Finding the process ID

Each process running in Windows is assigned a unique decimal number called the process ID (PID). This number is used in a number of ways, for example to specify the process when attaching a debugger to it.

This topic describes how you can determine the PID for a given app using Task Manager, the tasklist Windows command, the TList utility, or the debugger.

Task Manager

Task Manager can be opened in a number of ways, but the simplest is to select Ctrl+Alt+Delete, and then select Task Manager.

In Windows 10, first click More details to expand the information displayed. From the Processes tab, select the Details tab to see the process ID listed in the PID column.

Click on any column name to sort. You can right click a process name to see more options for a process.

Some kernel errors may cause delays in Task Manager’s graphical interface.

The tasklist command

Use the built in Windows tasklist command from a command prompt to display all processes, their PIDs, and a variety of other details.

Use tasklist /? to display command line help.

TList utility

Task List Viewer (TList), or tlist.exe, is a command-line utility that displays the list of tasks, or user-mode processes, currently running on the local computer. TList is included in the Debugging Tools for Windows. For information on how to download and install the debugging tools, see Download Debugging Tools for Windows.

If you installed the Windows Driver Kit in the default directory on a 64 bit PC, the debugging tools are located here:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Debuggers\x64\

When you run TList from the command prompt, it will display a list of all the user-mode processes in memory with a unique PID number. For each process, it shows the PID, process name, and, if the process has a window, the title of that window.

For more information, see TList.

The .tlist debugger command

If there’s already a user-mode debugger running on the system in question, the .tlist (List Process IDs) command will display a list of all PIDs on that system.

PowerShell Get-Process command

To work with automation scripts, use the Get-Process PowerShell command. Specify a specific process name, to see the process ID for that process.

For more information, see Get-Process.

CSRSS and user-mode drivers

To debug a user-mode driver running on another computer, debug the Client Server Run-Time Subsystem (CSRSS) process. For more information, see Debugging CSRSS.

get process name from process id (win32)

I need to get a list of all processes on a windows system including names and PID.
EnumProcess can obtain a list of pids, but how do I get the process name from the pid? I don’t want to call OpenProcess on the process as that doesn’t always work (like if the other process is run by a different user).

3 Answers 3

Ýou can get the process identifier and name for all running processes using the ToolHelp API.
The following code will display the pid and name for each process.

You have different option which you can use to receive exe names of currently running processes (process names like you wrote). The best way depends a little from the programming language which you use and from other requirements. For example you can use WMI. One other more old way is the usage of Performance Counters (see also An Introduction To Performance Counters). To get the counters values you can just use registry query operations from the HKEY_PERFORMANCE_DATA base key (see Retrieving Counter Data)

One more way which can be also good used is the NtQuerySystemInformation function with SystemProcessInformation as a parameter. EnumProcess and many other Windows API use the function internally. The struct SYSTEM_PROCESS_INFORMATION defined in the documentation of NtQuerySystemInformation has many «undocumented» but since many many years well-known fields. If you search in the Internet for the definition of the structure you will fined full documentation. I wonder that the function hat status not full documented. The function was at least in NT 3.5 (probably also before) and can be good used now on Windows 7 32- or 64-bit. To be exact below you will find a small C test program which print all process ids with the corresponding exe names (not full exe path, just the file name):

CreateToolhelp32Snapshot() will give you the process name (but not the path); other than that, you will have to call OpenProcess(). If your code is running in an administrative context you could enable the SE_DEBUG_NAME privilege to get access to processes running under other contexts.

Not the answer you’re looking for? Browse other questions tagged c winapi process pid or ask your own question.

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How to get the process name in C++

How do I get the process name from a PID using C++ in Windows?

6 Answers 6

I guess the OpenProcess function should help, given that your process possesses the necessary rights. Once you obtain a handle to the process, you can use the GetModuleFileNameEx function to obtain full path (path to the .exe file) of the process.

You can obtain the process name by using the WIN32 API GetModuleBaseName after having the process handle. You can get the process handle by using OpenProcess.

To get the executable name you can also use GetProcessImageFileName.

All the above methods require psapi.dll to be loaded (Read the remarks section) and iterating through process snapshot is an option one should not even consider for getting a name of the executable file from an efficiency standpoint.

The best approach, even according to MSDN recommendation, is to use QueryFullProcessImageName.

If you are trying to get the executable image name of a given process, take a look at GetModuleFileName.

Check out the enumprocess functions in the tool help library:

Try this function :

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How to get Process name from process id in windows through C++ without enumerating process?

I need to get process name from process id in windows to find process names associated with a logged event. It is able to get Execution process id only from the logged event. Process handle is the required input to use GetProcessImageFileName() method. It’s not able to get process handle from logged event.

In the duplicate question, it talks about currently running process. But I need not currently running process since it talks about logged event. & I have a doubt of whether processID vs processName combination is unique or not in Windows. So need to consider that also..

I expect that there must be some structure to map process id to process name. Are there any structure so? or any other methods to get process image name from process id?

1 Answer 1

I need to get process name from process id in windows to find process names associated with a logged event.

If you are getting the Process ID from a log, it will only be valid if the original process is still running. Otherwise, the ID is no longer valid for that process name. If the process has already exited before you read the log, all bets are off.

I need not currently running process since it talks about logged event.

Then you are out of luck, if the original process name was not logged.

I have a doubt of whether processID vs processName combination is unique or not in Windows.

A Process ID is unique only while being used for a running process. Once a process ends, its Process ID is no longer valid, and can be re-used for a subsequent new process.

I expect that there must be some structure to map process id to process name.

Yes, but only for a running process. You can pass the Process ID to OpenProcess() . If successful, it will return a HANDLE to the running process. You can then pass that HANDLE to GetModuleFileName() , GetProcessImageFileName() , or QueryFullProcessImageName() , depending on OS version and permissions you are able to gain from OpenProcess() .

Getting process instance name from a process id / object (Faster way)

Currently, the solution to get a Instance Name from a Process ID is from the code below. Problem is, this takes a lot of time and CPU resources!

That is to say when you have a system that’s running at least 100 processes, it takes a considerable amount of time to cycle through the loops to find it. (like 1 to 2 seconds) And when I am looking to find up to 30 of those processes, it takes up to 30 seconds to find them all.

Can’t you simply get a instance name from a process object?

4 Answers 4

Why not use the System.Diagnostics.Process.GetProcessById function?

The FranzHuber23 Solution sped the original by only looking at processes that start with the process-in-question’s name. An improvement beyond that uses PLINQ (parallel LINQ). Optionally, Parallel.ForEach() or a construct that uses Task could provide a similar speedup but both those will have complicated source to return just the first found and cancel the concurrent searches (nicely hidden by ParallelEnumerable.FirstOrDefault() ).

A very fast and well-working solution is this one:

from Rick Strahl. The only issue I had was the same as one in the commentaries on his blog:

One thing to mention related to windows process instance names is that they change dynamically when one of the processes exits.

For example if chrome#8 exits, chrome#9 will become chrome#8 and chrome#10

will become chrome#9. At this point getting the value of the counter previously created for chrome#10 will throw an exception. This is really annoying if you want to to monitor multiple instances of multiple processes as it gets down to monitoring process exits and recreating all the counters (really ugly).