_B) and comes back directly.
This can be done with a small loop which might look similar to this one:
start "App_A" /d "C:\Programs\App_A" App_A.exe
ECHO App_A STARTED
start "App_B" /d "C:\Programs\App_B" App_B.exe
ECHO App_B STARTED
ECHO GIVE App_B 30 SECONDS TO LAUNCH App_Launched_By_B
SLEEP 30
:LOOP
PSLIST App_Launched_By_B >nul 2>&1
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 (
GOTO CONTINUE
) ELSE (
ECHO App_Launched_By_B IS STILL RUNNING - PAUSE ANOTHER 5 SECS
SLEEP 5
GOTO LOOP
)
:CONTINUE
PsKill App_A
ECHO App_A STOPPED
This example came originally from another answer and was written by aphoria. I adapted it just a little little bit for this case.
Additional information about PsList and other commands can be found at this site.
I also want to note that I do not really like this approach, because it consumes some cpu without doing much. But it is the only solution from a batch file I can see.