[Solved] Internet Explorer parent and child processes

[ksmith247]

I have a similar issue to what Aktonius described here...

I have a script that launches IE to a particular portal page. When that page is closed, the script will kill off some other executables that are running and then relaunch the webportal page. All of this works just fine provided that there is only one instance of IE running,

If a user decides to open another IE instance, the original instance becomes the parent process and all other instances become children of the original. If the user then closes the original window, the process is still running (as the parent) even though the visible IE window is closed. (This fails when using ProcessExists to identify the PID of Internet Explorer)

This whole thing baffled me until I watched Process Explorer while running the script. Does anyone have any ideas how to accomplish this?

Edited February 7, 2012 by ksmith247

[ksmith247]

After several hours of beating my head against the wall I found my own answer. I moved from using PIDs and ProcessExists to WinGetHandle and WinExists. This allows for watching the individual instance of IE that the script calls despite the process itself still being active. Maybe this can help someone else.