can't find a previous post

There was a post a while back where someone wanted to find a running program if you only have a part of the programs caption. eg "Microsoft Word" or "Connecting to". I can't seem to find this anywhere. Can anyone find it?

Here's one good method, you enumarate all windows and then compare their caption with like operator. Use GetWindowsByPatter to return an array of handles:

Code:

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Option Compare Text

Private Declare Function GetWindowText Lib "user32" Alias "GetWindowTextA" (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal lpString As String, ByVal cch As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GetWindowTextLength Lib "user32" Alias "GetWindowTextLengthA" (ByVal hwnd As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function EnumWindows Lib "user32" (ByVal lpEnumFunc As Long, ByVal lParam As Long) As Long
Private handles&(), counter&

Private Function EnmWinProc(ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal lParam As Long) As Long
    ReDim Preserve handles(counter)
    handles(counter) = hwnd
    counter = counter + 1
    EnmWinProc = hwnd
End Function
Public Function GetWindows() As Long()
    ReDim handles(0)
    counter = 0
    Call EnumWindows(AddressOf EnmWinProc, 0&)
    GetWindows = handles
End Function



Function GetWindowsByPatter(pattern As String) ' As Long()
Dim temp As String, n As Variant, l As Long, s As Long, matches() As Long
    For Each n In GetWindows
        l = GetWindowTextLength(CLng(n))
        temp = Space(256)
        GetWindowText n, temp, l
        If temp Like pattern Then
            ReDim Preserve matches(s)
            matches(s) = n
            s = s + 1
        End If
    Next n
    GetWindowsByPatter = matches
End Function
'To use
Sub main()
    Dim n
    For Each n In GetWindowsByPatter("*Microsoft*")
        Debug.Print n;
    Next n
End Sub

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I remember this.

Code:

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'Author: Evan
'Origin: http://forums.vb-world.net/showthrea...threadid=35824
'Purpose: Enter part of a caption and return the full caption
'Version: VB5+

Enter PART of a caption
in the function and it
will tell you the WHOLE
caption.

Public Const GW_HWNDNEXT = 2

Public Declare Function GetParent Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As Long) As Long
Public Declare Function GetWindow Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As Long, _
  ByVal wCmd As Long) As Long
Public Declare Function FindWindow Lib "user32" Alias "FindWindowA" _
  (ByVal lpClassName As String, ByVal lpWindowName As String) As Long
Public Declare Function GetWindowText Lib "user32" Alias "GetWindowTextA" _
  (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal lpString As String, ByVal cch As Long) As Long
Public Declare Function GetWindowThreadProcessId Lib "user32" _
  (ByVal hwnd As Long, lpdwprocessid As Long) As Long

   
Function GetWinHandle(hInstance As String) As String
  Dim buffer As String
  Dim tempHwnd As Long
  Dim TempLen As Integer
  Dim TempCaption As String
    buffer = Space$(128)
  ' Grab the first window handle that Windows finds:
  tempHwnd = FindWindow(vbNullString, vbNullString)
 
  ' Loop until you find a match or there are no more window handles:
  Do Until tempHwnd = 0
        TempLen = GetWindowText(tempHwnd, buffer, Len(buffer))
        If TempLen <> 0 Then
        TempCaption = Left$(buffer, TempLen)
        Else
        TempCaption = ""
        End If
          If InStr(1, TempCaption, hInstance) <> 0 Then
            ' Return found handle
            GetWinHandle = TempCaption
            ' Exit search loop
            Exit Do
        End If
 
      ' Get the next window handle
      tempHwnd = GetWindow(tempHwnd, GW_HWNDNEXT)
  Loop
End Function

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Thanks Matthew thats exactly what I was looking for!