Question about hooking....

Can someone provide me with some insight or code that will explain to me a little more about hooking a window?

basically this is my goal.. i want to hook a window to a program that is not one of my applications and view all the windows messages that are sent to it... i would have the class name or window handle of the target window... how could this be accomplished?

There are two types of windows hook that will be of use:- WH_CALLWNDPROC which is triggered whenever a message is added to a window's message queue using Sendmessage and the WH_GETMESSAGE hook type which is triggered whenever a window takes a messager off the queue using GetMessage or PeekMessage.

Unfortunately, these are very difficult to implement safely in VB.

merrion, can you give an example of their use?

and if possible can you explain their instability in VB?

Code hacked out of the EventVB.dll hook implementation...may be incomplete...

VB Code:

'\\ In a .Bas module:-
Public Enum enHookTypes
    WH_CALLWNDPROC = 4
    WH_CBT = 5
    WH_DEBUG = 9
    WH_FOREGROUNDIDLE = 11
    WH_GETMESSAGE = 3
    WH_HARDWARE = 8
    WH_JOURNALPLAYBACK = 1
    WH_JOURNALRECORD = 0
    WH_MOUSE = 7
    WH_MSGFILTER = (-1)
    WH_SHELL = 10
    WH_SYSMSGFILTER = 6
    WH_KEYBOARD_LL = 13
    WH_MOUSE_LL = 14
    WH_KEYBOARD = 2
End Enum
 
Private Declare Function SetWindowsHookEx Lib "user32" Alias "SetWindowsHookExA" (ByVal idHook As enHookTypes, ByVal lpfn As Long, ByVal hMod As Long, ByVal dwThreadId As Long) As Long
 
Private Declare Function UnhookWindowsHookEx Lib "user32" (ByVal hHook As Long) As Long
 
Private Declare Function CallNextHookEx Lib "user32" (ByVal hHook As Long, ByVal ncode As Long, ByVal wParam As Long, lParam As Any) As Long
 
Private Type msg
    hwnd As Long
    Message As Long
    wParam As Long
    lParam As Long
    time As Long
    pt As Long 'MSG
End Type
 
Private Declare Sub CopyMemoryMSG Lib "kernel32" Alias "RtlMoveMemory" (Destination As msg, ByVal Source As Long, ByVal Length As Long)
 
 
'\\ [VB_HOOKGETMESSAGEPROC]------------------------------------------
'\\ typedef LRESULT (CALLBACK* HOOKPROC)(int code, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam);
'\\ code - hook action,
'\\ Wparam, Lparam - message specific
'\\ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'\\ (c) 2001 - Merrion Computing.  
'\\ Please check [url]http://www.merrioncomputing.com[/url] for updates.
'\\ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Public Function VB_HOOKGETMESSAGEPROC(ByVal Code As Long, ByVal wParam As Long, ByVal lParam As Long) As Long
 
On Local Error Resume Next
 
 
'\\ Note: If the code passed in is less than zero, it must be passed direct to the next hook proc
If Code < 0 Then
    VB_HOOKGETMESSAGEPROC = CallNextHookEx(lHookId, Code, wParam, lParam)
    Exit Function
End If
 
'\\ Process the message here...
Dim msgIn As MSG
If CopyMemoryMSG(msgIn, lParam, len(msgIn)) Then
   Debug.Print Hex(msgIn.Message) & " processed by window " & msgIn.hwnd
End If
 
lret = CallNextHookEx(lHookId, Code, wParam, lParam)
 
 
'\\ If the message isn't cancelled, return the next hook's message...
If lMsgRet = 0 Then
    '\\ Return value to calling code....
    VB_HOOKGETMESSAGEPROC = lret
Else
    VB_HOOKGETMESSAGEPROC = lMsgRet
End If
 
End Function

...more to follow...

See this article on how to install global hooks...

thanks.. unfortunatly this is for something i am working on at home.. so i will have to wait till after work to try it out!

I have been working on this for the EventVB.dll...
So far I can get a thread-wide message hook thus:

VB Code:

Option Explicit
 
Dim WithEvents vbLink As EventVB.APIFunctions
Dim WithEvents vbHook As EventVB.ApiSystemHook
 
Private Sub Form_Load()
 
Set vbLink = New APIFunctions
 
Set vbHook = vbLink.System.Hooks
vbHook.StartHook WH_GETMESSAGE, HOOK_LOCAL_PROCESS
 
 
End Sub
 
Private Sub vbHook_AnyWindowMessageHandled(ByVal TargetWnd As EventVB.ApiWindow, ByVal Removed As Boolean, msg As EventVB.WindowMessages, wParam As Long, lParam As Long)
 
Debug.Print TargetWnd.WindowText & " received message " & msg
 
End Sub

But if I change HOOK_LOCAL_PROCESS to HOOK_GLOBAL it only receives one message, which it erroneously says is message #4110, then unhooks itself. I can only presume that the CopyMemory needs to be replaced with a call to ReadProcessmemory, but can't figure out what process the hook is being called from before getting the MSG structure.....

Did you get anywhere with this?

I'm thinking a small C++ dll for the global hook with a callback function for your VB app to use might be the best way forward.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by MerrionComputin
Did you get anywhere with this?

I'm thinking a small C++ dll for the global hook with a callback function for your VB app to use might be the best way forward.

---

merrion.. unfortunatly i got tied up and couldn't work on it last night... but this is a high priority application that i want to make..

i have little knowledge of programmming in C so I am hoping it can be done via VB...

basically I am working on a plug in for AOL Instant Messanger.. and I need to know when an IM is receieved.. i have found code on PSC and such to manipulate AIM but they were really nothing more than a bunch of API calls to find the window, send text to it etc.. i want to hook the AIM window to find out when incoming messages are actually recieved.. and have not found any code to do this.. thats why i am trying it on my own... i figure a message has to be processed telling it to send a message to the window..

Quote:

---

Originally posted by MerrionComputin
Did you get anywhere with this?

I'm thinking a small C++ dll for the global hook with a callback function for your VB app to use might be the best way forward.

---

You cannot do this in VB, Can you ? I thought you need global hook which can only be installed inside a standard DLL. You cannot make standard Dll's in VB.

Quote:

---

I thought you need global hook which can only be installed inside a standard DLL

---

This is true but I'm not so sure a global hook is required. Instead you can (possibly) convince the third party application to load your VB dll in it's thread context and install a thread local hook (which you can write in VB no problem).

Quote:

---

Originally posted by MerrionComputin
This is true but I'm not so sure a global hook is required. Instead you can (possibly) convince the third party application to load your VB dll in it's thread context and install a thread local hook (which you can write in VB no problem).

---

Geez, I'd like to know how to do that, if you do not mind telling us.

DLL Injection method 1: Only works for Windows NT4 or above...

First you need to open a handle to the remote process that has appropriate access rights to write to that processes' own virtual memory. You do this with the OpenProcess API call specifying PROCESS_VM_WRITE and PROCESS_CREATE_THREAD flags.

VB Code:

Public Enum ProcessAccessRights
    PROCESS_TERMINATE = &H1
    PROCESS_CREATE_THREAD = &H2
    PROCESS_VM_OPERATION = &H8
    PROCESS_VM_READ = &H10
    PROCESS_VM_WRITE = &H20
    PROCESS_DUP_HANDLE = &H40
    PROCESS_CREATE_PROCESS = &H80
    PROCESS_SET_QUOTA = &H100
    PROCESS_SET_INFORMATION = &H200
    PROCESS_QUERY_INFORMATION = &H400
End Enum
 
Public Declare Function OpenProcess Lib "kernel32" ( _
                                    ByVal dwDesiredAccess As  ProcessAccessRights, _
                                    ByVal bInheritHandle As Long, _
                                    ByVal Processid As Long) As Long
                                      
Public Declare Function CloseHandle Lib "kernel32" (ByVal HandleIn As Long) As Long

Then you need to allocate a page in the memory of the target process which will hold the DLL by using the VirtualAllocEx API call:

VB Code:

Public Enum VirtualMemoryAllocationTypes
    MEM_COMMIT = &H1000
    MEM_RESERVE = &H2000
    MEM_FREE = &H10000
    MEM_PRIVATE = &H20000
    MEM_MAPPED = &H40000
    MEM_RESET = &H80000
    MEM_TOP_DOWN = &H100000
    MEM_4MB_PAGES = &H80000000
End Enum
 
Public Enum MemoryPageProtectionFlags
    PAGE_NOACCESS = &H1
    PAGE_READONLY = &H2
    PAGE_READWRITE = &H4
    PAGE_WRITECOPY = &H8
    PAGE_EXECUTE = &H10
    PAGE_EXECUTE_READ = &H20
    PAGE_EXECUTE_READWRITE = &H40
    PAGE_EXECUTE_WRITECOPY = &H80
    PAGE_GUARD = &H100
    PAGE_NOCACHE = &H200
End Enum
 
Public Declare Function VirtualAllocEx Lib "kernel32" ( _
                                           ByVal hProcess As Long, _
                                           ByVal lpAddress As Long, _
                                           ByVal dwSize As Long, _
                                           ByVal flAllocationType As VirtualMemoryAllocationTypes, _
                                           ByVal flProtect As MemoryPageProtectionFlags) As Long

And, of course, any memory so allocated must be freed again when you are done....

VB Code:

Public Enum VirtualMemoryFreeTypes
    MEM_DECOMMIT = &H4000
    MEM_RELEASE = &H8000
End Enum
 
Public Declare Function VirtualFreeEx Lib "kernel32" ( _
                                           ByVal hProcess As Long, _
                                           ByVal lpAddress As Long, _
                                           ByVal dwSize As Long, _
                                           ByVal dwFreeType As VirtualMemoryFreeTypes) As Long

Now you copy the memory that has the dll code in it in your process to the target process using the WriteProcessmemory API call:

VB Code:

Public Declare Function WriteProcessMemory Lib "kernel32" ( _
                                           ByVal hProcess As Long, _
                                           ByVal lpAddress As Long, _
                                           ByVal lpSourceBuffer As Long, _
                                           ByVal dwSize As Long, _
                                           dwBytesWritten As Long) As Long

...continues....

...contiunued....

And you need to allocate memory and copy this for the parameters for the thread to use using the same VirtualAllocEx, WriteProcessmemory combination.

Then you make this block of memory into a thread using the CreateRemoteThread API call:

VB Code:

Public Declare Function CreateRemoteThread Lib "kernel32" ( _
                                           ByVal hProcess As Long, _
                                           ByVal lpSecurityAttributes As Long, _
                                           ByVal dwStackSize As Long, _
                                           ByVal lpThreadProc As Long, _
                                           ByVal lpParameters As Long, _
                                           ByVal dwCreateFlags As Long, _
                                           lThreadId As Long) As Long