Programming Forums - Windows API: How to obtain a list of currently running processes.

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Windows API: How to obtain a list of currently running processes.

Haven't posted in a while, figured I'd give you guys something from my personal code stash I've built up over the years. :) It wouldn't let me create a new thread in the tutorials section, so I've posted it here...

Here's a little piece of code that'll get the exe name for each running process. You'll need to include windows.h.

HANDLE            hSnapShot=NULL;

        HANDLE            hResult = NULL;

        PROCESSENTRY32    processInfo;

        char*            pstrExeName;



        bool bFirst = true;

        ::ZeroMemory(&processInfo, sizeof(PROCESSENTRY32));

        processInfo.dwSize = sizeof(PROCESSENTRY32);

        hSnapShot = CreateToolhelp32Snapshot(

                TH32CS_SNAPPROCESS, 0);

        if(hSnapShot == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)

                return NULL; 



        while((bFirst ? Process32First(hSnapShot, 

                &processInfo) : Process32Next(hSnapShot, 

                &processInfo)))

        {

                bFirst = false;

                pstrExeName = strrchr(processInfo.szExeFile, '\\');

                if(!pstrExeName)

                        pstrExeName = processInfo.szExeFile;

                else

                        pstrExeName++;

                          // Do whatever you want with the name here. In my

                          // BPK program it puts the string in the listbox on the left

        }

        if(hSnapShot)

                CloseHandle(hSnapShot);

Enjoy!

For an example of this piece of code in action, see my process utility here: http://www.freewebs.com/wombatex/bpk.htm

I haven't looked at you program but it sounds very similar some something I made a whill back. There is another resent thread in here that shows how to list all processes the non toolhelp way. MSDN also has well a commented example for this approach.

Also, I think you forgot to mention to include: tlhelp32.h

Yeah, my bad, forgot the toolhelp header. I think I pieced this together from MSDN code about a year or so ago, so that's why it uses toolhelp.

What's the difference between the toolhelp (snapshot) way and the other way?