how to show console app window hidden by createprocess function

Question

I have a GUI in c++. The GUI used to start another independent console based application using CreateProcess method. I am hiding these console apps by passing CREATE_NO_WINDOW flag in CreateProcess. Now I want to make it visible again. How do I do that?

You can't. You had one shot at getting the window created and you passed it up. The process itself will have to call AllocConsole(). — Hans Passant
– Hans Passant, Commented Jan 29, 2014 at 15:29
thanks for reply. If i can't then how do i implement this kind of functionality. I want that, there should be two button SHOW and HIDE, that will show and hide console App window created by CreateProcess. For this i am currently holding PROCESS_INFORMATION.. — Swapnil
– Swapnil, Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 4:18

Remy Lebeau · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-31 16:55:00Z

1

Instead of using the CREATE_NO_WINDOW flag, use the wShowWindow member of the STARTUPINFO struct instead. Set it to SW_HIDE initially (and set the dwFlags member to STARTF_USESHOWWINDOW), then you can use ShowWindow() to show/hide the console window when needed. To find the window that belongs to the new process, use EnumWindows() and GetWindowThreadProcessId() to find the window whose process/thread IDs match the IDs that CreateProcess() returns in the PROCESS_INFORMATION struct.

answered Jan 31, 2014 at 16:55

Remy Lebeau

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Swapnil Over a year ago

Thank you friend... I have used this method to get Window Handle HWND. But when i use this HWND to show "mspaint.exe" window in WINDOWS 7 it come up with 3 windows on taskbar, first one is mspaint.exe which does not respond to any click on it, second is GDI+ window which is blank having titled with GDI+ and third is totally blank and does not have any title which too does not respond.. please give any reliable solution....

Arafa Arslan · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-29 18:51:13Z

1

You had one shot at getting the window created and you passed it up. Thats right but you can show or hide gui, after createProcess method.

PROCESS_INFORMATION pi;
STARTUPINFO si;
ZeroMemory(&si,sizeof(si));
si.cb = sizeof(si);
ZeroMemory(&pi, sizeof(pi);
si.wShowWindow = SW_SHOW;
si.dwFlags = STARTF_USESHOWWINDOW;
si.lpTitle ="my_process_console";
CreateProcess(null,"my.exe",null,null,false,CREATE_NEW__CONSOLE,null,null,&si,&pi);

I created process.Now I use find method and then I can show GUI.

HWND console_name =FindWindow(null,"my_process_console");
if(console_name){
  ShowWindow(console_name,SW_SHOW);
}

answered Apr 29, 2016 at 18:51

Arafa Arslan

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