Minimize all windows

AlexeiXX3

Hi, thanks for looking I need to minimizee all maximized windows I tried this and it kind of works:

Private Declare Function ShowWindow Lib "user32.dll" (ByVal hWnd As IntPtr, ByVal nCmdShow As Integer) As Boolean
Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
For Each p As Process In Process.GetProcesses
ShowWindow(p.MainWindowHandle, SHOW_WINDOW.SW_MINIMIZE)
Next
Me.WindowState = FormWindowState.Normal
End Sub

The thing with this is that i dont want to iterate thru each process Now, im trying the sendkeys function to send Window + D to minimize all open windows, but i cant find the window representation, ive found this: SendKeys.Send("(^{ESC}{D})") But this doesnt do nothing on my pc, maybe because of my keyboard settings or something Does anyone have any other suggestions??

Alexei Rodriguez

John Ad

Hi Alexei, Use the following code: Public Declare Sub keybd_event Lib "user32.dll" (ByVal bVk As Byte, ByVal bScan As Byte, ByVal dwFlags As Int32, ByVal dwExtraInfo As Int32) Public Sub MinimizeAll() keybd_event(&H5B, 0, 0, 0) keybd_event(&H4D, 0, 0, 0) keybd_event(&H5B, 0, &H2, 0) End Sub The first line declares the API. Next piece of code is a method which we can call anywhere to minimize all windows... I hope this would be helpful.

John Adams ComponentOne LLC. www.componentone.com

AlexeiXX3

Thanks for your answer, it works great I am trying to restore my window program after all wndows are minimized

Private Sub Timer1_Tick(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Timer1.Tick
Me.Timer1.Enabled = False
Me.MinimizeAll()
Me.WindowState = FormWindowState.Normal
End Sub

But this doesnt work I tryed putting the current thread to sleep for a second, but didnt work either, it looks like keys are not being processed imediatelly, do you know of any workaround? All i need to do is to minimize all windows and restore the window of my program Thanks in advance

Alexei Rodriguez

Jon_Boy

I have a button with a call to the minimizeall method.

Private Sub Button1\_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
    MinimizeAll()
    Timer1.Interval = 500
    Timer1.Enabled = True
End Sub

Private Sub Timer1\_Tick(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Timer1.Tick
    Timer1.Enabled = False
    Me.WindowState = FormWindowState.Maximized
End Sub

Works fine. that way. I tried your method and through the button click, but there is a timing issue with the minimizing and the maximizing. Break them out into sep routines and it works fine.

Any suggestions, ideas, or 'constructive criticism' are always welcome.

AlexeiXX3

Yes, enabling a timer to restore my window after the call to the minimize works fine I guess the keys are not imediatelly processed and calling thread.currentthread.sleep(1000) stops the whole app and makes no difference :( There must be some way to force the keys to be processed Thanks for the tip

Alexei Rodriguez

JR212

Take a look here http://www.codeproject.com/KB/system/Hotkeys.aspx[^]