How to get a list of current open windows/process with Java?

java process
ramayac picture ramayac · Sep 10, 2008 · Viewed 176.1k times · Source

Does any one know how do I get the current open windows or process of a local machine using Java?

What I'm trying to do is: list the current open task, windows or process open, like in Windows Taskmanager, but using a multi-platform approach - using only Java if it's possible.

Answer

ramayac picture ramayac · Sep 10, 2008

This is another approach to parse the the process list from the command "ps -e":

try {
    String line;
    Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("ps -e");
    BufferedReader input =
            new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(p.getInputStream()));
    while ((line = input.readLine()) != null) {
        System.out.println(line); //<-- Parse data here.
    }
    input.close();
} catch (Exception err) {
    err.printStackTrace();
}

If you are using Windows, then you should change the line: "Process p = Runtime.getRun..." etc... (3rd line), for one that looks like this:

Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec
    (System.getenv("windir") +"\\system32\\"+"tasklist.exe");

Hope the info helps!

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