Determine whether running in ASP.NET or WinForms/console without System.Web

Question

From a class library, I need to determine at run-time whether I'm running in an ASP.NET app or a WinForms/console app. There have been several other questions asked on the subject, but all of those solutions require adding a reference to System.Web. If at all possible, when running my console and WinForms apps, I don't want to load the System.Web assembly into memory just for one line of code out of thousands.

Answer 1

Use System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess().ProcessName

If you're running ASP.NET then the assembly will be named thusly:

• If you are running IIS 6.0 or IIS 7.0, the name is w3wp.exe.

• If you are running an earlier version of IIS, the name is aspnet_wp.exe.

Another Idea: How about testing the process/app domain for the presence of the System.Web.dll with the AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies() API?

Answer 2

One of the questions you linked to contained an answer suggesting Environment.UserInteractive.

You could also try to analyze the StackTrace of your code to figure out where you are called from.

Answer 3

You could try something based on Assembly.GetEntryAssembly(). As noted in the comment below, GetEntryAssembly() returns NULL if the current code is being run in the context of a web application or service. It will return some non-null reference in cases of standalone apps such as WinForm or console apps.

Edited to change the original answer because of the comment.

Answer 4

Yet another hack:

System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration throws an ArgumentException with a specific message if you're not running inside a standalone exe. You could use that fact to check in this manner:

bool notAnExe = false ;
try
{
    // see if we're running in an exe.
    Configuration config = ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(ConfigurationUserLevel.None);
}
catch(ArgumentException aex)
{
    if(aex.Message == "exePath must be specified when not running inside a stand alone exe.")
    {
        notAnExe = true ;
    }
}

Answer 5

You can check System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess().ProcessName;. If it starts with aspnet, then it's asp.net. Otherwise, desktop.