Jeremy Neely Text Jeremy

Desktop Apps · Production

AppWatcher

Keeps important tray apps running and alerts when they keep failing.

Built for: Anyone who runs always-on helper apps in the Windows tray

The crash-loop alert that holds focus until someone answers, recreated.
The crash-loop alert that holds focus until someone answers, recreated.

The problem

Small helper apps that run all day in the tray get killed by a Windows update or a one-off crash. Nobody notices until the thing they were meant to catch has already been missed.

What I built

I built a Windows tray app that watches a list of programs and relaunches any that have stopped. If one dies again right after a relaunch, it treats it as a crash loop, plays a sound, and shows an alert that holds focus until someone answers.

How it works

  1. Start at login with a colored tray icon.
  2. Add apps by hand or pick them from what is running.
  3. Choose a mode: at startup, hourly, continuous or every N minutes.
  4. Relaunch any stopped app and show a notification.
  5. Hold a crash-looping app and alert a person instead.

Built with

  • C#
  • .NET 8
  • WPF
  • WMI
  • Windows toast notifications
  • Serilog

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