Get manufacturer / company name for a windows service

Question

Get manufacturer / company name for a windows service

Darren Rose 496

Hi

I want to list windows services in my app, but I want to be able to show the company name / manufacturer (like they do in msconfig / system configuration tool) for each service, so I can easily filter out Microsoft services.

However manufacturer doesn't seem to be readily available when retrieving list of services from WMI, registry or ServiceController.

Any ideas on how I can do this please?

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RLWA32 49,666 Reputation points

2023-12-11T08:19:23.8933333+00:00

Has your question about the method to determine the manufacturer of a Windows service been answered?
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RLWA32 49,666 Reputation points

2023-12-11T08:19:23.8933333+00:00

Has your question about the method to determine the manufacturer of a Windows service been answered?
Deleted

This comment has been deleted due to a violation of our Code of Conduct. The comment was manually reported or identified through automated detection before action was taken. Please refer to our Code of Conduct for more information.

Answer 1

RLWA32 49,666

A Windows binary that contains version information will also contain the name of the Manufacturer. This would be the CompanyName property of the FileVersionInfo Class. Service properties returned when enumerating with WMI include a PathName property which gives the fully qualified path for the service executable. You could get the version information for the executable to obtain the CompanyName property. However, for many services the PathName property will begin with a path to the svchost.exe executable followed by parameters. This Microsoft executable is used to host services that are implemented in DLLs. The DLL that is loaded into svchost is identified in the service's registry information in the ServiceDll value of the Parameters subkey.

Darren Rose 496 Reputation points

2023-12-08T12:56:21.4566667+00:00

Thanks, so how can I manipulate a PathName property to remove extraneous content from the end so it just leaves me with the path to the file I need to the use to get the CompanyName from e.g.

If I had a PathName of

"C:\Program Files\AVG\Antivirus\avgToolsSvc.exe" /runassvc

How can I remove everything after the last " to be left with just

"C:\Program Files\AVG\Antivirus\avgToolsSvc.exe"

RLWA32 49,666

There is no class to parse a command line in the .Net Framework. A preview class (Nuget package) for .Net 6 and .Net Standard is at System.CommandLine. However, the quick and dirty example below leverages the Windows API CommandLineToArgvW function to do the heavy lifting.

Example Console App (.Net Framework 4.8)

Module Module1
    <DllImport("Shell32.dll", CallingConvention:=CallingConvention.StdCall, CharSet:=CharSet.Unicode, ExactSpelling:=True, SetLastError:=True)>
    Public Function CommandLineToArgvW(lpCommandLine As String, ByRef numargs As Integer) As IntPtr

    End Function

    Sub Main()
        Dim Query = New SelectQuery("SELECT * FROM Win32_Service")
        Dim searcher = New ManagementObjectSearcher(Query)
        For Each mo In searcher.Get()
            Dim strCmdLine = mo("PathName")
            If strCmdLine <> String.Empty Then
                Dim nArgs = 0
                Dim pArgs = CommandLineToArgvW(strCmdLine, nArgs)
                If (pArgs <> IntPtr.Zero) Then
                    Dim pExe = Marshal.ReadIntPtr(pArgs)
                    Dim strExe = Marshal.PtrToStringUni(pExe)
                    Dim svcName = mo("DisplayName")
                    Try
                        Dim vi = FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(strExe)
                        Console.WriteLine($"Service: {svcName}, Executable: {strExe}, CompanyName: {vi.CompanyName}")
                    Catch ex As FileNotFoundException
                        Console.WriteLine($"Service: {svcName}, {ex.Message} Not Found")
                    End Try
                    Marshal.FreeHGlobal(pArgs)
                End If
            End If
        Next
    End Sub

End Module

Darren Rose 496 Reputation points

2023-12-08T15:54:20.73+00:00
Thank you, will give that a try.

Had been playing with some RegEx I had found:

Dim ExecutablePath = Regex.Replace(PathName, "^""([^""]*)"".*$", "$1")

Works fine when passing PathName like the ones below:

"C:\Program Files\AVG\Antivirus\AVGSvc.exe" /runassvc

and

"C:\Program Files\AVG\Antivirus\wsc_proxy.exe" /runassvc /rpcserver

but fails when the first part is not in quotes e.g.

C:\WINDOWS\system32\SearchIndexer.exe /Embedding

and

C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllhost.exe /Processid:{02D4B3F1-FD88-11D1-960D-00805FC79235}
Darren Rose 496 Reputation points

2023-12-08T16:48:50.01+00:00
@RLWA32

Thank you - that works really well in most cases - but have two issues

If the PathName is NOT enclosed in quotation marks e.g.

C:\Program Files\AVG\Antivirus\avgToolsSvc.exe

then I get error on the line "Dim vi = FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(strExe)"

System.IO.FileNotFoundException: 'C:\Program'

But also getting error for services such as the Application Layer Gateway Service which appears as

C:\WINDOWS\System32\alg.exe

Error occurs on same line of code

System.IO.FileNotFoundException: 'C:\WINDOWS\System32\alg.exe'

Very odd as file definitely exists, suspect this must be a \system32 \sysnative issue
RLWA32 49,666 Reputation points

2023-12-08T17:07:14.44+00:00
This problem

System.IO.FileNotFoundException: 'C:\Program'

is indicative of a path that contains embedded spaces but is not enclosed by quotation marks. The problem is the malformed path, not the code.

As far as the Application Layer Gateway Service is concerned the executable may actually not be present which causes the file not found exception. On my system -

You may get the missing file issue if you run the code as a 32-bit process. Build it for 64 bits and try again.
Darren Rose 496 Reputation points

2023-12-11T09:12:03.0266667+00:00

Problem solved by using RegEx to get the path instead - as per https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1459694/regex-to-get-executable-path-from-path-which-conta
RLWA32 49,666 Reputation points

2023-12-11T09:21:25.1733333+00:00

In all honesty I think you are being unfair. You are focusing on a detail with respect to parsing a command line which was not the question that was asked. And don't forget, I told you that I was only giving a quick and dirty example.
Darren Rose 496 Reputation points

2023-12-11T09:27:17.01+00:00

Yes apologies I worded that badly. Method to extract path solved by used RegEx. Your method to then use that path to get the manufacturers/company name then worked perfectly.
RLWA32 49,666 Reputation points

2023-12-11T09:48:28.3066667+00:00

Removed
Darren Rose 496 Reputation points

2023-12-11T09:51:02.6533333+00:00

"Removed" - yes I should think so too - I have accepted your answer, all you needed was a bit of patience, I am currently at work so just didn't get round to doing it yet, so drop the attitude
RLWA32 49,666 Reputation points

2023-12-11T10:09:51.18+00:00

Sorry about that. The recurring delays that this site has in reflecting user activity causes problems. In many cases it takes at least 30 minutes for this site to update. This problem is well known but not yet solved. I could not see that you had accepted the answer.

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Get manufacturer / company name for a windows service

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