Is there a way to run tasks only if a specific application is running?

[gosukaos]

I need to backup a directory every 30 minutes, but only when a specific application is running. The only time those files are changed is when the application is running.

Is there a way to do this?

[cobian]

Not that I am aware of. But why don't you use a timer *incremental* task? This will have the same effect.

[gosukaos]

I'm currently using incremental. The only thing about this is it creates a new folder everytime the task is run even if there's nothing to backup. Other than that it does it's job.

[cobian]

There is surlely some clever way by using some Pre-Backup event but I'm really out of ideas.

[ira]

You might be able to use get-process in a powershell script to get that information.

[cobian]

Should work, yes.

[flako666]

Simply put, you can use a pre-backup control/script using tasklist or pslist.
Similar to:

for /f "tokens=1,2, 8 delims== " %%A in ('C:\TASKS\PSTools\pslist ') do (
if "%%A" == "MiAPP" (
run Backup

)
)
)