How to find the window Title of Active(foreground) window using WindowScript Host

Question

I want to find the title of the window which is currently active(having focus) using Window Script Host(WSH) because I want my WSH script to Sendkeys only If the desired win

Answer 1

You can make a COM object with GetForegroundWindow and GetWindowText.

Put following lines into wso.cls and store is a folder called wso on your desktop.

Imports System
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices
Imports Microsoft.Win32

Namespace WindowScriptingObject

     _
   Public Interface _WindowScriptingObject
         Function ActiveWindow() As Integer
         Function WindowText(ByVal hWnd As Integer) As String
    End Interface

     Public Class WindowScriptingObject
        Implements _WindowScriptingObject

        Public WindowScriptingObject()

        Public Declare Auto Function GetForegroundWindow Lib "user32" Alias "GetForegroundWindow"() As Integer
        Public Declare Auto Function GetWindowText Lib "user32.dll" (ByVal hwnd As Int32,  ByVal lpString As System.Text.StringBuilder, ByVal cch As Int32) As Int32
        Public Function ActiveWindow() As Integer Implements _WindowScriptingObject.ActiveWindow
    ActiveWindow=GetForegroundWindow()

        End Function

        Public Function WindowText(hwnd as Integer) As String Implements _WindowScriptingObject.WindowText
    on error resume next
    Dim b As New System.Text.StringBuilder(ChrW(0), 512)
                Dim ret = GetWindowText(hWnd, b, b.Capacity)
    WindowText = b.tostring
        End Function


    End Class

End Namespace

Then create a bat file in same folder called wso.bat.

"C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\vbc.exe" /target:library /out:"%userprofile%\desktop\wso\wso.dll" "%userprofile%\desktop\wso\wso.cls" /verbose

"C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\regasm" /codebase "%userprofile%\desktop\wso\wso.dll" /tlb:"%userprofile%\desktop\wso\wso.tlb" /v

If /i "%cmdcmdline:~0,6%"=="cmd /c" pause

To use in vbs after running bat file.

Set wso=CreateObject("WindowScriptingObject")
x = wso.ActiveWindow
msgbox x, , "vbs"
msgbox wso.windowtext(x), , "vbs"

The GUIDs used here are specific to this project. Do not use them for other purposes.

More info on what we are doing

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/adcae113-4758-481a-a367-60d5d14d97d6/this-is-how-to-turn-vbs-and-js-files-into-exe-files-from-the-command-line-without-third-party-tools?forum=scripting

If you must do a per user install, use regasm to make a regfile instead of registering it. Then change all references to HKCR to HKCU\Software\Classes. Then merge with regedit /s regfile.reg.

To move the file you need to run Regasm on it in it's new location. See command in bat file.

Will be posed at MS site of course for accurate historical purposes.