RtTerminateProcess

RtTerminateProcess terminates the specified process and all of its threads.

Syntax

BOOL RtTerminateProcess(
    HANDLE hProcess,
    UINT uExitCode
);

Parameters

hProcess

Handle to the process to terminate. The handle must have PROCESS_TERMINATE access. If an invalid handle is specified, the function fails and sets last error to ERROR_INVALID_HANDLE.

uExitCode

The exit code for the process and for all threads terminated as a result of this call. Use RtGetExitCodeProcess to retrieve the process's exit value. Use GetExitCodeThread to retrieve a thread's exit value.

Return Value

TRUE if the function succeeds, FALSE if the function fails.

To get extended error information, call GetLastError.

Remarks

RtTerminateProcess is used to unconditionally cause a process to exit.

RtTerminateProcess causes all threads within a process to terminate, and causes a process to exit, but DLLs attached to the process are not notified that the process is terminating.

Caution: Use this function only in extreme circumstances. The state of global data maintained by dynamic-link libraries (DLLs) may be compromised if RtTerminateProcess is used rather than exit or ExitProcess.

Terminating a process causes the following:

1. All of the object handles opened by the process are closed.
2. All of the threads in the process terminate their execution.
3. The state of the process object becomes signaled, satisfying any threads that had been waiting for the process to terminate.
4. The states of all threads of the process become signaled, satisfying any threads that had been waiting for the threads to terminate.
5. The termination status of the process changes from STILL_ACTIVE to the exit value of the process.

Terminating a process does not cause child processes to be terminated.

Terminating a process does not necessarily remove the process object from the system. A process object is deleted when the last handle to the process is closed.

IMPORTANT! There is risk of a Windows system crash if either the RT-TCP/IP Stack (RtTcpip.rtss) or RTX64 Network Abstraction Layer (RTX64Nal.rtss) processes are terminated.

See Also:

ExitProcess

RtGetExitCodeProcess

GetExitCodeThread

RtOpenProcess

RtCreateProcess