Can I send a ctrl-C (SIGINT) to an application on Windows?

Question

I have (in the past) written cross-platform (Windows/Unix) applications which, when started from the command line, handled a user-typed Ctrl-C combinat

Answer 1

A solution that I have found from here is pretty simple if you have python 3.x available in your command line. First, save a file (ctrl_c.py) with the contents:

import ctypes
import sys

kernel = ctypes.windll.kernel32

pid = int(sys.argv[1])
kernel.FreeConsole()
kernel.AttachConsole(pid)
kernel.SetConsoleCtrlHandler(None, 1)
kernel.GenerateConsoleCtrlEvent(0, 0)
sys.exit(0)

Then call:

python ctrl_c.py 12345

If that doesn't work, I recommend trying out the windows-kill project: https://github.com/alirdn/windows-kill

Answer 2

Based on process id, we can send the signal to process to terminate forcefully or gracefully or any other signal.

List all process :

C:\>tasklist

To kill the process:

C:\>Taskkill /IM firefox.exe /F
or
C:\>Taskkill /PID 26356 /F

Details:

http://tweaks.com/windows/39559/kill-processes-from-command-prompt/

Answer 3

It should be made crystal clear because at the moment it isn't. There is a modified and compiled version of SendSignal to send Ctrl-C (by default it only sends Ctrl+Break). Here are some binaries:

(2014-3-7) : I built both 32-bit and 64-bit version with Ctrl-C, it's called SendSignalCtrlC.exe and you can download it at: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/49065779/sendsignalctrlc/x86/SendSignalCtrlC.exe https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/49065779/sendsignalctrlc/x86_64/SendSignalCtrlC.exe -- Juraj Michalak

I have also mirrored those files just in case:
32-bit version: https://www.dropbox.com/s/r96jxglhkm4sjz2/SendSignalCtrlC.exe?dl=0
64-bit version: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hhe0io7mcgcle1c/SendSignalCtrlC64.exe?dl=0

Disclaimer: I didn't build those files. No modification was made to the compiled original files. The only platform tested is the 64-bit Windows 7. It is recommended to adapt the source available at http://www.latenighthacking.com/projects/2003/sendSignal/ and compile it yourself.

Answer 4

A friend of mine suggested a complete different way of solving the problem and it worked for me. Use a vbscript like below. It starts and application, let it run for 7 seconds and close it using ctrl+c.

'VBScript Example

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

WshShell.Run "notepad.exe"

WshShell.AppActivate "notepad"

WScript.Sleep 7000

WshShell.SendKeys "^C"

Answer 5

        void SendSIGINT( HANDLE hProcess )
        {
            DWORD pid = GetProcessId(hProcess);
            FreeConsole();
            if (AttachConsole(pid))
            {
                // Disable Ctrl-C handling for our program
                SetConsoleCtrlHandler(NULL, true);

                GenerateConsoleCtrlEvent(CTRL_C_EVENT, 0); // SIGINT

                //Re-enable Ctrl-C handling or any subsequently started
                //programs will inherit the disabled state.
                SetConsoleCtrlHandler(NULL, false);

                WaitForSingleObject(hProcess, 10000);
            }
        }

Answer 6

Edit:

For a GUI App, the "normal" way to handle this in Windows development would be to send a WM_CLOSE message to the process's main window.

For a console app, you need to use SetConsoleCtrlHandler to add a CTRL_C_EVENT.

If the application doesn't honor that, you could call TerminateProcess.