Amazon Dies In Darkness

@PatMyron Hi Pat! I noticed you are here, so I want to say hello to you. I have received quite a few of your recent edits in the review queues. Thanks for your edits. I've approved many of them and not approved others. My recommendation on making edits that require approval: focus on edits that are a sure thing, like content, tag edits, formatting, and spelling corrections. Don't worry about "thanks" or things that don't really affect the quality of the post. Just my thoughts though...

@JourneymanGeek While we're both here, I noticed that the spam is still up, but doesn't seem as bad as a few weeks ago. Did filters improve, or did the spam just decrease?

@JourneymanGeek Yes, I thought there was a way too... but I don't remember how anymore... do you?

Hi everyone. I was invited to this chat room. I'm not sure by whom, or why, but I'm here for a few minutes if someone is trying to ask me a question or needs help on something.

@PeterCordes I think you may have hit the proverbial nail on the head: They gambled on cheap+easy, and lost. I don't think it would have taken a genius or much money to implement a better design that would have saved lives. But at least on the surface, based on the design they implemented, cheap and easy seem to be the priorities and values they chose. So sad. Will a lesson be learnt?

So if you think of any other ideas that don't require VBS, I'm very interested in them too!

comfortable with such a technique.

I do know of another technique that may work. It involves using nircmd (from NirSoft... you're likely familiar with Nir's tools too). IIRC, nircmd can hide windows. I just get a little wary about hiding windows because I don't want something to crash and have dead-end processes running in the background with hidden windows. That's why I really liked your initial recommendation of setting the WindowStyle to Hidden using PowerShell. That's so simple and clear that I feel very

I hesitate to mention the following, as I don't want to sound unappreciative in the least. So please note that this is just technical commentary, and that I am very appreciative of all your help: I'm not excited about having to run VBS code accomplish this. Ironically, I recently saw an article recommending uninstalling VBS from Win11 (I haven't had time to read it yet). But, on the other hand, if it's the best way, then it may be the best way.

You mentioned taking care of others... one thing I'm (still) slowly learning is taking care of myself. To that end, I need to take a break from the computer right now. I sincerely appreciate your help, and I'll carefully be looking at everything you wrote.

In the SU link you provided, the script sends the +{ESC} keys. What function are those keys serving there? Actually... let me ask on that QA, so everyone will benefit from your response.

You are amazing that you are taking care of your daughter and wife. I have a close friend who takes care of his severely autistic son. His wife doesn't have schizophrenia, but he takes care of her too (would likely be easier for him if she had a diagnosis!). I have some insight into the challenges, and I applaud you.

:) Hmmm... interesting. Thank you. Take care of your family. I'm going to post a question now, but please take care of them first!

Thanks. I'll read it now.

No

I appreciate it.

Thanks. No pressure.

...back

Be back in 30 seconds...

Sure... thank you for your help.

batch file's taskbar icon.

Basically, yes. I'm using a batch file to call a GUI app. That GUI app may run for a long time, so I don't want anything extra on the taskbar. When the GUI app is done running, another GUI app needs to run. That second GUI app performs a check; if the check is true, it shows its GUI; if it's false, it terminates. Thus, the user never needs to see the batch file, and an extra taskbar icon is just confusing and an annoyance. This is just one example of where it would be nice to hide the...

take your time, no worries.

yes

Hmmm... I see what you're saying. Why does Minimize work then?

lol... nope

```

```bash

(that's it)... let me see if chat will format it:

Here's a super simple batch file I just wrote while I'm waiting to perform a test:

Okay. Thanks.

Identical

Are you sure when the window is Hidden it isn't showing up in the Windows taskbar?

Same ver output. Hmmm...

Interesting that Hidden works for you. Are you testing on Win 10 or 11?

I chose not to implement the 1st technique, because after reading MS's help documents, I wasn't sure of all the implications (may post a question about that sometime).

Same for me. Are you able to get Hidden ;exit to work to actually hide the window?

No difference adding a caret before the semicolon.

No difference when changing extension.

LOL! Fair enough! I've been experimenting with the 3rd technique, and discovered 2 things: (1) the space after Hidden (etc.) and before the semicolon is required. (2) Hidden doesn't actually hide the window; it only minimizes it. :(

I'll send you a donation so you can buy a few carriage returns and line feeds! ;)

Thanks. Regarding the 3rd technique: If you know a batch file will always successfully terminate on its own, is it fine to just use ... -WindowStyle Hidden at the beginning of the batch file, and never have a ... -WindowStyle Normal anywhere in the batch file?

In the 3rd technique, you have a space between the windows style and the semicolon indicating the end of the command (and before exit). Is this simply stylistic? IOW, is there any downside in writing the code as ... -WindowStyle Hidden; exit?

BTW, I'll likely be marking this as the accepted answer in a few days, but I always want to give others a chance to answer too. I'm human, so if I forget to mark an accepted answer, and you remember, feel free to ping me, and I'll gratefully mark the best answer as accepted.

Glad to hear, and you're most welcome. It's rare to get such an incredibly high quality answer these days. Not only are all the techniques you provided useful, they are all unique, so I can implement them in different situations. Thank you again. I'm now going to research the pros/cons of clicking the checkbox specified in the first technique.

Fantastic answer! Thanks so much. If I'm reading what you wrote correctly, I think you are proposing 3 different techniques. I'll make an edit to make that more apparent. If I'm mistaken, please edit or revert my edit. Thanks again!

I'm not so sure about the quality of this answer. It seems to be largely based on "well, I'm going to assert X doesn't use a lot of water, because Y uses even more water". Anyone who's been paying attention, already knows Y's use of water is a huge problem, so the assertion isn't effective.

Who is to say that the person filing it believed it to be false? A jury.