How to know which running process is a system process

I have a piece of code which gives me the list of currently running processes in vb. Know I want to sort those processes according to their type for example : system processes seperatly etc.

Any ideas on this?

By list of running processes I mean all processes which are running currently on windows.

I'm not expert on this, but running Task Manager in XP allows you to list the "User Name" for each process. I notice that several of these are named "SYSTEM", others are named "LOCAL SERVICE", etc.

Does your code return the User Name? Can you use it for what you want to do?

I thought that but what if I can create a windows service and run it under system acoount so the username is managed and it always shows system.

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I thought that but what if I can create a windows service and run it under system acoount so the username is managed and it always shows system.

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Well, I'm really making it up as I go along now, but isn't that the definition of a system process? I don't know. Maybe you'd better hope that someone else jumps in on this thread.

Some one tell me how to use GetProcessAffinityMask function.

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Originally Posted by pbuddy_8

Some one tell me how to use GetProcessAffinityMask function.

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After spending some time Googling, I saw no examples of using:

GetProcessAffinityMask
SetProcessAffinityMask
SetThreadAffinityMask

with VB. I did, however, find some examples using C++. Are you familiar with that language?

ack No

No I want to use these in vb

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Originally Posted by pbuddy_8

No I want to use these in vb

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I found this. I ran, and really don't know what it is telling me, but I'm sure you will.

VB Code:

Private Declare Function GetCurrentProcess Lib "Kernel32.dll" () As Long 
Private Declare Function GetProcessAffinityMask Lib "Kernel32.dll" ( _ 
    ByVal hProcess As Long, ByRef lpProcessAffinityMask As Long, _ 
    ByRef SystemAffinityMask As Long) As Long 
 
 
Private Sub Form_Load() 
    Dim ProcMask As Long, SysMask As Long 
 
 
    Call GetProcessAffinityMask(GetCurrentProcess(), ProcMask, SysMask) 
 
 
    Debug.Print "Process affinity mask: 0x" & Hex(ProcMask) 
    Debug.Print "SystemAffinityMask: 0x" & Hex(SysMask) 
End Sub

Here is what I came up with.

The data returned from the GetProcessAffinityMask contains what processors are available and which are currently in the mask, just because more than one processor is in the mask does not mean it will be used.

The data it bit-packed into the return variables, each bit is a processor.

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Processor #
0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 Processors Available

If you have 2 processor your SystemMask value would probably be 3 (00000011) in bianary

The code presented will find the last processor and set the process to only use last processor. If you only have 1 processor nothing will be done.

Knowing this information the code should be self explanitory

Your little bit of code above helped me so I thought I would share this.

Thanks,

William Solberg

Code:

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Private Declare Function GetCurrentProcess Lib "Kernel32.dll" () As Long
Private Declare Function GetProcessAffinityMask Lib "Kernel32.dll" ( _
ByVal hProcess As Long, ByRef lpProcessAffinityMask As Long, _
ByRef SystemAffinityMask As Long) As Boolean
Private Declare Function SetProcessAffinityMask Lib "Kernel32.dll" ( _
ByVal hProcess As Long, ByVal dwProcessAffinityMask As Long) As Long

Private Sub Form_Load()
    Dim ProcMask As Long, SysMask As Long
   
    If GetProcessAffinityMask(GetCurrentProcess(), ProcMask, SysMask) Then
        If SysMask > 1 Then
            Dim processor As Integer
            processor = 0
            For i = 1 To 7 'Looks for other processor besides 0
                If checkbit(SysMask, i) Then processor = i
            Next i
            If processor Then
                Dim ProcessorMask As Long
                ProcessorMask = 2 ^ processor 'Creates the mask for only the last processor found
                If SetProcessAffinityMask(GetCurrentProcess(), ProcessorMask) Then
                    ' Any special code you want to perform if successful
                End If
            End If
        End If
    End If
End Sub

Private Function checkbit(ByVal n As Integer, bitnumber as Integer) As Boolean
    Dim i As Integer
    For i = 0 To 7
        If 2 ^ i And n Then
            If bitnumber = i Then
                checkbit = True
                Exit Function
            End If
        End If
    Next i
End Function

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