Prevent Process from Starting in Windows

[swoop]

I run a Windows business application that I need to have operating 24x7, unless I decide there can be some downtime (and always planned).

However, this program decides to auto-update itself, sometimes seemingly randomly downloading and then shutting itself down and applying updates. Then it loads itself back up again.

I noticed there is an installer application process that gets started by the application.

I know I could probably use an anti-virus program to block the specific process, but that seems like overkill. To have just the anti-virus running for that purpose.

Is there a way with AutoIt to detect when this installer process gets started and block it/terminate it? Is there a way to do it where it won't constantly take up too much resources of the computer's CPU watching for the process?

Any help (or just ideas) on this is greatly appreciated, as the auto-update policy of the application is just "bad news" every time it happens.

[Juvigy]

Yes , you can put a processclose command in a infinite loop.It shouldnt take much PC resources!  Instead cant you just disable autoupdate from the application settings?

[swoop]

Thanks for the the advice. If using processclose on an infinite loop, that loop would need to run a few times every second to prevent the update program from triggering. I noticed once it triggers, it instantly triggers the other program processes to then go into a shutdown.

Thus, is there an easy way to trap the process from running in a similar way that an anti-virus program would?

I wish I could disable auto-update, but the company in their need to keep everyone up-to-date, now forces an auto-update policy.

It's because for years, and even for more than a decade, users won't update because each new update produces double the critical bugs than fixes. Especially when they are adding lots of new functionality, without fixing the core bugs that matter most. So there are many users that refuse to upgrade, and the company is now forcing end-of-life to many old versions, too.

I guess when Microsoft decided to force updates on Windows 10 users and got away with doing it, this company also decided to do it as well. I and many other users wouldn't be as steamed about it, but the company decides when to auto-update when they deem it convenient-- which is randomly, during the most critical times of the day.

[orbs]

block the update by firewall. commonly, when an update process sees that it has no internet connection, it terminates and tries later. you can either block the update on the local firewall, or on your network firewall. you can then allow the update to run at off-hours, maybe for a single test machine and later for all the rest.

[Juvigy]

Cant you just delete the Update.exe file? A lot of programs rely on such files and it is save to delete/rename them and the application is working fine , but never updates.