C++ get windows title using process name

Question

edit: how can i get windows title using processname? for example get current title of chrome.exe

can you please elaborate more .Difficult to understand what you are asking? — Hariom Singh, Aug 11 '17 at 00:25
The definition of "completely loaded" and "GUI shows up" are going to be OS and graphics toolkit dependent. It will also be a lot easier if you control the source code for both the program being run and the watcher program, but you haven't told us if you do. You haven't provided enough details to answer your question. — ShadowRanger, Aug 11 '17 at 00:26
it is possible get windows title using processID? i can check if the process have windows title then the process is loaded and gui is showup? — Vedbex, Aug 11 '17 at 00:29
Are you looking for this? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1888863/how-to-get-main-window-handle-from-process-id — R2RT, Aug 11 '17 at 00:46
Too broad unless you can nail down which OS you're referring to. C++ has no concept of a window. — MrEricSir, Aug 11 '17 at 01:09

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 11 '17 at 03:00

You can get title of specific windows using it's process ID.

If you know the name of executed file(ex: Chrome.exe), you can get Handle with FindWindowEX() or get PID "Chrome.exe" with CreateToolHelp32Snapshot.

Then use EnumWindows to get HWND using HANDLE.

struct param_enum
{
    unsigned long ulPID;
    HWND hWnd_out;
};

HWND find_specific_window(unsigned long process_id)
{
    param_enum param_data;
    param_data.ulPID = process_id;
    param_data.hWnd_out = 0;
    EnumWindows(enum_windows_callback, (LPARAM)&param_data);
    get_window_title(process_id, param_data.hWnd_out);
    return param_data.hWnd_out;
}

BOOL CALLBACK enum_windows_callback(HWND handle, LPARAM lParam)
{
    param_enum& param_data = *(param_enum*)lParam;
    unsigned long process_id = 0;
    GetWindowThreadProcessId(handle, &process_id);
    if (param_data.ulPID != process_id)
    {
        return TRUE;
    }
    param_data.hWnd_out = handle;

    return FALSE;   
}

---------------------------Get Handle---------------------------

HANDLE GetHandleFromProcessPath(TCHAR* szExeName, DWORD& dwPID)
{
    HANDLE hExeName = INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE;
    HANDLE hSnap = INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE;
    PROCESSENTRY32 pe32;
    pe32.dwSize = sizeof(PROCESSENTRY32);

    hSnap = CreateToolhelp32Snapshot(TH32CS_SNAPPROCESS, 0);

    if (INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE != hSnap)
    {
        if (Process32First(hSnap, &pe32))
        {
            do 
            {
                //!!! Attention pe32.szExeFile always return exe file name. not window title.
                if (NULL != _tcsstr(pe32.szExeFile, szExeName))
                {
                    hExeName = OpenProcess(PROCESS_ALL_ACCESS, TRUE, pe32.th32ProcessID);
                    dwPID = pe32.th32ProcessID;
                    break;
                }
            } while (Process32Next(hSnap, &pe32));
        }
    }


    return hExeName;
}

This seems very close to useful... but where is the ```get_window_title()``` function? Am I missing something? — Skewjo, Jan 05 '21 at 20:37

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 20 '22 at 14:48

Completing the answer of "G.Alexander" and and the comment of Skewjo the get_window_title code is incomplete. So, worked for me, by removing it and calling find_specific_window like below:

wchar_t* caption = new wchar_t[MAX_PATH*2];
HWND h = find_specific_window(processID);
GetWindowTextW(h, caption, MAX_PATH*2);

C++ get windows title using process name

2 Answers2