Question

VB find out how long a process has been running

Hello Experts,

I wanted to know if there is any way to use VB to find out how long a process has been running, something simular to gettickcount but for a process rather than the system itself?

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Asked On
2009-09-24 at 04:29:49ID24758042
Tags

Visual basic

,

windows API

Topic

Visual Basic Programming

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
3

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Answers

 

by: ProtuhjPosted on 2009-09-24 at 04:43:28ID: 25412205

You can modify this code, but it has all the basics you need

'You will need to have your process name, or id in order to find the specific process
'You can look at the Process Id and Process Name and see if it matches yours
Dim dd as Date = (Process.GetProcesses())(0).StartTime
Dim diff as TimeSpan = Date.Now -- dd
                                              
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by: egl1044Posted on 2009-09-24 at 08:28:30ID: 25414368

In classic VB you will first need to use OpenProcess() and specify a process id. This returns a process handle that you can use with GetProcessTimes() API.

The quick example I wrote will get the (start time) of the process and simply show how you can get the difference from that time to current time using DateDiff() function.

Option Explicit
 
Private Const PROCESS_QUERY_INFORMATION = &H400&
 
Private Type FILETIME
    dwLowDateTime             As Long
    dwHighDateTime            As Long
End Type
 
Private Type SYSTEMTIME
   wYear                      As Integer
   wMonth                     As Integer
   wDayOfWeek                 As Integer
   wDay                       As Integer
   wHour                      As Integer
   wMinute                    As Integer
   wSecond                    As Integer
   wMilliseconds              As Integer
End Type
 
Private Declare Function OpenProcess Lib "kernel32" (ByVal dwDesiredAccess As Long, ByVal bInheritHandle As Long, ByVal dwProcessId As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function CloseHandle Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hObject As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GetProcessTimes Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hProcess As Long, ByRef lpCreationTime As FILETIME, ByRef lpExitTime As FILETIME, ByRef lpKernelTime As FILETIME, lpUserTime As FILETIME) As Long
Private Declare Function FileTimeToLocalFileTime Lib "kernel32" (ByRef lpFileTime As FILETIME, ByRef lpLocalFileTime As FILETIME) As Long
Private Declare Function FileTimeToSystemTime Lib "kernel32" (ByRef lpFileTime As FILETIME, ByRef lpSystemTime As SYSTEMTIME) As Long
 
Public Sub GetProcessStartTime(ByVal Pid As Long)
 
' Process start time from process id.
Dim hProcess  As Long
Dim st        As SYSTEMTIME
Dim ft        As FILETIME
Dim Bogus     As FILETIME
Dim StartTime As String
 
hProcess = OpenProcess(PROCESS_QUERY_INFORMATION, 0, Pid)
 
If hProcess Then
 
  GetProcessTimes hProcess, ft, Bogus, Bogus, Bogus
  FileTimeToLocalFileTime ft, ft
  FileTimeToSystemTime ft, st
  StartTime = DateSerial(st.wYear, st.wMonth, st.wDay) + _
         TimeSerial(st.wHour, st.wMinute, st.wSecond)
  
  ' Do your stuff here..
  Debug.Print "Started: " & StartTime
  Debug.Print "Elapsed Seconds: " & DateDiff("s", StartTime, Now)
 
' close handle
CloseHandle hProcess
 
End If
 
 
End Sub
 
Private Sub Command1_Click()
GetProcessStartTime 3880 '<-- PID
End Sub

                                              
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by: Dave_Angel_PortsmouthPosted on 2009-10-20 at 08:22:59ID: 31632925

Many thanks

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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