Windows processes and applications

Question

I can easily identify running processes by going through the WMI elements of Win32_Process . Is there a similar way to define "applications" as in the task manager? I suppose this is comparable to understanding if the process has an open window. For example, when you exit Outlook, the OUTLOOK.EXE process continues to work. The task manager no longer shows it as an application, but the process still exists. I want to be able to determine this difference from the script. I think I can handle examples in most languages.

Answer 1

It would seem that the way to do this is to list all the top-level windows.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/183009

Answer 2

It looks like it does what you ask: Running processes / applications