Put application to foreground

Question

I have to put a window to foreground using its name, for example "images". With

findWindowW(NULL, stringName)

I get the handle to the process (HWND). Then with

SetForegroundWindow(windowHandle);

I think that I put it into the foreground automatically, but I have to press 'Enter'. Am I doing something wrong or there's another way to do that? I can use also the PID of the process.
My final purpose is to send shortcuts like CTRL+V to the process after put it into the foreground. Thank you.

Answer 1

From MSDN

The system restricts which processes can set the foreground window. A process can set the foreground window only if one of the following conditions is true:

• The process is the foreground process.
• The process was started by the foreground process.
• The process received the last input event.
• There is no foreground process.
• The process is being debugged.
• The foreground process is not a Modern Application or the Start Screen.
• The foreground is not locked (see LockSetForegroundWindow).
• The foreground lock time-out has expired (see SPI_GETFOREGROUNDLOCKTIMEOUT in SystemParametersInfo).
• No menus are active.

So, if your program does not correspond to the above, you can not set foreground automatically.

I think you can use below code for your case and this link can be help as well.

void SetForegroundWindowForce(HWND hWnd)
{
   HWND hWndForeground = ::GetForegroundWindow();
   if(hWndForeground == hWnd) return;

   DWORD Strange = ::GetWindowThreadProcessId(hWndForeground, NULL);
   DWORD My = ::GetWindowThreadProcessId(hWnd, NULL);
   if( !::AttachThreadInput(My, Strange, TRUE) )
   {
      ASSERT(0);
   }
   ::SetForegroundWindow(hWnd);
   ::BringWindowToTop(hWnd);
   if( !::AttachThreadInput(My, Strange, FALSE) )
   {
      ASSERT(0);
   }
}