Bringing another application into foreground and sending input to it

Question

I am trying to restore( or even maximize ) another application and send input to it from my project. I can do it for certain applications like Notepad or Skype, but it doesn't work for other applications such as TeamSpeak.
Any ideas why and how I can solve the problem ?

Here's my code :

private void winact()
{       
    IntPtr hWnd; //change this to IntPtr
    Process[] processRunning = Process.GetProcesses();

    string title, name;
    foreach (Process pr in processRunning)
    {
        title = pr.MainWindowTitle.ToLower();
        name = pr.ProcessName.ToLower();

        if (title.Contains("teamspeak".ToLower()) || name.Contains("teamspeak".ToLower()))
        {
            hWnd = pr.MainWindowHandle;
            ShowWindow(hWnd, 3);
            SetForegroundWindow(hWnd); //set to topmost
            break;
        }
    }
}

I use InputSimulator to send the input.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/257587/bring-a-window-to-the-front-in-wpf MyWindow.TopMost =true — K Smith, Aug 17 '16 at 00:22
I want to make another process the topmost one, that works, it always gets set by `winact()`, the problem is with the input — Bogdan Molinger, Aug 17 '16 at 00:24
Did you try `hWnd.Activate();` and `hWnd.TopMost = true;`? I think it should be enough to get the key inputs. — ViVi, Aug 17 '16 at 03:11
`hWnd` is of type `IntPtr`. It isn't a control that can be activated. — Bogdan Molinger, Aug 17 '16 at 03:23

ViVi · Answer 1 · 2016-08-17T05:57:18.603

Could you just try this? I think this should work for you.

private void winact()
{
    IntPtr hWnd; //change this to IntPtr
    Process[] processRunning = Process.GetProcesses();

    string title, name;
    foreach (Process pr in processRunning)
    {
        title = pr.MainWindowTitle.ToLower();
        name = pr.ProcessName.ToLower();

        if (title.Contains("teamspeak".ToLower()) || name.Contains("teamspeak".ToLower()))
        {
            hWnd = pr.MainWindowHandle;
            HwndSource hwndSource = HwndSource.FromHwnd(hWnd);
            Window window = hwndSource.RootVisual as Window;
            window.Activate();
            window.TopMost = true;

            ShowWindow(hWnd, 3);
            SetForegroundWindow(hWnd); //set to topmost
            break;
        }
    }
}

Using this, I get a `NullReferenceException` at the second line. `hwndSource` is null — Bogdan Molinger, Aug 17 '16 at 05:46

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 26 '16 at 04:31

Apparently the problem was that my application did not run with administrator rights. In order to be able to send input to other apps efficiently, the role of administrator is required.

To do this, I've added an app.manifest to the application, and changed requestedExecutionLevel level from asInvoker to requireAdministrator.
Using InputSimulator worked for other applications, but certain applications, such as games, consider the input to be a simple message and do not process keystrokes as actions. They are however passed to the chat. (this is what I've noticed)

In order to solve this issue, I have written a very script in autoIT which is simply taking the parameter passed to it (only 1) and sends the parameter as a keystroke to the window, currently in foreground. The script is compiled resulting in an executable which I am calling.

I am sure that there is a better way of doing it, but this is the best I've managed to do.

Bringing another application into foreground and sending input to it

2 Answers2