Home/ Questions/Q 5932729
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-22T14:52:29+00:00

I am thinking about a problem I have been having for some time now..

  • 0

I am thinking about a problem I have been having for some time now.. I would like to write a C/C++ program (under windows first) that can access(read/change values) the memory(stack, heap, everything) of other running programs. (Not like shared memory but any memory the computer has..) Without having to start the application from my own application..
I have seen something like this before but I just can’t figure out how it’s done.. If I were to access the memory of any running program I would get errors from the OS right?
Any help is appreciated!

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    As @sharptooth said, this requires support from the OS. Different OS does it differently. Since you are on Windows, there are a few steps you could follow:

    1. Call OpenProcess, or CreateProcess to access, or launch a new process. In this call, you must request PROCESS_VM_READ access.
    2. Call ReadProcessMemory to read a chunk of memory in that opened process.

    If you want to change memory of another process, you then need PROCESS_VM_WRITE access and use WriteProcessMemory to achieve that.

    In Linux, for example, you’d use ptrace to attach to a process and peek, poke its memory.

    • 0