How to use a Sensor to know if VPN is connected?

⚙️Setup | Question

Hi all.

Hopefully a simple one:

I have NordVPN, and it is configured to autostart and connect upon boot. I run a home studio and have a lot of music software that needs to be updated fairly regularly. I've written a .bat file that does this for me, but annoyingly several of the apps fail to update if the VPN is active. Usually, I simply "pause" the VPN until the updates are finished, however... often forget :P.

I want to have a Home Assistant automation that checks if NordVPN is connected, before launching the .bat file.

Currently, I have a Network Sensor for the Nord connection, but this shows that it is "Up" regardless of whether it is active or paused (I assume it's checking if the app is running?). How might I reliably get the actual VPN connection status?

Complementally, I know how to trigger a Powershell (.ps1) script through HASS.agent, but haven't yet tried a .bat. Would I be best to use the Powershell Command (providing path to .bat file), or create a Scheduled Task and call it with the Custom Command?

Thanks for your patience - still learning