How do I determine the owner of a process in C#?

I am looking for a process by the name of "MyApp.exe" and I want to make sure I get the process that is owned by a particular user.

I use the following code to get a list of the processes:

Process[] processes = Process.GetProcessesByName("MyApp");

This gives me a list of processes, but there does not appear to be a way in the Process class to determine who owns that process? Any thoughts on how I can do this?

Solution 1:

You can use WMI to get the user owning a certain process. To use WMI you need to add a reference to the System.Management.dll to your project.

By process id:

public string GetProcessOwner(int processId)
{
    string query = "Select * From Win32_Process Where ProcessID = " + processId;
    ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(query);
    ManagementObjectCollection processList = searcher.Get();

    foreach (ManagementObject obj in processList)
    {
        string[] argList = new string[] { string.Empty, string.Empty };
        int returnVal = Convert.ToInt32(obj.InvokeMethod("GetOwner", argList));
        if (returnVal == 0)
        {
            // return DOMAIN\user
            return argList[1] + "\\" + argList[0];
        }
    }

    return "NO OWNER";
}

By process name (finds the first process only, adjust accordingly):

public string GetProcessOwner(string processName)
{
    string query = "Select * from Win32_Process Where Name = \"" + processName + "\"";
    ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(query);
    ManagementObjectCollection processList = searcher.Get();

    foreach (ManagementObject obj in processList)
    {
        string[] argList = new string[] { string.Empty, string.Empty };
        int returnVal = Convert.ToInt32(obj.InvokeMethod("GetOwner", argList));
        if (returnVal == 0)
        {
            // return DOMAIN\user
            string owner = argList[1] + "\\" + argList[0];
            return owner;       
        }
    }

    return "NO OWNER";
}

Solution 2:

Since WMI is not always a fast way of retrieving information, here is the native P/Invoke way of doing it:

The return value is null when unsuccessful. In order to get the names of processes running under the SYSTEM user, you need to execute this code as administrator.

private static string GetProcessUser(Process process)
{
    IntPtr processHandle = IntPtr.Zero;
    try
    {
        OpenProcessToken(process.Handle, 8, out processHandle);
        WindowsIdentity wi = new WindowsIdentity(processHandle);
        string user = wi.Name;
        return user.Contains(@"\") ? user.Substring(user.IndexOf(@"\") + 1) : user;
    }
    catch
    {
        return null;
    }
    finally
    {
        if (processHandle != IntPtr.Zero)
        {
            CloseHandle(processHandle);
        }
    }
}

[DllImport("advapi32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
private static extern bool OpenProcessToken(IntPtr ProcessHandle, uint DesiredAccess, out IntPtr TokenHandle);
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
[return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)]
private static extern bool CloseHandle(IntPtr hObject);