Right now I am using Process.Kill() to kill a process. Is there a way though, instead of just killing it immediately, that I can like send a message to the process instructing it to close so that it can gracefully clean up and shut down. Basically, I'm looking for the equivlent to just clicking the red X in the upper right hand corner, which I believe DOES send a message to the application requesting a shut down.
If the process has a windows interface (as you refer to the red "X"), you can try Process.CloseMainWindow(). If it fails, you can fallback to Process.Kill().
Killing can not be graceful, perhaps you can signal the process to commit suicide.
For signaling you have many options.
SendMessage
NamedPipes
Named Mutex
Sockets
It would depend on the process you're killing. As stated at on the relevant page for Process.Kill, "Kill is the only way to terminate processes that do not have graphical interfaces." If there is a graphical window, then go with the answer by lc above; Process.CloseMainWindow functions as the red X you referred to.
Related
So I have a hidden console application called Hidden.exe running.
Another application Call Killer.exe will find the process Hidden.exe or its PID, and Kills the process.
How do i programmatically capture a kill command or a terminate from Task Manager? A user can browse through the process list and 'End Task' on Hidden.exe and I want to be able to capture this event and do some cleanup before it exits.
How can i do this? I have searched around, and explored alternatives from
.NET console application exit event
Send WM_CLOSE message to a process with no window
Can I send a ctrl-C (SIGINT) to an application on Windows?
etc....
But they all dont work or only work in some cases, my case is for a hidden console application and needs to somehow capture a Kill on it. None of the above solution seem to have a 'correct' solution.
There is no such answer. A kill will always work and will fire no event. This is due to security concern to prevent virus and/or malware code.
I've since found another way.
Is there a way to gracefully end a process without using Process.CloseMainWindow()?
I have a bunch of processes in a list which I want to end. The process should be ended without Process.Kill() to make sure they clean up and end their child processes as well.
I tried CloseMainWindow, but unfortunately it will make my process pop up a messagebox with "Do you really want to end the programm?"[Yes][No] which I want to avoid.
The processes have a message handler for WM_QUERYENDSESSION but when I tried to send a WM_QUERYENDSESSION message to the process, it didn't react on it. It just reacts on WM_QUIT, but the behaviour looks like the one when calling Process.Kill().
I couldn't find a proper solution yet. Hopefully I didn't overlooked things in here...
Sending the WM_CLOSE message is pretty much the same as clicking the close button on a window. Applications will be able to block this request or put up a "Save your changes" confirmation dialog.
Anything beyond this and you risk loosing data. WM_QUIT is not something you should be sending.
WM_QUERYENDSESSION is a query, you would send that first and then WM_ENDSESSION but not all applications will handle these messages.
Win32 does not have a main-window property, it is a .NET concept.
Another thing you should look into is the restart manager feature if you plan on restarting these applications again when you are done with whatever you are doing.
Well after a while I admit that there seems to be no real answer to this explicit problem.
Since I got control of both parts I just removed the "Do you really want to quit?" pop up like IInspectable assumed and send a message via the opened pipe to the child process like Sefe assumed.
Is there any good way to handle a forced exit in C#?
I have a formless C# application that talks to an LCD over serial. Once the application is running, the only way to kill it is with task manager. The trouble with this is that the program needs to turn the LCD off when it is done, and it doesn't look as if my Application.ApplicationExit event is ever fired in this condition.
Any ideas?
Once the application is running, the only way to kill it is with task manager.
My big idea would be to change this.
Stick an icon in the notification area that the user can use to shut your app down properly, or set it up so that running the app again will instead shut down an already-running instance if one exists, or any other way that sounds like a good idea.
Requiring a user to use Task Manager to shut down your application screams poor design.
Write a code in your program loop (with a timer perhaps) to read a file or a registry key. For example if a file at C:\YOURPROGRAM\CLOSEME contains text "closeme", close your program gracefully. Write another program that write that C:\YOURPROGRAM\CLOSEME file. So, whenever you want to shutdown your program, don't use taskmanager, instead, open second program.
Some options:
Write a separate process with a GUI that can start and stop the main process. For example, when you install the Apache web server on Windows the server itself is installed as a service. It can be started and stopped from the system services management panel, but it also comes with a "monitor" process that sits in the notification area, tells you whether Apache is running and lets you start or stop it manually.
If it's acceptable for your use-case, make the application a console application. You can register a handler for when the user presses CTRL+C (see Console.CancelKeyPress) that performs your cleanup before your process exits. This still won't let you handle someone killing the process from Task Manager, but it's very easy to do and might be good enough depending on your situation.
Is there a way to get the window handle (IntPtr) for a window after its launched from a C# app with Process.Start()?
If it's the main window you're after, Process.MainWindowHandle will give you what you need.
Use
process.MainWindowHandle;
It probably is 0 when launching the app, so you might want to loop and sleep until it is filled up.
This is not a recent topic but the answers are incomplete.
I agree with the Process.MainWindowHandle solution and to wait for the value but not with Sleep.
If you have just started a process and want to use its main window handle, consider using the WaitForInputIdle method to allow the process to finish starting, ensuring that the main window handle has been created.
Process.WaitForInputIdle
This overload applies only to processes with a user interface and, therefore, a message loop.
You could also call Refresh() on the process to be sure the info in accurate
I have a windows form application which needs to be the TopMost. I've set my form to be the TopMost and my application works as I'd like it to except for in one case.
There is a 3rd party application (referred to as player.exe) that displays SWF movie files on a portion of the screen that popup on top of my application.
Using Process Monitor I determined that player.exe application calls
flash.exe <PositionX> <PositionY> <Width> <Height> <MovieFile>
in my case:
flash.exe 901 96 379 261 somemovie.swf
Since flash.exe is being spawned in a new process after my form has been set to the TopMost it is appearing on top of my application.
First thing I did was make my application minimize the player.exe main application window hoping that this would prevent the Flash from appearing also. But, unfortunately it doesn't... even with the window minimized whenever the flash movie starts it shows up at the pixel location (901,96). I then tried creating a timer to keep setting the form.TopMost property to true every 10ms. This sort of works but you still see a very quick blip of the swf file.
Is there some type of Windows API call which can be used to temporarily prevent player.exe from spawning child processes which are visible? I admit it sounds a little far fetched. But, curious if anyone else has had a similar problem.
Addendum:
This addendum is to provide a reply to some of the suggestions layed out in Mathew's post below.
For the emergency situation described in the comments, I would look at possible solutions along these lines:
1) How does the third party application normally get started and
stopped? Am I permitted to close it
the same way? If it is a service, the
Service Control Manager can stop it.
If it is a regular application,
sending an escape keystroke (with
SendInput() perhaps) or WM_CLOSE
message to its main window may work.
Easiest way to close the app is to CTRL-ALT-DEL, then kill process. -OR-
The proper way is to Hold ESC while clicking the left mouse button... then input your username and password, navigate some menu's to stop the player.
There is no PAUSE command... believe it or not.
I don't think using WM_CLOSE will help since minimizing the application doesn't. Would that kill the process also? If not, how do you reopen it.
2) If I can't close it nicely, am I permitted to kill it? If so,
TerminateProcess() should work.
I can't kill the process for two reasons. 1) Upon relaunch you need to supply username/password credentials... There may be a way to get around this since it doesn't prompt when the machine is rebooted but... 2) Whenever I kill the process in task manager it doesn't die gracefully and asks if you want to send an error report.
3) If I absolutely have to leave the other process running, I would try
to see if I can programmatically
invoke fast user switching to take me
to a different session (in which there
will be no competing topmost windows).
I don't know where in the API to start
with this one. (Peter Ruderman
suggests SwitchDesktop() for this
purpose in his answer.)
I got really excited by this idea... I found this article on CodeProject which provides a lot of the API Wrapper methods. I stopped implementing it because I think that in order for desktop's to work you must have explorer.exe running (which I do not).
EDIT2: On second thought... maybe explorer.exe isn't needed. I'll give it a try and report back.
Edit3: Was unable to get the code in that article working. Will have to put this on hold for a moment.
Answer Summary
As one might have expected, there is no simple answer to this problem. The best solution would be to problematically switch to a different desktop when you need to guarantee nothing will appear over it. I was unable to find a simple C# implementation of desktop switching that worked and I had a looming doubt that I would just be opening a whole new set of worms once it was implemented. Therefore, I decided not to implement the desktop switching. I did find a C++ Implementation that works well. Please post working C# virtual desktop implementations for others.
Setting the TopMost property (or adding the WS_EX_TOPMOST style to a window) does not make it unique in the system. Any number of topmost windows may be created by any number of applications; the only guarantee is that all topmost windows will be drawn 'above' all non-topmost windows. If there are two or more topmost windows, the Z-order still applies. From your description, I suspect that flash.exe is also creating a topmost window.
Aside from periodically forcing your window to the top of the Z-order, I think there is little you can do. Be warned, however, that this approach is dangerous: if two or more windows are simultaneously trying to force themselves to the top of the Z-order, the result will be a flickering mess that the user will likely have to use the task manager to escape.
I recommend that your program not attempt to meddle with other processes on the computer (unless that is its explicit purpose, e.g. a task manager clone). The computer belongs to the user, and he may not value your program more highly than all others.
Addendum:
For the emergency situation described in the comments, I would look at possible solutions along these lines:
How does the third party application normally get started and stopped? Am I permitted to close it the same way? If it is a service, the Service Control Manager can stop it. If it is a regular application, sending an escape keystroke (with SendInput() perhaps) or WM_CLOSE message to its main window may work.
If I can't close it nicely, am I permitted to kill it? If so, TerminateProcess() should work.
If I absolutely have to leave the other process running, I would try to see if I can programmatically invoke fast user switching to take me to a different session (in which there will be no competing topmost windows). I don't know where in the API to start with this one. (Peter Ruderman suggests SwitchDesktop() for this purpose in his answer.)
You can use the Process class to start flash.exe directly - and use an appropriate ProcessStartInfo settings to show the window in a hidden state - or with a WindowStyle of hidden or minimized.
You could also consider using the SetWindowsHookEx API to intercept the process start API calls, and when the process is flash.exe run some code to restore you window to top-most status.
Matthew's answer is excellent, but I suspect you may be asking the wrong question. Why does your application need to be topmost? If you're trying to create a kiosk or some such, then topmost is not the way to go.
Edit: After reading your response to Matthew's comment, I'd suggest creating a new desktop and switching to it before displaying your alert. (See CreateDesktop and SwitchDesktop in MSDN.)