Get PID of process

I'm having problems finding a Windows API that I can use in python ctypes that can return the PID of a service/process if you only know the name of the process. Anyone got any ideas about how I can work around this problem?

Use FindWindow to get the handle and GetWindowThreadProcessId() to get the pid using the handle.

Here's a great example I found through Google: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/185254/how-can-a-win32-process-get-the-pid-of-its-parent.

I don't think he was looking for the parent PID

cyb3rl0rd1867 wrote: Use FindWindow to get the handle and GetWindowThreadProcessId() to get the pid using the handle.Not exactly what I was looking for but it helps. This method only worked for me when the process had a open window, not if it was running in the backgroud. I'm going to look into this some more next weekend when I got some spare time.

What programming language you coding in?

Here and this code will get you started. The book that the code is for is pretty good too. Gray Hat Python by Justin Seitz.

mike1990 wrote: What programming language you coding in?

he did mention earlier. duh.

Sorry, first post ever here and I don't have any Python specific knowledge

I'll try and help with some guide line source for C++… with the Win API usually you can enumerate the process list and filter by image name and then find the PID using something like this (sorry it's C++):

(dword) PID;

(char) szExe[256]; //probably fine as a string in Python?

(Handle) = CreateToolhelp32Snapshot(TH32CS_SNAPPROCESS,0); //This takes a snapshot of the processes at the time of calling the function

(PROCESSENTRY32) procEntry; //This is the structure the snapshots are then stored in

procEntry.dwSize = sizeof( PROCESSENTRY32 ); //just a safety precaution in allocating memory (from what I remember)

Process32First(Handle, &procEntry); //get an entry to start off

//keep going through them until the end of the list
while(Process32Next(Handle, &procEntry) != false){
//...
//code here to do stuff to match the process you're after, probably matching by a specific image name?

szExe = procEntry.szExeFile;
if(strcmp(szExe,"somename.exe") == 0){ //probably ok to just strait compare the strings with == like in PHP?

PID = procEntry.th32ProcessID;

}

//...
}

Sorry I can't really think of anything more general in a code layout…

I hope that helps somehow in getting a PID for your application in Python - without there being an active main window loaded with a handle.

Jim,