Checking if a process is running/hanging and stop/run a scheduled task on Windows

In this tutorial, we'll learn how to detect a process is running properly, and depending on the outcome, we'll stop/re-run the process. Our platform is Windows Server 2012, and it will most likely to work on other Windows products as well. The script is written in Python.

Here is the code for detecting the status of a program:

import os

def getTasks(name):
    r = os.popen('tasklist /v').read().strip().split('\n')
    print ('# of tasks is %s' % (len(r)))
    for i in range(len(r)):
        s = r[i]
        if name in r[i]:
            print ('%s in r[i]' %(name))
            return r[i]
    return []

if __name__ == '__main__':
    '''
    This code checks tasklist, and will print the status of a code
    '''

    imgName = 'dwm.exe'

    notResponding = 'Not Responding'

    r = getTasks(imgName)

    if not r:
        print('%s - No such process' % (imgName)) 

    elif 'Not Responding' in r:
        print('%s is Not responding' % (imgName))
        
    else:
        print('%s is Running or Unknown' % (imgName))

The line in the getTasks():

tasklist /v

displays verbose task information in the output. The list r gets all the processes one element per line, and the getTasks() returns a process has the process that has the program name in the string. If no such a process with the given name, it returns empty list.

A sample output looks like this:

C:\> python h.py
# of tasks is 71
dwm.exe in r[i]
dwm.exe is Running or Unknown

To run a scheduled task, we can follow the logic below, and coding it depending on the cases:

C:\HealthCheck>schtasks /end /tn StartPatch
ERROR: The system cannot find the file specified.

C:\HealthCheck>schtasks /end /tn \Patch\StartPatch
SUCCESS: The scheduled task "\Patch\StartPatch" has been terminated successfully.

C:\HealthCheck>schtasks /run /tn \Patch\StartPatch
SUCCESS: Attempted to run the scheduled task "\Patch\StartPatch".

schtasks enables an administrator to create, delete, query, change, run, and end scheduled tasks on a local or remote computer. Running Schtasks.exe without arguments displays the status and next run time for each registered task. (Schtasks.exe)