PROCESS_INFORMATION structure (processthreadsapi.h)

Article
02/22/2024

Contains information about a newly created process and its primary thread. It is used with the CreateProcess, CreateProcessAsUser, CreateProcessWithLogonW, or CreateProcessWithTokenW function.

Syntax

typedef struct _PROCESS_INFORMATION {
  HANDLE hProcess;
  HANDLE hThread;
  DWORD  dwProcessId;
  DWORD  dwThreadId;
} PROCESS_INFORMATION, *PPROCESS_INFORMATION, *LPPROCESS_INFORMATION;

Members

hProcess

A handle to the newly created process. The handle is used to specify the process in all functions that perform operations on the process object.

hThread

A handle to the primary thread of the newly created process. The handle is used to specify the thread in all functions that perform operations on the thread object.

dwProcessId

A value that can be used to identify a process. The value is valid from the time the process is created until all handles to the process are closed and the process object is freed; at this point, the identifier may be reused.

dwThreadId

A value that can be used to identify a thread. The value is valid from the time the thread is created until all handles to the thread are closed and the thread object is freed; at this point, the identifier may be reused.

Remarks

If the function succeeds, be sure to call the CloseHandle function to close the hProcess and hThread handles when you are finished with them. Otherwise, when the child process exits, the system cannot clean up the process structures for the child process because the parent process still has open handles to the child process. However, the system will close these handles when the parent process terminates, so the structures related to the child process object would be cleaned up at this point.

Examples

For an example, see Creating Processes.

Requirements

Requirement	Value
Minimum supported client	Windows XP [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server	Windows Server 2003 [desktop apps only]
Header	processthreadsapi.h (include Windows.h on Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2008 R2)