Python – Get list of running processes
Last Updated :
29 Dec, 2020
A Process is a program that is being executed (processed). A process may not have to be one run explicitly by the user, it could be a system process spawned by the operating system. Any applications that execute on an operating system firstly creates a process of its own in order to execute. In a typical OS installation, most processes are os services and background applications, that are run to maintain the operating system, software and hardware.
In this article, we will take a look at different ways of obtaining the list of running processes of a Windows OS, through Python. Firstly, we would describe a python method in order to achieve the result and then would look at a command found in the Windows Command Processor for the same.
Method 1:
We would be using the wmi library for getting the list of running processes on Windows OS. In order the install the module, execute the following command in the command interpreter of your operating system:-
pip install wmi
COde:
Python3
import wmi
f = wmi.WMI()
print("pid Process name")
for process in f.Win32_Process():
print(f"{process.ProcessId:<10} {process.Name}")
|
Output:
3196 RuntimeBroker.exe
3524 ShellExperienceHost.exe
3548 SearchIndexer.exe
3796 SearchUI.exe
4136 IDMan.exe
4368 IEMonitor.exe
4488 notepad.exe
2616 SettingSyncHost.exe
4212 dasHost.exe
4664 AdaptiveSleepService.exe
4716 svchost.exe
5412 chrome.exe
1376 chrome.exe
1280 cmd.exe
4928 conhost.exe
5596 py.exe
5060 python.exe
1508 WmiPrvSE.exe
Explanation:
Firstly, we initialize the WMI() function of wmi library. This allows us to use the functions found inside it such as WMI.Win32_Service, WMI.Win32_Process, WMI.Win32_Printjob which are designed to perform different tasks. We would be using the WMI.Win32_Process function in order to get the list of running processes on the system. Then we called the function WMI.Win32_Process() to get the running processes, iterated through each process and stored in variable process. Then we obtained the ProcessID (pid) and ProcessName (name) of the process using the associated attributes. We used F-strings for the output in order to add padding to the output to align it properly.
Method 2:
In this method, we would be using a command found inside the Windows Command Processor (cmd.exe) under the name WMIC ( Windows Management Instrumentation Command line) in order to get the desired result. WMIC is a commandline utility that allows users to performs Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) operations with a command prompt. For the purpose of getting running processes, we would be executing the command:
wmic process get description, processid
Code:
Python3
import os
output = os.popen('wmic process get description, processid').read()
print(output)
|
Output:
Description ProcessId
System Idle Process 0
System 4
smss.exe 340
csrss.exe 460
wininit.exe 604
csrss.exe 624
winlogon.exe 692
services.exe 736
lsass.exe 756
svchost.exe 844
svchost.exe 904
dwm.exe 1012
svchost.exe 80
svchost.exe 420
atiesrxx.exe 1076
svchost.exe 1992
svchost.exe 2032
MsMpEng.exe 2052
NisSrv.exe 2852
sihost.exe 3032
taskhostw.exe 2148
GoogleCrashHandler.exe 2712
GoogleCrashHandler64.exe 2704
explorer.exe 2892
RuntimeBroker.exe 3196
ShellExperienceHost.exe 3524
SearchIndexer.exe 3548
chrome.exe 1340
chrome.exe 2216
Note: It is not mandatory to use the os library for the purpose. The user could pick any other alternatives (Subprocess, shutil etc) which allows for commandline command execution.
Explanation:
We used the function popen() found inside the os module, in order to execute the command in the command processor. Then we passed the output of the above command to read() in order to get data in readable form out of os._wrap_close object. In the end, we displayed the output.
Method 3:
We will use the subprocess module to interact with cmd and to retrieve information into your python ide. we can read the cmd command through the subprocess module.
Let’s see this logic, if we run this wmic process list brief code into our terminal then we got like this:
Approach:
- import module
- Get the output for the command “wmic process list brief ” using subprocess.check_output()
- Now get the Split the string and arrange your data with your own needs.
Code:
Python3
import subprocess
Data = subprocess.check_output(['wmic', 'process', 'list', 'brief'])
a = str(Data)
try:
for i in range(len(a)):
print(a.split("\\r\\r\\n")[i])
except IndexError as e:
print("All Done")
|
Output:
b'HandleCount Name Priority ProcessId ThreadCount WorkingSetSize
0 System Idle Process 0 0 8 8192
5649 System 8 4 222 1835008
0 Registry 8 120 4 33910784
89 smss.exe 11 516 2 532480
815 csrss.exe 13 652 13 2019328
217 wininit.exe 13 740 1 3239936
781 services.exe 9 812 8 8294400
1843 lsass.exe 9 832 7 14864384
86 svchost.exe 8 1020 1 1351680
32 fontdrvhost.exe 8 308 5 196608
1526 svchost.exe 8 8 12 38608896
270 WUDFHost.exe 8 592 5 2097152
1479 svchost.exe 8 1056 11 16363520
541 svchost.exe 8 1104 15 4509696
279 svchost.exe 8 1260 3 2584576
146 svchost.exe 8 1284 1 6389760
214 svchost.exe 8 1300 3 3452928
327 svchost.exe 8 1308 6 5795840
345 svchost.exe 8 1332 13 10571776
395 svchost.exe 8 1452 7 5079040
261 svchost.exe 8 1460 5 5914624
161 svchost.exe 8 1472 2 4902912
390 svchost.exe 8 1580 11 9826304
348 WUDFHost.exe 13 1652 12 11526144
225 svchost.exe 8 1736 2 10473472
205 svchost.exe 8 1744 1 2093056
278 svchost.exe 8 1752 2 4444160
174 svchost.exe 8 1824 4 4063232
224 svchost.exe 8 1832 6 3821568
593 svchost.exe 8 2024 5 7610368
186 svchost.exe 8 1424 2 5058560
168 igfxCUIService.exe 8 2120 2 3579904
435 svchost.exe 8 2188 6 12341248
279 svchost.exe 8 2220 10 5017600
227 svchost.exe 8 2296 3 7024640
221 svchost.exe 8 2308 3 1908736
384 svchost.exe 8 2396 7 8499200
0 Memory Compression 8 2424 54 298409984
240 svchost.exe 8 2440 2 4845568
179 svchost.exe 8 2476 5 3567616
239 svchost.exe 8 2660 8 5775360
3352 svchost.exe 8 2684 9 6230016
225 svchost.exe 8 2816 2 4804608
487 svchost.exe 8 2872 7 9641984
473 svchost.exe 8 2912 4 13836288
142 svchost.exe 8 3032 4 2727936
633 svchost.exe 8 3048 3 16154624
555 svchost.exe 8 2072 14 12455936
267 svchost.exe 8 2936 4 7462912
465 spoolsv.exe 8 3168 7 4685824
420 svchost.exe 8 3200 10 8019968
187 svchost.exe 8 3324 6 2433024
174 svchost.exe 8 3572 2 2650112
416 svchost.exe 8 3584 5 13344768
540 svchost.exe 8 3592 10 24936448
161 IntelCpHDCPSvc.exe 8 3604 3 2052096
406 svchost.exe 8 3612 19 25100288
Please Login to comment...