We have a service to manage some custom desktops using the user32.dll SetThreadDesktop and SwitchDesktop methods. Everything has been working well until Windows 10 version 1709 arrived.
With this Windows 10 version (or later), when EnableLUA is activated (when we have a custom desktop active), if the user locks his session, the winlogon desktop doesn’t appear and our custom desktop remains visible (though it isn’t possible to interact with it) until the user presses the combination CTRL+ALT+DEL.
It seems like the winlogon desktop is not able to stay topmost over our custom desktop. I didn't find any information about this, so is this a possibility? Could anything else be going on?
PD: Same scenario on Windows 10 version 1607 device works well.
Microsoft recognized the bug and they will solve it. The error is reproducible with the Sysinternals Desktops tool (currently belonging to Microsoft).
Waiting for an update that fix it...
Related
I cannot find any definitive information anywhere but the System.Windows.Forms.SendKeys class appears to have been blocked / disabled / depreciated in Windows 10.
I wrote a demo program that monitors the users keystrokes and if a user enters a known code it will pop up a form and then go off to a document database and return various strings (company names / addresses / contact lists etc) and replace the typed code with the retrieved string. SendWait is used to send the retrieved strings to whatever program typed the code.
I built the program on the companies Windows 7 desktops but when I ran it on my personal Windows 10 system it didn't work. A lot of reading later and I feel like a complete idiot but I cant let them take this project any further knowing that they wont be on Win7 forever.
So my question is has this sort of functionality definitely been disabled in Windows 10 or is there another way or method I would be able to use to achieve this behavior of inserting text into running programs.
Any help appreciated.
I found this Forum-Thread:
https://www.tenforums.com/software-apps/49635-sendkeys-not-working-windows-10-a.html
SendKeys is Blocked in W10. In W8.1 it still works.
There are other anoying things, like not allowing App to Read or Wright to Drive C. The "file" is there but W10 "hides" it or simply not allowing to access it.
There are Netwok problems also, not allowing App to work on LAN environement.
Well, my opinion is that W10 behaves like Malware to user PC. Useless.
They had no solution.
It looks as if Sendkeys works with some apps and not others. I can automate an older app by sending it keystrokes but newer apps like Chrome don't respond. The inconsistent behavior has seriously messed up scripts that worked fine under Win 7.
I have not found any official documentation that says that Sendkeys has been deprecated so the inconsistency looks to be a Windows 10 bug.
Hi i have windows 10 Pro x64 bit and i will like to know if it's possible to develop a lock screen for windows 10 , without using hacks or not safe methods .. That will close the Pc monitor until a key is pressed .
I search the google but i did not find anything about that , other than how to disable it or how to change the background image of the already existing one
No, it is not possible.
The authentication experience in Windows is locked-down, for good reason. The system can be extended (previously using GINA for NT4 through XP, now Winlogon) but only really to allow for new authentication providers, not to change the user-experience.
Of course, you could always build your own full-screen application which mimicks a login screen, and it could be used to invoke the login action and create a session for that user, but if I press Ctrl+Alt+Del on my keyboard or WinKey+L, or choose any of the Logoff options from the start menu then I'll still get the "real" login screen, and that's by-design.
Historical note: Windows XP added the 'Welcome Screen' UX for computers that were not domain-joined. The Welcome Screen UI was a regular userland process which invoked the platform APIs for logging users on and off, and it was loaded into the special local login session. Hypothetically it was possible to replace this screen with another one completely, though I don't believe I ever saw anything beyond a proof-of-concept. There were third-party tools that customized the appearance of the login screen, but they worked by replacing image resources, they didn't actually replace the executable.
...but since Windows Vista the login experience was more controlled and I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) it's all controlled by the core authentication components, so it just isn't possible to replace it - not without seriously modifying the entire Windows security system.
I'm developing a Windows 10 Universal app (UWP).
Is it possible to set application as TopMost (always on top)? Like WPF or Winforms (TopMost property).
Thanks
A feature called CompactOverlay mode was added in the Creators Update that supports this type of functionality. When an app window enters compact overlay mode it’ll be shown above other windows so it won’t get blocked. This allows users to continue to keep an eye on your app's content even when they are working with something else. The canonical example of an app taking advantage of this feature is a media player or a video chat app.
A blog post describing the feature can be found here
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/universal-windows-app-model/2017/02/11/compactoverlay-mode-aka-picture-in-picture/
Short answer is no, there is no way as of today to make the application modal.
There is a petition going around asking for this functionality, which was requested last December but given the amount of votes it got (35 at the time this answer was written), it doesn't look like it will be taken into consideration anytime soon.
As mentioned in the comments, this functionality would be PC only so even if it was added, my assumption would be that it wouldn't work outside of the PC mode (so no tablet, mobile or surface family device support).
It's not possible UWP apps have some restrictions compared with WPF of Win32 apps(classic apps).
With uwp apps you need enable some capabilities to do something special in your app as you can see in the link uwp apps need ask for permission or they can't access or modify files directly.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/mt270968.aspx
Best Regards
I'm developing a Windows 10 Universal app (UWP).
Is it possible to set application as TopMost (always on top)? Like WPF or Winforms (TopMost property).
Thanks
A feature called CompactOverlay mode was added in the Creators Update that supports this type of functionality. When an app window enters compact overlay mode it’ll be shown above other windows so it won’t get blocked. This allows users to continue to keep an eye on your app's content even when they are working with something else. The canonical example of an app taking advantage of this feature is a media player or a video chat app.
A blog post describing the feature can be found here
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/universal-windows-app-model/2017/02/11/compactoverlay-mode-aka-picture-in-picture/
Short answer is no, there is no way as of today to make the application modal.
There is a petition going around asking for this functionality, which was requested last December but given the amount of votes it got (35 at the time this answer was written), it doesn't look like it will be taken into consideration anytime soon.
As mentioned in the comments, this functionality would be PC only so even if it was added, my assumption would be that it wouldn't work outside of the PC mode (so no tablet, mobile or surface family device support).
It's not possible UWP apps have some restrictions compared with WPF of Win32 apps(classic apps).
With uwp apps you need enable some capabilities to do something special in your app as you can see in the link uwp apps need ask for permission or they can't access or modify files directly.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/mt270968.aspx
Best Regards
Is there a way for my application to auto-start after some time instead of a notification? Or am I constrained to just notifications?
The difference between Android and Windows Phone (you mentioned Android in your comment) is that Android allows you to do pretty much everything while Windows Phone is a very restricted system. So, unfortunately, the answer is no. (There are ways to launch your app from other places than the app's tile, though. See the end of the answer)
Why am I saying unfortunately? Of course, Windows Phone is a nice and seek operating system that runs wonderful even on low-spec devices like the Lumia 520. But that doesn't mean developers shouldn't get the freedom to interact with the Operating System and do innovative tasks.
But there are reasons Microsoft chose not to allow Autostart (or at least, restrict the area an app can access, not the autostart in particular):
it may irritate customers. Even if you show a message box, many customers just dismiss it without reading it and they wouldn't understand why an app would appear without their interaction
each feature would make the operating system slower and bigger. I don't want to say that an autostart makes the phone unusable, but here's a question: Do you need to run a registry cleaner on you PC from time to time? Yes, you do need to do so You even need to reinstall a PC form time to time. You don't need to do that on a Windows Phone. It just works and will always work (OK, that's maybe a bit too optimistic, but you get it...)
I also don't think an autostart is particularly useful on a mobile. Because each app runs full screen, the system would boot up to your app instead of to the start screen. I don't think the user will always want your app (most of the time, he'll want to look at his start screen or launch another app), so it would just be annoying. On a PC, you can use the auto start for small programs that should run in the background (for example, I've got a progamm that provides Git with my SSH keys that automatically starts up each time).
But as I mentioned above, there are other ways to launch your app. Using url schemes can be surprisingly powerful as you can put a button on a web page that will directly launch your app. Other apps will also be able to launch your app. But as it is not directly what you wanted to know, I won't explain it in detail and instead provide you wiht a gread link to msdn: Auto-launching apps using file and URI associations for Windows Phone 8
For such features you should look into: Windows Embedded 8.1 Handheld instead of the consumer version Windows Phone 8.1.