You make more complexity with this basket idea.Each question each thread of answers is more better to follow.
1-stop instances of an app in PC:
there is many methods as the task managers gives
-DOS method with taskKill (to see help redirected in txt file input in cmd window : taskKill /? >mytk.txt
-Script method with WMI

LOCAL loWMI, lcQuery, loResult, loProcess
loWMI = GetObject("winmgmts://")
lcQuery = "select * from win32_process where name='excel.exe'"   &&here the exe name application to kill
loResult = loWMI.ExecQuery(m.lcQuery)

messagebox(trans(loResult.count))

FOR EACH loProcess IN loResult
	loProcess.Terminate(0)
NEXT

-APIs -SendMessage API+WM_CLOSE
-See these link
http://www.news2news.com/vfp/index.php?example=491
https://www.foxite.com/archives/killprocessprg-0000023241.htm


2-make splash screen to load app
-make an animated gif appearing, playing and make it invisible when load done (or remove control of this image)

3-... these consume a lot of time that why i prefer one question/one thread.