Do you need to find out if a particular exe file (or a process) is running on local or remote machine? It is very easy to check this out using System.Diagnostics namespace.

According to MSDN:-

The System.Diagnostics namespace provides classes that allow you to interact with system processes, event logs, and performance counters.

The Process class provides functionality to monitor system processes across the network, and to start and stop local system processes. In addition to retrieving lists of running processes (by specifying either the computer, the process name, or the process id) or viewing information about the process that currently has access to the processor, you can get detailed knowledge of process threads and modules both through the Process class itself, and by interacting with the ProcessThread and ProcessModule classes. The ProcessStartInfo class enables you to specify a variety of elements with which to start a new process, such as input, output, and error streams, working directories, and command line verbs and arguments. These give you fine control over the behavior of your processes. Other related classes let you specify window styles, process and thread priorities, and interact with collections of threads and modules.

Simply speaking, using an object of Process class you can get a list of all processes running on system. Its member GetProcesses provides an array of all processes running on the system. Its overload GetProcesses(strMachineName) allows you to do the same for a machine on the network.

If you need to check a particular process, there is a member GetProcessesByName(strName) using which you can provide the string parameter containing the name of process.

Let's see a coding example. I want to find all processes of "notepad" running on my machine and want to know what time each of them was started. Here is how its done in VB.net.

Imports System.Diagnostics 'put it on top of page

Dim localByName As Process() = Process.GetProcessesByName("notepad")
Dim NotePadProc As Process
MsgBox("Total number of processes found: " & LocalByName.Length)
' if Length property is zero, means no such process running.

For Each NotePadProc In localByName
MsgBox(NotePadProc.StartTime)
Next