Check number of times a process is running

I'm having a bit of an issue figuring out how to check how many times a process is running in windows. I have an existing Visual C++ Program that uses the open source application dtelnet to connect to a system.

We have modified it here at our company to create lock files for each session of dtelnet, thus allowing only 8 sessions to be open at a time.

We've got a similar utility in Linux for graphical workstations. The problem I'm seeing is that sometimes, the screen locks are not being removed, this is the case in Windows and Linux.

In linux, I wrote a simple bash script script to check how many times the process was running, and if it's the first instance, go ahead and clear out the lock files.

I'm looking for something similar in Windows and am having some trouble locating a fix for what I need.

I need to:
1) Check how many times the process dtelnet.exe is running.
2) If the process is running 1 time, then this is the initial process and let's go ahead and clear any screen lock files (names scr1 - scr8).
3) If the process is running more than 1 time, then it's not the first running, so don't clear any locks.


Admittedly, I am new to programming in Windows and with C++. I have done shell scripting, some perl, and some java. Any code snippets or examples would be greatly appreciated.

The existing program was compiled with Visual C++ 6.0 and I have this or Visual C++ 8.0 available to me.

I don't mind researching, and have been for a couple of days but have not had much luck finding a specific solution.

Thanks in advance.

Download the WinSpy++ source code. In it, the creator uses a library that has the tools to easily do this.

Or, if you're not worried about different processes with the same name you could use MS' Tool Help API.

I don't really see that you need those files, or to be able to enumerate processes at all. Those methods are flawed.
You could simply use 8 mutexes and have your program try to acquire one of those before it will allow itself to continue. There's probably an even better way though.
I mean this is all one one machine right?

what you do is use Process32First , Process32Next and enumrate the snapshot
google those functions

Quote:

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Originally Posted by iMalc

I don't really see that you need those files, or to be able to enumerate processes at all. Those methods are flawed.
You could simply use 8 mutexes and have your program try to acquire one of those before it will allow itself to continue. There's probably an even better way though.
I mean this is all one one machine right?

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Correct, these are all on one PC. Each PC has it's own dtelnet program.

I'm not familiar with what a mutexe is. I'll look up some info. Any other info would be greatly appreciated.

I may be trying to go to an ssh connection as this does telnet.

Just as a disclaimer, my position is Research and Development, but I primarily deal in linux systems. I have some understanding of programming concepts, but have only used bash scripting, perl, and some java. Thanks for all the help from everybody, I'll look into the solutions provided thus far. Any further assistance is greatly appreciated.

It's a mutex, not a mutexe.

Right, I don't know why I didn't think of that. "enumerate proccesses" was stuck in my head.

Mutexes are really easy to use, I'm even using them in my current project. Mutex docs.