How can I know if a process is running

Question

When I get a reference to a System Diagnostics Process  how can I know if a process is currently running

User · Answer

Process GetProcesses   is the way to go  But you may need to use one or more different criteria to find your process  depending on how it is running  i e  as a service or a normal app  whether or not it has a titlebar

User · Answer

reshefm had a pretty nice answer  however  it does not account for a situation in which the process was never started to begin with   Here is a a modified version of what he posted       public static bool IsRunning this Process process                try   Process GetProcessById process Id            catch  InvalidOperationException    return false            catch  ArgumentException  return false           return true          I removed his ArgumentNullException because its actually suppose to be a null reference exception and it gets thrown by the system anyway and I also accounted for the situation in which the process was never started to begin with or the close   method was used to close the process

User · Answer

Synchronous solution    void DisplayProcessStatus Process process        process Refresh        Important       if process HasExited                Console WriteLine  Exited               else               Console WriteLine  Running                Asynchronous solution   void RegisterProcessExit Process process           NOTE there will be a race condition with the caller here          how to fix it is left as an exercise     process Exited    process Exited     static void process Exited object sender  EventArgs e       Console WriteLine  Process has exited

User · Answer

This is the simplest way I found after using reflector  I created an extension method for that   public static class ProcessExtensions       public static bool IsRunning this Process process                if  process    null               throw new ArgumentNullException  process             try                       Process GetProcessById process Id                     catch  ArgumentException                        return false                    return true            The Process GetProcessById processId  method calls the ProcessManager IsProcessRunning processId  method and throws ArgumentException in case the process does not exist  For some reason the ProcessManager class is internal

User · Answer

This is the simplest way I found after using reflector  I created an extension method for that   public static class ProcessExtensions       public static bool IsRunning this Process process                if  process    null               throw new ArgumentNullException  process             try                       Process GetProcessById process Id                     catch  ArgumentException                        return false                    return true            The Process GetProcessById processId  method calls the ProcessManager IsProcessRunning processId  method and throws ArgumentException in case the process does not exist  For some reason the ProcessManager class is internal

User · Answer

This is a way to do it with the name   Process   pname   Process GetProcessesByName  notepad    if  pname Length    0    MessageBox Show  nothing    else   MessageBox Show  run      You can loop all process to get the ID for later manipulation   Process   processlist   Process GetProcesses    foreach Process theprocess in processlist      Console WriteLine  Process   0  ID   1    theprocess ProcessName  theprocess Id

User · Answer

Process GetProcesses   is the way to go  But you may need to use one or more different criteria to find your process  depending on how it is running  i e  as a service or a normal app  whether or not it has a titlebar

User · Answer

This is a way to do it with the name   Process   pname   Process GetProcessesByName  notepad    if  pname Length    0    MessageBox Show  nothing    else   MessageBox Show  run      You can loop all process to get the ID for later manipulation   Process   processlist   Process GetProcesses    foreach Process theprocess in processlist      Console WriteLine  Process   0  ID   1    theprocess ProcessName  theprocess Id

User · Answer

Despite of supported API from  Net frameworks regarding checking existing process by process ID  those functions are very slow  It costs a huge amount of CPU cycles to run Process GetProcesses   or Process GetProcessById Name     A much quicker method to check a running process by ID is to use native API OpenProcess    If return handle is 0  the process doesn t exist  If handle is different than 0  the process is running  There s no guarantee this method would work 100  at all time due to permission

User · Answer

I tried Coincoin s solution   Before processing some file  I copy it as a temporary file and open it  When I m done  I close the application if it is still open and delete the temporary file   I just use a Process variable and check it afterwards    private Process openApplication    private void btnOpenFile Click object sender  EventArgs e                     copy current file to fileCache                    open fileCache with proper application     openApplication   System Diagnostics Process Start  fileCache          Later I close the application             openApplication Refresh         close application if it is still open        if    openApplication HasExited           openApplication Kill            delete temporary file   System IO File Delete  fileCache      It works   so far

User · Answer

There are many problems associated with this  as other have seemed to partially address    Any instance members are not guaranteed to be thread safe  Meaning there are race conditions that may occur with the lifetime of the snapshot while trying to evaluate the properties of the object  The process handle will throw Win32Exception for ACCESS DENIED where permissions for evaluating this and other such properties aren t allowed  For ISN T RUNNING status  an ArgumentException will also be raised when trying to evaluate some of its properties    Whether the properties others have mentioned are internal or not  you can still obtain information from them via reflection if permission allows   var x   obj GetType   GetProperty  Name   BindingFlags NonPublic   BindingFlags Instance     You could pinvoke Win32 code for Snapshot or you can use WMI which is slower   HANDLE CreateToolhelp32Snapshot    DWORD dwFlags    DWORD th32ProcessID      Another option would be to OpenProcess   CloseProcess  but you will still run into the same issues with exceptions being thrown same as before   For WMI - OnNewEvent Properties          ParentProcessID   ProcessID   ProcessName   SECURITY DESCRIPTOR   SessionID   Sid   TIME CREATED

User · Answer

This is a way to do it with the name   Process   pname   Process GetProcessesByName  notepad    if  pname Length    0    MessageBox Show  nothing    else   MessageBox Show  run      You can loop all process to get the ID for later manipulation   Process   processlist   Process GetProcesses    foreach Process theprocess in processlist      Console WriteLine  Process   0  ID   1    theprocess ProcessName  theprocess Id

User · Answer

Process GetProcesses   is the way to go  But you may need to use one or more different criteria to find your process  depending on how it is running  i e  as a service or a normal app  whether or not it has a titlebar

User · Answer

I tried Coincoin s solution   Before processing some file  I copy it as a temporary file and open it  When I m done  I close the application if it is still open and delete the temporary file   I just use a Process variable and check it afterwards    private Process openApplication    private void btnOpenFile Click object sender  EventArgs e                     copy current file to fileCache                    open fileCache with proper application     openApplication   System Diagnostics Process Start  fileCache          Later I close the application             openApplication Refresh         close application if it is still open        if    openApplication HasExited           openApplication Kill            delete temporary file   System IO File Delete  fileCache      It works   so far

User · Answer

Maybe  probably  I am reading the question wrongly  but are you looking for the HasExited property that will tell you that the process represented by your Process object has exited  either normally or not    If the process you have a reference to has a UI you can use the Responding property to determine if the UI is currently responding to user input or not   You can also set EnableRaisingEvents and handle the Exited event  which is sent asychronously  or call WaitForExit   if you want to block

User · Answer

This is a way to do it with the name   Process   pname   Process GetProcessesByName  notepad    if  pname Length    0    MessageBox Show  nothing    else   MessageBox Show  run      You can loop all process to get the ID for later manipulation   Process   processlist   Process GetProcesses    foreach Process theprocess in processlist      Console WriteLine  Process   0  ID   1    theprocess ProcessName  theprocess Id

User · Answer

string process    quot notepad quot   if  Process GetProcessesByName process  Length  gt  0        MessageBox Show  quot Working quot      else       MessageBox Show  quot Not Working quot       also you can use a timer for checking the process every time

User · Answer

reshefm had a pretty nice answer  however  it does not account for a situation in which the process was never started to begin with   Here is a a modified version of what he posted       public static bool IsRunning this Process process                try   Process GetProcessById process Id            catch  InvalidOperationException    return false            catch  ArgumentException  return false           return true          I removed his ArgumentNullException because its actually suppose to be a null reference exception and it gets thrown by the system anyway and I also accounted for the situation in which the process was never started to begin with or the close   method was used to close the process

User · Answer

Maybe  probably  I am reading the question wrongly  but are you looking for the HasExited property that will tell you that the process represented by your Process object has exited  either normally or not    If the process you have a reference to has a UI you can use the Responding property to determine if the UI is currently responding to user input or not   You can also set EnableRaisingEvents and handle the Exited event  which is sent asychronously  or call WaitForExit   if you want to block

User · Answer

It depends on how reliable you want this function to be   If you want to know if the particular process instance you have is still running and available with 100  accuracy then you are out of luck   The reason being that from the managed process object there are only 2 ways to identify the process   The first is the Process Id   Unfortunately  process ids are not unique and can be recycled   Searching the process list for a matching Id will only tell you that there is a process with the same id running  but it s not necessarily your process   The second item is the Process Handle   It has the same problem though as the Id and it s more awkward to work with   If you re looking for medium level reliability then checking the current process list for a process of the same ID is sufficient

User · Answer

Despite of supported API from  Net frameworks regarding checking existing process by process ID  those functions are very slow  It costs a huge amount of CPU cycles to run Process GetProcesses   or Process GetProcessById Name     A much quicker method to check a running process by ID is to use native API OpenProcess    If return handle is 0  the process doesn t exist  If handle is different than 0  the process is running  There s no guarantee this method would work 100  at all time due to permission

User · Answer

string process    quot notepad quot   if  Process GetProcessesByName process  Length  gt  0        MessageBox Show  quot Working quot      else       MessageBox Show  quot Not Working quot       also you can use a timer for checking the process every time

User · Answer

It depends on how reliable you want this function to be   If you want to know if the particular process instance you have is still running and available with 100  accuracy then you are out of luck   The reason being that from the managed process object there are only 2 ways to identify the process   The first is the Process Id   Unfortunately  process ids are not unique and can be recycled   Searching the process list for a matching Id will only tell you that there is a process with the same id running  but it s not necessarily your process   The second item is the Process Handle   It has the same problem though as the Id and it s more awkward to work with   If you re looking for medium level reliability then checking the current process list for a process of the same ID is sufficient

User · Answer

Maybe  probably  I am reading the question wrongly  but are you looking for the HasExited property that will tell you that the process represented by your Process object has exited  either normally or not    If the process you have a reference to has a UI you can use the Responding property to determine if the UI is currently responding to user input or not   You can also set EnableRaisingEvents and handle the Exited event  which is sent asychronously  or call WaitForExit   if you want to block

User · Answer

Synchronous solution    void DisplayProcessStatus Process process        process Refresh        Important       if process HasExited                Console WriteLine  Exited               else               Console WriteLine  Running                Asynchronous solution   void RegisterProcessExit Process process           NOTE there will be a race condition with the caller here          how to fix it is left as an exercise     process Exited    process Exited     static void process Exited object sender  EventArgs e       Console WriteLine  Process has exited

User · Answer

Process GetProcesses   is the way to go  But you may need to use one or more different criteria to find your process  depending on how it is running  i e  as a service or a normal app  whether or not it has a titlebar

User · Answer

This is the simplest way I found after using reflector  I created an extension method for that   public static class ProcessExtensions       public static bool IsRunning this Process process                if  process    null               throw new ArgumentNullException  process             try                       Process GetProcessById process Id                     catch  ArgumentException                        return false                    return true            The Process GetProcessById processId  method calls the ProcessManager IsProcessRunning processId  method and throws ArgumentException in case the process does not exist  For some reason the ProcessManager class is internal

User · Answer

This should be a one-liner   public static class ProcessHelpers       public static bool IsRunning  string name    gt  Process GetProcessesByName name  Length  gt  0

User · Answer

Synchronous solution    void DisplayProcessStatus Process process        process Refresh        Important       if process HasExited                Console WriteLine  Exited               else               Console WriteLine  Running                Asynchronous solution   void RegisterProcessExit Process process           NOTE there will be a race condition with the caller here          how to fix it is left as an exercise     process Exited    process Exited     static void process Exited object sender  EventArgs e       Console WriteLine  Process has exited

User · Answer

There are many problems associated with this  as other have seemed to partially address    Any instance members are not guaranteed to be thread safe  Meaning there are race conditions that may occur with the lifetime of the snapshot while trying to evaluate the properties of the object  The process handle will throw Win32Exception for ACCESS DENIED where permissions for evaluating this and other such properties aren t allowed  For ISN T RUNNING status  an ArgumentException will also be raised when trying to evaluate some of its properties    Whether the properties others have mentioned are internal or not  you can still obtain information from them via reflection if permission allows   var x   obj GetType   GetProperty  Name   BindingFlags NonPublic   BindingFlags Instance     You could pinvoke Win32 code for Snapshot or you can use WMI which is slower   HANDLE CreateToolhelp32Snapshot    DWORD dwFlags    DWORD th32ProcessID      Another option would be to OpenProcess   CloseProcess  but you will still run into the same issues with exceptions being thrown same as before   For WMI - OnNewEvent Properties          ParentProcessID   ProcessID   ProcessName   SECURITY DESCRIPTOR   SessionID   Sid   TIME CREATED

User · Answer

You can instantiate a Process instance once for the process you want and keep on tracking the process using that  NET Process object  it will keep on tracking till you call Close on that  NET object explicitly  even if the process it was tracking has died  this is to be able to give you time of process close  aka ExitTime etc     Quoting http   msdn microsoft com en-us library fb4aw7b8 aspx      When an associated process exits  that is  when it is shut down by the   operation system through a normal or abnormal termination   the system   stores administrative information about the process and returns to the   component that had called WaitForExit  The Process component can then   access the information  which includes the ExitTime  by using the   Handle to the exited process        Because the associated process has exited  the Handle property of the   component no longer points to an existing process resource  Instead    the handle can be used only to access the operating system   s   information about the process resource  The system is aware of handles   to exited processes that have not been released by Process components    so it keeps the ExitTime and Handle information in memory until the   Process component specifically frees the resources  For this reason    any time you call Start for a Process instance  call Close when the   associated process has terminated and you no longer need any   administrative information about it  Close frees the memory allocated   to the exited process

User · Answer

It depends on how reliable you want this function to be   If you want to know if the particular process instance you have is still running and available with 100  accuracy then you are out of luck   The reason being that from the managed process object there are only 2 ways to identify the process   The first is the Process Id   Unfortunately  process ids are not unique and can be recycled   Searching the process list for a matching Id will only tell you that there is a process with the same id running  but it s not necessarily your process   The second item is the Process Handle   It has the same problem though as the Id and it s more awkward to work with   If you re looking for medium level reliability then checking the current process list for a process of the same ID is sufficient

User · Answer

You can instantiate a Process instance once for the process you want and keep on tracking the process using that  NET Process object  it will keep on tracking till you call Close on that  NET object explicitly  even if the process it was tracking has died  this is to be able to give you time of process close  aka ExitTime etc     Quoting http   msdn microsoft com en-us library fb4aw7b8 aspx      When an associated process exits  that is  when it is shut down by the   operation system through a normal or abnormal termination   the system   stores administrative information about the process and returns to the   component that had called WaitForExit  The Process component can then   access the information  which includes the ExitTime  by using the   Handle to the exited process        Because the associated process has exited  the Handle property of the   component no longer points to an existing process resource  Instead    the handle can be used only to access the operating system   s   information about the process resource  The system is aware of handles   to exited processes that have not been released by Process components    so it keeps the ExitTime and Handle information in memory until the   Process component specifically frees the resources  For this reason    any time you call Start for a Process instance  call Close when the   associated process has terminated and you no longer need any   administrative information about it  Close frees the memory allocated   to the exited process

User · Answer

This is the simplest way I found after using reflector  I created an extension method for that   public static class ProcessExtensions       public static bool IsRunning this Process process                if  process    null               throw new ArgumentNullException  process             try                       Process GetProcessById process Id                     catch  ArgumentException                        return false                    return true            The Process GetProcessById processId  method calls the ProcessManager IsProcessRunning processId  method and throws ArgumentException in case the process does not exist  For some reason the ProcessManager class is internal

User · Answer

Maybe  probably  I am reading the question wrongly  but are you looking for the HasExited property that will tell you that the process represented by your Process object has exited  either normally or not    If the process you have a reference to has a UI you can use the Responding property to determine if the UI is currently responding to user input or not   You can also set EnableRaisingEvents and handle the Exited event  which is sent asychronously  or call WaitForExit   if you want to block

User · Answer

This should be a one-liner   public static class ProcessHelpers       public static bool IsRunning  string name    gt  Process GetProcessesByName name  Length  gt  0

User · Answer

Synchronous solution    void DisplayProcessStatus Process process        process Refresh        Important       if process HasExited                Console WriteLine  Exited               else               Console WriteLine  Running                Asynchronous solution   void RegisterProcessExit Process process           NOTE there will be a race condition with the caller here          how to fix it is left as an exercise     process Exited    process Exited     static void process Exited object sender  EventArgs e       Console WriteLine  Process has exited

User · Answer

It depends on how reliable you want this function to be   If you want to know if the particular process instance you have is still running and available with 100  accuracy then you are out of luck   The reason being that from the managed process object there are only 2 ways to identify the process   The first is the Process Id   Unfortunately  process ids are not unique and can be recycled   Searching the process list for a matching Id will only tell you that there is a process with the same id running  but it s not necessarily your process   The second item is the Process Handle   It has the same problem though as the Id and it s more awkward to work with   If you re looking for medium level reliability then checking the current process list for a process of the same ID is sufficient

[c#] How can I know if a process is running?

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