Put application to foreground - windows

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);
}
}