Reading from a text field in another application&#

Question

Is there a way for a Windows application to access another applications data, more specifically a text input field in GUI, and grab the text there for processing in our own application?

If it is possible, is there a way to "shield" your application to prevent it?

EDIT: The three first answers seem to be about getting the another applications window title, not a specific text input field in that window.

I'm no Windows API expect, so could you be more exact how do I find a certain text field in that window, what are the prequisites for it (seems like knowing a window handle something is required, does it require knowing the text field handle as well? How do I get that? etc...)

Code snippets in C++ really would be really appreciated. MSDN help is hard to browse since Win32-API has such horrible naming conventions.

Completed! See my answer below for a how-to in C++.

Answer 1

About how to shield the application to prevent it, you could do many things. One way would be to have a own control to handle text input that build up the text from lets say a couple of labels placed where the text would be, or that draws the text graphically.