Detecting USB drive insertion and removal using windows service and c#

Question

Looking into possibility of making an USB distributed application
that will autostart on insertion of an USB stick and shutdown when removing the stick

Will use .Net and C#.
Looking for suggestion how to approach this using C#?

---

Update: Two possible solutions implementing this as a service.
- override WndProc
or
- using WMI query with ManagementEventWatcher

Answer 1

You can use WMI, it is easy and it works a lot better than WndProc solution with services.

Here is a simple example:

using System.Management;

ManagementEventWatcher watcher = new ManagementEventWatcher();
WqlEventQuery query = new WqlEventQuery("SELECT * FROM Win32_VolumeChangeEvent WHERE EventType = 2");
watcher.EventArrived += new EventArrivedEventHandler(watcher_EventArrived);
watcher.Query = query;
watcher.Start();
watcher.WaitForNextEvent();

Answer 2

This works well for me, plus you can find out more information about the device.

using System.Management;

private void DeviceInsertedEvent(object sender, EventArrivedEventArgs e)
{
    ManagementBaseObject instance = (ManagementBaseObject)e.NewEvent["TargetInstance"];
    foreach (var property in instance.Properties)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(property.Name + " = " + property.Value);
    }
}

private void DeviceRemovedEvent(object sender, EventArrivedEventArgs e)
{
    ManagementBaseObject instance = (ManagementBaseObject)e.NewEvent["TargetInstance"];
    foreach (var property in instance.Properties)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(property.Name + " = " + property.Value);
    }
}            

private void backgroundWorker1_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
    WqlEventQuery insertQuery = new WqlEventQuery("SELECT * FROM __InstanceCreationEvent WITHIN 2 WHERE TargetInstance ISA 'Win32_USBHub'");

    ManagementEventWatcher insertWatcher = new ManagementEventWatcher(insertQuery);
    insertWatcher.EventArrived += new EventArrivedEventHandler(DeviceInsertedEvent);
    insertWatcher.Start();

    WqlEventQuery removeQuery = new WqlEventQuery("SELECT * FROM __InstanceDeletionEvent WITHIN 2 WHERE TargetInstance ISA 'Win32_USBHub'");
    ManagementEventWatcher removeWatcher = new ManagementEventWatcher(removeQuery);
    removeWatcher.EventArrived += new EventArrivedEventHandler(DeviceRemovedEvent);
    removeWatcher.Start();

    // Do something while waiting for events
    System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(20000000);
}

Answer 3

Adding to VitalyB's post.

To raise an event where ANY USB device is inserted, use the following:

var watcher = new ManagementEventWatcher();
var query = new WqlEventQuery("SELECT * FROM Win32_DeviceChangeEvent WHERE EventType = 2");
watcher.EventArrived += new EventArrivedEventHandler(watcher_EventArrived);
watcher.Query = query;
watcher.Start();

This will raise an event whenever a USB device is plugged. It even works with a National Instruments DAQ that I'm trying to auto-detect.

Answer 4

VitalyB's answer does't cover remove of the device. I changed it a bit to trigger the event both when media is inserted and removed and also code to get the drive letter of the inserted media.

using System;
using System.Management;

namespace MonitorDrives
{
    class Program
    {
        public enum EventType
        {
            Inserted = 2,
            Removed = 3
        }

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            ManagementEventWatcher watcher = new ManagementEventWatcher();
            WqlEventQuery query = new WqlEventQuery("SELECT * FROM Win32_VolumeChangeEvent WHERE EventType = 2 or EventType = 3");

            watcher.EventArrived += (s, e) =>
            {
                string driveName = e.NewEvent.Properties["DriveName"].Value.ToString();
                EventType eventType = (EventType)(Convert.ToInt16(e.NewEvent.Properties["EventType"].Value));

                string eventName = Enum.GetName(typeof(EventType), eventType);

                Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1} {2}", DateTime.Now, driveName, eventName);
            };

            watcher.Query = query;
            watcher.Start();

            Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }
}