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I have several copies of a program running. I would like to find the PID for a particular one of these processes. I can identify the window which spawned the process (and there is only one process from that window) but I cannot tell it apart from other similar processes.

Any ideas?

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2 Answers

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You can pull up Task Manager (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC), and then right-click the window you want on Applications and choose "Bring To Front". When you've identified the correct window, right-click it and choose "Go To Process". Now, under the "View" menu, choose "Select Columns...", and check the PID box. The PID will now appear as a separate column alongside your highlighted process.

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That works too. I just prefer all of the options and features from the sysinternals tools. TaskMan.exe won't show you the starting string, path, etc. – mfinni Feb 8 '11 at 21:09
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Use SysInternals Process Explorer. Right-click on the process, and bring the Window to the Front. This technically lets you find the window from the potential processes, so you might have to do it a few times until you find the one you care about.

Alternatively, if the one you care about has a specific file open, you could run handle.exe and find the PID that way.

Are there any other distinguishing characteristics about the process that you care about? Is the start-string different, the path, something?

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Great answer, I'd accept it if I could accept two. No, generally there's nothing distinguishing them -- both will be started with the same command-line options, but they'll be doing different things depending on what happens after they open. – Charles Feb 9 '11 at 0:28
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