How can I enumerate the open windows (~EnumWindows) of another user session

Question

I have an application that can list the opened windows of the current session. It uses the EnumWindows method from the user32.dll.

I would like to run this code from a windows service, but as the service is not attached to a user session, it returns nothing obviously.

So the question is, how can I enumerate the open windows of another user session (e.g. with a specific logon user)?

Similarly to EnumWindows, I also would like to get the foreground window of the user session as well (like GetForegroundWindow works for the current user).

Answer 1

As far as I'm aware, you can't access the windows of one session from another. It's also worth noting that there's not really any such thing as "the current session" - there may be multiple users logged on through terminal services, or XP's fast user switching.

One approach to this would be to add a program to each user's profile with no UI that just communicates with your service. You'd still have to cope with the fact that there could be multiple active sessions, though.