Trouble killing a process on windows

[Thomas Nelson]

Hi, I'd like to start a program, run it for a while, then terminate
it. I can do this on linux, but I'm new to working with windows.
Here's my script:

from subprocess import Popen
from time import sleep
import win32api
war3game = Popen(["C:\Program Files\Warcraft III\Frozen Throne.exe"])
sleep(30)
print "slept for 30"
print win32api.TerminateProcess(int(war3game._handle),-1)
#print
ctypes.windll.kernel32.TerminateProcess(int(war3game._handle),-1)
print "terminated process"

Here's the output:
slept for 30
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Python24\warcraft\runwar3.py", line 7, in ?
print win32api.TerminateProcess(int(war3game._handle),-1)
error: (5, 'TerminateProcess', 'Access is denied.')

I'm logged in as adminstrator. Does anyone know how to fix this
problem?
Thanks for your time,
Tom

 

[Tim Golden]

from subprocess import Popen
from time import sleep
import win32api
war3game = Popen(["C:\Program Files\Warcraft III\Frozen Throne.exe"])
sleep(30)
print "slept for 30"
print win32api.TerminateProcess(int(war3game._handle),-1)
#print
ctypes.windll.kernel32.TerminateProcess(int(war3game._handle),-1)
print "terminated process"

Here's the output:
slept for 30
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Python24\warcraft\runwar3.py", line 7, in ?
print win32api.TerminateProcess(int(war3game._handle),-1)
error: (5, 'TerminateProcess', 'Access is denied.')

I'm logged in as adminstrator. Does anyone know how to fix this
problem?

There's nothing obvious. I assume you got your info
from here?

http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/347462

Just for completeness, have you tried the pid-based technique
shown there? I've no idea why it should work if this one
doesn't but... (I have a slight suspicion that the fact that
it opens the process with a "for-termination" flag might help).

Failing that, you can see if WMI can do it (although I assume
that, under the covers, WMI just calls TerminateProcess):

http://timgolden.me.uk/python/wmi_cookbook.html#create_destroy_notepad

I suppose you might have to adjust your token privs to include,
say the Debug priv. This is designed to let you take control
of any process (and terminate it, or whatever). If it looks
like you need to do that, post back and I -- or someone else --
can try to run up an example.

TJG

 

[reed]

Hi, I'd like to start a program, run it for a while, then terminate
it. I can do this on linux, but I'm new to working with windows.
Here's my script:

from subprocess import Popen
from time import sleep
import win32api
war3game = Popen(["C:\Program Files\Warcraft III\Frozen Throne.exe"])
sleep(30)
print "slept for 30"
print win32api.TerminateProcess(int(war3game._handle),-1)
#print
ctypes.windll.kernel32.TerminateProcess(int(war3game._handle),-1)
print "terminated process"

Here's the output:
slept for 30
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Python24\warcraft\runwar3.py", line 7, in ?
print win32api.TerminateProcess(int(war3game._handle),-1)
error: (5, 'TerminateProcess', 'Access is denied.')

I'm logged in as adminstrator. Does anyone know how to fix this
problem?
Thanks for your time,
Tom

kill = Popen(['taskkill', war3game.pid])

*shrugs*

maybe it is just taskill, or maybe you need the full path.
don't recall as I quit using windows.

Takskill on XP and newer maybe

 

[Thomas Nelson]

from subprocess import Popen
from time import sleep
import win32api
war3game = Popen(["C:\Program Files\Warcraft III\Frozen Throne.exe"])
sleep(30)
print "slept for 30"
print win32api.TerminateProcess(int(war3game._handle),-1)
#print
ctypes.windll.kernel32.TerminateProcess(int(war3game._handle),-1)
print "terminated process"

Here's the output:
slept for 30
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Python24\warcraft\runwar3.py", line 7, in ?
print win32api.TerminateProcess(int(war3game._handle),-1)
error: (5, 'TerminateProcess', 'Access is denied.')

I'm logged in as adminstrator. Does anyone know how to fix this
problem?

There's nothing obvious. I assume you got your info
from here?

http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/347462

Just for completeness, have you tried the pid-based technique
shown there? I've no idea why it should work if this one
doesn't but... (I have a slight suspicion that the fact that
it opens the process with a "for-termination" flag might help).

Failing that, you can see if WMI can do it (although I assume
that, under the covers, WMI just calls TerminateProcess):

http://timgolden.me.uk/python/wmi_cookbook.html#create_destroy_notepad

I suppose you might have to adjust your token privs to include,
say the Debug priv. This is designed to let you take control
of any process (and terminate it, or whatever). If it looks
like you need to do that, post back and I -- or someone else --
can try to run up an example.

TJG

I Tried the PID method, and the Taskkill method, and neither worked.
This is what I get for trying to work on a windows machine. If you
could explain how to add the debug privilege, that would be great.
Just out of curiosity, is there a reason a python module like os
couldn't have a universal terminateProcess type function, that works
on all systems? Something like os.listdir seems to work really well
everywhere. Maybe killing processes is too complicated for this?

Thanks for the help,
Tom

 

[Tim Golden]

Thomas Nelson wrote:

[... re Access Denied error on trying to TerminateProcess ...]

[Tim Golden]
[Thomas Nelson]

I Tried the PID method, and the Taskkill method, and neither worked.
This is what I get for trying to work on a windows machine. If you
could explain how to add the debug privilege, that would be great.

OK, this being Windows security, there's a couple
of hoops to jump through, but nothing too bad.

<code>
import win32api
import win32security as sec

#
# This function is merely window-dressing
# to make it easier to see whether the
# code has worked or not.
#
def priv_status (hToken, priv):
for p, status in sec.GetTokenInformation (
hToken,
sec.TokenPrivileges
):
if p == priv:
if status == 0:
return "disabled"
else:
return "enabled"
else:
return "disabled"

process = win32api.GetCurrentProcess ()
token_access_flags = sec.TOKEN_ADJUST_PRIVILEGES | sec.TOKEN_QUERY
hToken = sec.OpenProcessToken (process, token_access_flags)
debug_priv = sec.LookupPrivilegeValue (None, sec.SE_DEBUG_NAME)

print "Debug is", priv_status (hToken, debug_priv)

privs = [(debug_priv, sec.SE_PRIVILEGE_ENABLED)]
sec.AdjustTokenPrivileges (hToken, 0, privs)

print "Debug is", priv_status (hToken, debug_priv)

Just out of curiosity, is there a reason a python module like os
couldn't have a universal terminateProcess type function, that works
on all systems? Something like os.listdir seems to work really well
everywhere. Maybe killing processes is too complicated for this?

Not to say that there could never be one, but I suspect
that the difference of APis and the number of corner
cases makes it a daunting task for maintenance. The
code would have to work on every platform Python works
on -- which is no small number -- and would have to be
maintained across the many and varied changes on each
of those platforms.

Still, if you think you're in with a chance, go ahead
and offer

Let us know if the DEBUG priv thing works or not.

TJG