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

I have (in the past) written cross-platform (Windows/Unix) applications which, when started from the command line, handled a user-typed Ctrl-C combination in the same way (i.e. to terminate the application cleanly).

Is it possible on Windows to send a Ctrl-C/SIGINT/equivalent to a process from another (unrelated) process to request that it terminate cleanly (giving it an opportunity to tidy up resources etc.)?

I have done some research around this topic, which turned out to be more popular than I anticipated. KindDragon's reply was one of the pivotal points.

I wrote a longer blog post on the topic and created a working demo program, which demonstrates using this type of system to close a command line application in a couple of nice fashions. That post also lists external links that I used in my research.

In short, those demo programs do the following:

• Start a program with a visible window using .Net, hide with pinvoke, run for 6 seconds, show with pinvoke, stop with .Net.
• Start a program without a window using .Net, run for 6 seconds, stop by attaching console and issuing ConsoleCtrlEvent

Edit: The amended solution from @KindDragon for those who are interested in the code here and now. If you plan to start other programs after stopping the first one, you should re-enable CTRL+C handling, otherwise the next process will inherit the parent's disabled state and will not respond to CTRL+C.

[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
static extern bool AttachConsole(uint dwProcessId);

[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true, ExactSpelling = true)]
static extern bool FreeConsole();

[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
static extern bool SetConsoleCtrlHandler(ConsoleCtrlDelegate HandlerRoutine, bool Add);

delegate bool ConsoleCtrlDelegate(CtrlTypes CtrlType);

// Enumerated type for the control messages sent to the handler routine
enum CtrlTypes : uint
{
    CTRL_C_EVENT = 0,
    CTRL_BREAK_EVENT,
    CTRL_CLOSE_EVENT,
    CTRL_LOGOFF_EVENT = 5,
    CTRL_SHUTDOWN_EVENT
}

[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
[return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)]
private static extern bool GenerateConsoleCtrlEvent(CtrlTypes dwCtrlEvent, uint dwProcessGroupId);

public void StopProgram(Process proc)
{
    //This does not require the console window to be visible.
    if (AttachConsole((uint)proc.Id))
    {
    // Disable Ctrl-C handling for our program
    SetConsoleCtrlHandler(null, true); 
    GenerateConsoleCtrlEvent(CtrlTypes.CTRL_C_EVENT, 0);

    //Moved this command up on suggestion from Timothy Jannace (see comments below)
    FreeConsole();
                
    // Must wait here. If we don't and re-enable Ctrl-C
    // handling below too fast, we might terminate ourselves.
    proc.WaitForExit(2000);
                
    //Re-enable Ctrl-C handling or any subsequently started
    //programs will inherit the disabled state.
    SetConsoleCtrlHandler(null, false); 
    }
}

Also, plan for a contingency solution if AttachConsole() or the sent signal should fail, for instance sleeping then this:

if (!proc.HasExited)
{
    try
    {
    proc.Kill();
    }
    catch (InvalidOperationException e){}
}

The closest that I've come to a solution is the SendSignal 3rd party app. The author lists source code and an executable. I've verified that it works under 64-bit windows (running as a 32-bit program, killing another 32-bit program), but I've not figured out how to embed the code into a windows program (either 32-bit or 64-bit).

How it works: > After much digging around in the debugger I discovered that the entry point that actually does the behavior associated with a signal like ctrl-break is kernel32!CtrlRoutine. The function had the same prototype as ThreadProc, so it can be used with CreateRemoteThread directly, without having to inject code. However, that's not an exported symbol! It's at different addresses (and even has different names) on different versions of Windows. What to do? > >Here is the solution I finally came up with. I install a console ctrl handler for my app, then generate a ctrl-break signal for my app. When my handler gets called, I look back at the top of the stack to find out the parameters passed to kernel32!BaseThreadStart. I grab the first param, which is the desired start address of the thread, which is the address of kernel32!CtrlRoutine. Then I return from my handler, indicating that I have handled the signal and my app should not be terminated. Back in the main thread, I wait until the address of kernel32!CtrlRoutine has been retrieved. Once I've got it, I create a remote thread in the target process with the discovered start address. This causes the ctrl handlers in the target process to be evaluated as if ctrl-break had been pressed! > >The nice thing is that only the target process is affected, and any process (even a windowed process) can be targeted. One downside is that my little app can't be used in a batch file, since it will kill it when it sends the ctrl-break event in order to discover the address of kernel32!CtrlRoutine.

(Precede it with start if running it in a batch file.)

I guess I'm a bit late on this question but I'll write something anyway for anyone having the same problem. This is the same answer as I gave to this question.

My problem was that I'd like my application to be a GUI application but the processes executed should be run in the background without any interactive console window attached. I think this solution should also work when the parent process is a console process. You may have to remove the "CREATE_NO_WINDOW" flag though.

I managed to solve this using GenerateConsoleCtrlEvent() with a wrapper app. The tricky part is just that the documentation is not really clear on exactly how it can be used and the pitfalls with it.

My solution is based on what is described here. But that didn't really explain all the details either and with an error, so here is the details on how to get it working.

Create a new helper application "Helper.exe". This application will sit between your application (parent) and the child process you want to be able to close. It will also create the actual child process. You must have this "middle man" process or GenerateConsoleCtrlEvent() will fail.

Use some kind of IPC mechanism to communicate from the parent to the helper process that the helper should close the child process. When the helper get this event it calls "GenerateConsoleCtrlEvent(CTRL_BREAK, 0)" which closes down itself and the child process. I used an event object for this myself which the parent completes when it wants to cancel the child process.

To create your Helper.exe create it with CREATE_NO_WINDOW and CREATE_NEW_PROCESS_GROUP. And when creating the child process create it with no flags (0) meaning it will derive the console from its parent. Failing to do this will cause it to ignore the event.

It is very important that each step is done like this. I've been trying all different kinds of combinations but this combination is the only one that works. You can't send a CTRL_C event. It will return success but will be ignored by the process. CTRL_BREAK is the only one that works. Doesn't really matter since they will both call ExitProcess() in the end.

You also can't call GenerateConsoleCtrlEvent() with a process groupd id of the child process id directly allowing the helper process to continue living. This will fail as well.

I spent a whole day trying to get this working. This solution works for me but if anyone has anything else to add please do. I went all over the net finding lots of people with similar problems but no definite solution to the problem. How GenerateConsoleCtrlEvent() works is also a bit weird so if anyone knows more details on it please share.

Somehow GenerateConsoleCtrlEvent() return error if you call it for another process, but you can attach to another console application and send event to all child processes.

void SendControlC(int pid)
{
    AttachConsole(pid); // attach to process console
    SetConsoleCtrlHandler(NULL, TRUE); // disable Control+C handling for our app
    GenerateConsoleCtrlEvent(CTRL_C_EVENT, 0); // generate Control+C event
}

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.

Here is the code I use in my C++ app.

Positive points :

• Works from console app
• Works from Windows service
• No delay required
• Does not close the current app

Negative points :

• The main console is lost and a new one is created (see FreeConsole)
• The console switching give strange results...

---

// Inspired from http://stackoverflow.com/a/15281070/1529139
// and http://stackoverflow.com/q/40059902/1529139
bool signalCtrl(DWORD dwProcessId, DWORD dwCtrlEvent)
{
	bool success = false;
	DWORD thisConsoleId = GetCurrentProcessId();
	// Leave current console if it exists
    // (otherwise AttachConsole will return ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED)
	bool consoleDetached = (FreeConsole() != FALSE);

	if (AttachConsole(dwProcessId) != FALSE)
	{
		// Add a fake Ctrl-C handler for avoid instant kill is this console
        // WARNING: do not revert it or current program will be also killed
		SetConsoleCtrlHandler(nullptr, true);
		success = (GenerateConsoleCtrlEvent(dwCtrlEvent, 0) != FALSE);
		FreeConsole();
	}

	if (consoleDetached)
	{
		// Create a new console if previous was deleted by OS
		if (AttachConsole(thisConsoleId) == FALSE)
		{
			int errorCode = GetLastError();
			if (errorCode == 31) // 31=ERROR_GEN_FAILURE
			{
				AllocConsole();
			}
		}
	}
	return success;
}

Usage example :

DWORD dwProcessId = ...;
if (signalCtrl(dwProcessId, CTRL_C_EVENT))
{
    cout << "Signal sent" << endl;
}

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:

• Choco: https://github.com/ElyDotDev/windows-kill

• Node: https://github.com/ElyDotDev/node-windows-kill

        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);
            }
        }

Thanks to jimhark's answer and other answers here, I found a way to do it in PowerShell:

$ProcessID = 1234
$MemberDefinition = '
    [DllImport("kernel32.dll")]public static extern bool FreeConsole();
    [DllImport("kernel32.dll")]public static extern bool AttachConsole(uint p);
    [DllImport("kernel32.dll")]public static extern bool GenerateConsoleCtrlEvent(uint e, uint p);
    public static void SendCtrlC(uint p) {
        FreeConsole();
        if (AttachConsole(p)) {
            GenerateConsoleCtrlEvent(0, p);
            FreeConsole();
        }
        AttachConsole(uint.MaxValue);
    }'
Add-Type -Name 'dummyName' -Namespace 'dummyNamespace' -MemberDefinition $MemberDefinition
[dummyNamespace.dummyName]::SendCtrlC($ProcessID) 

What made things work was sending the GenerateConsoleCtrlEvent to the desired process group instead of sending it to all processes that share the console of the calling process and then AttachConsole back to the current process' parent's console.

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.

In Java, using JNA with the Kernel32.dll library, similar to a C++ solution. Runs the CtrlCSender main method as a Process which just gets the console of the process to send the Ctrl+C event to and generates the event. As it runs separately without a console the Ctrl+C event does not need to be disabled and enabled again.

CtrlCSender.java - Based on Nemo1024's and KindDragon's answers.

Given a known process ID, this consoless application will attach the console of targeted process and generate a CTRL+C Event on it.

import com.sun.jna.platform.win32.Kernel32;    

public class CtrlCSender {

    public static void main(String args[]) {
        int processId = Integer.parseInt(args[0]);
        Kernel32.INSTANCE.AttachConsole(processId);
        Kernel32.INSTANCE.GenerateConsoleCtrlEvent(Kernel32.CTRL_C_EVENT, 0);
    }
}

Main Application - Runs CtrlCSender as a separate consoless process

ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder();
pb.command("javaw", "-cp", System.getProperty("java.class.path", "."), CtrlCSender.class.getName(), processId);
pb.redirectErrorStream();
pb.redirectOutput(ProcessBuilder.Redirect.INHERIT);
pb.redirectError(ProcessBuilder.Redirect.INHERIT);
Process ctrlCProcess = pb.start();
ctrlCProcess.waitFor();

Yes. The windows-kill project does exactly what you want:

windows-kill -SIGINT 1234

I found all this too complicated and used SendKeys to send a CTRL-C keystroke to the command line window (i.e. cmd.exe window) as a workaround.

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"

// Send [CTRL-C] to interrupt a batch file running in a Command Prompt window, even if the Command Prompt window is not visible,
// without bringing the Command Prompt window into focus.
// [CTRL-C] will have an effect on the batch file, but not on the Command Prompt  window itself -- in other words,
// [CTRL-C] will not have the same visible effect on a Command Prompt window that isn't running a batch file at the moment
// as bringing a Command Prompt window that isn't running a batch file into focus and pressing [CTRL-C] on the keyboard.
ulong ulProcessId = 0UL;
// hwC = Find Command Prompt window HWND
GetWindowThreadProcessId (hwC, (LPDWORD) &ulProcessId);
AttachConsole ((DWORD) ulProcessId);
SetConsoleCtrlHandler (NULL, TRUE);
GenerateConsoleCtrlEvent (CTRL_C_EVENT, 0UL);
SetConsoleCtrlHandler (NULL, FALSE);
FreeConsole ();

SIGINT can be send to program using windows-kill, by syntax windows-kill -SIGINT PID, where PID can be obtained by Microsoft's pslist.

Regarding catching SIGINTs, if your program is in Python then you can implement SIGINT processing/catching like in this solution.

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/