Microsoft KB Archive/242308

= How To Find a Window Handle from an Instance Handle =

Article ID: 242308

Article Last Modified on 7/16/2004

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 Professional Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 32-Bit Enterprise Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 Learning Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Learning Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 Professional Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Professional Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 Enterprise Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Enterprise Edition

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This article was previously published under Q242308



SUMMARY
The Shell function in Microsoft Visual Basic is used to execute an application. Often, it is useful to get a Window handle (hWnd) to the application so you can manipulate it using the Windows APIs. However, the Shell function returns an Instance handle (hInstance), which is different from a Window handle. This article shows how to create and use a GetWinHandle function to return a Window handle based on an Instance handle.



MORE INFORMATION
By using the FindWindow and GetWindow APIs (or using EnumWindows in Visual Basic 5.0 or later), you can loop through the Window handle list. For each window handle, you can check to see if it has a parent window with GetParent. If the Window handle does not have a parent handle, you have reached the main window for an application. You can call GetWindowThreadProcessID, which yields the instance handle of the process for the given window handle, to check the instance handle of the application against the instance handle received from the Shell function.

Step-by-Step Example
 Start a new Standard EXE project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default. Add a CommandButton (Command1) to the form.  From the Project menu, add a new module to the project, and enter the following declarations and functions: 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 ProcIDFromWnd(ByVal hwnd As Long) As Long Dim idProc As Long ' Get PID for this HWnd GetWindowThreadProcessId hwnd, idProc ' Return PID ProcIDFromWnd = idProc End Function Function GetWinHandle(hInstance As Long) As Long Dim tempHwnd As Long ' 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 ' Check if no parent for this window If GetParent(tempHwnd) = 0 Then ' Check for PID match If hInstance = ProcIDFromWnd(tempHwnd) Then ' Return found handle GetWinHandle = tempHwnd ' Exit search loop Exit Do        End If      End If      ' Get the next window handle tempHwnd = GetWindow(tempHwnd, GW_HWNDNEXT) Loop End Function   Add the following code to the form: Sub Command1_Click Dim hInst As Long            ' Instance handle from Shell function. Dim hWndApp As Long          ' Window handle from GetWinHandle. Dim buffer As String         ' Holds caption of Window. Dim numChars As Integer      ' Count of bytes returned. ' Shell to an application hInst = Shell("calc.exe") ' Begin search for handle hWndApp = GetWinHandle(hInst) If hWndApp <> 0 Then ' Init buffer buffer = Space$(128) ' Get caption of window numChars = GetWindowText(hWndApp, buffer, Len(buffer)) ' Display window's caption MsgBox "You shelled to the Application: " & Left$(buffer, numChars) End If End Sub  Press the F5 key to run the application. Click Command1 to see that the Calculator has been shelled and to see a message box displaying "You shelled to the Application: Calculator."

