Disable x button of another program

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Gerry Viator - 22 Apr 2004 17:31 GMT

Hi all,

I want to disable the x button of an old dos based program?

I guess I will need a process running in the background ?

thanks for any help

Gerry

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"Ying-Shen Yu[MSFT]" - 23 Apr 2004 05:10 GMT

Hi Gerry,

I'm not clear which "X" button do you refer to.
do you mean the close button of the Command Prompt window? or it's a button
in your dos program?

Best regards,

Ying-Shen Yu [MSFT]
Microsoft Community Support
Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confers no rights.
This mail should not be replied directly, please remove the word "online"
before sending mail.

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Gerry Viator - 23 Apr 2004 15:03 GMT

yes,

The close button the command window.

I need to some how disable that X button(Close button) in a old DOS base
application.
The cmd window of that application.

Is there a windows message that I can intercept based on that process
running and
then tell the user to hit excape key to Exit or send key method of the esc
key the application.?

MORE INFORMATION
Oh, I did not mention that the user should be hitting the esc key to Exit
the application and not the
close button of the cmd window of that DOS base application..
The problem is a locking issue on the Server side but no need to go there.
I need to change it on the client side.

Also is it possiable to get the cordinates of the cmd window, I was thinking
that I could put a new Close X button(form) in front of
that one, no matter where that cmd window was moved , the dummy one would be
in front. of the DOS one.

Matbe my application could use a timer to check all the time for that
process that is opened
then I could put a small none active Close button in front of the other one?

Thanks again for your help

Gerry

> Hi Gerry,
>
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
> This mail should not be replied directly, please remove the word "online"
> before sending mail.

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"Ying-Shen Yu[MSFT]" - 26 Apr 2004 08:48 GMT

Hi Gerry,

For disabling the the "X" button as well as the "Close" mentu item in the
system menu, we can find the corresponding window and delete the SC_CLOSE
menu item.
Here is a demo snippet in C++, it just find a window whose window class is
"ConsoleWindowClass" (the window class name of CommandPrompt) then modify
the close menu button. After running this prorgram, the X button of the
command prompt will gray out, and the Close menu item will disappear.
<code>
int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
    HWND hWnd = ::FindWindow("ConsoleWindowClass",NULL);//Find window

    HMENU hMenu = GetSystemMenu(hWnd,FALSE);
    DeleteMenu(hMenu,SC_CLOSE,MF_BYCOMMAND);

    RECT rc;
    ::GetWindowRect(hWnd,&rc);
    SetWindowPos(hWnd,HWND_NOTOPMOST,rc.left,rc.top,rc.right -
rc.left,rc.bottom - rc.top,SWP_FRAMECHANGED);
printf("put any key to continue");
    getchar();
    return 0;
}
</code>

For more complex behavior (e.g. overriding the behavior of the close button
etc.) it requires more advanced techniques since we are modifying the
Command Prompt from a seperate process, to respond to the event happened in
another process we need to use hook or inject code the command prompt
process. It's a bit invasive and may hurt the stability of your dos
program(since it's running in the dos box).
If you would like to try it, you may first read the documentation of Win32
hooks for more information, also I suggest you implement it in C/C++, since
they are more suitable for this scenario.

<Win32 Hooks>
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwui/html/
msdn_hooks32.asp

Thanks!

Best regards,

Ying-Shen Yu [MSFT]
Microsoft Community Support
Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confers no rights.
This mail should not be replied directly, please remove the word "online"
before sending mail.

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Gerry Viator - 26 Apr 2004 13:40 GMT

Thanks for your help,

Can you or someone translate this to VB.NET

thanks
Gerry

> Hi Gerry,
>
[quoted text clipped - 34 lines]
>
> <Win32 Hooks>

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwui/html/

> msdn_hooks32.asp
>
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> This mail should not be replied directly, please remove the word "online"
> before sending mail.

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"Ying-Shen Yu[MSFT]" - 27 Apr 2004 03:51 GMT

Sure, Here is the VB.NET version, create a winform app project to test it.
It's just a rough sample to show you how to do it in VB.NET, I didn't do
many tests on it, so there might be some errors, if you have problem to run
the test code, please let me know.

Thanks!

<code>
Private Sub button1_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)
Begin Sub
Dim ptr1 As IntPtr
Dim ptr2 As IntPtr
Dim rect1 As Rect

'Use your own way to find the console window
ptr1 = Form1.FindWindow("ConsoleWindowClass", Nothing)
ptr2 = Form1.GetSystemMenu(ptr1, 0)
'DeleteMenu(hMenu,SC_CLOSE,MF_BYCOMMAND);
Form1.DeleteMenu(ptr2, 61536, 0)
Form1.GetWindowRect(ptr1, AddressOf rect1)
'SetWindowPos(hWnd,HWND_NOTOPMOST,rc.left,rc.top,rc.right -
rc.left,rc.bottom - rc.top,SWP_FRAMECHANGED);
Form1.SetWindowPos(ptr1, -2, rect1.left, rect1.top, (rect1.right -
rect1.left), (rect1.bottom - rect1.top), 32)

End Sub

<DllImport>
Private Shared Function DeleteMenu(ByVal hMenu As IntPtr, ByVal pos As
Integer, ByVal flags As Integer) As IntPtr

<DllImport>
Private Shared Function FindWindow(ByVal clsName As String, ByVal wndName
As String) As IntPtr

<DllImport>
Private Shared Function GetSystemMenu(ByVal hwnd As IntPtr, ByVal force As
Boolean) As IntPtr

<DllImport>
Private Shared Function GetWindowRect(ByVal hwnd As IntPtr, [out] ByRef rc
As Rect) As Integer

<DllImport>
Private Shared Function SetWindowPos(ByVal hwnd As IntPtr, ByVal window As
Integer, ByVal x As Integer, ByVal y As Integer, ByVal cx As Integer, ByVal
cy As Integer, ByVal flag As Integer) As Integer

Private Structure Rect Public bottom As Integer
Public left As Integer
Public right As Integer
Public top As Integer
End Struct

Best regards,

Ying-Shen Yu [MSFT]
Microsoft Community Support
Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confers no rights.
This mail should not be replied directly, please remove the word "online"
before sending mail.

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Gerry Viator - 27 Apr 2004 15:56 GMT

Hello,

Ok thanks for your help.

This is what I have (see below), seems to work but a little slow?
I would like to check in the tick event to only disable it if it is not
disabled?
Is this way ok, better way to do this?

What would be great if this is only run once every time the "Dos application
is opened"?

Thanks for your help

Module Module1

Private Declare Function DeleteMenu Lib "user32" (ByVal hMenu As Integer,
ByVal uPosition As Integer, ByVal uFlags As Integer) As Boolean

Private Declare Function DrawMenuBar Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As Integer) As
Integer

Private Declare Function GetMenuItemCount Lib "user32" (ByVal hMenu As
Integer) As Integer

Private Declare Function RemoveMenu Lib "user32" (ByVal hMenu As Integer,
ByVal nPosition As Integer, ByVal wFlags As Integer) As Integer

Private Declare Auto Function FindWindow Lib "user32" (ByVal lpClassName As
String, _

ByVal lpWindowName As String) As Integer

Private Declare Function GetSystemMenu Lib "user32" (ByVal hWnd As Integer,
ByVal bRevert As Boolean) As Integer

Private Const lpClassName = "Command Prompt"

Private Const MF_DISABLED = &H2&

Private Const MF_BYPOSITION = &H400&

Private WithEvents XTimer As New System.Windows.Forms.Timer

Sub Main()

XTimer.Interval = 2000

XTimer.Enabled = True

XTimer.Start()

Application.Run()

End Sub

Private Sub XTimer_Tick(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs)
Handles XTimer.Tick

DisableX()

End Sub

Private Function DisableX()

Dim hwnd As Integer = FindWindow(vbNullString, lpClassName)

Dim hMenu As Integer = GetSystemMenu(hwnd, False)

'DeleteMenu(hMenu, 6, 1024)

Dim nCount As Integer

'Get number of items in menu

nCount = GetMenuItemCount(hMenu)

'Remove last item from system menu (last item is 'Close')

'Call RemoveMenu(hMenu, nCount - 1, MF_DISABLED Or MF_BYPOSITION)

DeleteMenu(hMenu, 6, 1024)

End Function

End Module

> Sure, Here is the VB.NET version, create a winform app project to test it.
> It's just a rough sample to show you how to do it in VB.NET, I didn't do
[quoted text clipped - 59 lines]
> This mail should not be replied directly, please remove the word "online"
> before sending mail.

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"Ying-Shen Yu[MSFT]" - 28 Apr 2004 03:26 GMT

Hi Gerry,

Then, can we use a bat file to wrapper the command to start your
application?

To disable the close button in a bat file, you may first create a VB.NET
console project, use the previous code to disable the close button of
current console window ( you can get HWND using GetConsoleWindow API on XP
or later, for win98/2000 you may still need to enumerate the window using
FindWindow). Note you may need add the SetWindowPos call with
SWP_FRAMECHANGED after deleting menu, since several window state are cached
so the window apprearance may not reflect the change immediately, as doc
states SWP_FRAMECHANGED will force update these window state.

Finally write a bat file, put the vb.net console program before the real
program start command, give the shortcut to the bat file to the end-user.

Does this way resolve your problem?

Best regards,

Ying-Shen Yu [MSFT]
Microsoft Community Support
Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confers no rights.
This mail should not be replied directly, please remove the word "online"
before sending mail.

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Disable x button of another program

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