Vb.net controlling 3rd party GUI application

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Dear all experts,
Is there a way to put value into 3rd party Windows desktop application textbox and perform click on the specific button. from my past experience. I know vb 6.0 able to do that provided the 3rd party application is developed using Microsoft development tool as well... But can it be possible to make it work on Visual Studio 2016?

What I have tried:

Previously with vb6, I tried to grab processID from application name. With the PID, I can extract all controls from the application then set value.
But for VB.Net, I tried to search all over the internet that I know... no hope

Posted 14-May-18 17:02pm

Teoh Chia Wei

Updated 14-May-18 19:40pm

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Christian Graus · Answer 1 · 2018-05-14T18:10:00

Solution 1

If it's not WPF, you can get the ids of the control windows and send them messages. If it's WPF, you can't do anything. But you'd need to find the window ids yourself.

Posted 14-May-18 18:10pm

Christian Graus

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Richard Deeming 15-May-18 12:48pm

If it's WPF, you can probably use UI automation:
UI Automation Overview | Microsoft Docs[^]

Teoh Chia Wei · Answer 2 · 2018-05-14T19:41:00

Solution 2

I am not sure if the 3rd party application is a WPF. Any example I can refer to?

Posted 14-May-18 19:41pm

Teoh Chia Wei

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Richard Deeming 15-May-18 12:47pm

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