How can you check for a specific instance of an App using Powershell/CMD?

Question

I'm working on some automation testing for a test app I developed. Using Powershell, I need to identify if a certain instance of the application is running. Currently, I can only find out ways to determine if the Application itself is running, not a specific instance of the application.

For example, see picture below:

The "SDX Test App" is the application itself. From the picture, you can see there's two instance of the test app (the top one is an error popup dialogue).

I need a way through Powershell to detect if the "Assertion Failure" instance is running.

When I right click on that instance, there is no option for "Properties" or anything like that.

Does anyone have a method of checking this? It would be much appreciated!

Cpt.Whale · Accepted Answer · 2022-01-19 20:33:24Z

3

You could try using the MainWindowTitle and/or CommandLine properties to differentiate between processes with the same name:

# List the different instances of notepad++
Get-Process -Name notepad++ | Select-Object ProcessName,MainWindowTitle,CommandLine

ProcessName MainWindowTitle        CommandLine
----------- ---------------        -----------
notepad++   C:\A\A.txt - Notepad++ "C:\Program File…"
notepad++   C:\B\B.txt - Notepad++ "C:\Program File…" "C:\B\B.txt"

From there you can write a basic test. For example:

# Check for assertion failure window:
if ( (Get-Process -Name "SDX Test App").MainWindowTitle -like "Assertion Failure*" ) {
  Write-Output "It's running!"
}

answered Jan 19, 2022 at 20:33

Cpt.Whale

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1 Comment

lakers5824 Over a year ago

Thank you for the response! This is an extremely clean and easy solution. I appreciate it!

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