C/C++/C# Force window to be on top

Question

Is the there a way to force another window to be on top? Not the application's window, but another one, already running on the system. (Windows, C/C++/C#)

Answer 1

You can use the Win32 API BringWindowToTop. It takes an HWND.

You could also use the Win32 API SetWindowPos which also allows you to do things like make the window a top-level window.

Answer 2

BOOL CALLBACK EnumWindowsProc(HWND hWnd, long lParam) {
     wchar_t buff[255];

    if (IsWindowVisible(hWnd)) {
        GetWindowText(hWnd, (LPWSTR) buff, 254);
        //wprintf(L"%s\n", buff);
        wstring ws = buff;
        if (ws.find(L"Firefox") != ws.npos)
        {
            ::SetWindowPos(hWnd, HWND_TOPMOST, 0, 0, 0, 0, SWP_NOSIZE | SWP_NOMOVE);
        }
    }
    return TRUE;
}

int main(){
    BOOL enumeratingWindowsSucceeded = ::EnumWindows( EnumWindowsProc, NULL );
}

Answer 3

SetWindowPos(that_window_handle, HWND_TOPMOST, 0, 0, 0, 0, SWP_NOMOVE | SWP_NOSIZE);

BringWindowToTop moves the window to the top of the Z-order (for now) but does not make it a topmost window.

Answer 4

BringWindowToTop() has no effect if you want to bring a applications window from behind (or minimized) to front. The following code does this trick reliable:

ShowWindow(hwnd, SW_MINIMIZE);
ShowWindow(hwnd, SW_RESTORE);