Question

I’m trying to kill the notepad.exe process on windows using this function:

import  thread, wmi, os
print 'CMD: Kill command called'
def kill():
    c = wmi.WMI ()
    Commands=['notepad.exe']

    if Commands[0]!='All':
        print 'CMD: Killing: ',Commands[0]
        for process in c.Win32_Process ():
          if process.Name==Commands[0]:
              process.Terminate()
    else:
        print 'CMD: trying to kill all processes'
        for process in c.Win32_Process ():
            if process.executablepath!=inspect.getfile(inspect.currentframe()):           
                try:
                    process.Terminate()
                except:
                    print 'CMD: Unable to kill: ',proc.name

kill() #Works               
thread.start_new_thread( kill, () ) #Not working

It works like a charm when I’m calling the function like this:

kill()

But when running the function in a new thread it crashes and I have no idea why.

Answer 1

import  thread, wmi, os
import pythoncom
print 'CMD: Kill command called'
def kill():
    pythoncom.CoInitialize()
    . . .

Running Windows functions in threads can be tricky since it often involves COM objects. Using pythoncom.CoInitialize() usually allows you do it. Also, you may want to take a look at the threading library. It’s much easier to deal with than thread.