WshShell.AppActivate doesn't seem to work in simple vbs script - windows

Question

total vbs scripting newb here. I'm trying to automate closing a certain open window, namely a program called HostsMan. This is on Windows 8.1 Pro 64 bit, and this is what my script currently looks like:
Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.AppActivate "HostsMan"
WshShell.SendKeys "%{F4}"
The second line doesn't seem to work. I know line 3 works because it activates the Windows shutdown menu. Is there something I'm missing?
Update/more info: Manually entering alt-F4 does close it, so I know this should work. I also tested this script with other open windows and they close just fine. Additionally, HostsMan is opened with Admin privileges, so I tried running the script as a task set with highest privileges to see if that would do it, and still no go. But that does work with other open windows running with Admin privileges. Frustrating!

Answer 1

I've tried it, too, and couldn't get it to work. There must be something about the window class, perhaps, where AppActivate doesn't see it as a top-level window?
In any event, AppActivate also lets you pass the process ID instead of the window title. When I installed HostsMan, the process name was hm.exe, so I'll use that in my example below.
Set Processes = GetObject("winmgmts:").InstancesOf("Win32_Process")
For Each Process In Processes
If StrComp(Process.Name, "hm.exe", vbTextCompare) = 0 Then
' Activate the window using its process ID...
With CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
.AppActivate Process.ProcessId
.SendKeys "%{F4}"
End With
' We found our process. No more iteration required...
Exit For
End If
Next

Answer 2

Alternative solution using WMIService (no loop through all processes required):
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\CIMV2")
Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("SELECT * from Win32_Process WHERE Name = '" & ProcessName & "'")
If colItems.Count = 0 Then
WScript.Echo "Process not found"
Wscript.Quit
End If
For Each objProcess in colItems
WshShell.AppActivate(objProcess.ProcessId)
Exit For
Next

Answer 3

The key here is to put a small pause after the 'run' command but before the 'appactivate' command so the application shows up in the process list.
WshShell.Run "calc"
WScript.Sleep 100
WshShell.AppActivate "Calculator"

Answer 4

To solve the problem of AppActivate you have to use loop and if condition statement to check if the active windows is the target windows or not because sometime you deselect or the system deselect the target windows before execute the sendkeys directly so you got error.
I create this tight strict way
Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
for i=0 to 300 ' this loop will continue about 30 sec if this not enough increase this number
Rtn=WshShell.AppActivate("HostsMan") ' HostMan have to be the windows title of application or its process ID
If Rtn = True Then
WshShell.SendKeys "%{F4}" ' send key to click ALT+F4 to close
wscript.sleep 100 ' stop execute next line until finish close app
Rtn=WshShell.AppActivate("HostsMan")
If Rtn=False Then ' using nested If to sure of selected windows is false because its close
Exit For ' exit for loop directly and execute what after for next
End If
End If
wscript.sleep 100
Next

Answer 5

Dim sh : Set sh =CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
sh.Exec "calc.exe"
Wscript.Sleep 1000
sh.Exec "taskkill /f /FI ""WINDOWTITLE eq ""calc*"""
OR
sh.Run "taskkill /f /im calc.exe",0,False