Password Protect Winforms Application

Question

I have a simple WinForms application that runs in the system tray. Is it possible to password protect the program from closing if a user tries to close it from task manager?

Ideally I want to keep a user from closing the process but if windows is restarted, I want it to close without being prompted. Much like antivirus programs.

Answer 1

If a user has the correct permissions they will be able to kill your process from the Task Manager.

That said as @fujiFX mentions in his comment the FormClosing event is a good start and better than nothing.

The FormClosing event occurs as the form is being closed. When a form is closed, it is disposed, releasing all resources associated with the form. If you cancel this event, the form remains opened. To cancel the closure of a form, set the Cancel property of the FormClosingEventArgs passed to your event handler to true.

Answer 2

You can make this verification on YourService.Stop method (assuming you're using a Windows Service thus inheriting from ServiceBase), but as far as I know you cannot prevent the user from killing the proccess, just to close the app (two different things in Windows).

Answer 3

It's hard to do, but you can create two applications, one is main program and two is helper. If helper is killed, then main app restarts it. If main app is killed, then helper restarts main app.