Problem with closing other instances of my application

Question

Hi guys!

I need my program to close old instances of it, when a new one comes up. I did my code like this:

public void killInstance()
{
Process[] Denlillehjaelper;
Denlillehjaelper = Process.GetProcessesByName("Den lille hjælper");
foreach (Process MyProcess in Denlillehjaelper)
{

MyProcess.CloseMainWindow();
MyProcess.Close();

}

}

And I call this from later in my code.

I can see it accurately runs this piece of code (i did a messagebox.show - just to check) but it dosent close the old instances of my application.

Maybe someone could help me? :)

Vulpes · Answer

As you probably know it's the 'friendly' name of the process that needs to be passed to the GetProcessesByName method. Possibly it doesn't like the spaces between the three words. I'd try placing double quotes around those words: Denlillehjaelper = Process.GetProcessesByName(\Den lille hjælper\); It might also not like the Swedish character 'æ'. You could try replacing that with 'ae'. If it's still no better I'd check Task Manager to see what the Process name is shown as in there.

Sam Hobbs · Answer

Please understand that it is bad advice to use Kill. The Kill documentation says  Kill causes an abnormal process termination and should be used only when necessary.. It should not be used as the normal solution. Are you sure you need to close the previous instance? Usually single-instance applications are implemented by closing new instances instead of old instances. It is likely that could be done here too. Since you have the code for the application a better solution would be to use inter-process communication. If it were me I would use something more reliable than the process name for finding existing instances. I realize that it is likely good enough for personal use but if it were me I would prefer something more precise even for personal use.

Mick Negendahl · Answer

Okay i found out its the name of the process where something is wrong because i tried replaceing it with notepad and it shut down notepad.

Mick Negendahl · Answer

Okay.. i found it the code inside my foreach is ignored for some reason??

Mick Negendahl · Answer

Hi Vulpes I now tried to replace CloseMainWindow with Kill - same result. Both the new and the old instance keeps running - any ideas? Please tell if i should post more code. If i take this pice of code: Process[] Denlillehjaelper; Denlillehjaelper = Process.GetProcessesByName(Den lille hjælper); foreach (Process MyProcess in Denlillehjaelper) { MyProcess.CloseMainWindow(); MyProcess.Close(); } and put it in my form_load - then it exits the application fine when a new one starts. But my problem is that it shouldnt always exit so i have this controlled with some command line arguments but when i can see that the argument run fine and runs my method it means that there is a problem with the code in the method right? /Mick

Vulpes · Answer

If your process doesn't have a user interface or you're not too bothered about an orderly shutdown then use MyProcess.Kill() rather than MyProcess.CloseMainWindow().