How to get the full path of running process

Question

I am having an application that is changing some settings of another application  it is a simple C  application that run by double clicking  no setup required    After changing the settings I need to restart the other application so that it reflects the changed settings  So to do  I have to kill the running process and start the process again  But the problem is after killing I am not able to find the process   Reason is system do not know where the exe file is    Is there any way to find out the path of running process or exe  if it is running  I do not want to give path manually  i e  if it is running get the path  kill the process and start again else      I will handle later

User · Answer

A solution for    Both 32-bit AND 64-bit processes System Diagnostics only  no System Management    I used the solution from Russell Gantman and rewritten it as an extension method you can use like this   var process   Process GetProcessesByName  explorer   First    string path   process GetMainModuleFileName       C  Windows explorer exe   With this implementation   internal static class Extensions        DllImport  Kernel32 dll        private static extern bool QueryFullProcessImageName  In  IntPtr hProcess   In  uint dwFlags   Out  StringBuilder lpExeName   In  Out  ref uint lpdwSize        public static string GetMainModuleFileName this Process process  int buffer   1024            var fileNameBuilder   new StringBuilder buffer           uint bufferLength    uint fileNameBuilder Capacity   1          return QueryFullProcessImageName process Handle  0  fileNameBuilder  ref bufferLength                fileNameBuilder ToString                 null

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Here is a reliable solution that works with both 32bit and 64bit applications  Add these references   using System Diagnostics  using System Management   Add this method to your project  public static string GetProcessPath int processId        string MethodResult    quot  quot       try               string Query    quot SELECT ExecutablePath FROM Win32 Process WHERE ProcessId    quot    processId           using  ManagementObjectSearcher mos   new ManagementObjectSearcher Query                         using  ManagementObjectCollection moc   mos Get                                  string ExecutablePath    from mo in moc Cast lt ManagementObject gt    select mo  quot ExecutablePath quot    First   ToString                     MethodResult   ExecutablePath                                       catch    Exception ex                  ex HandleException              return MethodResult     Now use it like so  int RootProcessId   Process GetCurrentProcess   Id   GetProcessPath RootProcessId    Notice that if you know the id of the process  then this method will return the corresponding ExecutePath  Extra  for those interested  Process GetProcesses        will give you an array of all the currently running processes  and    Process GetCurrentProcess       will give you the current process  along with their information e g  Id  etc  and also limited control e g  Kill  etc

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For others  if you want to find another process of the same executable  you can use   public bool tryFindAnotherInstance out Process process        Process thisProcess   Process GetCurrentProcess        string thisFilename   thisProcess MainModule FileName      int thisPId   thisProcess Id      foreach  Process p in Process GetProcesses                  try                       if  p MainModule FileName    thisFilename  amp  amp  thisPId    p Id                                process   p                  return true                                  catch  Exception                                 process   default      return false

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private void Test Click object sender  System EventArgs e      string path     path   System IO Path GetDirectoryName         System Reflection Assembly GetExecutingAssembly   GetName   CodeBase        Console WriiteLine  path

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Try   using System Diagnostics   ProcessModuleCollection modules   Process GetCurrentProcess   Modules  string processpathfilename  string processmodulename  if  modules Count  gt  0        processpathfilename   modules 0  FileName      processmodulename  modules 0  ModuleName    else       throw new ExecutionEngineException  Something critical occurred with the running process

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The Process class has a member StartInfo that you should check out    http   msdn microsoft com en-us library system diagnostics processstartinfo members v VS 71  aspx

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What you can do is use WMI to get the paths   This will allow you to get the path regardless it s a 32-bit or 64-bit application   Here s an example demonstrating how you can get it      include the namespace using System Management   var wmiQueryString    SELECT ProcessId  ExecutablePath  CommandLine FROM Win32 Process   using  var searcher   new ManagementObjectSearcher wmiQueryString   using  var results   searcher Get          var query   from p in Process GetProcesses                   join mo in results Cast lt ManagementObject gt                    on p Id equals  int  uint mo  ProcessId                   select new                                       Process   p                      Path    string mo  ExecutablePath                        CommandLine    string mo  CommandLine                           foreach  var item in query                   Do what you want with the Process  Path  and CommandLine           Note that you ll have to reference the System Management dll assembly and use the System Management namespace   For more info on what other information you can grab out of these processes such as the command line used to start the program  CommandLine   see the Win32 Process class and WMI  NET for for more information

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I guess you already have the process object of the running process  e g  by GetProcessesByName     You can then get the executable file name by using  Process p  string filename   p MainModule FileName

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You can use pInvoke and a native call such as the following  This doesn t seem to have the 32   64 bit limitation  at least in my testing   Here is the code  using System Runtime InteropServices        DllImport  Kernel32 dll        static extern uint QueryFullProcessImageName IntPtr hProcess  uint flags  StringBuilder text  out uint size          Get the path to a process       proc   the process desired     private string GetPathToApp  Process proc                string pathToExe   string Empty           if  null    proc                        uint nChars   256              StringBuilder Buff   new StringBuilder  int nChars                uint success   QueryFullProcessImageName proc Handle  0  Buff  out nChars                if  0    success                                pathToExe   Buff ToString                              else                               int error   Marshal GetLastWin32Error                    pathToExe     Error       error     when calling GetProcessImageFileName                                     return pathToExe

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By combining Sanjeevakumar Hiremath s and Jeff Mercado s answers you can actually in a way get around the problem when retrieving the icon from a 64-bit process in a 32-bit process   using System  using System Management  using System Diagnostics   namespace ConsoleApplication1       class Program               static void Main string   args                        int processID   6680       Change for the process you would like to use             Process process   Process GetProcessById processID               string path   ProcessExecutablePath process                      static private string ProcessExecutablePath Process process                        try                               return process MainModule FileName                            catch                               string query    SELECT ExecutablePath  ProcessID FROM Win32 Process                   ManagementObjectSearcher searcher   new ManagementObjectSearcher query                    foreach  ManagementObject item in searcher Get                                          object id   item  ProcessID                        object path   item  ExecutablePath                         if  path    null  amp  amp  id ToString      process Id ToString                                                  return path ToString                                                                       return                         This may be a bit slow and doesn t work on every process which lacks a  valid  icon

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I got to this thread while looking for the current directory of an executing process   In  net 1 1 Microsoft introduced   Directory GetCurrentDirectory      Seems to work well  but doesn t return the name of the process itself

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using System  using System Diagnostics   class Program       public static void printAllprocesses                 Process   processlist   Process GetProcesses             foreach  Process process in processlist                        try                               String fileName   process MainModule FileName                  String processName   process ProcessName                   Console WriteLine  processName    0    fileName    1    processName  fileName                catch Exception e                                   You will get access denied exception for system processes  We are skiping the system processes here                                        static void Main                 printAllprocesses

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using System Diagnostics   var process   Process GetCurrentProcess       Or whatever method you are using  string fullPath   process MainModule FileName     fullPath has the path to exe    There is one catch with this API  if you are running this code in 32 bit application  you ll not be able to access 64-bit application paths  so you d have to compile and run you app as 64-bit application  Project Properties   Build   Platform Target   x64

[c#] How to get the full path of running process?

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