Question

I’m, trying to list all running processes on my computer.

What is wrong with my EnumWindowsProc() calling statement in my short example code. My compiler claims that, in this line:

EnumWindows(@EnumWindowsProc, ListBox1);

that there needs to be a variable inside the function call. How should I change @EnumWindowsProc to a var ?

unit Unit_process_logger;

interface

uses
  Winapi.Windows, Winapi.Messages, System.SysUtils, System.Variants, 
  System.Classes, Vcl.Graphics, Vcl.Controls, Vcl.Forms, Vcl.Dialogs, 
  Vcl.ExtCtrls, Vcl.StdCtrls;

type
  TForm1 = class(TForm)
    ListBox1: TListBox;
    Timer1: TTimer;
    procedure Timer1Timer(Sender: TObject);
  private
    { Private-Deklarationen }    
  public
    { Public-Deklarationen }
  end;

function EnumWindowsProc(wHandle: HWND; lb: TListBox): Boolean;

var
  Form1: TForm1;

implementation

{$R *.dfm}

function EnumWindowsProc(wHandle: HWND; lb: TListBox): Boolean;
var
  Title, ClassName: array[0..255] of Char;
begin
  GetWindowText(wHandle, Title, 255);
  GetClassName(wHandle, ClassName, 255);
  if IsWindowVisible(wHandle) then
     lb.Items.Add(string(Title) + '-' + string(ClassName));
end;

procedure TForm1.Timer1Timer(Sender: TObject);
begin
  ListBox1.Items.Clear;    
  EnumWindows(@EnumWindowsProc, ListBox1);    
end;

end.

Answer 1

First of all the declaration is wrong. It needs to be stdcall, and it returns BOOL.

function EnumWindowsProc(wHandle: HWND; lb: TListBox): BOOL; stdcall;

Secondly, your implementation doesn’t set the return value. Return True to continue enumeration, False to stop enumeration. In your case you need to return True.

Finally, you’ll need to cast the list box to be LPARAM when you call EnumWindows.

EnumWindows(@EnumWindowsProc , LPARAM(ListBox1));

Consult the documentation for the full details.

Putting it all together you have this:

function EnumWindowsProc(wHandle: HWND; lb: TListBox): BOOL; stdcall;
var
  Title, ClassName: array[0..255] of char;
begin
  GetWindowText(wHandle, Title, 255);
  GetClassName(wHandle, ClassName, 255);
  if IsWindowVisible(wHandle) then
    lb.Items.Add(string(Title) + '-' + string(ClassName));
  Result := True;
end;

procedure TForm1.Timer1Timer(Sender: TObject);
begin
  ListBox1.Items.Clear;
  EnumWindows(@EnumWindowsProc, LPARAM(ListBox1));
end;

Note also that EnumWindows does not enumerate all running processes. What it does is enumerate all top level windows. Note quite the same thing. To enumerate all running processes there is EnumProcesses. However, since you are reading out window titles and window class names, you probably do want to use EnumWindows.

---

As I’ve said many times before, I loath the fact that the Delphi header translation for EnumWindows uses Pointer for the EnumWindowsProc parameter. Which means that you can’t rely on the compiler to check type safety. I personally always use my own version of EnumWindows.

type
  TFNWndEnumProc = function(hwnd: HWND; lParam: LPARAM): BOOL; stdcall;

function EnumWindows(lpEnumFunc: TFNWndEnumProc; lParam: LPARAM): BOOL;
  stdcall; external  user32;

And then when you call the function you don’t use the @ operator and so let the compiler check that your callback function is declared correctly:

EnumWindows(EnumWindowsProc, ...);