How to get the process ID of the current Excel instance, through VBA, without using the caption?

Question

How can I get the process ID of the current Excel instance that my VBA code is running in? I don't want to asking for it by the name in the caption, which causes problems when I have two or more Excel instances with the same caption.

Solution 1

You can use this method to get the current process id.

Declare Function GetCurrentProcessId Lib "kernel32" () As Long

This page has a good overview of exactly how you can do it in various versions of excel.

Solution 2

My solution in Excel 2013: in a new module, I added the following code:

Private Declare Function GetCurrentProcessId Lib "kernel32" () As Long

Public Sub Test()
    Debug.Print GetCurrentProcessId
End Sub

Solution 3

As a vba n00b, some other things I did not know

1. The Declare statement goes at the top. VBA will complain if the declare statement is inserted after a sub declaration

   For example, this will work

   Declare Function GetCurrentProcessId Lib "kernel32" () As Long
   
   Sub Update
     ...
     ...
   End Sub
   

   But this will not work

   Sub Update
     ...
     ...
   End Sub
   
   Declare Function GetCurrentProcessId Lib "kernel32" () As Long
   

2. Here is how we display the PID in a messagebox in vbscript

   Set app = CreateObject("Excel.Application")
   MsgBox("Excel PID is " + CStr(app.Run("GetCurrentProcessId")))
   

Hope this helps someone

Comments

[mklement0]

Works great; note that in VBA object modules (e.g., in a module associated with an Excel workbook), you must prefix the declaration with Private .

[Andreas Covidiot]

@mklement0 this is wrong for at least for Excel 2010, nevertheless if one wants to call it differently one has to wrap it in another function and thus private could make sense

[mklement0]

@AndreasDietrich From at least 2013 on, from what I can tell, you must use Private in object modules (those associated with the workbook as a whole or a given worksheet, under "Microsoft Excel Objects" in the VBA project view, but not in code-only modules (under "Modules"). Additionally, in VBA 7 (not sure what version that corresponds to, but it is the case in Excel 2019), you must use the PtrSafe attribute (Private Declare PtrSafe Function ...). So, how does it work in Excel 2010 and below?

[Andreas Covidiot]

@mklement0 ah - thx for the clarification. I was talking then about code-only modules.