To identify the background process & bring to foreground in C++ WIN32

Question

Can anyone tell me how to identify a particular background process (i.e., Already running application) and bring to foreground? For example, if a Notepad application is running in the background, when I run my WIN32 application, it should identify the Notepad application and notepad should pop up or come to foreground.

I tried SwitchToThisWindow() function, but it works like Alt+tab. It will not identify the background process.

Pls suggest me walkthrough guide for this..

Thank you..

Answer 1

It's not clear what you mean by 'background process', but here's some ideas:

Use EnumWindows to get you all the top-level HWNDs on the desktop. This will include a bunch of stuff you don't want that you'll have to filter out. Recommend you play with Spy++ to see what the HWND tree looks like, and what sort of HWNDs you'll find here:

From this set, you'll want to filter out or ignore invisible HWNDs (use IsWindowVisible or check for the WS_VISIBLE style).

Also filter out windows that have WS_POPUP set - those are things like tooltips, menu popups, floating toolbars, and the like.

To filter out the currently active window, (if you don't already know it) use GetGUIThreadInfo with idThread=0; GUIHREADINFO.hwndActive returns the active window, so any top-level HWND that's not it is an inactive window.

If you're looking specifically for minimized windows, you can detect those using IsIconic(hwnd).

Finally, when you've found a window that you consider to be 'background', you can use GetWindowText to get the title, or GetWindowThreadProcessId to get the process ID.