HOWTO: Implement a "Kill" Operation in Windows NT

• Microsoft Win32 Application Programming Interface (API), used with:
  • Microsoft Windows NT versions 3.1, 3.5, 4.0
  • Microsoft Windows 2000

SUMMARY

The following sample demonstrates how to implement a "kill" operation, such as a UNIX ps/kill, under Windows NT. Note that PView gives you the PID you need.

The code sample makes use of the Win32 API TerminateProcess(). While TerminateProcess() does clean up the objects owned by the process, it does not notify any DLLs hooked to the process. Therefore, this can easily leave the DLL in an unstable state.

In general, the Task List is a much cleaner method of killing processes.

MORE INFORMATION

The following sample shows how to "kill" a process, given its process ID (PID).

Sample Code

   #include <windows.h>
   #include <stdio.h>

   void ErrorOut(char errstring[30])
   /*
   Purpose: Print out an meaningful error code by means of
            GetLastError and printf.

   Inputs:  errstring - the action that failed, passed by the
                        calling proc.

   Returns: none

   Calls:   GetLastError
   */ 

   {
      DWORD Error;

      Error= GetLastError();
      printf("Error on %s = %d\n", errstring, Error);
   }


   void main(int argc, char *argv[])
   {
      HANDLE hProcess;
      DWORD ProcId;
      BOOL TermSucc;

      if (argc == 2)
      {
         ProcId = atoi(argv[1]);
         hProcess= OpenProcess(PROCESS_ALL_ACCESS, TRUE, ProcId);
         if (hProcess == NULL)
            ErrorOut("OpenProcess");
         TermSucc= TerminateProcess(hProcess, 0);
         if (TermSucc == FALSE)
            ErrorOut("TerminateProcess");
         else
            printf("Process# %.0lx terminated successfully!\n", ProcId);
      }
      else
      {
         printf("\nKills an active Process\n");
         printf("Usage: killproc ProcessID\n");
      }
   } 

Additional query words:

Keywords : kbAPI kbKernBase kbNTOS310 kbNTOS350 kbNTOS400 kbWinOS2000 kbThread kbDSupport kbGrpKernBase
Version : winnt:3.1,3.5,4.0
Platform : winnt
Issue type : kbhowto