Whats the difference between open and native handle in c#

user_10746031 0
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I am looking for the difference between

IntPtr handle_1 = process.Handle;

Gets the native handle of the associated process.

[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
public static extern IntPtr OpenProcess(
     uint processAccess,
     bool bInheritHandle,
     uint processId
);
IntPtr handle_2 = OpenProcess(0x0010,false,process.Id);

If the function succeeds, the return value is an open handle to the specified process.

Both got different values. But i can still read the memory with those. I would like to understand the difference between those two, to prevent making mistakes. I am using them in the context:

 ReadProcessMemory(handle_x, addr, data, data.Length, IntPtr.Zero);
handle memory process c#
1 Answers

Both are process handles, and as such can be used in the same manner.

A Process object contains a process handle through its Handle property. When you call Dispose on such object, you close that handle.

When you call OpenHandle on the process' ID, you get a different handle (so it has a different value) that refers to the same process. You must separately close that handle when you're done with it (using the Win32 function CloseHandle): disposing the Process object won't magically close the handle you got from OpenProcess.

So why would you call OpenHandle when you already have a perfectly functional handle in Process? Well, access rights, really. The handle obtained by Process has PROCESS_ALL_ACCESS (i.e. full access rights). If you want an handle with fewer rights, you can use OpenProcess for that.

But really, for most purposes, there isn't really a need to mess around with native APIs when you need a process handle.

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