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 seems to work (adapted from https://stackoverflow.com/a/6403014/5743288):

#include 

int main ()
{
    HWND hProgman = FindWindowW (L"Progman", L"Program Manager");
    HWND hChild = GetWindow (hProgman, GW_CHILD);
    ShowWindow (hChild, SW_HIDE);
    Sleep (2000);
    ShowWindow (hChild, SW_SHOW);
}

Please note: this approach is not supported by Microsoft and disables right-clicking on ths desktop.