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I need my program to know al the different instances running

I today made my program support multiple instances and want to add a "Next Instance" button, for example. This would allow the user to toggle through all instances running. BUt I need to know how to find a list of all such instances. Also, I need to be able to find where in that list the current instance exists so I can increment the next instance in the list.

Could someone please tell me how?

Thanks,
newbieweb

elimesika

HI

If I understood you well , you are talking on instances of an program exe, is that true ?

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elimesika

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curiouswebster

ASKER

This sounds interesting. How does it work?

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Mike Tomlinson

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curiouswebster

ASKER

Does this:

System.Diagnostics.Process[] ps = System.Diagnostics.Process.GetProcessesByName(System.IO.Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(Application.ExecutablePath));

return an empty array when running inside the debugger? That's what I am getting, but expected a size of one.

Mike Tomlinson

Yep...when running in debug mode the app is hosted by visual studio so the actual exe would be something like:

WindowsApplication1.vshost.exe

You could try this instead:

System.Diagnostics.Process p = System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess();
string ProcessFileName = System.IO.Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(p.MainModule.FileName);
System.Diagnostics.Process[] ps = System.Diagnostics.Process.GetProcessesByName(ProcessFileName);

But it doesn't make much difference since if you want more than one instance you couldn't be in debug mode in the first place...

curiouswebster

ASKER

I just wanted to debug the related code as if it were the only process running. Then I'd start a nother one first, then start the debugger to see how being the second process changed things.

Thanks!
newbieweb

Mike Tomlinson

Right...but if you're running one directly from the .exe and another in the IDE then they will have TWO different "process names" and couldn't be trapped by the same piece of code since the filenames will be different...

One would be "XXXX" and the other would be "XXXX.vshost". So the second one, which is running in the IDE, will think it's the only one running still.