How terminate child processes when parent process terminated in C#

How terminate child processes when parent process terminated in C# - c#

Task: Auto kill all child processes if parent process terminate. Parent procees can be terminated not only in correct way, but also by killing in ProcessExplorer, for example.
How can I do it?
Similar question in С topic advice to use Job objects. How to use it in C# without exporting external DLL?
I tried to use Job Objects. But this code doesn't work properly:
var job = PInvoke.CreateJobObject(null, null);
var jobli = new PInvoke.JOBOBJECT_BASIC_LIMIT_INFORMATION();
jobli.LimitFlags = PInvoke.LimitFlags.JOB_OBJECT_LIMIT_KILL_ON_JOB_CLOSE
| PInvoke.LimitFlags.JOB_OBJECT_LIMIT_PRIORITY_CLASS
| PInvoke.LimitFlags.JOB_OBJECT_LIMIT_JOB_TIME
| PInvoke.LimitFlags.JOB_OBJECT_LIMIT_DIE_ON_UNHANDLED_EXCEPTION
| PInvoke.LimitFlags.JOB_OBJECT_LIMIT_JOB_MEMORY;
var res = PInvoke.SetInformationJobObject(job, PInvoke.JOBOBJECTINFOCLASS.JobObjectBasicLimitInformation, jobli, 48);
if (!res)
{
int b = PInvoke.GetLastError();
Console.WriteLine("Error " + b);
}
var Prc = Process.Start(...);
PInvoke.AssignProcessToJobObject(job, Prc.Handle);
PInvoke.SetInformationJobObject returns with error. GetLastError returns error 24.
However, PInvoke.AssignProcessToJobObject works and child process added to Job Queue (I can see it in ProcessExplorer). But, because PInvoke.SetInformationJobObject don't work - spawned process stay alive when I kill parent one.
What do I have incorrect in this code?

To kill a process tree on windows, given only the parent process or process id, you'll need to walk the process tree.
For that, you'll need a way to get the parent process id for a given process.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Management;
namespace KillProcessTree
{
public static class MyExtensions
{
public static int GetParentProcessId(this Process p)
{
int parentId = 0;
try
{
ManagementObject mo = new ManagementObject("win32_process.handle='" + p.Id + "'");
mo.Get();
parentId = Convert.ToInt32(mo["ParentProcessId"]);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Console.WriteLine(ex.ToString());
parentId = 0;
}
return parentId;
}
}
Once you have that, actually killing the tree is not hard.
class Program
{
/// <summary>
/// Kill specified process and all child processes
/// </summary>
static void Main(string[] args)
{
if (args.Length < 1)
{
Console.WriteLine("Usage: KillProcessTree <pid>");
return;
}
int pid = int.Parse(args[0]);
Process root = Process.GetProcessById(pid);
if (root != null)
{
Console.WriteLine("KillProcessTree " + pid);
var list = new List<Process>();
GetProcessAndChildren(Process.GetProcesses(), root, list, 1);
// kill each process
foreach (Process p in list)
{
try
{
p.Kill();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Console.WriteLine(ex.ToString());
}
}
}
else
{
Console.WriteLine("Unknown process id: " + root);
}
}
/// <summary>
/// Get process and children
/// We use postorder (bottom up) traversal; good as any when you kill a process tree </summary>
/// </summary>
/// <param name="plist">Array of all processes</param>
/// <param name="parent">Parent process</param>
/// <param name="output">Output list</param>
/// <param name="indent">Indent level</param>
private static void GetProcessAndChildren(Process[] plist, Process parent, List<Process> output, int indent)
{
foreach (Process p in plist)
{
if (p.GetParentProcessId() == parent.Id)
{
GetProcessAndChildren(plist, p, output, indent + 1);
}
}
output.Add(parent);
Console.WriteLine(String.Format("{0," + indent*4 + "} {1}", parent.Id, parent.MainModule.ModuleName));
}
}
} // namespace

I tried the code above and indeed, it does not work, complaining of a bad size. The reason for this is that the structure used changes size depending on the host platform; the original code fragment (seen on a dozen websites) assumes a 32 bit application.
Switch the structure to this (note the IntPtr resizing members) and it will work. At least it did for me.
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
struct JOBOBJECT_BASIC_LIMIT_INFORMATION
{
public Int64 PerProcessUserTimeLimit;
public Int64 PerJobUserTimeLimit;
public Int16 LimitFlags;
public UIntPtr MinimumWorkingSetSize;
public UIntPtr MaximumWorkingSetSize;
public Int16 ActiveProcessLimit;
public Int64 Affinity;
public Int16 PriorityClass;
public Int16 SchedulingClass;
}

You can pass ProcessID of the parent process as an argument to the child process. And then child processes will be responsible for checking from time to time whether the parent process still running. (By calling Process.GetProcessById.)
Another way to track existence of the parent process is to use Mutex synchronization primitive.
Parent application will initially create a global mutex with the name known by children. Children can check from time to time whether the mutex still exists and terminate if not. (Once the parent process is closed the mutex will be destroyed by the system automatically, regardless of the way it way closed.)

Did you pay attention to the error code? Error 24 is ERROR_BAD_LENGTH, which probably means that 48 isn't the right length of the structure. I think it's 44, but you should do a sizeof to be sure.

Windows does not force child processes to close when a parent process closes. When you select "Kill Tree" in a tool like Task Manager or Process explorer, the tool actually finds all child processes and kill them one by one.
If you want to ensure that child processes are cleaned when your application terminates, you can create a ProcessManager class that implements IDisposable that actually creates the processes, keeps track of their instances and calls Kill on each one of them on Dispose, e.g.
public class ProcessManager:IDisposable
{
List<Process> processes=new List<Process>();
public Process Start(ProcessStartInfo info)
{
var newProcess = Process.Start(info);
newProcess.EnableRaisingEvents = true
processes.Add(newProcess);
newProcess.Exited += (sender, e) => processes.Remove(newProcess);
return newProcess;
}
~ProcessManager()
{
Dispose(false);
}
public void Dispose()
{
Dispose(true);
GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
}
protected virtual void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
foreach (var process in processes)
{
try
{
if (!process.HasExited)
process.Kill();
}
catch{}
}
}
}

Related

Is it possible to start background processes with Process.Start? [duplicate]

I'm creating new processes using System.Diagnostics.Process class from my application. I want this processes to be killed when/if my application has crashed. But if I kill my application from Task Manager, child processes are not killed. Is there any way to make child processes dependent on parent process?

From this forum, credit to 'Josh'.
Application.Quit() and Process.Kill() are possible solutions, but have proven to be unreliable. When your main application dies, you are still left with child processes running. What we really want is for the child processes to die as soon as the main process dies.
The solution is to use "job objects" http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms682409(VS.85).aspx.
The idea is to create a "job object" for your main application, and register your child processes with the job object. If the main process dies, the OS will take care of terminating the child processes.
public enum JobObjectInfoType
{
AssociateCompletionPortInformation = 7,
BasicLimitInformation = 2,
BasicUIRestrictions = 4,
EndOfJobTimeInformation = 6,
ExtendedLimitInformation = 9,
SecurityLimitInformation = 5,
GroupInformation = 11
}
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
public struct SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES
{
public int nLength;
public IntPtr lpSecurityDescriptor;
public int bInheritHandle;
}
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
struct JOBOBJECT_BASIC_LIMIT_INFORMATION
{
public Int64 PerProcessUserTimeLimit;
public Int64 PerJobUserTimeLimit;
public Int16 LimitFlags;
public UInt32 MinimumWorkingSetSize;
public UInt32 MaximumWorkingSetSize;
public Int16 ActiveProcessLimit;
public Int64 Affinity;
public Int16 PriorityClass;
public Int16 SchedulingClass;
}
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
struct IO_COUNTERS
{
public UInt64 ReadOperationCount;
public UInt64 WriteOperationCount;
public UInt64 OtherOperationCount;
public UInt64 ReadTransferCount;
public UInt64 WriteTransferCount;
public UInt64 OtherTransferCount;
}
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
struct JOBOBJECT_EXTENDED_LIMIT_INFORMATION
{
public JOBOBJECT_BASIC_LIMIT_INFORMATION BasicLimitInformation;
public IO_COUNTERS IoInfo;
public UInt32 ProcessMemoryLimit;
public UInt32 JobMemoryLimit;
public UInt32 PeakProcessMemoryUsed;
public UInt32 PeakJobMemoryUsed;
}
public class Job : IDisposable
{
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
static extern IntPtr CreateJobObject(object a, string lpName);
[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
static extern bool SetInformationJobObject(IntPtr hJob, JobObjectInfoType infoType, IntPtr lpJobObjectInfo, uint cbJobObjectInfoLength);
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
static extern bool AssignProcessToJobObject(IntPtr job, IntPtr process);
private IntPtr m_handle;
private bool m_disposed = false;
public Job()
{
m_handle = CreateJobObject(null, null);
JOBOBJECT_BASIC_LIMIT_INFORMATION info = new JOBOBJECT_BASIC_LIMIT_INFORMATION();
info.LimitFlags = 0x2000;
JOBOBJECT_EXTENDED_LIMIT_INFORMATION extendedInfo = new JOBOBJECT_EXTENDED_LIMIT_INFORMATION();
extendedInfo.BasicLimitInformation = info;
int length = Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(JOBOBJECT_EXTENDED_LIMIT_INFORMATION));
IntPtr extendedInfoPtr = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(length);
Marshal.StructureToPtr(extendedInfo, extendedInfoPtr, false);
if (!SetInformationJobObject(m_handle, JobObjectInfoType.ExtendedLimitInformation, extendedInfoPtr, (uint)length))
throw new Exception(string.Format("Unable to set information. Error: {0}", Marshal.GetLastWin32Error()));
}
#region IDisposable Members
public void Dispose()
{
Dispose(true);
GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
}
#endregion
private void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
if (m_disposed)
return;
if (disposing) {}
Close();
m_disposed = true;
}
public void Close()
{
Win32.CloseHandle(m_handle);
m_handle = IntPtr.Zero;
}
public bool AddProcess(IntPtr handle)
{
return AssignProcessToJobObject(m_handle, handle);
}
}
Looking at the constructor ...
JOBOBJECT_BASIC_LIMIT_INFORMATION info = new JOBOBJECT_BASIC_LIMIT_INFORMATION();
info.LimitFlags = 0x2000;
The key here is to setup the job object properly. In the constructor I'm setting the "limits" to 0x2000, which is the numeric value for JOB_OBJECT_LIMIT_KILL_ON_JOB_CLOSE.
MSDN defines this flag as:
Causes all processes associated with
the job to terminate when the last
handle to the job is closed.
Once this class is setup...you just have to register each child process with the job. For example:
[DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
public static extern uint GetWindowThreadProcessId(IntPtr hWnd, out uint lpdwProcessId);
Excel.Application app = new Excel.ApplicationClass();
uint pid = 0;
Win32.GetWindowThreadProcessId(new IntPtr(app.Hwnd), out pid);
job.AddProcess(Process.GetProcessById((int)pid).Handle);

This answer started with #Matt Howells' excellent answer plus others (see links in the code below). Improvements:
Supports 32-bit and 64-bit.
Fixes some problems in #Matt Howells' answer:
The small memory leak of extendedInfoPtr
The 'Win32' compile error, and
A stack-unbalanced exception I got in the call to CreateJobObject (using Windows 10, Visual Studio 2015, 32-bit).
Names the Job, so if you use SysInternals, for example, you can easily find it.
Has a somewhat simpler API and less code.
Here's how to use this code:
// Get a Process object somehow.
Process process = Process.Start(exePath, args);
// Add the Process to ChildProcessTracker.
ChildProcessTracker.AddProcess(process);
To support Windows 7 requires:
A simple app.manifest change as #adam smith describes.
Registry settings to be added if you are using Visual Studio.
In my case, I didn't need to support Windows 7, so I have a simple check at the
top of the static constructor below.
/// <summary>
/// Allows processes to be automatically killed if this parent process unexpectedly quits.
/// This feature requires Windows 8 or greater. On Windows 7, nothing is done.</summary>
/// <remarks>References:
/// https://stackoverflow.com/a/4657392/386091
/// https://stackoverflow.com/a/9164742/386091 </remarks>
public static class ChildProcessTracker
{
/// <summary>
/// Add the process to be tracked. If our current process is killed, the child processes
/// that we are tracking will be automatically killed, too. If the child process terminates
/// first, that's fine, too.</summary>
/// <param name="process"></param>
public static void AddProcess(Process process)
{
if (s_jobHandle != IntPtr.Zero)
{
bool success = AssignProcessToJobObject(s_jobHandle, process.Handle);
if (!success && !process.HasExited)
throw new Win32Exception();
}
}
static ChildProcessTracker()
{
// This feature requires Windows 8 or later. To support Windows 7 requires
// registry settings to be added if you are using Visual Studio plus an
// app.manifest change.
// https://stackoverflow.com/a/4232259/386091
// https://stackoverflow.com/a/9507862/386091
if (Environment.OSVersion.Version < new Version(6, 2))
return;
// The job name is optional (and can be null) but it helps with diagnostics.
// If it's not null, it has to be unique. Use SysInternals' Handle command-line
// utility: handle -a ChildProcessTracker
string jobName = "ChildProcessTracker" + Process.GetCurrentProcess().Id;
s_jobHandle = CreateJobObject(IntPtr.Zero, jobName);
var info = new JOBOBJECT_BASIC_LIMIT_INFORMATION();
// This is the key flag. When our process is killed, Windows will automatically
// close the job handle, and when that happens, we want the child processes to
// be killed, too.
info.LimitFlags = JOBOBJECTLIMIT.JOB_OBJECT_LIMIT_KILL_ON_JOB_CLOSE;
var extendedInfo = new JOBOBJECT_EXTENDED_LIMIT_INFORMATION();
extendedInfo.BasicLimitInformation = info;
int length = Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(JOBOBJECT_EXTENDED_LIMIT_INFORMATION));
IntPtr extendedInfoPtr = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(length);
try
{
Marshal.StructureToPtr(extendedInfo, extendedInfoPtr, false);
if (!SetInformationJobObject(s_jobHandle, JobObjectInfoType.ExtendedLimitInformation,
extendedInfoPtr, (uint)length))
{
throw new Win32Exception();
}
}
finally
{
Marshal.FreeHGlobal(extendedInfoPtr);
}
}
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
static extern IntPtr CreateJobObject(IntPtr lpJobAttributes, string name);
[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
static extern bool SetInformationJobObject(IntPtr job, JobObjectInfoType infoType,
IntPtr lpJobObjectInfo, uint cbJobObjectInfoLength);
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
static extern bool AssignProcessToJobObject(IntPtr job, IntPtr process);
// Windows will automatically close any open job handles when our process terminates.
// This can be verified by using SysInternals' Handle utility. When the job handle
// is closed, the child processes will be killed.
private static readonly IntPtr s_jobHandle;
}
public enum JobObjectInfoType
{
AssociateCompletionPortInformation = 7,
BasicLimitInformation = 2,
BasicUIRestrictions = 4,
EndOfJobTimeInformation = 6,
ExtendedLimitInformation = 9,
SecurityLimitInformation = 5,
GroupInformation = 11
}
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
public struct JOBOBJECT_BASIC_LIMIT_INFORMATION
{
public Int64 PerProcessUserTimeLimit;
public Int64 PerJobUserTimeLimit;
public JOBOBJECTLIMIT LimitFlags;
public UIntPtr MinimumWorkingSetSize;
public UIntPtr MaximumWorkingSetSize;
public UInt32 ActiveProcessLimit;
public Int64 Affinity;
public UInt32 PriorityClass;
public UInt32 SchedulingClass;
}
[Flags]
public enum JOBOBJECTLIMIT : uint
{
JOB_OBJECT_LIMIT_KILL_ON_JOB_CLOSE = 0x2000
}
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
public struct IO_COUNTERS
{
public UInt64 ReadOperationCount;
public UInt64 WriteOperationCount;
public UInt64 OtherOperationCount;
public UInt64 ReadTransferCount;
public UInt64 WriteTransferCount;
public UInt64 OtherTransferCount;
}
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
public struct JOBOBJECT_EXTENDED_LIMIT_INFORMATION
{
public JOBOBJECT_BASIC_LIMIT_INFORMATION BasicLimitInformation;
public IO_COUNTERS IoInfo;
public UIntPtr ProcessMemoryLimit;
public UIntPtr JobMemoryLimit;
public UIntPtr PeakProcessMemoryUsed;
public UIntPtr PeakJobMemoryUsed;
}
I carefully tested both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the structs by programmatically comparing the managed and native versions to each other (the overall size as well as the offsets for each member).
I've tested this code on Windows 7, 8, and 10.

This post is intended as an extension to #Matt Howells' answer, specifically for those who run into problems with using Job Objects under Vista or Win7, especially if you get an access denied error ('5') when calling AssignProcessToJobObject.
tl;dr
To ensure compatibility with Vista and Win7, add the following manifest to the .NET parent process:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
<v3:trustInfo xmlns:v3="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
<v3:security>
<v3:requestedPrivileges>
<v3:requestedExecutionLevel level="asInvoker" uiAccess="false" />
</v3:requestedPrivileges>
</v3:security>
</v3:trustInfo>
<compatibility xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:compatibility.v1">
<!-- We specify these, in addition to the UAC above, so we avoid Program Compatibility Assistant in Vista and Win7 -->
<!-- We try to avoid PCA so we can use Windows Job Objects -->
<!-- See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3342941/kill-child-process-when-parent-process-is-killed -->
<application>
<!--The ID below indicates application support for Windows Vista -->
<supportedOS Id="{e2011457-1546-43c5-a5fe-008deee3d3f0}"/>
<!--The ID below indicates application support for Windows 7 -->
<supportedOS Id="{35138b9a-5d96-4fbd-8e2d-a2440225f93a}"/>
</application>
</compatibility>
</assembly>
Note that when you add new manifest in Visual Studio 2012 it will contain the above snippet already so you do not need to copy it from hear. It will also include a node for Windows 8.
full explanation
Your job association will fail with an access denied error if the process you're starting is already associated with another job. Enter Program Compatibility Assistant, which, starting in Windows Vista, will assign all kinds of processes to its own jobs.
In Vista you can mark your application to be excluded from PCA by simply including an application manifest. Visual Studio seems to do this for .NET apps automatically, so you're fine there.
A simple manifest no longer cuts it in Win7. [1] There, you have to specifically specify that you're compatible with Win7 with the tag in your manifest. [2]
This led me to worry about Windows 8. Will I have to change my manifest once again? Apparently there's a break in the clouds, as Windows 8 now allows a process to belong to multiple jobs. [3] So I haven't tested it yet, but I imagine that this madness will be over now if you simply include a manifest with the supportedOS information.
Tip 1: If you're developing a .NET app with Visual Studio, as I was, here [4] are some nice instructions on how to customize your application manifest.
Tip 2: Be careful with launching your application from Visual Studio. I found that, after adding the appropriate manifest, I still had problems with PCA when launching from Visual Studio, even if I used Start without Debugging. Launching my application from Explorer worked, however. After manually adding devenv for exclusion from PCA using the registry, starting applications that used Job Objects from VS started working as well. [5]
Tip 3: If you ever want to know if PCA is your problem, try launching your application from the command line, or copy the program to a network drive and run it from there. PCA is automatically disabled in those contexts.
[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cjacks/archive/2009/06/18/pca-changes-for-windows-7-how-to-tell-us-you-are-not-an-installer-take-2-because-we-changed-the-rules-on-you.aspx
[2] http://ayende.com/blog/4360/how-to-opt-out-of-program-compatibility-assistant
[3] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms681949(v=vs.85).aspx:
"A process can be associated with more than one job in Windows 8"
[4] How can I embed an application manifest into an application using VS2008?
[5] How to stop the Visual Studio debugger starting my process in a job object?

Here's an alternative that may work for some when you have control of the code the child process runs. The benefit of this approach is it doesn't require any native Windows calls.
The basic idea is to redirect the child's standard input to a stream whose other end is connected to the parent, and use that stream to detect when the parent has gone away. When you use System.Diagnostics.Process to start the child, it's easy to ensure its standard input is redirected:
Process childProcess = new Process();
childProcess.StartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo("pathToConsoleModeApp.exe");
childProcess.StartInfo.RedirectStandardInput = true;
childProcess.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true; // no sense showing an empty black console window which the user can't input into
And then, on the child process, take advantage of the fact that Reads from the standard input stream will always return with at least 1 byte until the stream is closed, when they will start returning 0 bytes. An outline of the way I ended up doing this is below; my way also uses a message pump to keep the main thread available for things other than watching standard in, but this general approach could be used without message pumps too.
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Threading;
using System.Windows.Forms;
static int Main()
{
Application.Run(new MyApplicationContext());
return 0;
}
public class MyApplicationContext : ApplicationContext
{
private SynchronizationContext _mainThreadMessageQueue = null;
private Stream _stdInput;
public MyApplicationContext()
{
_stdInput = Console.OpenStandardInput();
// feel free to use a better way to post to the message loop from here if you know one ;)
System.Windows.Forms.Timer handoffToMessageLoopTimer = new System.Windows.Forms.Timer();
handoffToMessageLoopTimer.Interval = 1;
handoffToMessageLoopTimer.Tick += new EventHandler((obj, eArgs) => { PostMessageLoopInitialization(handoffToMessageLoopTimer); });
handoffToMessageLoopTimer.Start();
}
private void PostMessageLoopInitialization(System.Windows.Forms.Timer t)
{
if (_mainThreadMessageQueue == null)
{
t.Stop();
_mainThreadMessageQueue = SynchronizationContext.Current;
}
// constantly monitor standard input on a background thread that will
// signal the main thread when stuff happens.
BeginMonitoringStdIn(null);
// start up your application's real work here
}
private void BeginMonitoringStdIn(object state)
{
if (SynchronizationContext.Current == _mainThreadMessageQueue)
{
// we're already running on the main thread - proceed.
var buffer = new byte[128];
_stdInput.BeginRead(buffer, 0, buffer.Length, (asyncResult) =>
{
int amtRead = _stdInput.EndRead(asyncResult);
if (amtRead == 0)
{
_mainThreadMessageQueue.Post(new SendOrPostCallback(ApplicationTeardown), null);
}
else
{
BeginMonitoringStdIn(null);
}
}, null);
}
else
{
// not invoked from the main thread - dispatch another call to this method on the main thread and return
_mainThreadMessageQueue.Post(new SendOrPostCallback(BeginMonitoringStdIn), null);
}
}
private void ApplicationTeardown(object state)
{
// tear down your application gracefully here
_stdInput.Close();
this.ExitThread();
}
}
Caveats to this approach:
the actual child .exe that is launched must be a console application so it remains attached to stdin/out/err. As in the above example, I easily adapted my existing application that used a message pump (but didn't show a GUI) by just creating a tiny console project that referenced the existing project, instantiating my application context and calling Application.Run() inside the Main method of the console .exe.
Technically, this merely signals the child process when the parent exits, so it will work whether the parent process exited normally or crashed, but its still up to the child processes to perform its own shutdown. This may or may not be what you want...

There is another relevant method, easy and effective, to finish child processes on program termination. You can implement and attach a debugger to them from the parent; when the parent process ends, child processes will be killed by the OS. It can go both ways attaching a debugger to the parent from the child (note that you can only attach one debugger at a time). You can find more info on the subject here.
Here you have an utility class that launches a new process and attaches a debugger to it. It has been adapted from this post by Roger Knapp. The only requirement is that both processes need to share the same bitness. You cannot debug a 32bit process from a 64bit process or vice versa.
public class ProcessRunner
{
// see http://csharptest.net/1051/managed-anti-debugging-how-to-prevent-users-from-attaching-a-debugger/
// see https://stackoverflow.com/a/24012744/2982757
public Process ChildProcess { get; set; }
public bool StartProcess(string fileName)
{
var processStartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo(fileName)
{
UseShellExecute = false,
WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Normal,
ErrorDialog = false
};
this.ChildProcess = Process.Start(processStartInfo);
if (ChildProcess == null)
return false;
new Thread(NullDebugger) {IsBackground = true}.Start(ChildProcess.Id);
return true;
}
private void NullDebugger(object arg)
{
// Attach to the process we provided the thread as an argument
if (DebugActiveProcess((int) arg))
{
var debugEvent = new DEBUG_EVENT {bytes = new byte[1024]};
while (!this.ChildProcess.HasExited)
{
if (WaitForDebugEvent(out debugEvent, 1000))
{
// return DBG_CONTINUE for all events but the exception type
var continueFlag = DBG_CONTINUE;
if (debugEvent.dwDebugEventCode == DebugEventType.EXCEPTION_DEBUG_EVENT)
continueFlag = DBG_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED;
ContinueDebugEvent(debugEvent.dwProcessId, debugEvent.dwThreadId, continueFlag);
}
}
}
else
{
//we were not able to attach the debugger
//do the processes have the same bitness?
//throw ApplicationException("Unable to attach debugger") // Kill child? // Send Event? // Ignore?
}
}
#region "API imports"
private const int DBG_CONTINUE = 0x00010002;
private const int DBG_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED = unchecked((int) 0x80010001);
private enum DebugEventType : int
{
CREATE_PROCESS_DEBUG_EVENT = 3,
//Reports a create-process debugging event. The value of u.CreateProcessInfo specifies a CREATE_PROCESS_DEBUG_INFO structure.
CREATE_THREAD_DEBUG_EVENT = 2,
//Reports a create-thread debugging event. The value of u.CreateThread specifies a CREATE_THREAD_DEBUG_INFO structure.
EXCEPTION_DEBUG_EVENT = 1,
//Reports an exception debugging event. The value of u.Exception specifies an EXCEPTION_DEBUG_INFO structure.
EXIT_PROCESS_DEBUG_EVENT = 5,
//Reports an exit-process debugging event. The value of u.ExitProcess specifies an EXIT_PROCESS_DEBUG_INFO structure.
EXIT_THREAD_DEBUG_EVENT = 4,
//Reports an exit-thread debugging event. The value of u.ExitThread specifies an EXIT_THREAD_DEBUG_INFO structure.
LOAD_DLL_DEBUG_EVENT = 6,
//Reports a load-dynamic-link-library (DLL) debugging event. The value of u.LoadDll specifies a LOAD_DLL_DEBUG_INFO structure.
OUTPUT_DEBUG_STRING_EVENT = 8,
//Reports an output-debugging-string debugging event. The value of u.DebugString specifies an OUTPUT_DEBUG_STRING_INFO structure.
RIP_EVENT = 9,
//Reports a RIP-debugging event (system debugging error). The value of u.RipInfo specifies a RIP_INFO structure.
UNLOAD_DLL_DEBUG_EVENT = 7,
//Reports an unload-DLL debugging event. The value of u.UnloadDll specifies an UNLOAD_DLL_DEBUG_INFO structure.
}
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
private struct DEBUG_EVENT
{
[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.I4)] public DebugEventType dwDebugEventCode;
public int dwProcessId;
public int dwThreadId;
[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.ByValArray, SizeConst = 1024)] public byte[] bytes;
}
[DllImport("Kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
private static extern bool DebugActiveProcess(int dwProcessId);
[DllImport("Kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
private static extern bool WaitForDebugEvent([Out] out DEBUG_EVENT lpDebugEvent, int dwMilliseconds);
[DllImport("Kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
private static extern bool ContinueDebugEvent(int dwProcessId, int dwThreadId, int dwContinueStatus);
[DllImport("Kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
public static extern bool IsDebuggerPresent();
#endregion
}
Usage:
new ProcessRunner().StartProcess("c:\\Windows\\system32\\calc.exe");

One way is to pass PID of parent process to the child. The child will periodically poll if the process with the specified pid exists or not. If not it will just quit.
You can also use Process.WaitForExit method in child method to be notified when the parent process ends but it might not work in case of Task Manager.

I was looking for a solution to this problem that did not require unmanaged code. I was also not able to use standard input/output redirection because it was a Windows Forms application.
My solution was to create a named pipe in the parent process and then connect the child process to the same pipe. If the parent process exits then the pipe becomes broken and the child can detect this.
Below is an example using two console applications:
Parent
private const string PipeName = "471450d6-70db-49dc-94af-09d3f3eba529";
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine("Main program running");
using (NamedPipeServerStream pipe = new NamedPipeServerStream(PipeName, PipeDirection.Out))
{
Process.Start("child.exe");
Console.WriteLine("Press any key to exit");
Console.ReadKey();
}
}
Child
private const string PipeName = "471450d6-70db-49dc-94af-09d3f3eba529"; // same as parent
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine("Child process running");
using (NamedPipeClientStream pipe = new NamedPipeClientStream(".", PipeName, PipeDirection.In))
{
pipe.Connect();
pipe.BeginRead(new byte[1], 0, 1, PipeBrokenCallback, pipe);
Console.WriteLine("Press any key to exit");
Console.ReadKey();
}
}
private static void PipeBrokenCallback(IAsyncResult ar)
{
// the pipe was closed (parent process died), so exit the child process too
try
{
NamedPipeClientStream pipe = (NamedPipeClientStream)ar.AsyncState;
pipe.EndRead(ar);
}
catch (IOException) { }
Environment.Exit(1);
}

Use event handlers to make hooks on a few exit scenarios:
var process = Process.Start("program.exe");
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.DomainUnload += (s, e) => { process.Kill(); process.WaitForExit(); };
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.ProcessExit += (s, e) => { process.Kill(); process.WaitForExit(); };
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.UnhandledException += (s, e) => { process.Kill(); process.WaitForExit(); };

Yet another addition to the abundant richness of solutions proposed so far....
The problem with many of them is that they rely upon the parent and child process to shut down in an orderly manner, which isn't always true when development is underway. I found that my child process was often being orphaned whenever I terminated the parent process in the debugger, which required me to kill the orphaned process(es) with Task Manager in order to rebuild my solution.
The solution: Pass the parent process ID in on the commandline (or even less invasive, in the environment variables) of the child process.
In the parent process, the process ID is available as:
Process.CurrentProcess().Id;
In the child process:
Process parentProcess = Process.GetProcessById(parentProcessId);
parentProcess.Exited += (s, e) =>
{
// clean up what you can.
this.Dispose();
// maybe log an error
....
// And terminate with prejudice!
//(since something has already gone terribly wrong)
Process.GetCurrentProcess().Kill();
};
I am of two minds as to whether this is acceptable practice in production code. On the one hand, this should never happen. But on the other hand, it may mean the difference between restarting a process, and rebooting a production server. And what should never happen often does.
And it sure is useful while debugging orderly shutdown problems.

Solution that worked for me:
When creating process add tag process.EnableRaisingEvents = true;:
csc = new Process();
csc.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
csc.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
csc.StartInfo.FileName = Path.Combine(HLib.path_dataFolder, "csc.exe");
csc.StartInfo.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;
csc.StartInfo.ErrorDialog = false;
csc.StartInfo.RedirectStandardInput = true;
csc.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
csc.EnableRaisingEvents = true;
csc.Start();

I see two options:
If you know exactly what child process could be started and you are sure they are only started from your main process, then you could consider simply searching for them by name and kill them.
Iterate through all processes and kill every process that has your process as a parent (I guess you need to kill the child processes first). Here is explained how you can get the parent process id.

I've made a child process management library where the parent process and the child process are monitored due a bidirectional WCF pipe. If either the child process terminates or the parent process terminates each other is notified.
There is also a debugger helper available which automatically attaches the VS debugger to the started child process
Project site:
http://www.crawler-lib.net/child-processes
NuGet Packages:
https://www.nuget.org/packages/ChildProcesses
https://www.nuget.org/packages/ChildProcesses.VisualStudioDebug/

Just my 2018 version.
Use it aside your Main() method.
using System.Management;
using System.Diagnostics;
...
// Called when the Main Window is closed
protected override void OnClosed(EventArgs EventArgs)
{
string query = "Select * From Win32_Process Where ParentProcessId = " + Process.GetCurrentProcess().Id;
ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(query);
ManagementObjectCollection processList = searcher.Get();
foreach (var obj in processList)
{
object data = obj.Properties["processid"].Value;
if (data != null)
{
// retrieve the process
var childId = Convert.ToInt32(data);
var childProcess = Process.GetProcessById(childId);
// ensure the current process is still live
if (childProcess != null) childProcess.Kill();
}
}
Environment.Exit(0);
}

call job.AddProcess better to do after start of the process:
prc.Start();
job.AddProcess(prc.Handle);
When calling AddProcess before the terminate, child processes are not killed. (Windows 7 SP1)
private void KillProcess(Process proc)
{
var job = new Job();
job.AddProcess(proc.Handle);
job.Close();
}

I had the same problem. I was creating child processes that never got killed if my main app crashed. I had to destroy manually child processes when debugging. I found that there was no need to make the children somewhat depend on parent. In my main, I added a try catch to do a CleanUp() of child processes on exit.
static void Main()
{
Application.EnableVisualStyles();
Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
try
{
Application.Run(new frmMonitorSensors());
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
CleanUp();
ErrorLogging.Add(ex.ToString());
}
}
static private void CleanUp()
{
List<string> processesToKill = new List<string>() { "Process1", "Process2" };
foreach (string toKill in processesToKill)
{
Process[] processes = Process.GetProcessesByName(toKill);
foreach (Process p in processes)
{
p.Kill();
}
}
}

If you can catch situation, when your processes tree should be killed, since .NET 5.0 (.NET Core 3.0) you could use Process.Kill(bool entireProcessTree)

Ensure that the process i opened will close if my application will crash [duplicate]

I'm creating new processes using System.Diagnostics.Process class from my application. I want this processes to be killed when/if my application has crashed. But if I kill my application from Task Manager, child processes are not killed. Is there any way to make child processes dependent on parent process?

From this forum, credit to 'Josh'.
Application.Quit() and Process.Kill() are possible solutions, but have proven to be unreliable. When your main application dies, you are still left with child processes running. What we really want is for the child processes to die as soon as the main process dies.
The solution is to use "job objects" http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms682409(VS.85).aspx.
The idea is to create a "job object" for your main application, and register your child processes with the job object. If the main process dies, the OS will take care of terminating the child processes.
public enum JobObjectInfoType
{
AssociateCompletionPortInformation = 7,
BasicLimitInformation = 2,
BasicUIRestrictions = 4,
EndOfJobTimeInformation = 6,
ExtendedLimitInformation = 9,
SecurityLimitInformation = 5,
GroupInformation = 11
}
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
public struct SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES
{
public int nLength;
public IntPtr lpSecurityDescriptor;
public int bInheritHandle;
}
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
struct JOBOBJECT_BASIC_LIMIT_INFORMATION
{
public Int64 PerProcessUserTimeLimit;
public Int64 PerJobUserTimeLimit;
public Int16 LimitFlags;
public UInt32 MinimumWorkingSetSize;
public UInt32 MaximumWorkingSetSize;
public Int16 ActiveProcessLimit;
public Int64 Affinity;
public Int16 PriorityClass;
public Int16 SchedulingClass;
}
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
struct IO_COUNTERS
{
public UInt64 ReadOperationCount;
public UInt64 WriteOperationCount;
public UInt64 OtherOperationCount;
public UInt64 ReadTransferCount;
public UInt64 WriteTransferCount;
public UInt64 OtherTransferCount;
}
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
struct JOBOBJECT_EXTENDED_LIMIT_INFORMATION
{
public JOBOBJECT_BASIC_LIMIT_INFORMATION BasicLimitInformation;
public IO_COUNTERS IoInfo;
public UInt32 ProcessMemoryLimit;
public UInt32 JobMemoryLimit;
public UInt32 PeakProcessMemoryUsed;
public UInt32 PeakJobMemoryUsed;
}
public class Job : IDisposable
{
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
static extern IntPtr CreateJobObject(object a, string lpName);
[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
static extern bool SetInformationJobObject(IntPtr hJob, JobObjectInfoType infoType, IntPtr lpJobObjectInfo, uint cbJobObjectInfoLength);
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
static extern bool AssignProcessToJobObject(IntPtr job, IntPtr process);
private IntPtr m_handle;
private bool m_disposed = false;
public Job()
{
m_handle = CreateJobObject(null, null);
JOBOBJECT_BASIC_LIMIT_INFORMATION info = new JOBOBJECT_BASIC_LIMIT_INFORMATION();
info.LimitFlags = 0x2000;
JOBOBJECT_EXTENDED_LIMIT_INFORMATION extendedInfo = new JOBOBJECT_EXTENDED_LIMIT_INFORMATION();
extendedInfo.BasicLimitInformation = info;
int length = Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(JOBOBJECT_EXTENDED_LIMIT_INFORMATION));
IntPtr extendedInfoPtr = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(length);
Marshal.StructureToPtr(extendedInfo, extendedInfoPtr, false);
if (!SetInformationJobObject(m_handle, JobObjectInfoType.ExtendedLimitInformation, extendedInfoPtr, (uint)length))
throw new Exception(string.Format("Unable to set information. Error: {0}", Marshal.GetLastWin32Error()));
}
#region IDisposable Members
public void Dispose()
{
Dispose(true);
GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
}
#endregion
private void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
if (m_disposed)
return;
if (disposing) {}
Close();
m_disposed = true;
}
public void Close()
{
Win32.CloseHandle(m_handle);
m_handle = IntPtr.Zero;
}
public bool AddProcess(IntPtr handle)
{
return AssignProcessToJobObject(m_handle, handle);
}
}
Looking at the constructor ...
JOBOBJECT_BASIC_LIMIT_INFORMATION info = new JOBOBJECT_BASIC_LIMIT_INFORMATION();
info.LimitFlags = 0x2000;
The key here is to setup the job object properly. In the constructor I'm setting the "limits" to 0x2000, which is the numeric value for JOB_OBJECT_LIMIT_KILL_ON_JOB_CLOSE.
MSDN defines this flag as:
Causes all processes associated with
the job to terminate when the last
handle to the job is closed.
Once this class is setup...you just have to register each child process with the job. For example:
[DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
public static extern uint GetWindowThreadProcessId(IntPtr hWnd, out uint lpdwProcessId);
Excel.Application app = new Excel.ApplicationClass();
uint pid = 0;
Win32.GetWindowThreadProcessId(new IntPtr(app.Hwnd), out pid);
job.AddProcess(Process.GetProcessById((int)pid).Handle);

This answer started with #Matt Howells' excellent answer plus others (see links in the code below). Improvements:
Supports 32-bit and 64-bit.
Fixes some problems in #Matt Howells' answer:
The small memory leak of extendedInfoPtr
The 'Win32' compile error, and
A stack-unbalanced exception I got in the call to CreateJobObject (using Windows 10, Visual Studio 2015, 32-bit).
Names the Job, so if you use SysInternals, for example, you can easily find it.
Has a somewhat simpler API and less code.
Here's how to use this code:
// Get a Process object somehow.
Process process = Process.Start(exePath, args);
// Add the Process to ChildProcessTracker.
ChildProcessTracker.AddProcess(process);
To support Windows 7 requires:
A simple app.manifest change as #adam smith describes.
Registry settings to be added if you are using Visual Studio.
In my case, I didn't need to support Windows 7, so I have a simple check at the
top of the static constructor below.
/// <summary>
/// Allows processes to be automatically killed if this parent process unexpectedly quits.
/// This feature requires Windows 8 or greater. On Windows 7, nothing is done.</summary>
/// <remarks>References:
/// https://stackoverflow.com/a/4657392/386091
/// https://stackoverflow.com/a/9164742/386091 </remarks>
public static class ChildProcessTracker
{
/// <summary>
/// Add the process to be tracked. If our current process is killed, the child processes
/// that we are tracking will be automatically killed, too. If the child process terminates
/// first, that's fine, too.</summary>
/// <param name="process"></param>
public static void AddProcess(Process process)
{
if (s_jobHandle != IntPtr.Zero)
{
bool success = AssignProcessToJobObject(s_jobHandle, process.Handle);
if (!success && !process.HasExited)
throw new Win32Exception();
}
}
static ChildProcessTracker()
{
// This feature requires Windows 8 or later. To support Windows 7 requires
// registry settings to be added if you are using Visual Studio plus an
// app.manifest change.
// https://stackoverflow.com/a/4232259/386091
// https://stackoverflow.com/a/9507862/386091
if (Environment.OSVersion.Version < new Version(6, 2))
return;
// The job name is optional (and can be null) but it helps with diagnostics.
// If it's not null, it has to be unique. Use SysInternals' Handle command-line
// utility: handle -a ChildProcessTracker
string jobName = "ChildProcessTracker" + Process.GetCurrentProcess().Id;
s_jobHandle = CreateJobObject(IntPtr.Zero, jobName);
var info = new JOBOBJECT_BASIC_LIMIT_INFORMATION();
// This is the key flag. When our process is killed, Windows will automatically
// close the job handle, and when that happens, we want the child processes to
// be killed, too.
info.LimitFlags = JOBOBJECTLIMIT.JOB_OBJECT_LIMIT_KILL_ON_JOB_CLOSE;
var extendedInfo = new JOBOBJECT_EXTENDED_LIMIT_INFORMATION();
extendedInfo.BasicLimitInformation = info;
int length = Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(JOBOBJECT_EXTENDED_LIMIT_INFORMATION));
IntPtr extendedInfoPtr = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(length);
try
{
Marshal.StructureToPtr(extendedInfo, extendedInfoPtr, false);
if (!SetInformationJobObject(s_jobHandle, JobObjectInfoType.ExtendedLimitInformation,
extendedInfoPtr, (uint)length))
{
throw new Win32Exception();
}
}
finally
{
Marshal.FreeHGlobal(extendedInfoPtr);
}
}
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
static extern IntPtr CreateJobObject(IntPtr lpJobAttributes, string name);
[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
static extern bool SetInformationJobObject(IntPtr job, JobObjectInfoType infoType,
IntPtr lpJobObjectInfo, uint cbJobObjectInfoLength);
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
static extern bool AssignProcessToJobObject(IntPtr job, IntPtr process);
// Windows will automatically close any open job handles when our process terminates.
// This can be verified by using SysInternals' Handle utility. When the job handle
// is closed, the child processes will be killed.
private static readonly IntPtr s_jobHandle;
}
public enum JobObjectInfoType
{
AssociateCompletionPortInformation = 7,
BasicLimitInformation = 2,
BasicUIRestrictions = 4,
EndOfJobTimeInformation = 6,
ExtendedLimitInformation = 9,
SecurityLimitInformation = 5,
GroupInformation = 11
}
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
public struct JOBOBJECT_BASIC_LIMIT_INFORMATION
{
public Int64 PerProcessUserTimeLimit;
public Int64 PerJobUserTimeLimit;
public JOBOBJECTLIMIT LimitFlags;
public UIntPtr MinimumWorkingSetSize;
public UIntPtr MaximumWorkingSetSize;
public UInt32 ActiveProcessLimit;
public Int64 Affinity;
public UInt32 PriorityClass;
public UInt32 SchedulingClass;
}
[Flags]
public enum JOBOBJECTLIMIT : uint
{
JOB_OBJECT_LIMIT_KILL_ON_JOB_CLOSE = 0x2000
}
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
public struct IO_COUNTERS
{
public UInt64 ReadOperationCount;
public UInt64 WriteOperationCount;
public UInt64 OtherOperationCount;
public UInt64 ReadTransferCount;
public UInt64 WriteTransferCount;
public UInt64 OtherTransferCount;
}
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
public struct JOBOBJECT_EXTENDED_LIMIT_INFORMATION
{
public JOBOBJECT_BASIC_LIMIT_INFORMATION BasicLimitInformation;
public IO_COUNTERS IoInfo;
public UIntPtr ProcessMemoryLimit;
public UIntPtr JobMemoryLimit;
public UIntPtr PeakProcessMemoryUsed;
public UIntPtr PeakJobMemoryUsed;
}
I carefully tested both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the structs by programmatically comparing the managed and native versions to each other (the overall size as well as the offsets for each member).
I've tested this code on Windows 7, 8, and 10.

This post is intended as an extension to #Matt Howells' answer, specifically for those who run into problems with using Job Objects under Vista or Win7, especially if you get an access denied error ('5') when calling AssignProcessToJobObject.
tl;dr
To ensure compatibility with Vista and Win7, add the following manifest to the .NET parent process:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
<v3:trustInfo xmlns:v3="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
<v3:security>
<v3:requestedPrivileges>
<v3:requestedExecutionLevel level="asInvoker" uiAccess="false" />
</v3:requestedPrivileges>
</v3:security>
</v3:trustInfo>
<compatibility xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:compatibility.v1">
<!-- We specify these, in addition to the UAC above, so we avoid Program Compatibility Assistant in Vista and Win7 -->
<!-- We try to avoid PCA so we can use Windows Job Objects -->
<!-- See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3342941/kill-child-process-when-parent-process-is-killed -->
<application>
<!--The ID below indicates application support for Windows Vista -->
<supportedOS Id="{e2011457-1546-43c5-a5fe-008deee3d3f0}"/>
<!--The ID below indicates application support for Windows 7 -->
<supportedOS Id="{35138b9a-5d96-4fbd-8e2d-a2440225f93a}"/>
</application>
</compatibility>
</assembly>
Note that when you add new manifest in Visual Studio 2012 it will contain the above snippet already so you do not need to copy it from hear. It will also include a node for Windows 8.
full explanation
Your job association will fail with an access denied error if the process you're starting is already associated with another job. Enter Program Compatibility Assistant, which, starting in Windows Vista, will assign all kinds of processes to its own jobs.
In Vista you can mark your application to be excluded from PCA by simply including an application manifest. Visual Studio seems to do this for .NET apps automatically, so you're fine there.
A simple manifest no longer cuts it in Win7. [1] There, you have to specifically specify that you're compatible with Win7 with the tag in your manifest. [2]
This led me to worry about Windows 8. Will I have to change my manifest once again? Apparently there's a break in the clouds, as Windows 8 now allows a process to belong to multiple jobs. [3] So I haven't tested it yet, but I imagine that this madness will be over now if you simply include a manifest with the supportedOS information.
Tip 1: If you're developing a .NET app with Visual Studio, as I was, here [4] are some nice instructions on how to customize your application manifest.
Tip 2: Be careful with launching your application from Visual Studio. I found that, after adding the appropriate manifest, I still had problems with PCA when launching from Visual Studio, even if I used Start without Debugging. Launching my application from Explorer worked, however. After manually adding devenv for exclusion from PCA using the registry, starting applications that used Job Objects from VS started working as well. [5]
Tip 3: If you ever want to know if PCA is your problem, try launching your application from the command line, or copy the program to a network drive and run it from there. PCA is automatically disabled in those contexts.
[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cjacks/archive/2009/06/18/pca-changes-for-windows-7-how-to-tell-us-you-are-not-an-installer-take-2-because-we-changed-the-rules-on-you.aspx
[2] http://ayende.com/blog/4360/how-to-opt-out-of-program-compatibility-assistant
[3] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms681949(v=vs.85).aspx:
"A process can be associated with more than one job in Windows 8"
[4] How can I embed an application manifest into an application using VS2008?
[5] How to stop the Visual Studio debugger starting my process in a job object?

Here's an alternative that may work for some when you have control of the code the child process runs. The benefit of this approach is it doesn't require any native Windows calls.
The basic idea is to redirect the child's standard input to a stream whose other end is connected to the parent, and use that stream to detect when the parent has gone away. When you use System.Diagnostics.Process to start the child, it's easy to ensure its standard input is redirected:
Process childProcess = new Process();
childProcess.StartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo("pathToConsoleModeApp.exe");
childProcess.StartInfo.RedirectStandardInput = true;
childProcess.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true; // no sense showing an empty black console window which the user can't input into
And then, on the child process, take advantage of the fact that Reads from the standard input stream will always return with at least 1 byte until the stream is closed, when they will start returning 0 bytes. An outline of the way I ended up doing this is below; my way also uses a message pump to keep the main thread available for things other than watching standard in, but this general approach could be used without message pumps too.
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Threading;
using System.Windows.Forms;
static int Main()
{
Application.Run(new MyApplicationContext());
return 0;
}
public class MyApplicationContext : ApplicationContext
{
private SynchronizationContext _mainThreadMessageQueue = null;
private Stream _stdInput;
public MyApplicationContext()
{
_stdInput = Console.OpenStandardInput();
// feel free to use a better way to post to the message loop from here if you know one ;)
System.Windows.Forms.Timer handoffToMessageLoopTimer = new System.Windows.Forms.Timer();
handoffToMessageLoopTimer.Interval = 1;
handoffToMessageLoopTimer.Tick += new EventHandler((obj, eArgs) => { PostMessageLoopInitialization(handoffToMessageLoopTimer); });
handoffToMessageLoopTimer.Start();
}
private void PostMessageLoopInitialization(System.Windows.Forms.Timer t)
{
if (_mainThreadMessageQueue == null)
{
t.Stop();
_mainThreadMessageQueue = SynchronizationContext.Current;
}
// constantly monitor standard input on a background thread that will
// signal the main thread when stuff happens.
BeginMonitoringStdIn(null);
// start up your application's real work here
}
private void BeginMonitoringStdIn(object state)
{
if (SynchronizationContext.Current == _mainThreadMessageQueue)
{
// we're already running on the main thread - proceed.
var buffer = new byte[128];
_stdInput.BeginRead(buffer, 0, buffer.Length, (asyncResult) =>
{
int amtRead = _stdInput.EndRead(asyncResult);
if (amtRead == 0)
{
_mainThreadMessageQueue.Post(new SendOrPostCallback(ApplicationTeardown), null);
}
else
{
BeginMonitoringStdIn(null);
}
}, null);
}
else
{
// not invoked from the main thread - dispatch another call to this method on the main thread and return
_mainThreadMessageQueue.Post(new SendOrPostCallback(BeginMonitoringStdIn), null);
}
}
private void ApplicationTeardown(object state)
{
// tear down your application gracefully here
_stdInput.Close();
this.ExitThread();
}
}
Caveats to this approach:
the actual child .exe that is launched must be a console application so it remains attached to stdin/out/err. As in the above example, I easily adapted my existing application that used a message pump (but didn't show a GUI) by just creating a tiny console project that referenced the existing project, instantiating my application context and calling Application.Run() inside the Main method of the console .exe.
Technically, this merely signals the child process when the parent exits, so it will work whether the parent process exited normally or crashed, but its still up to the child processes to perform its own shutdown. This may or may not be what you want...

There is another relevant method, easy and effective, to finish child processes on program termination. You can implement and attach a debugger to them from the parent; when the parent process ends, child processes will be killed by the OS. It can go both ways attaching a debugger to the parent from the child (note that you can only attach one debugger at a time). You can find more info on the subject here.
Here you have an utility class that launches a new process and attaches a debugger to it. It has been adapted from this post by Roger Knapp. The only requirement is that both processes need to share the same bitness. You cannot debug a 32bit process from a 64bit process or vice versa.
public class ProcessRunner
{
// see http://csharptest.net/1051/managed-anti-debugging-how-to-prevent-users-from-attaching-a-debugger/
// see https://stackoverflow.com/a/24012744/2982757
public Process ChildProcess { get; set; }
public bool StartProcess(string fileName)
{
var processStartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo(fileName)
{
UseShellExecute = false,
WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Normal,
ErrorDialog = false
};
this.ChildProcess = Process.Start(processStartInfo);
if (ChildProcess == null)
return false;
new Thread(NullDebugger) {IsBackground = true}.Start(ChildProcess.Id);
return true;
}
private void NullDebugger(object arg)
{
// Attach to the process we provided the thread as an argument
if (DebugActiveProcess((int) arg))
{
var debugEvent = new DEBUG_EVENT {bytes = new byte[1024]};
while (!this.ChildProcess.HasExited)
{
if (WaitForDebugEvent(out debugEvent, 1000))
{
// return DBG_CONTINUE for all events but the exception type
var continueFlag = DBG_CONTINUE;
if (debugEvent.dwDebugEventCode == DebugEventType.EXCEPTION_DEBUG_EVENT)
continueFlag = DBG_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED;
ContinueDebugEvent(debugEvent.dwProcessId, debugEvent.dwThreadId, continueFlag);
}
}
}
else
{
//we were not able to attach the debugger
//do the processes have the same bitness?
//throw ApplicationException("Unable to attach debugger") // Kill child? // Send Event? // Ignore?
}
}
#region "API imports"
private const int DBG_CONTINUE = 0x00010002;
private const int DBG_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED = unchecked((int) 0x80010001);
private enum DebugEventType : int
{
CREATE_PROCESS_DEBUG_EVENT = 3,
//Reports a create-process debugging event. The value of u.CreateProcessInfo specifies a CREATE_PROCESS_DEBUG_INFO structure.
CREATE_THREAD_DEBUG_EVENT = 2,
//Reports a create-thread debugging event. The value of u.CreateThread specifies a CREATE_THREAD_DEBUG_INFO structure.
EXCEPTION_DEBUG_EVENT = 1,
//Reports an exception debugging event. The value of u.Exception specifies an EXCEPTION_DEBUG_INFO structure.
EXIT_PROCESS_DEBUG_EVENT = 5,
//Reports an exit-process debugging event. The value of u.ExitProcess specifies an EXIT_PROCESS_DEBUG_INFO structure.
EXIT_THREAD_DEBUG_EVENT = 4,
//Reports an exit-thread debugging event. The value of u.ExitThread specifies an EXIT_THREAD_DEBUG_INFO structure.
LOAD_DLL_DEBUG_EVENT = 6,
//Reports a load-dynamic-link-library (DLL) debugging event. The value of u.LoadDll specifies a LOAD_DLL_DEBUG_INFO structure.
OUTPUT_DEBUG_STRING_EVENT = 8,
//Reports an output-debugging-string debugging event. The value of u.DebugString specifies an OUTPUT_DEBUG_STRING_INFO structure.
RIP_EVENT = 9,
//Reports a RIP-debugging event (system debugging error). The value of u.RipInfo specifies a RIP_INFO structure.
UNLOAD_DLL_DEBUG_EVENT = 7,
//Reports an unload-DLL debugging event. The value of u.UnloadDll specifies an UNLOAD_DLL_DEBUG_INFO structure.
}
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
private struct DEBUG_EVENT
{
[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.I4)] public DebugEventType dwDebugEventCode;
public int dwProcessId;
public int dwThreadId;
[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.ByValArray, SizeConst = 1024)] public byte[] bytes;
}
[DllImport("Kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
private static extern bool DebugActiveProcess(int dwProcessId);
[DllImport("Kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
private static extern bool WaitForDebugEvent([Out] out DEBUG_EVENT lpDebugEvent, int dwMilliseconds);
[DllImport("Kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
private static extern bool ContinueDebugEvent(int dwProcessId, int dwThreadId, int dwContinueStatus);
[DllImport("Kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
public static extern bool IsDebuggerPresent();
#endregion
}
Usage:
new ProcessRunner().StartProcess("c:\\Windows\\system32\\calc.exe");

One way is to pass PID of parent process to the child. The child will periodically poll if the process with the specified pid exists or not. If not it will just quit.
You can also use Process.WaitForExit method in child method to be notified when the parent process ends but it might not work in case of Task Manager.

I was looking for a solution to this problem that did not require unmanaged code. I was also not able to use standard input/output redirection because it was a Windows Forms application.
My solution was to create a named pipe in the parent process and then connect the child process to the same pipe. If the parent process exits then the pipe becomes broken and the child can detect this.
Below is an example using two console applications:
Parent
private const string PipeName = "471450d6-70db-49dc-94af-09d3f3eba529";
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine("Main program running");
using (NamedPipeServerStream pipe = new NamedPipeServerStream(PipeName, PipeDirection.Out))
{
Process.Start("child.exe");
Console.WriteLine("Press any key to exit");
Console.ReadKey();
}
}
Child
private const string PipeName = "471450d6-70db-49dc-94af-09d3f3eba529"; // same as parent
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine("Child process running");
using (NamedPipeClientStream pipe = new NamedPipeClientStream(".", PipeName, PipeDirection.In))
{
pipe.Connect();
pipe.BeginRead(new byte[1], 0, 1, PipeBrokenCallback, pipe);
Console.WriteLine("Press any key to exit");
Console.ReadKey();
}
}
private static void PipeBrokenCallback(IAsyncResult ar)
{
// the pipe was closed (parent process died), so exit the child process too
try
{
NamedPipeClientStream pipe = (NamedPipeClientStream)ar.AsyncState;
pipe.EndRead(ar);
}
catch (IOException) { }
Environment.Exit(1);
}

Use event handlers to make hooks on a few exit scenarios:
var process = Process.Start("program.exe");
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.DomainUnload += (s, e) => { process.Kill(); process.WaitForExit(); };
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.ProcessExit += (s, e) => { process.Kill(); process.WaitForExit(); };
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.UnhandledException += (s, e) => { process.Kill(); process.WaitForExit(); };

Yet another addition to the abundant richness of solutions proposed so far....
The problem with many of them is that they rely upon the parent and child process to shut down in an orderly manner, which isn't always true when development is underway. I found that my child process was often being orphaned whenever I terminated the parent process in the debugger, which required me to kill the orphaned process(es) with Task Manager in order to rebuild my solution.
The solution: Pass the parent process ID in on the commandline (or even less invasive, in the environment variables) of the child process.
In the parent process, the process ID is available as:
Process.CurrentProcess().Id;
In the child process:
Process parentProcess = Process.GetProcessById(parentProcessId);
parentProcess.Exited += (s, e) =>
{
// clean up what you can.
this.Dispose();
// maybe log an error
....
// And terminate with prejudice!
//(since something has already gone terribly wrong)
Process.GetCurrentProcess().Kill();
};
I am of two minds as to whether this is acceptable practice in production code. On the one hand, this should never happen. But on the other hand, it may mean the difference between restarting a process, and rebooting a production server. And what should never happen often does.
And it sure is useful while debugging orderly shutdown problems.

Solution that worked for me:
When creating process add tag process.EnableRaisingEvents = true;:
csc = new Process();
csc.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
csc.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
csc.StartInfo.FileName = Path.Combine(HLib.path_dataFolder, "csc.exe");
csc.StartInfo.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;
csc.StartInfo.ErrorDialog = false;
csc.StartInfo.RedirectStandardInput = true;
csc.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
csc.EnableRaisingEvents = true;
csc.Start();

I see two options:
If you know exactly what child process could be started and you are sure they are only started from your main process, then you could consider simply searching for them by name and kill them.
Iterate through all processes and kill every process that has your process as a parent (I guess you need to kill the child processes first). Here is explained how you can get the parent process id.

I've made a child process management library where the parent process and the child process are monitored due a bidirectional WCF pipe. If either the child process terminates or the parent process terminates each other is notified.
There is also a debugger helper available which automatically attaches the VS debugger to the started child process
Project site:
http://www.crawler-lib.net/child-processes
NuGet Packages:
https://www.nuget.org/packages/ChildProcesses
https://www.nuget.org/packages/ChildProcesses.VisualStudioDebug/

Just my 2018 version.
Use it aside your Main() method.
using System.Management;
using System.Diagnostics;
...
// Called when the Main Window is closed
protected override void OnClosed(EventArgs EventArgs)
{
string query = "Select * From Win32_Process Where ParentProcessId = " + Process.GetCurrentProcess().Id;
ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(query);
ManagementObjectCollection processList = searcher.Get();
foreach (var obj in processList)
{
object data = obj.Properties["processid"].Value;
if (data != null)
{
// retrieve the process
var childId = Convert.ToInt32(data);
var childProcess = Process.GetProcessById(childId);
// ensure the current process is still live
if (childProcess != null) childProcess.Kill();
}
}
Environment.Exit(0);
}

call job.AddProcess better to do after start of the process:
prc.Start();
job.AddProcess(prc.Handle);
When calling AddProcess before the terminate, child processes are not killed. (Windows 7 SP1)
private void KillProcess(Process proc)
{
var job = new Job();
job.AddProcess(proc.Handle);
job.Close();
}

I had the same problem. I was creating child processes that never got killed if my main app crashed. I had to destroy manually child processes when debugging. I found that there was no need to make the children somewhat depend on parent. In my main, I added a try catch to do a CleanUp() of child processes on exit.
static void Main()
{
Application.EnableVisualStyles();
Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
try
{
Application.Run(new frmMonitorSensors());
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
CleanUp();
ErrorLogging.Add(ex.ToString());
}
}
static private void CleanUp()
{
List<string> processesToKill = new List<string>() { "Process1", "Process2" };
foreach (string toKill in processesToKill)
{
Process[] processes = Process.GetProcessesByName(toKill);
foreach (Process p in processes)
{
p.Kill();
}
}
}

If you can catch situation, when your processes tree should be killed, since .NET 5.0 (.NET Core 3.0) you could use Process.Kill(bool entireProcessTree)

How to gracefully unload a child AppDomain that has threads running

I have a service that loads a child AppDomain and then starts a thread running in it. It needs an AppDomain because it dynamically generates and loads some code and I need to be able to restart it without killing the whole service.
So there is a thread running in an event loop in the child AppDomain, it gets events passed to it through a MarshalByRefObject that sticks stuff in a concurrent queue. I want to stop and unload the child AppDomain and create a new one.
I can simply call Unload on the child AppDomain, but that will abort all the threads and throw a ThrearAbortException. How can I gracefully shut it down? If I set some static flag in the child AppDomain using the MarshalByRefObject then how will the main process be able to wait until its done unloading?
I have some example code that kind of shows how its setup and how I can call Unload to kill it, how could I modify this to allow graceful unloading and never have multiple child AppDomains?
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Security;
using System.Security.Permissions;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Threading;
namespace TestAppDomains
{
/// <summary>
/// Calls to methods magically get transfered to the appdomain it was created in because it derives from MarshalByRefObject
/// </summary>
class MarshalProxy : MarshalByRefObject
{
public AppDomain GetProxyAppDomain()
{
return AppDomain.CurrentDomain;
}
public void SayHello()
{
Console.WriteLine("MarshalProxy in AD: {0}", AppDomain.CurrentDomain.FriendlyName);
}
public void RunLoop()
{
try
{
while (true)
{
Console.WriteLine("RunLoop {0} in {1}", DateTime.Now.ToLongTimeString(), AppDomain.CurrentDomain.FriendlyName);
Thread.Sleep(1000);
}
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
Console.WriteLine("You killed me! {0}", ex);
Thread.Sleep(200); //just to make sure the unload is really blocking until its done unloading
// if the sleep is set to 2000 then you will get a CannotUnloadAppDomainException, Error while unloading appdomain. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131015) thrown from the .Unload call
}
}
static int creationCount = 1;
public static MarshalProxy RunInNewthreadAndAppDomain()
{
// Create the AppDomain and MarshalByRefObject
var appDomainSetup = new AppDomainSetup()
{
ApplicationName = "Child AD",
ShadowCopyFiles = "false",
ApplicationBase = Environment.CurrentDirectory,
};
var childAppDomain = AppDomain.CreateDomain(
"Child AD " + creationCount++,
null,
appDomainSetup,
new PermissionSet(PermissionState.Unrestricted));
var proxy = (MarshalProxy)childAppDomain.CreateInstanceAndUnwrap(
typeof(MarshalProxy).Assembly.FullName,
typeof(MarshalProxy).FullName,
false,
BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance,
null,
new object[] { },
null,
null);
Thread runnerThread = new Thread(proxy.RunLoop);
runnerThread.Name = "MarshalProxy RunLoop";
runnerThread.IsBackground = false;
runnerThread.Start();
return proxy;
}
}
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine("I am running in AD: {0}", AppDomain.CurrentDomain.FriendlyName);
var proxy = MarshalProxy.RunInNewthreadAndAppDomain();
proxy.SayHello();
while (true)
{
Console.WriteLine("Press enter to kill and restart proxy");
Console.WriteLine();
Console.ReadLine();
Console.WriteLine("Unloading");
AppDomain.Unload(proxy.GetProxyAppDomain());
Console.WriteLine("Done unloading");
proxy = MarshalProxy.RunInNewthreadAndAppDomain();
}
}
}
}

Try the following
runnerThread.IsBackground = true;
And, yeah, there is no graceful unloading of AppDomain if you didn't stop the threads first.

The situation is essentially the same as if the two AppDomains were separate processes, so you need to use some form of IPC. One option would be to pass an event handle into the child AppDomain when asking the loop to stop. The loop can signal the event before exiting. Wait for the event to give the loop some time to finish. If you time out, then you can do a rough unload.

Serialize all child AppDomains. Send it to remote server. Turn that server off.

Get running process given process handle

can someone tell me how i can capture a running process in c# using the process class if i already know the handle?
Id rather not have not have to enumerate the getrunning processes method either. pInvoke is ok if possible.

In plain C#, it looks like you have to loop through them all:
// IntPtr myHandle = ...
Process myProcess = Process.GetProcesses().Single(
p => p.Id != 0 && p.Handle == myHandle);
The above example intentionally fails if the handle isn't found. Otherwise, you could of course use SingleOrDefault. Apparently, it doesn't like you requesting the handle of process ID 0, hence the extra condition.
Using the WINAPI, you can use GetProcessId. I couldn't find it on pinvoke.net, but this should do:
[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
static extern int GetProcessId(IntPtr handle);
(signature uses a DWORD, but process IDs are represented by ints in the .NET BCL)
It seems a bit odd that you'd have a handle, but not a process ID however. Process handles are acquired by calling OpenProcess, which takes a process ID.

using System.Diagnostics;
class ProcessHandler {
public static Process FindProcess( IntPtr yourHandle ) {
foreach (Process p in Process.GetProcesses()) {
if (p.Handle == yourHandle) {
return p;
}
}
return null;
}
}

There seems to be no simple way to do this by the .Net API. The question is, where you got that handle from? If by the same way you can get access to the processes ID, you could use:
Process.GetProcessById (int iD)

I'm using these methods for long time:
public static Process FindProcess(IntPtr handle) => FindProcess(p => p.Handle == handle);
public static Process FindProcess(int id) => FindProcess(p => p.Id == id);
public static Process FindProcess(string title) => FindProcess(p=> p.MainWindowTitle == title);
public static Process FindProcess(Func<Process,bool> comparer)
{
foreach (Process p in Process.GetProcesses())
if (comparer(p))
return p;
return null;
}
Enjoy...

You could use the GetWindowThreadProcessId WinAPI call
http://www.pinvoke.net/default.aspx/user32/GetWindowThreadProcessId.html
To get the Process Id - then get a Process object using that.....
But why don't you want to enumerate the ids of the running processes?

How to terminate all [grand]child processes using C# on WXP (and newer MSWindows)

Question: How can I determine all processes in the child's Process Tree to kill them?
I have an application, written in C# that will:
Get a set of data from the server,
Spawn a 3rd party utility to process the data, then
Return the results to the server.
This is working fine. But since a run consumes a lot of CPU and may take as long as an hour, I want to add the ability to have my app terminate its child processes.
Some issues that make the simple solutions I've found elsewhere are:
My app's child process "A" (InstallAnywhere EXE I think) spawns the real processing app "B" (a java.exe), which in turns spawns more children "C1".."Cn" (most of which are also written in Java).
There will likely be multiple copies of my application (and hence, multiple sets of its children) running on the same machine.
The child process is not in my control so there might be some "D" processes in the future.
My application must run on 32-bit and 64-bit versions of MSWindows.
On the plus side there is no issue of data loss, a "clean" shutdown doesn't matter as long as the processes end fairly quickly.

I guess you can kill your grandchildren with this code from the MSDN forums.
public bool killProcess(int pid)
{
bool didIkillAnybody = false;
try
{
Process[] procs = Process.GetProcesses();
for (int i = 0; i < procs.Length; i++)
{
didIkillAnybody = GetParentProcess(procsIdea.Id) == pid) &&
killProcess(procsIdea.Id);
}
try
{
Process myProc = Process.GetProcessById(pid);
myProc.Kill();
return true;
}
catch { }
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
try
{
new Logger().Write("Exception caught at JobExecution.killProcess()", ex.Message, System.Diagnostics.EventLogEntryType.Warning, false);
}
catch { }
}
return didIkillAnybody;
}
private int GetParentProcess(int Id)
{
int parentPid = 0;
using (ManagementObject mo = new ManagementObject("win32_process.handle='" + Id.ToString() + "'"))
{
mo.Get();
parentPid = Convert.ToInt32(mo["ParentProcessId"]);
}
return parentPid;
}

Based on the solution outlined on this site, here is a compact way of doing it:
static public void KillChildren(int parentPid)
{
foreach (var pid in
from ManagementBaseObject m in new ManagementObjectSearcher("select ProcessId from Win32_Process where ParentProcessId=" + parentPid).Get()
select Convert.ToInt32(m["ProcessId"]))
KillChildren(pid);
Process.GetProcessById(parentPid).Kill();
}

The following code works for me:
private void KillProcessAndChildren(int pid)
{
using (var searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher("Select * From Win32_Process Where ParentProcessID=" + pid))
using (ManagementObjectCollection moc = searcher.Get())
{
foreach (ManagementObject mo in moc)
{
KillProcessAndChildren(Convert.ToInt32(mo["ProcessID"]));
}
try
{
Process proc = Process.GetProcessById(pid);
proc.Kill();
}
catch (ArgumentException)
{ /* process already exited */ }
}
}
It works for the scenario I have. I'd be interested to hear if that works for others as well.

I tested Jake Pearson's solution and for me this does not always work. I wanted to kill other process (with known pid) tree. The other process was using iexplore.exe running separately for each instance (IE 8 - more than one process). It works fine, but when used with WinAPI to hide IE window it stopped working.
I found solution on microsoft.public.dotnet.framework group, and it works fine now. Although Jake's answer can be useful in most cases, I think.

Develop Reference

C# (C-Sharp) is a programming language developed by Microsoft that runs on the .NET Framework.

How terminate child processes when parent process terminated in C# - c#

Did you pay attention to the error code? Error 24 is ERROR_BAD_LENGTH, which probably means that 48 isn't the right length of the structure. I think it's 44, but you should do a sizeof to be sure.

Related

Is it possible to start background processes with Process.Start? [duplicate]

Ensure that the process i opened will close if my application will crash [duplicate]

How to gracefully unload a child AppDomain that has threads running

Get running process given process handle

How to terminate all [grand]child processes using C# on WXP (and newer MSWindows)

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