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Introduction

This is the second article in the series of articles How To: (Almost) Everything In WMI via C#.

• Reference Part 1: WIN32_Registry
• Reference Part 2: WIN32_Process

This article focuses on the Win32_Process class within the root\CIMV2 namespace. This library exposes all the properties and methods encapsulated in this namespace to your application (and there are quite a few). Using this library, you can enumerate properties of the processes on your machines, kick off processes, terminate processes, enumerate processes, and gather significant details regarding your processes. The library facilitates running any of these tasks on local or remote workstations.

Consideration

Please do not send me emails with instructions on how to perform these tasks using .NET native classes. That is not the point of these articles. I'm composing these articles for the purpose of demonstrating how to use WMI within C#.NET with the System.Management namespace. Also note that WMI is a bit slower than the .NET classes so if you have no specific need to use WMI, you should probably be using System.Diagnostics.Process instead.

Using the Attached Code

Methods (Local Machine or Remote Machine)

• CreateProcess(string processPath) - Starts a process
• GetProcessOwner(string processName) - Gets the user name of the process owner
• GetProcessOwnerSID(string processName) - Gets the SID of the process owner
• ProcessProperties(string processName) - Gets the 60+ property values of the process
• RunningProcesses() - Gets the names of all the running processes (can be changed)
• SetPriority(string processName, ProcessPriority.priority priority) - Changes the process priority
• TerminateProcess(string processName) - Kills the process

Instantiate the Local Provider

//using baileysoft.Wmi.Process; *must include
ProcessLocal processObject = new ProcessLocal(); 

Walkthrough All the Methods

 //Get Running Processes
 Console.WriteLine("Fetching Running Processes: ");
 foreach (string eachProcess in processObject.RunningProcesses())
 {
    Console.WriteLine("Process: " + eachProcess);
 }
 Console.WriteLine("");
 
 //Start Process
 string processName = "notepad.exe";
 Console.WriteLine("Creating Process: " + processName);
 Console.WriteLine(processObject.CreateProcess(processName));
 
 //Change the Priority
 Console.WriteLine("Setting Process Priority: Idle");
 processObject.SetPriority(processName, ProcessPriority.priority.IDLE);
 
 //Get the Owner of a Process
 Console.WriteLine("Process Owner: " + processObject.GetProcessOwner(processName));
 
 //Get the Process Owner's SID 
 Console.WriteLine("Process Owner SID: " + 
    processObject.GetProcessOwnerSID(processName));
 Console.WriteLine("");

 //Get a collection of all the Properties of a Process (Memory Usage, etc, etc)
 Console.WriteLine("Properties of Process: " + processName);
 foreach (string property in processObject.ProcessProperties(processName))
  {
      Console.WriteLine(property);
  }
  Console.WriteLine("");
  
  //Terminate a Process  
  Console.WriteLine("Killing Process: " + processName);
  processObject.TerminateProcess(processName);
  Console.WriteLine("Process Terminated");  
  
  Console.ReadLine();

Remote System Processes

In order to run the code above against a remote machine, you must instantiate the ProcessRemote class. During this instantiation, you need to either send in explicit credentials or you can send in null values if you're running this on a workstation on a domain, logged in with a domain account with the appropriate permissions to perform these tasks against the remote workstation.

Instantiating the Remote Provider

//using baileysoft.Wmi.Process; *must include
ProcessRemote processObject = 
              new ProcessRemote(userName,
                                password,
                                domain,
                                machine/ip);

Connecting to a Remote Machine Where You Want to Use The Domain Credentials from the LoggedIn User

ProcessRemote processObject = 
                    new ProcessRemote(null,
                                      null,
                                      null,
                                      machine/ip);

Using a Service Account to kick off a Remote Process

ProcessRemote processObject = 
                    new ProcessRemote("neal.bailey",
                                      "S3cr3tPa$$",
                                      "BAILEYSOFT",
                                      "192.168.2.1");
                                      
                    processObject.OneOfTheMethodsDetailedAbove;

Conclusion

The WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) provider is considerably slower than the native .NET classes. At first it may seem pointless to use WMI for process management tasks considering the ease of use of the .NET System.Diagnostics.Process classes, however a lot of developers out there spent a lot of time learning WMI and would like to have it available in their toolbox.

History

• Originally submitted on 26^th March, 2007

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.NET C# start remote process and send commands(strings) to it legeti 12:28 10 Nov '09   Hi all, i want to write an .net c# application which will start and remote application (e.g notepad.exe) and send afterwards text to it. It should be able to send commands(text/string) to a specific PID on a remote pc. This is what i have already from an example code: string remoteMachine = "localhost"; ConnectionOptions connOptions = new ConnectionOptions(); connOptions.Impersonation = ImpersonationLevel.Impersonate; connOptions.EnablePrivileges = true; ManagementScope manScope = new ManagementScope(String.Format(@"\\{0}\ROOT\CIMV2", remoteMachine), connOptions); manScope.Connect(); ObjectGetOptions objectGetOptions = new ObjectGetOptions(); ManagementPath managementPath = new ManagementPath("Win32_Process"); ManagementClas sprocessClass = new ManagementClass(manScope, managementPath, objectGetOptions); ManagementBaseObject inParams = processClass.GetMethodParameters("Create"); inParams["CommandLine"] = @"notepad.exe"; ManagementBaseObject outParams = processClass.InvokeMethod("Create", inParams, null); Console.WriteLine("Creation of the process returned: " + outParams["returnValue"]); Console.WriteLine("Process ID: " + outParams["processId"]); Console.ReadLine(); Can someone help me? Thanks Stephan Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Trying to use UNC with this code snippet thrashmagazine 9:54 13 Apr '09   Trying to use UNC with this code snippet, the ManagementClass is failing out when I try to launch a setup.exe on a different computer: \\machine1\setup.exe - does not work however if I try to launch an app from machine 1 on machine 2 with \\machine2\setup.exe this does work. Unfortunately I need to be able to launch remotely. Is this possible with this snippet? I am completely new to WMI coding. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Trying to use UNC with this code snippet thund3rstruck 10:14 13 Apr '09   Are you using my library? Either way, my CreateProcess method or the ManagementClass objects require that you specify a domain account that has permission on the remote machine to execute the process. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Trying to use UNC with this code snippet thrashmagazine 4:31 14 Apr '09   I am using the Win32_Process testing first, before I play around adding it to my project. I switched it over to remote machine ProcessRemote process = new ProcessRemote("id", "pass", "domain", "machinetoinstallto"); I tested this with notepad and saw it run on the machine correctly. I am trying to then run the string: string processName = @"\\machinetoinstallfrom\Support\Change_Server_Names.exe"; and it errors out on: foreach (ManagementObject item "in" searchProcedure.Get()), "in" is throwing an invalid query. The following does work though: string processName = @"\\machinetoinstallto\c$\Change_Server_Names.exe"; which to me tells me UNC works but its not letting me run it from a different machine. Also, the console is failing telling me: Creating Process \\machinetoinstallfrom\Support\Change_Server_Names.exe Access <Denied> Setting Process Priority: Idle I have full permissions on both machines and am a domain admin. Thanks for any help you can provide. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Trying to use UNC with this code snippet thund3rstruck 5:02 14 Apr '09   Ok, so the reason why notepad runs without having to specify a path is because it's executable exists in one of your $PATH directories (c:\windows;c:\windows\system32, etc, etc). I have never tried to call an executable using UNC that way so I can't be much help there. My company has used this library (heavily modified over the years) in lots of projects; for example, in conjunction with PSTools and other management apps. I have a few pointers for you to investigate though. First, when you call the method "CreateProcess" you're invoking the Win32_Process.Create() WMI method in the \\machinename\root\CIMV2 namespace. So any syntax you use has to be WMI compliant, in other words, it could be used in a WMI VBScript or PowerShell script etc. I don't know about using UNC via WMI, its been a long time since I had to work directly with WMI (we abstracted everything in WMI a long time ago). You might also look at the ProcessConnectionOptions() method in the ProcessConnection object. There is a ConnectionOptions.Authentication.AuthenticationLevel enumeration setting for the default authentication level for the connection. We have it set to Default, which means that we allow WMI to handle our authentication, but you can change that to PacketLevel or other types if your environment runs kerberos or some other more strict domain authentication. Hope This Helps, T3 Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink E_ACCESSDENIED Nchek2000 5:57 28 Nov '07   I'm using VS2005 and winXP pro SP2. I get that error when trying to running it to remote machine(Win2003 Server), but I can use your remote registry. I'm using user: Administrator for win2k3. Should I do something in the server first? Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 1.00/5 Printing paulsoren 9:00 3 Apr '07   If you plan to do more articles an idea would be something about printing and printers Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Printing thund3rstruck 13:30 3 Apr '07   Ha... funny you should mention that since I just posted part 3 which is all about WMI hardware properties aggragation and I specifically left our Win32_Printer since it deserves its own article. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 1.00/5 WMI Jamsey12001 4:11 3 Apr '07   Thanks for the code. Jamsey Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 4.20/5 Re: WMI thund3rstruck 5:27 3 Apr '07   No problem. From the response of the 1st article I was thinking I was the last remaining developer still using WMI. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: WMI Jamsey12001 5:39 3 Apr '07   I've used it extensivly in vbscript for starting and stopping groups of services etc. I think if you know about this sort of stuff it adds more strings to your bow. Keep it up. Jamsey Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: WMI thund3rstruck 13:28 3 Apr '07   Then you should love part 3... Howto: (Almost) Everything In WMI via C# - Part 3: Hardware[^] Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: WMI tag2001 18:34 22 Oct '07   WMI is not only here and active, but I used it just the other day as the only (best) solution. For IIS6 (aka the current production server version of IIS), WMI is the most cutting-edge API for manipulating IIS settings, so that's what I used. A couple other things I've noticed about WMI from .NET 2.0 - it's easier than most of the articles I've read if you use the management objects directly. Lastly, and perhaps even better, there is a tool for automatically generating strongly typed classes for WMI. It's called Mgmtclassgen.exe and is included in the standard .NET 2.0 SDK. Party on, Ted. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: WMI thund3rstruck 4:06 23 Oct '07   WOW, that's a great tip (Mgmtclassgen.exe)! I have never heard of this before but I'm gonna check it out right away. I've been writing my own WMI classes now for years since the Management objects were so difficult to work with. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 2.00/5 Re: WMI andyzheng 23:02 30 Oct '08   now, I want to excute remote process that is a Command line exe by wmi, then get the process result to local, the result is not the return code(for example returnValue etc). I want to directly get the result from the command line. how to do it, please help me, thank you very much. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: WMI thund3rstruck 5:18 31 Oct '08   Sure there are a number of ways to accomplish this. I would use the program psexec [^] with System.Diagnostics.Process.Start and then capture the output stream, The output stream contains everything that appears on the command line window and when used with psexec you can get the complete commandline output from the remote seat. You could do something like this: ExecNoWindow("c:\\pstools\\psexec.exe", "\\baileyweb01 -u administrator shutdown.exe /s /f", 0) Console.Write(CommandOutput); public String CommandOutput; private void ExecNoWindow(string m_ApplicationPath, string m_ApplicationParameters, int m_TimeOutThreshold) { ProcessStartInfo psi = new ProcessStartInfo(m_ApplicationPath, m_ApplicationParameters); psi.UseShellExecute = false; psi.RedirectStandardOutput = true; psi.CreateNoWindow = true; Process p_exec = new Process(); StreamReader p_output = null; try { p_exec = Process.Start(psi); p_output = p_exec.StandardOutput; if (m_TimeOutThreshold != null) { if (m_TimeOutThreshold == 0) { p_exec.WaitForExit(); } else { p_exec.WaitForExit((int)m_TimeOutThreshold); } } if (p_exec.HasExited) { this.CommandOutput = p_output.ReadToEnd(); } } catch (SystemException e) { debug.WriteLine(e.Message); } finally { p_exec.Close(); p_output.Close(); } } Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: WMI preusst 4:00 25 Jun '09   Great Articles! I was reading your response for the above post and was wondering why you recommended psexec instead of WMI. We have found psexec to act up occasionally. thanks Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: WMI thund3rstruck 4:34 25 Jun '09   Ha.. good point. I recommended PSExec in that response because I had some code in front of me for an old project where we used PSEXEC (I can't remember why we used it exactly but I seem to remember that it was because the WMI classes differ on versions of windows and in our organization we support everything from Win98-Vista). I can recall a recent problem when we developed a solution for remotely joining workstations to domains using the Win32_Domain type only to learn during integration testing that Win32_Domain doesn't exist on Win 2K! T3 Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Thank you Morten B 19:18 2 Apr '07   Great article - keep them comming - Also the on the the file sharing permission stuff. Thank you - Morten Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

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