[python-win32] Finding and Exiting a Process

[Tim Golden]

[Lewis Franklin]
| I have a program I have developed that opens a custom VB script. I
| want to be able to start and end the script; however, the script
| actually spawns a new program and therefore has a new process ID.
| Unfortunately, due to the nature of the script, the VB script cannot
| be rewritten.
| 
| My question is if there is any way to find the process ID of the new
| program, either by capturing it when it is spawned or by somehow
| identifying the process (I do know the program name of the spawned
| program if that somehow helps).

If I understand you, you have a python program which launches
an external VB program (not clear if it matters that it is VB;
presumably it's an .EXE file). You want to know what that
spawned process is to be able to terminate it?

If that's it, then one way (which I haven't used) is to use 
ShellExecuteEx from win32com.shell.shell. That will return a 
process handle which you can then wait on etc. If that's not
an option, there are ways of trawling the process list to
find a running program by name etc.

Here's one from the Python Cookbook:

http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/305279

Another way is WMI:

http://tgolden.sc.sabren.com/python/wmi_cookbook.html#watch_notepad

Trent Mick's process package might help:

http://starship.python.net/~tmick/index.html#process

... or the module formerly known as popen5:

http://www.lysator.liu.se/~astrand/popen5/

Or, failing that, you can try Simon Brunning's techniques
for finding open windows/controls by name:

http://www.brunningonline.net/simon/blog/archives/000664.html

HTH
TJG

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