Kill parent process without administrator rights

Question

How can I kill the parent process without administrator rights? Process A creates process B, and in process B I need to kill process A.

possible duplicate of [C++ TerminateProcess function](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2443738/c-terminateprocess-function) — Aamir, Sep 30 '11 at 12:10
how about using IPC and an exit token instead (this is graceful exit instead of process kill)? or are you unable to edit the source for proces A? — mtijn, Sep 30 '11 at 12:10
@lsk Please answer the questions you are asked - Don'tjust say thanks — , Sep 30 '11 at 12:15
"or are you unable to edit the source for proces A?" what do you mean by "source" of process? Process A and process B run me (they runs by me) — WelcomeTo, Sep 30 '11 at 12:17
let me put it this way: can you edit the source code of the executable of A? if not then you should accept the answer that suggests using the taskkill tool, if so then you have other options to end process A gracefully. this info should have been in your question so we can give you more meaningful answers. — mtijn, Sep 30 '11 at 12:22
yes, mtijn, i have source code for both applications (for processes). Important to kill it without admin rights — WelcomeTo, Sep 30 '11 at 12:26
yes of course, your answer and some others is good. I have added rank for you. — WelcomeTo, Sep 30 '11 at 12:57

score 2 · Answer 1 · 2011-09-30T12:30:25.397

2

Check this:

Taskkill

Ends one or more tasks or processes. Processes can be killed by process ID or image name. Syntax

taskkill [/s Computer] [/u Domain\User [/p Password]]] [/fi FilterName] [/pid ProcessID]|[/im ImageName] [/f][/t]

/t : Specifies to terminate all child processes along with the parent process, commonly known as a tree kill.

You can start a process in C# like:

using System.Diagnostics;

string args = ""; // write here a space separated parameter list for TASKKILL
Process prc = new Process(new ProcessStartInfo("Taskkill", args));
prc.Start();

edited Sep 30 '11 at 12:30

answered Sep 30 '11 at 12:13

TerminateProcess makes more sense – David Heffernan Sep 30 '11 at 12:30
1

@DavidHeffernan TerminateProcess is nice and all, but you'd have to P/Invoke it – harold Sep 30 '11 at 12:35
@harold What's wrong with P/invoke? Spinning up another process is a little bit overkill. What if it's not there? – David Heffernan Sep 30 '11 at 12:38
And if you don't like P/invoke then isn't it just easier to call `Process.Kill()`?!! – David Heffernan Sep 30 '11 at 12:40
It is very stupid way to involve another process in order to kill process. And existence of taskkill.exe is not guaranteed (administrator could restrict access to It or remove It at all) – Tadeusz Sep 30 '11 at 12:59
@Praetor12 and invoking `Process.Kill` is not guaranteed too. What if B process is not run as Administrator? – Sep 30 '11 at 13:07

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

2

You want to ProcessB to signal to ProcessA that it wants to it to stop running. ProcessA can then clean up any resources and exit gracefully (as suggested in the comments to your answer). So how does a Process signal something to another Process? That is called Inter-Process Communication (IPC) and there are loads of ways to do on the same machine or across machines including message buses, web-service, named pipes.

A simple option is a system-wide EventWaitHandle - good example here Signalling to a parent process that a child process is fully initialised

edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

Community

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answered Sep 30 '11 at 12:29

Peter Kelly

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ok, thank you, Peter. But important question - can it work without admin rights? – WelcomeTo Sep 30 '11 at 12:32
ProcessA is stopping itself running so there are no problems with lack of Admin privileges there. – Peter Kelly Sep 30 '11 at 12:34
This is a good way if there is access to source code of parent process :)) – Tadeusz Sep 30 '11 at 12:56
there is, the author says so in the comments of the question – mtijn Sep 30 '11 at 12:59

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 30 '11 at 12:29

so you have the source code for both processes. in this case you can use a named system event like a semaphore to gracefully end process A. for example, construct a named semaphore in process A, pass the name to process B as one of the command line parameters when starting process B. Open the existing named semaphore from process B and signal it to let process A know it can end. you could also use taskkill but not ending A gracefully could result in corrupting resources A uses.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 30 '11 at 12:50

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All is very simple if you know parentProcessName, then solution is:

System.Diagnostics.Process.GetProcessesByName ("ParentProcessName")[0].Kill();

If not, then it will be a bit harder.

answered Sep 30 '11 at 12:50

Tadeusz

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ProcessB does not have admin privileges to kill other processes. – Peter Kelly Sep 30 '11 at 13:01
Then there are two ways: 1) To run another process from user with administrator's rights 2)"Ask" parent process to terminate itself (if It is your application) – Tadeusz Sep 30 '11 at 13:06
@Praetor12 but actually he mentioned that he doesn't have administative privilages, so that `Process.Kill` is meaningless here – Sep 30 '11 at 13:13
@Mr.DDD Taskkill, running form non-privilieged user, will be with the same user privilieges... – Tadeusz Sep 30 '11 at 13:17

Kill parent process without administrator rights

4 Answers4