How to hide Desktop icons with Windows API in C++?

Question

The answers I\'ve found link to fHideIcon, but I get a 404 error on Microsoft\'s page for those links.

I\'ve also tried:

SHELLSTATE ss;         


        

Answer 1

The following approach which uses the official shell API is a little bit involved, but works even under Windows 10.

Steps:

1. Get the IFolderView2 interface of the desktop (supported since Windows Vista).
2. Call IFolderView2::SetCurrentFolderFlags() with FWF_NOICONS for both the dwMask and dwFlags parameters.

The effect of the flag is visible immediately. There is no need to restart the computer nor "explorer.exe". The flag also persists after logoff or reboot.

The tricky thing is step 1). Raymond Chen shows C++ code for that in his article "Manipulating the positions of desktop icons", specifically in his FindDesktopFolderView() function.

Here is a full example in form of a console application. It is based on Raymond Chen's code. The program toggles the visibility of the desktop icons each time it is run.

The code has been tested under Windows 10 Version 1803.

"Library" code:

#include      // Shell API
#include   // CComPtr & Co.
#include  
#include  
#include 

// Throw a std::system_error if the HRESULT indicates failure.
template< typename T >
void ThrowIfFailed( HRESULT hr, T&& msg )
{
    if( FAILED( hr ) )
        throw std::system_error{ hr, std::system_category(), std::forward( msg ) };
}

// RAII wrapper to initialize/uninitialize COM
struct CComInit
{
    CComInit() { ThrowIfFailed( ::CoInitialize( nullptr ), "CoInitialize failed" ); }
    ~CComInit() { ::CoUninitialize(); }
    CComInit( CComInit const& ) = delete;
    CComInit& operator=( CComInit const& ) = delete;
};

// Query an interface from the desktop shell view.
void FindDesktopFolderView( REFIID riid, void **ppv, std::string const& interfaceName )
{
    CComPtr spShellWindows;
    ThrowIfFailed( 
        spShellWindows.CoCreateInstance( CLSID_ShellWindows ),
        "Failed to create IShellWindows instance" );

    CComVariant vtLoc( CSIDL_DESKTOP );
    CComVariant vtEmpty;
    long lhwnd;
    CComPtr spdisp;
    ThrowIfFailed( 
        spShellWindows->FindWindowSW(
            &vtLoc, &vtEmpty, SWC_DESKTOP, &lhwnd, SWFO_NEEDDISPATCH, &spdisp ),
        "Failed to find desktop window" );

    CComQIPtr spProv( spdisp );
    if( ! spProv )
        ThrowIfFailed( E_NOINTERFACE, "Failed to get IServiceProvider interface for desktop" );

    CComPtr spBrowser;
    ThrowIfFailed( 
        spProv->QueryService( SID_STopLevelBrowser, IID_PPV_ARGS( &spBrowser ) ),
        "Failed to get IShellBrowser for desktop" );

    CComPtr spView;
    ThrowIfFailed( 
        spBrowser->QueryActiveShellView( &spView ),
        "Failed to query IShellView for desktop" );

    ThrowIfFailed( 
        spView->QueryInterface( riid, ppv ),
        "Could not query desktop IShellView for interface " + interfaceName );
}

Example to toggle desktop icons using the above code:

void ToggleDesktopIcons()
{
    CComPtr spView;
    FindDesktopFolderView( IID_PPV_ARGS(&spView), "IFolderView2" );

    DWORD flags = 0;
    ThrowIfFailed( 
        spView->GetCurrentFolderFlags( &flags ), 
        "GetCurrentFolderFlags failed" );
    ThrowIfFailed( 
        spView->SetCurrentFolderFlags( FWF_NOICONS, flags ^ FWF_NOICONS ),
        "SetCurrentFolderFlags failed" );
}

int wmain(int argc, wchar_t **argv)
{
    try
    {
        CComInit init;

        ToggleDesktopIcons();

        std::cout << "Desktop icons have been toggled.\n";
    }
    catch( std::system_error const& e )
    {
        std::cout << "ERROR: " << e.what() << ", error code: " << e.code() << "\n";
        return 1;
    }

    return 0;
}