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# win_wait_for_process – Waits for a process to exist or not exist before continuing

New in version 2.7.

- Synopsis
- Parameters
- See Also
- Examples
- Return Values
- Status

## Synopsis

- Waiting for a process to start or stop.
- This is useful when Windows services behave poorly and do not enumerate external dependencies in their manifest.

## Parameters

Parameter | Choices/Defaults | Comments
--- | --- | ---
owner string |  | The owner of the process. Requires PowerShell version 4.0 or newer.
pid integer |  | The PID of the process.
post_wait_delay integer | Default: 0 | Seconds to wait after checking for processes.
pre_wait_delay integer | Default: 0 | Seconds to wait before checking processes.
process_min_count integer | Default: 1 | Minimum number of process matching the supplied pattern to satisfy `present` condition. Only applies to `present`.
process_name_exact list |  | The name of the process(es) for which to wait. The name of the process(es) should not include the file extension suffix.
process_name_pattern string |  | RegEx pattern matching desired process(es).
sleep integer | Default: 1 | Number of seconds to sleep between checks. Only applies when waiting for a process to start. Waiting for a process to start does not have a native non-polling mechanism. Waiting for a stop uses native PowerShell and does not require polling.
state string | Choices: absent present ← | When checking for a running process `present` will block execution until the process exists, or until the timeout has been reached. `absent` will block execution until the process no longer exists, or until the timeout has been reached. When waiting for `present`, the module will return changed only if the process was not present on the initial check but became present on subsequent checks. If, while waiting for `absent`, new processes matching the supplied pattern are started, these new processes will not be included in the action.
timeout integer | Default: 300 | The maximum number of seconds to wait for a for a process to start or stop before erroring out.

## See Also

See also

wait_for – Waits for a condition before continuing
  The official documentation on the wait_for module.
win_wait_for – Waits for a condition before continuing
  The official documentation on the win_wait_for module.

## Examples

    - name: Wait 300 seconds for all Oracle VirtualBox processes to stop. (VBoxHeadless, VirtualBox, VBoxSVC)
      win_wait_for_process:
        process_name_pattern: 'v(irtual)?box(headless|svc)?'
        state: absent
        timeout: 500

    - name: Wait 300 seconds for 3 instances of cmd to start, waiting 5 seconds between each check
      win_wait_for_process:
        process_name_exact: cmd
        state: present
        timeout: 500
        sleep: 5
        process_min_count: 3

## Return Values

Common return values are documented here, the following are the fields unique to this module:

Key | Returned | Description
--- | --- | ---
elapsed float | always | The elapsed seconds between the start of poll and the end of the module. Sample: 3.14159265
matched_processes complex | always | List of matched processes (either stopped or started).
| name string | always | The name of the matched process. Sample: svchost
| owner string | when supported by PowerShell | The owner of the matched process. Sample: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
| pid integer | always | The PID of the matched process. Sample: 7908

## Status

- This module is not guaranteed to have a backwards compatible interface. [preview]
- This module is maintained by the Ansible Community. [community]

### Authors

- Charles Crossan (@crossan007)

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