SetForegroundWindow only working while visual studio is open

Question

I\'m trying to set with c# a process window to the foreground / focus (from an application that has no focus in that moment when doing it), therefore I\'m using the user32.d

Answer 1

I had an issue with sending the Alt-key as it forced the window menu to open when I selected enter (instead of the OK button which is what I wanted).

This worked for me:

public static void ActivateWindow(IntPtr mainWindowHandle)
{
    //check if already has focus
    if (mainWindowHandle == GetForegroundWindow())  return;

    //check if window is minimized
    if (IsIconic(mainWindowHandle))
    {
        ShowWindow(mainWindowHandle, Restore);
    }

    // Simulate a key press
    keybd_event(0, 0, 0, 0);

    SetForegroundWindow(mainWindowHandle);
}

Answer 2

After searching a few days on the internet I have found one posible simple solution to make SetForegroundWindow to work on windows 7: press Alt key before calling SetForegroundWindow.

public static void ActivateWindow(IntPtr mainWindowHandle)
    {
        //check if already has focus
        if (mainWindowHandle == GetForegroundWindow())  return;

        //check if window is minimized
        if (IsIconic(mainWindowHandle))
        {
            ShowWindow(mainWindowHandle, Restore);
        }

        // Simulate a key press
        keybd_event((byte)ALT, 0x45, EXTENDEDKEY | 0, 0);

        //SetForegroundWindow(mainWindowHandle);

        // Simulate a key release
        keybd_event((byte)ALT, 0x45, EXTENDEDKEY | KEYUP, 0);

        SetForegroundWindow(mainWindowHandle);
    }

And the win32api imports

  private const int ALT = 0xA4;
  private const int EXTENDEDKEY = 0x1;
  private const int KEYUP = 0x2;
  private const uint Restore = 9;

  [DllImport("user32.dll")]
  private static extern bool SetForegroundWindow(IntPtr hWnd);

  [DllImport("user32.dll")]
  private static extern void keybd_event(byte bVk, byte bScan, uint dwFlags, int dwExtraInfo);

  [DllImport("user32.dll")]
  [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)]
  private static extern bool IsIconic(IntPtr hWnd);

  [DllImport("user32.dll")]
  private static extern int ShowWindow(IntPtr hWnd, uint Msg);

  [DllImport("user32.dll")]
  private static extern IntPtr GetForegroundWindow();