PID may refer to any of the following:

  1. Short for product identification or product id, PID is a unique number that helps identify a hardware product or a registered software product. For example, a computer mouse PID is often found on the bottom. If it’s a wireless, it may be inside the case, in or near the battery compartment. With software, a “product ID” is more often called a license code or product key, and is used to register the software. See our product key page for further information.

  2. Short for process identifier, a PID is a unique number that identifies each running processes in an operating system, such as Linux, Unix, macOS, and Microsoft Windows. The output below shows a few of the processes running in Windows and their associated PIDs listed in the PID column.

Listing running PIDs

  • Microsoft Windows users can use the tasklist command from the command line to list all tasks and associated PID. Within Windows, you can see each of the services PID by opening the Services tab in Task Manager.
  • Unix and Linux users can list PIDs using the ps command and the top command.

Stopping or killing a PID

  • Microsoft Windows users can end a PID using the taskkill command from the command line or through the Task Manager.
  • Linux and Unix users can kill a PID using the kill command.

Computer abbreviations, Fork, Hardware terms, Operating system terms, Process, Software terms