Trying to close down and re-open Google Chrome - not working

Question

I have a requirement to close down, and re-open Google Chrome in full-screen mode (via Windows Scheduler).

The code I have is in a PowerShell script file (.ps1):

# Close Google Chrome
Get-Process chrome | ForEach-Object { $_.CloseMainWindow() | Out-Null }

# Wait for a few seconds to ensure Chrome is fully closed
Start-Sleep -Seconds 5

# Reopen Google Chrome in full-screen mode
Start-Process "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" -ArgumentList "--start-fullscreen"

It is not closing down Chrome however.

Can you see anything wrong with the code? Or is it possible to add a log to view any errors?

Thanks, Mark

Answer 1

• Your code works in principle, but the .CloseMainWindow() method only requests that a target process' main window close, it doesn't enforce it.

  • Notably, the request will not be honored if:

    • A Chrome window puts up a confirmation dialog before closing.
    • A window has become unresponsive.

  • On the plus side, if the request is honored, you've allowed the processes to shut down gracefully, thereby avoiding potential data loss.

• If you're comfortable with forcefully terminating all Chrome processes - at the risk of potential data loss - you can use Stop-Process instead, as Compo suggests:

  # Forcefully terminates all Chrome processes - RISK OF DATA LOSS
  Stop-Process -Name chrome
  

You can combine the two approaches, if you want to give the Chrome processes a chance to shut down gracefully first, and fall back to forceful termination:

# Try graceful shutdown first.
$null = 
  try { (Get-Process -ErrorAction Ignore chrome).CloseMainWindow() } catch { }

# Sleep a little, to see if the graceful shutdown succeeded.
# Note: You may have to tweak the sleep intervals.
Start-Sleep 1

# If any Chrome processes still exist, terminate them forcefully now.
if ($chromeProcesses = Get-Process -ErrorAction Ignore chrome) {
  # Terminate forcefully, and abort if that fails.
  $chromeProcesses | Stop-Process -ErrorAction Stop
  # Sleep again, to wait for the terminated processes to disappear.
  Start-Sleep 1
}

# Restart Chrome.
# Note that with Start-Process you normally do not need the full path.
Start-Process chrome '--start-fullscreen'

Note the use of member-access enumeration to simplify the code that calls .CloseMainWindow():
(Get-Process -ErrorAction Ignore chrome).CloseMainWindow() automatically calls .CloseMainWindow() on each process object returned by Get-Process; the try / catch enclosure ensures that no error occurs if there happen to be no matching processes, because attempting to call a method on $null would cause an error.