Python - Function Is Unable To Run In New Thread

I'm trying to kill the notepad.exe process on windows using this function: import thread, wmi, os print 'CMD: Kill command called' def kill(): c = wmi.WMI () Commands=['no

Solution 1:

import  thread, wmi, os
import pythoncom
print 'CMD: Kill command called'
def kill():
    pythoncom.CoInitialize()
    . . .

Running Windows functions in threads can be tricky since it often involves COM objects. Using pythoncom.CoInitialize() usually allows you do it. Also, you may want to take a look at the threading library. It's much easier to deal with than thread.

Solution 2:

There are a couple of problems (EDIT: The second problem has been addressed since starting my answer, by "MikeHunter", so I will skip that):

Firstly, your program ends right after starting the thread, taking the thread with it. I will assume this is not a problem long-term because presumably this is going to be part of something bigger. To get around that, you can simulate something else keeping the program going by just adding a time.sleep() call at the end of the script with, say, 5 seconds as the sleep length.

This will allow the program to give us a useful error, which in your case is:

CMD: Kill command called
Unhandled exception in thread started by <function kill at 0x0223CF30>
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "killnotepad.py", line 4, in kill
    c = wmi.WMI ()
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\wmi.py", line 1293, in connect
    raise x_wmi_uninitialised_thread ("WMI returned a syntax error: you're probably running inside a thread without first calling pythoncom.CoInitialize[Ex]")
wmi.x_wmi_uninitialised_thread: <x_wmi: WMI returned a syntax error: you're probably running inside a thread without first calling pythoncom.CoInitialize[Ex] (no underlying exception)>

As you can see, this reveals the real problem and leads us to the solution posted by MikeHunter.