Get All Open windows

[Railay29]

Is it possible to use the windows api to get a list of all windows that are currently open ? I want to be able to run a function that gets a list of all open windows and depending on which are open I then call seperate routines. I would need to be able to check if there were windows or popups. Any help would be appreciated.

[Hack]

Are you talking about a Task Manager type of list?

What development language are you using?

[Spetnik]

See "Creating a task list" here: http://vb.mvps.org/articles/ap199902.pdf
After that see "Obtaining the alt-tab order" here: http://vb.mvps.org/articles/ap200003.asp

[TTn]

For just the windows, and not the process itself, you could use the GetWindow function with the constants that have the prefix GW_.

Use AnyPopup to determine if a popup window exists anywhere on the screen.

Use GetLastActivePopup to obtain the handle of the most recently used popup window for a given parent window. returns a handle to most recently used popup window.

Use ShowOwnedPopups to show or hide all popup windows owned by the specified window.

If you need a demo, I can whip one up for ya.

[Railay29]

I am using VBScript. I don't need the list of processes from the task manager just what windows are currently open. I am very new to using winapi and would appreciate it if anyone could point me to some code examples. Thanks for the suggestions so far.

[TTn]

I wrote up a demo in VB.NET 2005 as close to vbscriptious as I could get.
This makes a list of the open programs that have a title.
You can check for popups in here if you want.

    Const GW_HWNDNEXT As Integer = 2
    Private Declare Function apiGetWindow Lib "user32" Alias "GetWindow" (ByVal hwnd As Integer, ByVal wCmd As Integer) As Integer
    Private Declare Function apiGetWindowText Lib "user32" Alias "GetWindowTextA" (ByVal hwnd As Integer, ByVal lpString As String, ByVal cch As Integer) As Integer
    Private Declare Function apiGetWindowTextLength Lib "user32" Alias "GetWindowTextLengthA" (ByVal hwnd As Integer) As Integer
    Private Declare Function apiGetTopWindow Lib "user32" Alias "GetTopWindow" (ByVal hwnd As Integer) As Integer
    Private Declare Function apiGetDesktopWindow Lib "user32" Alias "GetDesktopWindow" () As Integer
    Private Declare Function apiShowOwnedPopups Lib "user32" Alias "ShowOwnedPopups" (ByVal hWnd As Integer, ByVal fShow As Integer) As Integer
    Private Declare Function apiAnyPopup Lib "user32" Alias "AnyPopup" () As Integer
    Private Declare Function apiGetLastActivePopup Lib "user32" Alias "GetLastActivePopup" (ByVal hWndOwnder As Integer) As Integer 'Obtains the handle of the most recently used popup window for a given parent window.  returns a Handle to most recently used popup window. hWndOwner if no popup was found.

    Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
        MessageBox.Show(GetWindows())
    End Sub

    Private Function GetWindows() As String
        On Error Resume Next
        Dim hwnd As Integer
        Dim s1 As String
        Dim s2 As String
        hwnd = apiGetTopWindow(apiGetDesktopWindow)
        s1 = ""
        s2 = ""
        Do
            s2 = GetWindowName(hwnd)

           If s2 = "AppTitle" Then
              'Do Something here
           End If

            s1 = s1 & " - " & s2
            hwnd = apiGetWindow(hwnd, GW_HWNDNEXT)
            If hwnd = 0 Then
                GetWindows = s1
                Exit Do
            End If
        Loop
    End Function
    Public Function GetWindowName(ByVal hWnd As Integer) As String
        On Error Resume Next
        Dim tLength As Integer
        Dim rValue As Integer
        Dim wName As String
        tLength = apiGetWindowTextLength(hWnd) + 4
        wName = ""
        wName = wName.PadLeft(tLength) 'add buffer
        rValue = apiGetWindowText(hWnd, wName, tLength)
        wName = wName.Substring(0, rValue) 'strip buffer
        GetWindowName = wName
    End Function

[penagate]

You can't call native API functions from VBScript.

[RobDog888]

You could have your vbscript run a VB 6 executable that would call the API calls like TTn posted.

[penagate]

Or a COM DLL, but both would dramatically reduce the portability of the script, which is the main reason one would use VBScript in the first place.

The language and the task are simply incompatible. Use something else if at all possible.

[TTn]

I know but he said he's very new to the windows API, so I figured I'd write it as vbscriptious as possible so he'd be able to read it.
Maybe he is using vbscript.

[penagate]

From post #5:

I am using VBScript.

[TTn]

Yes but,

In post one:

Is it possible to use the windows api..

In post 5:

I am very new to using winapi...

Either way it should help him

[Hack]

Not if he is using VBScript.

Would you be trying to run this from a web page?

[RobDog888]

Either running vbscript in a webpage or some other source, the best solution would be to use VB 6 code in a dll or exe file and call from vbscript.

[Railay29]

Hi all and thanks for all the help. Just to add some detail to what I am doing, I am using an automation tool called Quick Test Professional which uses VBScript as its coding language. I working on automating the actions of a browser based application and unfortunately the tool doesn't pick up which browsers are open particularly well. Thats why I thought I could use a winapi call to get the open windows so that I can then interact with them.

[RobDog888]

Maybe you could use VB 6 executable to find the browser you need and set it as the active window. Then in vbscript maybe their function will pickup the active browser window first?