I want to disable / block the mouse click and keyboard typing for 6 seconds after launching a .exe file while displaying a advsplash.
Currently I manage to run a .exe file, activate the splash, block the keyboard and run a second .exe, but then, I need to restart the computer to unlock the mouse/keyboard.
Any idea on how to disable it without restarting the machine ?
This sounds like something you should never do.
If you want to do UI automation Windows already has support for that, using SendInput or keybd_event is not a good idea. Some apps steal foreground focus, this is just a fact and if that happens at the wrong time you end up sending input to the wrong window.
Related
ISSUE:
On a touch panel with no keyboard, my QT C++/QML app running on Windows 10 IOT has the fullscreen GUI "frozen", when the monitor turns on (after the user has triggered the touchscreen), after it has timed-out earlier and turned off due to power settings. Mouse cursor still updates.
The QML GUI has "flags: Qt.FramelessWindowHint | Qt.Window"; I do not want to add "Qt.WindowStaysOnTopHint" as it will block the control panel window when it is open from the app. The program is verified to be still running, only the GUI has frozen from the point in time when the screen turned off.
TEMPORARY RESOLUTION:
The only way to "unfreeze" the fullscreen GUI is to connect a keyboard & press the Windows key to show-hide the start menu, or do it programmatically with a manual QML button placed at a known position or on detection of monitor WM_POWERBROADCAST messages.
When the app is not fullscreen, the freezing doesn't seem to be happening.
Is this due to some missing WM_MESSAGES (e.g. WM_PAINT, WM_ACTIVATE, etc) sent by the OS to the app when it is fullscreen, or when the start menu button is pressed?
Can the app-fullscreen-freezing on monitor-turn-back-on be rectified by the app programmatically sending a sequence of WM_MESSAGES to itself, but not the Win button keypress (as the normal user is not supposed to access the OS or see anything related to the OS when the app is running)?
I tried using winAPI SetForegroundWindow() function...?
:-( Fast forward a few days...
With further testing, it seems that using SetForegroundWindow() alone is not consistent/reliable. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
The most reliable that works 99.999% of the time is still the VK_LWIN keypress sent by the app. But, as mentioned before, the app user is not supposed to see the start-menu appearing then disappearing. Best if the behavior of the VK_LWIN keypress could be duplicated to the app without seeing the start-menu...
Is there anyway to set a program to be unresponsive in windows?
I have python code that starts a program. But when the program becomes unresponsive i want to do some specific clean up task.
But how do I test it. Because currently it is random.
Is there a way to either make a small program that I can force to be unresponsive?
Or force a running program to be unresponsive.
An "unresponsive" program is typically a GUI application that's blocked on it's main (UI) thread such that it hasn't pumped messages in a long time. That is, the UI feels "frozen" when you try to interact with it and/or the window doesn't seem to repaint itself as it should.
You can easily simulate this by creating a Windows Forms app in C# or Win32 GUI app in C++ using the default project templates in Visual Studio. Or basically any UI framework like Qt for that matter. Then introduce a very long sleep statement (several minutes) in response to a button click.
I don't think the "unresponsive" attribute applies to services, console applications, or background tasks.
Use Alt + Tab keyboard shortcut to bring your unresponsive program to the front, and then press Alt + F4 keys at the same time to force the program to quit.
i have been trying to get a windows startup/shutdown sound to play, i couldn't get the sounds to play so i asked on Microsoft, here is the link https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/cannot-change-windows-start-up-sound/8bbcb0a0-1402-4f1e-b080-9c8d526bc205
and i was told that its not possible. well too bad because i am not going to stop there, so i went to local group policy editor on windows 10 where you can choose scripts to run during shutdown and start up. i then wrote a very small PowerShell command with the file name of "shutdown.ps1" the code inside of shutdown.ps1 is
start "C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy\Machine\Scripts\Shutdown\TADA.wav"
this file is located in the C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy\Machine\Scripts\Shutdown directory along with the TADA.wav file that it plays when it shuts down.
now the issue i am having is that when windows is shutting down, its ending all processes so it does not play the sound. what can i do to change that?
I'm pretty new to all of this and am very grateful for any input you can give.
thanks in advance,
Devin
From How to Change the Windows 10 Logoff, Logon, and Shutdown Sounds in Windows 10:
...
While you can still customize what sounds sounds play for most OS events, Windows 10 hid shut down, logoff, and logon from view. They’re still around, though. You just need to make a few mild changes in the Windows Registry to get them back.
Add the Actions Back to the Sound Control Panel by Editing the Registry
To add the shutdown, logoff, and logon actions back to the menu in the Sound Control Panel app, you just need to make a few little tweaks in the Windows Registry.
...
Open the Registry Editor by hitting Start and typing “regedit.” Press Enter to open Registry Editor and then give it permission to make changes to your PC.
In the Registry Editor, use the left sidebar to navigate to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\EventLabels
You’re going to be making one small change in each of three different subkeys inside that EventLabels key. First, we’ll tackle the shutdown sound or, as Windows likes to call it, System Exit. Under the EventLabels key on the left side of Registry Editor, select the SystemExit subkey. On the right side, double-click the ExcludeFromCPL value.
Note that by default, the value is 1, meaning that the action is excluded from the Control Panel. Change the value to 0 and then click “OK.”
Next, you’re going to make exactly the same change in two other subkeys inside the EventLabels key: WindowsLogoff and WindowsLogon. Head into each of those folders, open the ExcludeFromCPL value inside, and change the value from 1 to 0.
No need to restart Windows. You can go ahead and test your changes right away. Open up the Sound Control Panel app by right-clicking the speaker icon in your Notification Area and selecting “Sounds.” 1
You should now see the new actions (Exit Windows, Windows Logoff, and Windows Logon) available in the selection window and you can assign whatever sounds you like to those actions.
If, for whatever reason, you want to hide those actions from the Control Panel again, just head back into Registry Editor and change each of those ExcludeFromCPL values back to 1.
1: On my machine, to get to the Sounds control panel, I had to go into the Settings, choose "Personalization", then "Themes", then `Sounds".
UPDATE:
And indeed, all three sound events show up in my Sounds control panel once I re-enable them in the Registry. However, I tried assigning audio files to them, and although Windows remembered the assignments, nothing played when invoking those actions.
So, I guess the playback functionality is simply not implemented for those events anymore. This seems to be confirmed in your discussion with a Microsoft Insider on answers.microsoft.com (with an 89% upvote rate of 143K replies, I would think he knows what he's talking about):
In Windows 10 there is no way to change the Windows Startup Sound, that sound is set permanently in a DLL in Windows, it is not an audio file like the other system sounds, and even when you turn on the Startup sound on that dialog, sometimes the startup sound will play and other times it will not, this is a known bug in Windows 10, which seems to have been fixed in Windows 11
Windows10 does not support a shutdown sound like previous versions of Windows, you wil find many methods posted online, sadly, none of them work.
I'm a developer and a long-time Windows user with an obsession about making my system as convenient to use as possible.
Yesterday I thought about something that has always annoyed me in Windows and that I've taken for granted, and I realized that I have a better idea for how it could work, and I'm now wondering whether it's possible to tweak Windows to work like that.
The thing that annoys me is when windows steal focus. For example, I could be running an installer for some program. While it's working, I'll switch to my browser and browse, maybe entering some text into an email in my browser. Then suddenly the installer finishes and its window steals the focus. Now I'm in the middle of writing an email, so I might press a key that happens to be bound to a button on that installer, and then that button gets invoked, doing some action that I never intended to happen!
This is doubly annoying to me because I'm using a multiple-desktop program called DexPot, and when a window steals focus, it also brings itself to the desktop I'm currently on, which can be really annoying, because then I have to put it back into its original desktop.
How my ideal solution to this problem would work: Every time a window tries to steal focus, we intercept that, and don't let it. We show something like a toaster message saying "Foobar installer wants focus, press Win-Whatever to switch to it". If and when you press the key combo, it switches to the window.
The question is: Is there an easy way to tweak Windows to make this happen? I know very little about Windows programming. I do know AHK and if it's possible with that, that'd be great.
No, there isn't an easy way to add this behavior, but Windows tries to do this automatically.
In theory apps shouldn't be able to steal the foreground while you're actively using another app. Unfortunatly there are some scenarios where Windows can't tell the difference between legitimate user actions that should change the foreground and unwanted foreground-theft. The window manager generally tightens up the holes a bit with each new version of Windows, but also needs to make sure that apps can come to the foreground when the user wants them to, even if that desire is expressed indirectly.
For example, a process launched by the current foreground process can put a window into the foreground. This is necessary so that when a user launches a window from Explorer the newly launched process can open its main window. This permission only lasts until the next user input, so if an application is slow to launch and you start working on an email the app may lose its foreground permissions before it can use them.
See the SetForegroundWindow function documentation for a list of requirements for a process to be able to set a window into the foreground.
There are also apps which specifically make use of these requirements to steal the permission (by joining the foreground queue or synthsising user input to themselves), but I suspect in your installer scenario it is accidental.
I'm not sure what exactly is going on, but I suspect that the problem comes from the installer running as a service and accidentally stealing the foreground permission when it tries to launch the app on your current desktop.
It would be theoretically possible for an external process to hook into the foreground system to override this and show your confirmation toast, but it would be tricky to get right and would require significant low level code (I'd probably start with a CbtHook). It would not be possible in a scripting package like AHK (assuming you mean AutoHotKey) but would need to be native C/C++ code injected into every running process.
I'm trying to make an simple anti-idle script (that moves the mouse or whatever) to prevent an application from stopping.
How can I keep it running after screen lock ?
It seems like this is explained in the Autoit faq :
http://www.autoitscript.com/wiki/FAQ#Why_doesn.27t_my_script_work_on_a_locked_workstation.3F
On locked station any window will never be active (active is only dialog with text "Press Ctrl+Alt+Del") In Windows locked state applications runs hidden (behind that visible dialog) and haven't focus and active status.
So generally don't use Send() MouseClick() WinActivate() WinWaitActive() WinActive() etc.
Instead use ControlSend() ControlSetText() ControlClick() WinWait() WinExists() WinMenuSelectItem() etc. This way you may have your script resistive against another active windows. It's possible to run such script from scheduler on locked Windows station.
You can't automate anything after your screen is locked. User input is simply ignored. A much easier way would be to prevent your screen from locking, for example, by moving the mouse randomly every 30 seconds.