CrashWerk – when a program just needs to run

CrashWerk grew out of a fairly simple problem: there are applications on a Windows system that are supposed to keep running continuously. And if one of them is closed, crashes, or disappears for some other reason, it should ideally be started again automatically.

That is exactly what CrashWerk is designed to do.

The application works as a watchdog for interactive Windows programs. It is not simply about checking at regular intervals whether a process with a certain name exists somewhere on the system. CrashWerk monitors configured applications more specifically and also takes things like the user account and, for example on a terminal server, the actually active Windows session into account.

For each monitored application, you can define how it should be started. In addition to the application itself, arguments and a working directory can be configured. If additional steps are required before restarting a program, an alternative startup file can also be used. For example, instead of launching the monitored EXE directly, CrashWerk can first run a batch script that performs cleanup tasks and then starts the actual application.

Support for RDS and terminal server environments was particularly important to me. Fixed session IDs are not a reliable solution there, as they may change with every login. CrashWerk therefore assigns a target to a user and only resolves the appropriate interactive session when it is actually needed. An automatic restart only takes place if the session can be identified unambiguously.

CrashWerk consists of a Windows service and a corresponding user interface for configuration and control. The service handles the actual monitoring in the background, while the application is used, among other things, to configure and manage the programs being monitored.

The scope of CrashWerk has deliberately remained fairly focused: it is not intended to be a large monitoring platform or a replacement for full server management. Its purpose is to handle one specific task reliably and make sure that applications which are supposed to be running are actually running.