Is there a way to distinguish which batch file ran an executable?

Question

For instance, let's say I have a folder with the following in it:

log.bat
clear.bat
new.bat
init.exe

Each .bat file calls init once or more times. I do not have access to any of the .bat files, so there is not way that I can pass a variable to init.exe. One thing to know about init is a C# application and can accept arguments.

Possibilities:

DOSKEYS - Turns out that they don't work for .bat files.
Environment Variables - I thought I could name an environment variable called init that would do something like init %~n0 to get the batch file name. Sadly, this doesn't work either.
Hacky Alias - Make a batch file named init.bat (as the .bat files call init, not init.exe). Then, in the init.bat file, I would simply put init.exe %~n0. Two things went wrong with this. First, the .bat files for some reason took init.exe priority over init.bat, and so the batch file alias wasn't even called. Secondly, the %~n0 part expanded to init, as it was called from init.bat, not the other batch files.

Am I out of luck? Or is there a hacky method that could work for this?

@rory.ap Sorry for that. The `init.exe` file is a c# application, so I thought maybe it was worthy of tagging. — John, Nov 16 '16 at 20:20
Where are you trying to make this determination? From code running somewhere else? or manually from Windows? — rory.ap, Nov 16 '16 at 20:21
@rory.ap Anywhere. I don't think I have many options at this point. — John, Nov 16 '16 at 20:23
Have you checked the `static void Main(string[] args)` array? It should contain some information about the caller? — alstonp, Nov 16 '16 at 20:29
@alstonp, Does it? `Debug.WriteLine(args.Length)` returns `0`. — John, Nov 16 '16 at 20:31
Guess not, sorry, my mistake. So we can't modify the way the bat files call init.exe right? — alstonp, Nov 16 '16 at 20:34
That is correct. Also, the `.bat` files call `init`, not `init.exe`, if that helps. — John, Nov 16 '16 at 20:37
The order of extension is set in the `pathext` variable. Type `set pathext` to see. — , Nov 16 '16 at 22:08
It's possible to convert .bat to .exe so take your own init.bat and convert it and replace? — NizonRox, Nov 17 '16 at 11:01

score 1 · Answer 1 · 2016-11-16T22:23:16.293

C:\Windows\system32>wmic process where "commandline like 'notepad'" get parentprocessid
ParentProcessId
5908


C:\Windows\system32>wmic process where "processid=5908" get commandline
CommandLine
C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe /c ""C:\Users\User\Desktop\New Text Document (2.bat" "

Or to see all info on that batch process

wmic process where "processid=5908" get /format:list

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:13

0

This is not the most elegant solution, but if there's only one of those batch file running at a given time, you could try to list all the cmd.exe processes with Process.GetProcessesByName("cmd"), then find the one running one of the batch file by extracting its command line argument using this approach: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2633674/6621790

edited May 23 '17 at 12:13

Community

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1

answered Nov 16 '16 at 20:59

Rémi Boucher

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1

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 17 '16 at 15:27

The ideas of both Remi and Noodles helped me come to this answer. In C#, I used the following to get the PID of the terminal calling the executable:

//Get PID of current terminal
//Reference: https://github.com/npocmaka/batch.scripts/blob/master/hybrids/.net/getCmdPID.bat

var myId = Process.GetCurrentProcess().Id;
var query = String.Format("SELECT ParentProcessId FROM Win32_Process WHERE ProcessId = {0}", myId);
var search = new ManagementObjectSearcher("root\\CIMV2", query);
var results = search.Get().GetEnumerator();
if (!results.MoveNext())
{
    Console.WriteLine("Error");
    Environment.Exit(-1);
}

var queryObj = results.Current;
var parentId = queryObj["ParentProcessId"];
int myPid = Convert.ToInt32(parentId);

Is there a way to distinguish which batch file ran an executable?

3 Answers3