Question

Teminating a process without FindWindow???

Asked by: nike_golf

I thought I had solved my problem in this prior thread (http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Languages/Visual_Basic/Q_24809205.html) but am still having a problem. I'm able to kill Excel but not a similar process.

The process that I want to kill doesn't have a window so FindWindow() doesn't find hwnd so subsequently I can't terminate the process. I can see the Process in TaskManager and can kill it from there but need to kill it from code.

How else can I find the hwnd?

Thanks,

NG

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2009-10-30 at 11:33:38ID24859014
Topic

Visual Basic Programming

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
7

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. findwindow to exe file
    If I use findwindow to get HWND, how can I get the exe file that created the window, i.e. getmodulename ? but that i COULD NOT not work it.
  2. Findwindow?
    Hi, A simple question, so here is only 5 points. ^_^ For examples, THREE windows with the same caption and same class. I used the following code: ShowWindow(FindWindow(pchar('Caption'),pchar('ClassHere')),SW_HIDE); Even execute the above code three times, I can still only hi...
  3. FindWindow
    I have write a exe program to kill windows instance. Firstly, I create a word application and make an error, then the word instance will be remained in memory. So I need to delete the instance so that I can create the word application again. I develop this program under wi...
  4. FindWindow
    Hi Is there a findwindow function that retruns all the titles of the windows opend in windows ??

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: tgerbertPosted on 2009-10-30 at 11:57:29ID: 25705854

Are you using Visual Basic .Net?

 

by: nike_golfPosted on 2009-10-30 at 12:05:29ID: 25705923

No VB6.

 

by: tgerbertPosted on 2009-10-30 at 12:30:28ID: 25706109

I think this is what you want: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Programming_Languages/Visual_Basic/Q_20792368.html

By the way, this task is like 3 lines of code in .Net, and you can get Visual Basic .Net Express for free. ;)

 

by: nike_golfPosted on 2009-10-30 at 12:51:16ID: 25706249

Do you have a link to Visual Basic .Net Express?

 

by: egl1044Posted on 2009-10-30 at 18:23:25ID: 25707925

Hi nike_golf,

I'll try to explain the difference here but the rules still apply for both. The main thing you need to terminate a process is the (Process Id) because we need this to get a real handle to the that process using OpenProcess(). There is a coulpe different ways to achieve this. In your other question you knew the title and wanted to kill that specific instance of the application so what we did was use FindWindow() to get the windows handle then we used GetWindowThreadProcessId() which returns the (Process Id) of the application that belongs to that window handle.

The above is different in this case you won't be able to use FindWindow() instead you will have to find a match in the executable name of running list of processes on the computer. The link provided by (tgerbert) is exactly what you need to do in this situation however it will need some modification to work correctly.

Use the following API instead:
CreateToolhelp32Snapshot
Process32First
Process32Next

This will fill a PROCESSENTRY32 structure for each process on the system.
The szExeFile of this structure is the executable name that you will need to match with the executable name of the application being terminated.
The th32ProcessID of this structure is what you will use in OpenProcess() if there is a match in the executable name.

Hope that helps.

 

by: tgerbertPosted on 2009-10-31 at 09:50:04ID: 25710421

The link for VB .Net Express is http://www.microsoft.com/express, but it's quite a bit different from the VB you're used to, so I recommend you continue your current project with VB6!

But definitely have a look at VB .Net, make a copy of one of your VB6 projects and let VB.Net upgrade it, poke around a bit.

And if you're curious, in .Net to find a process by name and kill it can be done in 1 line:

Process.GetProcessesByName("notepad")(0).Kill()

(Of course in reality you'd have some error checking etc).

 

by: nike_golfPosted on 2009-10-31 at 10:27:04ID: 25710564

Ultimately I used the following:


Private Type PROCESSENTRY32
dwSize As Long
cntUsage As Long
th32ProcessID As Long
th32DefaultHeapID As Long
th32ModuleID As Long
cntThreads As Long
th32ParentProcessID As Long
pcPriClassBase As Long
dwFlags As Long
szExeFile As String * 260
End Type
Private Declare Function CreateToolhelpSnapshot Lib "kernel32" Alias "CreateToolhelp32Snapshot" (ByVal lFlags As Long, ByVal lProcessID As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function Process32First Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hSnapShot As Long, uProcess As PROCESSENTRY32) As Long
Private Declare Function Process32Next Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hSnapShot As Long, uProcess As PROCESSENTRY32) As Long
Private Declare Sub CloseHandle Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hPass As Long)
Private Declare Function OpenProcess Lib "kernel32" (ByVal dwDesiredAccess As Long, ByVal bInheritHandle As Long, ByVal dwProcessId As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function TerminateProcess Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hProcess As Long, ByVal uExitCode As Long) As Long
Private Declare Sub CloseHandle Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hPass As Long)
Private Const SYNCHRONIZE = &H100000
Private Const PROCESS_TERMINATE As Long = &H1
Public Function KillApp(EXEName As String) As Boolean 'Kills application
Dim hSnapShot As Long, nProcess As Long
Dim uProcess As PROCESSENTRY32
hSnapShot = CreateToolhelpSnapshot(2, 0)
uProcess.dwSize = LenB(uProcess)
nProcess = Process32First(hSnapShot, uProcess)
Do While nProcess
    If InStr(1, uProcess.szExeFile, EXEName, vbTextCompare) > 0 Then
        'ProcessKill uProcess.th32ProcessID
        MsgBox "found" & nProcess
        KillApp = True
    End If
nProcess = Process32Next(hSnapShot, uProcess)
Loop
CloseHandle hSnapShot
End Function
 
Public Function ProcessKill(ByVal ProcessID As Long) As Boolean
Dim hProc As Long
Const fdwAccess As Long = SYNCHRONIZE Or PROCESS_TERMINATE
hProc = OpenProcess(fdwAccess, 0&, ProcessID)
If hProc Then
If TerminateProcess(hProc, 0&) Then
ProcessKill = True
End If
Call CloseHandle(hProc)
End If
End Function

Public Sub closeapp()
    answer = KillApp("sqlservr.exe")   'Used sqlservr.exe as a test application
    MsgBox answer
End Sub

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...