I am doing work in a lab where I record the time of my experiments and I need to see reminders while I wait for the process to complete. I need to make/find a count up timer application that displays message boxes at given time intervals. I also need it to record start and stop times to a spreadsheet. Researching the problem, I think a simple vbs script would work well. Once I have the script, I know enough to customize to my needs. However, I don't know how to put this together from scratch. Chris Peterson

this might help.. first off, remember that you can *-/+- etc like 5*60 << 5 minutes 5*3600 << 5 hours @echo off cls :sets set /A SleepTime= rem in secounds how long to sleep? set /A TimeToStop= rem how long shal i run be4 killing myself? set /A TotalTime=0 set Fi=C:\TimeToStop.bat set CW=C:\CreateWarning.bat rem added that to make the bat smaller :first if exist %Fi% del %Fi% echo @echo off>>%Fi% echo "C:\Sleep.exe" %TimeToStop%>>%Fi% echo Taskkill /IM Sleep.exe /F>>%Fi% echo Taskkill /IM cmd.exe /F>>%Fi% start %Fi% :begin "C:\Sleep.exe" %SleepTime% set /A TotalTime=%TotalTime%+%SleepTime% title been sleeping for %TotalTime% now :CreateWarninig if exist %CW% del %CW% echo title Warning>>%CW% echo @echo off>>%CW% echo cls>>%CW% echo echo Warning, have been sleeping for %TotalTime% echo echo its %SleepTime% since last time you saw this.>>%CW% echo pause>>%CW% start %CW% goto begin you will be needing this Sleep program tho http://www.computerhope.com/dutil.htm (direct link: http://www.computerhope.com/downloa... and sorry but i don't know VBS scripting but.. no1 else was answering this 1 so.. thought id give it a shot)

It's not what I'd categorize as simple, but this is probably what you're looking for: Option Explicit Dim shell, log, dateTime Dim WMI, opts, PID, proc, ref, e const cmd = "notepad.exe" const startDir = "C:\windows\system32" const logPath = "C:\log.csv" Set shell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") Set WMI = GetObject("winmgmts:root\cimv2") Set dateTime = CreateObject("WbemScripting.SWbemDateTime") Set log = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") _ .OpenTextFile(logPath, 8, True) 'Start watched process 'Reference: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa394375(VS.85).aspx Set opts = WMI.Get("Win32_ProcessStartup").SpawnInstance_ With opts .CreateFlags = &H4000008 'Detached_Process + Create_Default_Error_Mode .PriorityClass = 32 'Normal .ShowWindow = 1 'Normal End With e = WMI.Get("Win32_Process").Create(cmd, startDir, opts, PID) If e <> 0 Then Dim str : str = "ERROR #" & e Select Case e Case 2 str = str & ": Access Denied" Case 3 str = str & ": Insufficient Privllege" Case 8 str = str & ": Unknown Failure" Case 9 str = str & ": Not Found: " & cmd Case 21 str = str & ": Script screwed up" End Select WScript.Echo str WScript.Quit e End If 'Start looking for the death of our process. set ref = WMI.ExecNotificationQuery("SELECT * " _ & "FROM __instancedeletionevent " _ & "WITHIN 5 " _ & "WHERE TargetInstance ISA 'Win32_Process' "_ & "AND TargetInstance.ProcessID = " & PID) 'Make sure the process is still out there. '(If not, we've already failed to catch its end.) 'Note: This is a very ungraceful crash. Expect a cryptic (WMI) error. ' Basically, if you get an error refering to line... 48(-ish?), this failed Set proc = WMI.InstancesOf("Win32_Process")("Win32_Process=""" & PID & """") shell.Popup "Started: " & cmd, 5 '5 second popup 'Yeah... 'When NextEvent times out, it'll raise an Error. We catch it, show a popup, 'unraise the event, and loop. On Error Resume Next Do If Err.Number Then 'Popup for 5 seconds shell.Popup "Still waiting...", 5, "Bored Now" Err.Clear 'Reset Err. End If Set proc = ref.NextEvent(10000) 'Wait period is in milliseconds Loop While Err = &H80043001 'wbemErrTimedOut 'Error handling off. On Error GoTo 0 'Output to .csv 'Note: dateTime's functionallity changes, depending on your version of WinXP. ' If the times are off by a few hours, swap the Trues and Falses. dateTime.Value = proc.TargetInstance.CreationDate log.Write dateTime.GetVarDate(True) & "," dateTime.SetFileTime proc.TIME_CREATED, False log.WriteLine dateTime.GetVarDate(True) WScript.Echo "Done!"

Thank you! I work with these to get them to work for me. chris peterson Chris Peterson