How to get main window handle from process id?
I want to bring this window to the front.
It works well in \"Process Explorer\".
How to get main window handle from process id?
I want to bring this window to the front.
It works well in \"Process Explorer\".
I checked how .NET determines the main window.
My finding showed that it also uses EnumWindows()
.
This code should do it similarly to the .NET way:
struct handle_data {
unsigned long process_id;
HWND window_handle;
};
HWND find_main_window(unsigned long process_id)
{
handle_data data;
data.process_id = process_id;
data.window_handle = 0;
EnumWindows(enum_windows_callback, (LPARAM)&data);
return data.window_handle;
}
BOOL CALLBACK enum_windows_callback(HWND handle, LPARAM lParam)
{
handle_data& data = *(handle_data*)lParam;
unsigned long process_id = 0;
GetWindowThreadProcessId(handle, &process_id);
if (data.process_id != process_id || !is_main_window(handle))
return TRUE;
data.window_handle = handle;
return FALSE;
}
BOOL is_main_window(HWND handle)
{
return GetWindow(handle, GW_OWNER) == (HWND)0 && IsWindowVisible(handle);
}
I don\'t believe Windows (as opposed to .NET) provides a direct way to get that.
The only way I know of is to enumerate all the top level windows with EnumWindows()
and then find what process each belongs to GetWindowThreadProcessID()
. This sounds indirect and inefficient, but it\'s not as bad as you might expect -- in a typical case, you might have a dozen top level windows to walk through...
There\'s the possibility of a mis-understanding here. The WinForms framework in .Net automatically designates the first window created (e.g., Application.Run(new SomeForm())
) as the MainWindow
. The win32 API, however, doesn\'t recognize the idea of a \"main window\" per process. The message loop is entirely capable of handling as many \"main\" windows as system and process resources will let you create. So, your process doesn\'t have a \"main window\". The best you can do in the general case is use EnumWindows()
to get all the non-child windows active on a given process and try to use some heuristics to figure out which one is the one you want. Luckily, most processes are only likely to have a single \"main\" window running most of the time, so you should get good results in most cases.
This is my solution using pure Win32/C++ based on the top answer. The idea is to wrap everything required into one function without the need for external callback functions or structures:
#include <utility>
HWND FindTopWindow(DWORD pid)
{
std::pair<HWND, DWORD> params = { 0, pid };
// Enumerate the windows using a lambda to process each window
BOOL bResult = EnumWindows([](HWND hwnd, LPARAM lParam) -> BOOL
{
auto pParams = (std::pair<HWND, DWORD>*)(lParam);
DWORD processId;
if (GetWindowThreadProcessId(hwnd, &processId) && processId == pParams->second)
{
// Stop enumerating
SetLastError(-1);
pParams->first = hwnd;
return FALSE;
}
// Continue enumerating
return TRUE;
}, (LPARAM)¶ms);
if (!bResult && GetLastError() == -1 && params.first)
{
return params.first;
}
return 0;
}
Though it may be unrelated to your question, take a look at GetGUIThreadInfo Function.
As an extension to Hiale\'s solution, you could provide a different or modified version that supports processes that have multiple main windows.
First, amend the structure to allow storing of multiple handles:
struct handle_data {
unsigned long process_id;
std::vector<HWND> handles;
};
Second, amend the callback function:
BOOL CALLBACK enum_windows_callback(HWND handle, LPARAM lParam)
{
handle_data& data = *(handle_data*)lParam;
unsigned long process_id = 0;
GetWindowThreadProcessId(handle, &process_id);
if (data.process_id != process_id || !is_main_window(handle)) {
return TRUE;
}
// change these 2 lines to allow storing of handle and loop again
data.handles.push_back(handle);
return TRUE;
}
Finally, amend the returns on the main function:
std::vector<HWD> find_main_window(unsigned long process_id)
{
handle_data data;
data.process_id = process_id;
EnumWindows(enum_windows_callback, (LPARAM)&data);
return data.handles;
}
Just to make sure you are not confusing the tid (thread id) and the pid (process id):
DWORD pid;
DWORD tid = GetWindowThreadProcessId( this->m_hWnd, &pid);