Retrieve Window Handle and Press Button Programatically

Question

I'm sure this is possible somehow, but not sure if there are a few too many hoops to jump through to make it worthwhile, hoping someone might point me in the right direction. I've got a problem (related to an installer) whereby I have a dialog popup quite regularly which I need to press cancel on.

What I'd like to do is close it programatically/maybe via a service so it stops getting in my way (assuming I can't fix the root issue). So, what I'm wondering is if there is a way to grab a handle to the window somehow (checking it's correct maybe by doing a text comparison on the label), then locating a control on the window (cancel button) and sending an event to it?

If anyone knows how I might achieve this or some starters that'd be great.

I suspect this is going to be way more trouble than fixing the issue that's causing the dialog to pop-up, trouble both during the install and after it. After all, there has to be a good reason for a modal dialog popping up. — Lazarus
– Lazarus, Commented Jan 27, 2010 at 15:08
Indeed, it might well be and I'll probably be posting about that too. But this approach also helps improve my development skills and just seems way more fun! :) — Ian
– Ian, Commented Jan 27, 2010 at 15:09

Oliver · Accepted Answer · 2010-01-27 15:15:02Z

1

Take a look into AutoIt3. It can do such casts quite easy and if you dig a little deeper into it, you'll find out which WindowsAPI calls it uses to do its stuff. These APIs you can then PInvoke in C# if you really need it there. Otherwise just write an AutoIt script to perform your task.

answered Jan 27, 2010 at 15:15

Oliver

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t0mm13b · Accepted Answer · 2010-01-27 15:25:59Z

Two ways to do this:

To get the handle, when you talk about a window, use the FindWindow API, then you would have to enumerate the controls associated with that handle, and send a message WM_BUTTONDOWN, WM_BUTTONUP together to simulate a mouse click via using a SendMessage.
But the simpler method exists, suppose the cancel button is called btnCancel, then this would suffice btnCancel.Click().

Unless I am mistaken, that you are talking about a window of a process that is not yours, then my first suggestion would do. Since you did not say, if you are talking about your own application or a process's window that is not yours...then Oliver's suggestion might be easier...

But that begs the question: why would you want to do that as you are assuming there is a Cancel button somewhere...

Hope this helps, Best regards, Tom.

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