It is a given that programs crash or hang from time to time, even well programmed ones. In such situations, users are left with no other option but to restart them to continue working. Generally it’s isn’t a problem when you are sitting in front of the computer, but it could be problematic when the computer is left unattended. Examples would be to leave the computer running for clients to access file from it, to finish a download over night, or to run system management tasks. That’s where automatic process restarter programs come into play. In this post, I have two such free programs for you.
Knas Restarter
Knas Restarter is a program that allows you to monitor and automatically restart an application or process if it is not running or fails to respond.
On start, it will display a list of all running Windows processes. Select a single running process from the list to start monitoring it.
When a process is selected, you can specify the monitoring interval, enable logging to record application crashes, and choose to automatically kill the process if it gets unresponsive to ensure that your selected application or process is always up and running.
Several other options are also on offer that makes the program more versatile. For instance, it is possible to define process startup parameters, change starup mode (normal, minimized, or maximized), play sound notifications, and execute external scripts when a process fails.
Knas Restarter is available both as an installer and as a standalone version, allowing you to carry it in your portable storage device. It’s compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system.
Download: Installer | Portable
If you’re just looking for a simple, single-purpose program that restarts a process on crash or exit without messing with various options, take a look at the next program.
Restart on Crash
Restart on Crash is an easy-to-use monitoring tool that monitors the application you specify and automatically relaunch them when any hangs or crashes. The major advantage of this program when compared to earlier Restarter is that you can monitor any number of application. You can then enable/disable monitoring them individually.
To add an application, click on the Add button at the top. This will open another window from which you can select one of the running application or an executable from the computer’s hard drive.
Two different checks are available for selected application. In the first check, the program assumes an application has crashed or hanged if it does not respond to Windows messages. And the second check assumes that the application has crashed if it is not running. Below these checks is the waiting or “grace” period option. It is used to to specify how long the program has to wait before trying to terminate/restart an application again.
The after a crash settings consist of two parameters. The first kills the application’s process if it is still running, and the second restarts the application that has crashed or frozen. “Execute a command” field is automatically filled in by the program based on process or program selected for monitoring.
Restart on Crash is available only as a portable program, and it’s compatible with all Windows versions.
Download: Restart on Crash