Find and Close the Window using Win API

Introduction

This article explains how to find and close the window using Win API .

Find and Close the Window

Find the Window

The FindWindow function retrieves a handle to the top-level window whose class name and window name match the specified strings. This function does not search child windows. This function does not perform a case-sensitive search.

FindWindow(string lpClassName,string lpWindowName) 

Finding ClassName and WindowName using Spy++

Spy++ (SPYXX.EXE) is a Win32-based utility that gives you a graphical view of the system's processes, threads, windows, and window messages. With the Window Finder Tool, you can find the properties of a selected window.

Step 1: Arrange your Windows so that Spy++ and the subject window are visible.

Step 2: From the Spy menu, choose Find Window to open the Find Window dialog box.

Step 3: Drag the Finder Tool to the desired window. As you drag the tool, window details display in the dialog box. (Handle, Caption(Window Name), Class Name)

using Microsoft.Win32;

[DllImport("user32.dll")]
        public static extern int FindWindow(string lpClassName,string lpWindowName);
        [DllImport("user32.dll")]
        public static extern int SendMessage(int hWnd, uint Msg, int wParam, int lParam);
            
        public const int WM_SYSCOMMAND = 0x0112;
        public const int SC_CLOSE = 0xF060;

private void closeWindow()
        {
            // retrieve the handler of the window  
            int iHandle = FindWindow("Notepad", "Untitled - Notepad");
            if (iHandle > 0)
            {
                // close the window using API        
                SendMessage(iHandle, WM_SYSCOMMAND, SC_CLOSE, 0);
            }  
        }	

History

• 19^th December, 2007: Initial post