After start.exe is executed by Python, the output of start.exe is displayed in the python stdout. However 5 seconds later, we do not see Quitting printed and the task is not killed.
Is there an easier way to terminate an exe that was originally started by Python? Like getting a handle for the exe executed and using that handle to kill the process.
import subprocess
import os
import time
subprocess.call(['.\\start.exe'])
time.sleep(5)
print("Quitting")
os.system("taskkill /im start.exe")
As you can see at the subprocess documentation, the call function blocks until the process completes.
I believe that you should use the Popen functions as it doesn't block, and provides you a process handle.
Then, you can kill it like this: p.kill(), where p is the result from the Popen function.
The reason is that subprocess.call will wait for your start.exe to complete before continuing your script.
You can get a popen object (with better functionality) to your process via:
import subprocess
import os
import time
process = subprocess.Popen(['.\\start.exe'])
time.sleep(5)
print("Quitting")
process.terminate()
