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Determine from which location an application was being started

Is there any possibility to determine how a c# application was being started?
In my case I want to check if this application (wpf) is being started by a shortcut located in a specific folder.
So, there are two ways to open my application
using direct shortcut
starting another application which is like an update manager to keep my application up to date. After checking, it starts my application with Process.Start()
And I want to ensure that the application is only able to be started with the update manager.

A trick you could use is to check the parent's PID, and then get some of the parent's process information.
If the parent's process name is something like "explorer.exe" then the application was started from the shortcut or directly by double-clicking it on explorer.
Otherwise, it was started from another application: it could be your updater application, it could also be another application with the same name as your updater application...
This means you have to re-think how deep you want to go for such a solution, and how deep do you want security control. You could pass arguments from your updater to your main application, or implement some inter-process communication with token exchanges... it is impossible to make a 100% secure system.
As someone commented above, this seems like a XY problem... or maybe not. Maybe it is just a security concern. It's recommended to revise what exactly are you aiming for this software.
In case you need sample code for retrieving process information in .NET (by using System.Management), then just give a try to the code listed below. All you have to do is to place it in a console application project named 'Updater', and correctly set the path to your main application in the code.
If you play a little bit with this example by starting and closing YourApplication.exe in different situations, then you should be able to see an output like this:
Parent process 'Updater.exe' [PID=5472]
Parent process 'explorer.exe' [PID=12052]
The code below was tested on VS2017 .Net 4.6.1
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Linq;
using System.Management;
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Process.Start(new ProcessStartInfo()
{
FileName = "YourApplication.exe" // path to your application
});
while (Console.ReadKey(true).Key != ConsoleKey.Escape)
{
Process process = Process.GetProcessesByName("YourApplication").FirstOrDefault(); // your application's process name
if (process == null)
{
Console.WriteLine($"Process is not running...");
continue;
}
ProcessManager pm = ProcessManager.FromLocalMachine();
var processProperties = pm.GetProcessProperties(process.Id);
int parentProcessId = Convert.ToInt32(processProperties[EProcessProperty.ParentProcessId]);
try
{
var parentProcessProperties = pm.GetProcessProperties(parentProcessId);
string parentProcessName = parentProcessProperties[EProcessProperty.Name].ToString();
Console.WriteLine($"Parent process '{parentProcessName ?? "Unknown"}' [PID={parentProcessId}]");
Console.WriteLine("---------------------------------");
}
catch { Console.WriteLine("Parent process information not found."); }
}
}
}
public class ProcessConnection
{
internal ManagementScope ManagementScope { get; }
internal ProcessConnection(string machineName, string user = null, string password = null, string domain = null)
{
ManagementScope = new ManagementScope
{
Path = new ManagementPath(#"\\" + machineName + #"\root\CIMV2"),
Options = new ConnectionOptions
{
Impersonation = ImpersonationLevel.Impersonate,
Authentication = AuthenticationLevel.Default,
EnablePrivileges = true,
Username = user == null ? null : (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(domain) ? user : $"{domain}\\{user}"),
Password = user == null ? null : password,
},
};
ManagementScope.Connect();
}
}
public class ProcessManager
{
public static ProcessManager FromLocalMachine() => new ProcessManager()
{
Machine = Environment.MachineName,
};
public static ProcessManager FromRemoteMachine(string machine, string user = null, string password = null, string domain = null) => new ProcessManager()
{
Machine = machine,
User = user,
Password = password,
Domain = domain,
};
private ProcessManager() { }
public string Machine { get; private set; }
public string User { get; private set; }
public string Password { get; private set; }
public string Domain { get; private set; }
private ProcessConnection Connection { get; set; }
private ManagementScope ManagementScope => Connection == null ? (Connection = new ProcessConnection(Machine, User, Password, Domain)).ManagementScope : Connection.ManagementScope;
public EProcessStartStatus StartProcess(string processPath)
{
ManagementClass mc = new ManagementClass($"\\\\{Machine}\\root\\CIMV2", "Win32_Process", null);
ManagementBaseObject process = mc.GetMethodParameters("Create");
process["CommandLine"] = processPath;
ManagementBaseObject createCode = mc.InvokeMethod("Create", process, null);
string createCodeStr = createCode["ReturnValue"].ToString();
return (EProcessStartStatus)Convert.ToInt32(createCodeStr);
}
public bool KillProcess(string processName)
{
try
{
SelectQuery query = new SelectQuery($"SELECT * FROM Win32_Process WHERE Name = '{processName}'");
ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(ManagementScope, query);
foreach (ManagementObject mo in searcher.Get()) mo.InvokeMethod("Terminate", null);
return true;
}
catch { return false; }
}
public bool KillProcess(int processId)
{
try
{
SelectQuery query = new SelectQuery($"SELECT * FROM Win32_Process WHERE ProcessId = '{processId}'");
ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(ManagementScope, query);
foreach (ManagementObject mo in searcher.Get()) mo.InvokeMethod("Terminate", null);
return true;
}
catch { return false; }
}
public void SetProcessPriority(string processName, EProcessPriority priority)
{
SelectQuery query = new SelectQuery($"SELECT * FROM Win32_Process WHERE Name = '{processName}'");
ManagementObjectSearcher managementObjectSearcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(ManagementScope, query);
foreach (ManagementObject managementObject in managementObjectSearcher.Get())
{
ManagementBaseObject methodParams = managementObject.GetMethodParameters("SetPriority");
methodParams["Priority"] = priority;
managementObject.InvokeMethod("SetPriority", methodParams, null);
}
}
public string GetProcessOwner(string processName)
{
SelectQuery query = new SelectQuery($"SELECT * FROM Win32_Process WHERE Name = '{processName}'");
ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(ManagementScope, query);
foreach (ManagementObject mo in searcher.Get())
{
ManagementBaseObject methodParams = mo.GetMethodParameters("GetOwner");
ManagementBaseObject owner = mo.InvokeMethod("GetOwner", null, null);
return owner["User"].ToString();
}
return null;
}
public string GetProcessOwnerSID(string processName)
{
SelectQuery query = new SelectQuery($"SELECT * FROM Win32_Process WHERE Name = '{processName}'");
ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(ManagementScope, query);
foreach (ManagementObject mo in searcher.Get())
{
ManagementBaseObject methodParams = mo.GetMethodParameters("GetOwnerSid");
ManagementBaseObject OwnerSid = mo.InvokeMethod("GetOwnerSid", null, null);
return OwnerSid["Sid"].ToString();
}
return null;
}
public IList<int> GetRunningProcesses()
{
IList<int> processes = new List<int>();
SelectQuery query = new SelectQuery("SELECT * FROM Win32_Process");
ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(ManagementScope, query);
foreach (ManagementObject mo in searcher.Get()) processes.Add(int.Parse(mo["ProcessId"].ToString()));
return processes;
}
public IDictionary<EProcessProperty, object> GetProcessProperties(int processId)
{
SelectQuery query = new SelectQuery($"SELECT * FROM Win32_Process WHERE ProcessId = '{processId}'");
ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(ManagementScope, query);
Dictionary<EProcessProperty, object> properties = new Dictionary<EProcessProperty, object>();
foreach (ManagementObject mo in searcher.Get())
{
foreach (PropertyData pd in mo.Properties)
{
if (Enum.TryParse(pd.Name, out EProcessProperty e)) properties[e] = pd.Value;
else Console.WriteLine(pd.Name + " is not mapped in the properties enumeration.");
}
}
return properties;
}
public IDictionary<EProcessProperty, object> GetProcessProperties(string processName)
{
SelectQuery query = new SelectQuery($"SELECT * FROM Win32_Process WHERE Name = '{processName}'");
ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(ManagementScope, query);
Dictionary<EProcessProperty, object> properties = new Dictionary<EProcessProperty, object>();
foreach (ManagementObject mo in searcher.Get())
{
foreach (PropertyData pd in mo.Properties)
{
if (Enum.TryParse(pd.Name, out EProcessProperty e)) properties[e] = pd.Value;
else Console.WriteLine(pd.Name + " is not mapped in the properties enumeration.");
}
}
return properties;
}
public IList<int> GetProcessessFromExecutablePath(string executablePath)
{
SelectQuery query = new SelectQuery($"SELECT * FROM Win32_Process WHERE ExecutablePath = '{executablePath.Replace("\\", "\\\\")}'");
ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(ManagementScope, query);
return searcher.Get().Cast<ManagementObject>().Select(mo => Convert.ToInt32(mo["ProcessId"])).ToList();
}
}
public enum EProcessPriority : uint
{
IDLE = 0x40,
BELOW_NORMAL = 0x4000,
NORMAL = 0x20,
ABOVE_NORMAL = 0x8000,
HIGH_PRIORITY = 0x80,
REALTIME = 0x100
}
public enum EProcessStartStatus
{
Success = 0,
AccessDenied = 2,
NoPermissions = 3,
Unknown = 8,
FileNotFound = 9,
Invalid = 21,
}
public enum EProcessProperty
{
Caption,
CommandLine,
CreationClassName,
CreationDate,
CSCreationClassName,
CSName,
Description,
ExecutablePath,
ExecutionState,
Handle,
HandleCount,
InstallDate,
KernelModeTime,
MaximumWorkingSetSize,
MinimumWorkingSetSize,
Name,
OSCreationClassName,
OSName,
OtherOperationCount,
OtherTransferCount,
PageFaults,
PageFileUsage,
ParentProcessId,
PeakPageFileUsage,
PeakVirtualSize,
PeakWorkingSetSize,
Priority,
PrivatePageCount,
ProcessId,
QuotaNonPagedPoolUsage,
QuotaPagedPoolUsage,
QuotaPeakNonPagedPoolUsage,
QuotaPeakPagedPoolUsage,
ReadOperationCount,
ReadTransferCount,
SessionId,
Status,
TerminationDate,
ThreadCount,
UserModeTime,
VirtualSize,
WindowsVersion,
WorkingSetSize,
WriteOperationCount,
WriteTransferCount,
}

If there are only 2 ways of starting your app, the second method should pass a parameter (a GUID?) to Process.Start() - generated by your updater app.
Maybe devise some kind of algorithm that allows the app to start only with the token.

From what I know this is impossible in the way you would like it to be but there's one trick which you can use. Firstly change your WPF application's entry method to get the command line arguments, and ( for example ) use -u argument to distinct from where the application was started. Then after -u you can pass a HWND or a process ID that matches your updater. Of course you have to then check if that application is running and if it's your updater.
example :
// updated process start
ProcessStartInfo psi = new ProcessStartInfo("your/WPF/application.exe");
psi.Arguments = "-u " + Process.GetCurrentProcess().Id;
// fill up rest of the properties you need
Process.Start(psi);
// wpf application's entry point
void Main(string[] args)
{
string updaterProcessIdstr = string.Empty;
for (int i = 0; i < args.Length; i++)
{
if(args[i] == "-u")
{
updaterProcessIdstr = args[i + 1];
i++;
}
}
int pid = int.Parse(updaterProcessIdstr);
Process updaterProcess = Process.GetProcessById(pid);
// do some validation here
// send something to stdin and read from stdout
// to determine if it was started from that updater.
}

Is a process running on a remote machine?

I have three remote PC's to which I remotely connect. I am trying to write a simple Windows application that would display in a single window whether a particular process is running on either of the machines, e.g.
Server1: Chrome not running
Server2: Chrome IS running
Server3: Chrome IS running
I used WMI and C#. So far I've got this much:
ConnectionOptions connectoptions = new ConnectionOptions();
connectoptions.Username = #"domain\username";
connectoptions.Password = "password";
//IP Address of the remote machine
string ipAddress = "192.168.0.217";
ManagementScope scope = new ManagementScope(#"\\" + ipAddress + #"\root\cimv2");
scope.Options = connectoptions;
//Define the WMI query to be executed on the remote machine
SelectQuery query = new SelectQuery("select * from Win32_Process");
using (ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new
ManagementObjectSearcher(scope, query))
{
ManagementObjectCollection collection = searcher.Get();
foreach (ManagementObject process in collection)
{
// dwarfs stole the code!! :'(
}
}
I think it is all set up correctly, but if I MessageBox.Show(process.ToString()) inside the foreach loop, I get a whole bunch of message boxes with the following text:
\\username\root\cimv2:W32_Process.Handle="XXX"
I am kind of stuck. Is there any way I can "translate" that XXX to a process name? Or else, how can actually get the names of the processes so I can use an if statement to check whether it is a "chrome" process?
Or...is my implementation an overkill? Is there an easier way to accomplish this?
Thanks a lot!

In your foreach, try this:
Console.WriteLine(process["Name"]);

You can filter the name of the process to watch in the WQL sentence, so you can write something like this
SelectQuery query = new SelectQuery("select * from Win32_Process Where Name='Chrome.exe'");
Try this sample app
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Management;
using System.Text;
namespace GetWMI_Info
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
try
{
string ComputerName = "localhost";
ManagementScope Scope;
if (!ComputerName.Equals("localhost", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
{
ConnectionOptions Conn = new ConnectionOptions();
Conn.Username = "";
Conn.Password = "";
Conn.Authority = "ntlmdomain:DOMAIN";
Scope = new ManagementScope(String.Format("\\\\{0}\\root\\CIMV2", ComputerName), Conn);
}
else
Scope = new ManagementScope(String.Format("\\\\{0}\\root\\CIMV2", ComputerName), null);
Scope.Connect();
ObjectQuery Query = new ObjectQuery("SELECT * FROM Win32_Process Where Name='Chrome.exe'");
ManagementObjectSearcher Searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(Scope, Query);
foreach (ManagementObject WmiObject in Searcher.Get())
{
//for each instance found, do something
Console.WriteLine("{0,-35} {1,-40}","Name",WmiObject["Name"]);
}
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Console.WriteLine(String.Format("Exception {0} Trace {1}",e.Message,e.StackTrace));
}
Console.WriteLine("Press Enter to exit");
Console.Read();
}
}
}

Try Process.GetProcesses("chrome", "computerName");
Defined in System.Diagnostics.Process as
public static Process[] GetProcessesByName(
string processName,
string machineName)

terminating process requires WQL "SELECT *..."?

i'm writing code to terminate specific processes after a specified amount of time. i'm using the below code (simplified for post):
ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher("SELECT Name, CreationDate FROM Win32_Process WHERE Name = 'foo'");
foreach (ManagementObject process in searcher.Get())
{
process.InvokeMethod("Terminate", null);
}
the problem -- using a WQL statement of SELECT Name, CreationDate throws an exception when trying to do the terminate:
"Operation is not valid due to the current state of the object."
...but, using SELECT * works and terminates the process. why is this -- is there a specific WMI column that's needed in the resultset?
thanks!

When you executes a WMI method, the WMI internally searh for the WMI Object path to identify the instance over the method will be executed.
In this case for the Win32_Process WMI class the WMI Object Path looks like Win32_Process.Handle="8112", So as you see the Handle property is part of the WMi Object path and must be included in your WQL sentece,
Check this sample.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Management;
using System.Text;
//this will all the notepad running instances
namespace GetWMI_Info
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
try
{
string ComputerName = "localhost";
ManagementScope Scope;
if (!ComputerName.Equals("localhost", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
{
ConnectionOptions Conn = new ConnectionOptions();
Conn.Username = "";
Conn.Password = "";
Conn.Authority = "ntlmdomain:DOMAIN";
Scope = new ManagementScope(String.Format("\\\\{0}\\root\\CIMV2", ComputerName), Conn);
}
else
Scope = new ManagementScope(String.Format("\\\\{0}\\root\\CIMV2", ComputerName), null);
Scope.Connect();
ObjectQuery Query = new ObjectQuery("SELECT Handle FROM Win32_Process Where Name='notepad.exe'");
ManagementObjectSearcher Searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(Scope, Query);
foreach (ManagementObject WmiObject in Searcher.Get())
{
WmiObject.InvokeMethod("Terminate", null);
}
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Console.WriteLine(String.Format("Exception {0} Trace {1}",e.Message,e.StackTrace));
}
Console.WriteLine("Press Enter to exit");
Console.Read();
}
}
}

Accessing the number of processors in WMI

I have looked through a number of posts on here regarding the WMI and am still having a little trouble. I would like to retrive the CPU useage from WMI, my query retrieves everything the ManagementObjectSearcher has to offer, but it returns a null and never pulls any information back.
Also, for the datatype I am pulling should I be using a int16?
Hopefully someone can shed a little light on this and send me on my way. Thanks.
public void GetPhysicalMemory()
{
ManagementObjectSearcher mgtObj = new ManagementObjectSearcher("root\\CIMV2", "SELECT * FROM Win32_ComputerSystem"); // Win32_OPeratingSystem");
ManagementObjectCollection mgtColl = mgtObj.Get();
// foreach (ManagementObject obj in mgtObj.Get())
if (mgtColl.Count != 0 )
{
foreach (ManagementBaseObject mgtBaseObj in mgtColl)
{
var[] data = mgtBaseObj["NumberOfProcessors"] as int16[];
if (data != null)
{
Console.WriteLine(data);
}
else
{
Console.WriteLine("Collection = null");
Console.Read();
Console.Read();
}
}
}

you can can iterate directly over the collection returned by ManagementObjectSearcher.Get method using a ManagementObject variable, from here you can access you can access each property using the item property or through the [] notation.
Check this sample application.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Management;
using System.Text;
namespace ConsoleFoo
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
try
{
ManagementObjectSearcher mgtObj = new ManagementObjectSearcher("root\\CIMV2", "SELECT * FROM Win32_ComputerSystem");
foreach (ManagementObject item in mgtObj.Get())
{
Console.WriteLine("Number Of Processors {0}", item["NumberOfProcessors"]);
}
}
catch (ManagementException e)
{
Console.WriteLine("Exception {0} ", e.Message);
}
Console.ReadKey();
}
}
}

USB Device Connected

I'm trying to make a function that detects if a usb device is connected given the devices pid and vid. I'm hoping it would look something like this, I'm just not sure how to do this in C#.
public bool IsUsbDeviceConnected(string pid, string vid)
{
//Code here
}

//using System.Management
public bool IsUsbDeviceConnected(string pid, string vid)
{
using (var searcher =
new ManagementObjectSearcher(#"Select * From Win32_USBControllerDevice"))
{
using (var collection = searcher.Get())
{
foreach (var device in collection)
{
var usbDevice = Convert.ToString(device);
if (usbDevice.Contains(pid) && usbDevice.Contains(vid))
return true;
}
}
}
return false;
}

may be something like
//import the System.Management namespace at the top in your "using" statement. Then in a method, or on a button click:
ManagementObjectCollection collection;
using (ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher("SELECT * FROM Win32_DiskDrive WHERE InterfaceType='USB'"))
collection = searcher.Get();
foreach (ManagementObject currentObject in collection)
{
ManagementObject theSerialNumberObjectQuery = new ManagementObject("Win32_PhysicalMedia.Tag='" + currentObject["DeviceID"] + "'");
MessageBox.Show(theSerialNumberObjectQuery["SerialNumber"].ToString());
}
collection.Dispose();
Using WMI