[Q#2318220][A#2318759] How to detect via Java whether a particular process is running under Windows?

Well the title pretty much sums the question. The only thing I found is this but I'm not sure if thats the way to go.

Answer

You can use the wmic utility to check the list of running processes. Suppose you want to check if the windows' explorer.exe process is running : See http://ss64.com/nt/wmic.html or http://support.microsoft.com/servicedesks/webcasts/wc072402/listofsampleusage.asp for some example of what you can get from wmic…

APIzation

String line;
try {
    Process proc = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("wmic.exe");
    BufferedReader input = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(proc.getInputStream()));
    OutputStreamWriter oStream = new OutputStreamWriter(proc.getOutputStream());
    oStream .write("process where name='explorer.exe'");
    oStream .flush();
    oStream .close();
    while ((line = input.readLine()) != null) {
        System.out.println(line);
    }
    input.close();
} catch (IOException ioe) {
    ioe.printStackTrace();
}

package com.stackoverflow.api;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;

public class Human2318759 {

  public static boolean checkProcess(String process) {
    String line;
    try {
      Process proc = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("wmic.exe");
      BufferedReader input = new BufferedReader(
        new InputStreamReader(proc.getInputStream())
      );
      OutputStreamWriter oStream = new OutputStreamWriter(
        proc.getOutputStream()
      );
      oStream.write("process where name='" + process + "'");
      oStream.flush();
      oStream.close();
      while ((line = input.readLine()) != null) {
        if (line.contains(process)) return true;
      }
      input.close();
    } catch (IOException ioe) {
      ioe.printStackTrace();
    }
    return false;
  }
}

package com.stackoverflow.api;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;

/**
 * How to detect via Java whether a particular process is running under Windows?
 *
 * @author APIzator
 * @see <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/2318759">https://stackoverflow.com/a/2318759</a>
 */
public class APIzator2318759 {

  public static void detect() throws Exception {
    String line;
    try {
      Process proc = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("wmic.exe");
      BufferedReader input = new BufferedReader(
        new InputStreamReader(proc.getInputStream())
      );
      OutputStreamWriter oStream = new OutputStreamWriter(
        proc.getOutputStream()
      );
      oStream.write("process where name='explorer.exe'");
      oStream.flush();
      oStream.close();
      while ((line = input.readLine()) != null) {
        System.out.println(line);
      }
      input.close();
    } catch (IOException ioe) {
      ioe.printStackTrace();
    }
  }
}