Here’s a simple technique (pulling it out of archive to help answer a thread in a discussion forum) to verify whether or not a program (actually a process) is currently running on a computer, local or remote (if the permissions have been establish to validate such information remotely), using a simple WMI query.
'---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
' Procedure : WMI_IsProcessRunning
' Author : Daniel Pineault, CARDA Consultants Inc.
' Website : http://www.cardaconsultants.com
' Purpose : Determine if a process or Program is running or not
' Returns: True/False
' Copyright : The following is release as Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
' (CC BY-SA 4.0) - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
' Req'd Refs: Uses Late Binding, so none required
'
' Input Variables:
' ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
' sExeName : Name of the process to look for
' sHost : Host computer to query, omit for the local PC
'
' Usage:
' ~~~~~~
' WMI_IsProcessRunning("firefox.exe")
' WMI_IsProcessRunning("outlook.exe")
' WMI_IsProcessRunning("msaccess.exe", "HomePC01")
' WMI_IsProcessRunning("msaccess.exe", "192.168.100.12")
'
' Revision History:
' Rev Date(yyyy/mm/dd) Description
' **************************************************************************************
' 1 2010-Feb-03 Initial Release
' 2 2020-08-21 Renamed the Function
' Updated Proc Header
' Code updated
' Updated Error Handler
'---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Public Function WMI_IsProcessRunning(sProcessName As String, Optional sHost As String = ".") As Boolean
On Error GoTo Error_Handler
Dim oWMI As Object 'WMI object to query about the PC's OS
Dim sWMIQuery As String 'WMI Query
Dim oCols As Object
Dim oCol As Object
Set oWMI = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & sHost & "\root\cimv2")
sWMIQuery = "SELECT * FROM Win32_Process WHERE Name = '" & sProcessName & "'"
Set oCols = oWMI.ExecQuery(sWMIQuery)
If oCols.Count <> 0 Then WMI_IsProcessRunning = True
Error_Handler_Exit:
On Error Resume Next
Set oCols = Nothing
Set oWMI = Nothing
Exit Function
Error_Handler:
MsgBox "The following error has occurred" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & _
"Error Number: " & Err.Number & vbCrLf & _
"Error Source: WMI_IsProcessRunning" & vbCrLf & _
"Error Description: " & Err.Description & _
Switch(Erl = 0, "", Erl <> 0, vbCrLf & "Line No: " & Erl) _
, vbOKOnly + vbCritical, "An Error has Occurred!"
Resume Error_Handler_Exit
End Function
There are some other great resources on the subject of WMI to further develop such code. I good starting point is MSDN, see: WMI Tasks: Processes
