How to ensure process window launched by Process.Start(ProcessStartInfo) has focus of all Forms?

Question

c#.How to ensure process window launched by Process.Start(ProcessStartInfo) has focus of all Forms? Thanks,

Answer 1

Usage of SetForegroundWindow and other methods of setting of focus has a lot of restrictions. If you really want to be sure, that the started process will receive focus I recommend you to use following native (unmanaged) functions

SystemParametersInfo (SPI_GETFOREGROUNDLOCKTIMEOUT, 0, (PVOID)&dwLockedTimeout, 0);
SystemParametersInfo (SPI_SETFOREGROUNDLOCKTIMEOUT, 0, (PVOID)0,
                      SPIF_SENDWININICHANGE | SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE);

before process start and restore

SystemParametersInfo (SPI_SETFOREGROUNDLOCKTIMEOUT, 0, (PVOID)&dwLockedTimeout,
                      SPIF_SENDWININICHANGE | SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE);

at the end. A call like

WaitForInputIdle (pi.hProcess, 5000);

after the program start and before restoring of SPI_SETFOREGROUNDLOCKTIMEOUT can be also helpful if you will have problems with immediate

Answer 2

Process.Start returns a Process object. To give the process focus, firstly set up the following PInvoke:

[DllImport("user32.dll")] static extern bool SetForegroundWindow(IntPtr hWnd);

Then, use:

MyProcess = Process.Start(ProcessStartInfo);
SetForegroundWindow(MyProcess.MainWindowHandle);