Keyboard Hook in Windows DLL not getting key-up message - windows

In a Windows native DLL running inside an application, I've installed a keyboard hook with the following callback procedure:
LRESULT CALLBACK onKeyHookEvent_(int code, WPARAM keyCode, LPARAM keyFlags)
{
if (code < 0)
return CallNextHookEx(NULL, code, keyCode, keyFlags);
if (keyFlags & KF_UP)
doSomething();
return 0;
}
But the procedure never gets a keyFlags with the KF_UP bit(s) set. My fear is that the main application is somehow "swallowing" the release events before they get to my hook.
Is there anything else I must do to make a keyboard hook sensitive to key releases?

It appears that the KF_UP mask must be shifted into the high position of a 32-bit word. The correct code:
static const long keyUpMask = static_cast<long>(KF_UP) << 16;
...
if (keyFlags & keyUpMask)
doSomething();
The weird thing is, I see no mention of this in the MSDN documentation on KeyboardProc callbacks.

You can try using a low level keyboard hook(Low Level KeyboardProc MSDN). You will be able to process WM_KEYUP and WM_SYSKEYUP messages. But I don't know if you are looking for something like this, or something else. I used this once with a keylogger program in assembly and it worked perfectly for key presses and releases.

Related

How to identify the window is belong to a specific process?

Win32 programs have an entry parameter HINSTANCE for the Win32 entry function WinMain(). When you create your own window, the CreateWindow() API call needs this parameter.
My first idea in my mind is that this HINSTANCE should be some unique identify to distinguish different windows belong to different processes. Until recently, in some occasions, I use this HINSTANCE. Wow! If you open the same Win32 program (EXE) twice, each process has the same HINSTANCE value.
Later I figured out, it was some resource identifier (memory address) in the process. It's a virtual address for the process which is related to its PE structure in memory.
Now, if I have the two windows' HWND handles, and I want to check whether the two windows are from the same process, what is the best choice?
You can use the GetWindowThreadProcessId function to retrieve the ID of the process that created a window, given that window's HWND.
Below is a brief C code snippet showing how. We check that the return value of each GetWindowThreadProcessId() call is not zero (see this answer or this blog by Raymond Chen), to ensure that we have passed valid HWND handles.
// win1 and win2 are both HWND handles to check...
DWORD proc1, proc2;
if (!GetWindowThreadProcessId(win1, &proc1)) { // Error (invalid HWND?)
//.. error handling
}
if (!GetWindowThreadProcessId(win2, &proc2)) {
//..
}
if (proc1 == proc2) {
// Windows created by same process
}
else {
// Windows created by different processes
}
GetWindowThreadProcessId can do the work. Record here.
An interactive way to do this would be to use Microsoft's Spy++, which lets you find the Process ID, Thread ID, and parents/children of a window by point-and-clicking its GUI.
You can also find window handles (and plenty of other window-specific data) in this way.

Looking for an alternative to the WaitForInputIdle function, available at any time

I'm working on an automation program, and the WaitForInputIdle function helps me determine when the window of the target app is done initializing. The problem is that, in my case, it works only with the first window - that's how WaitForInputIdle works, only once.
Could the functionality of WaitForInputIdle be implemented in a different way, such that it could be called every time the target process is busy, and wait until it's done?
I thought about posting a dummy message, but I don't think there's a way to find out when it gets removed from the queue.
Edit: I came up with something, an ugly and hacky solution that seems to work:
RECT rc;
if(!GetUpdateRect(hWnd, &rc, FALSE))
{
rc.left = rc.top = 0;
rc.right = rc.bottom = 1;
InvalidateRect(hWnd, &rc, FALSE);
}
do {
Sleep(100);
} while(GetUpdateRect(hWnd, &rc, FALSE));
I really hope there's something better than that.
Edit: sending WM_NULL, as suggested by Raymond Chen, works for me.
It appears that the PrintWindow hack has no advantages, as internally it just sends the WM_PAINT message.
Old message: I came up with a solution that solves my problem, still a hack but not as ugly.
The idea is misusing the PrintWindow function, which basically posts sends a WM_PAINT message and waits for the window to process it - exactly what I need.
Below is the code with some informative comments.
It was tested on Windows XP and Windows 8 and it works as expected, i.e. doesn't fail despite the NULL HDC value.
// BEWARE: HACK BELOW
// PrintWindow is misused here as a synchronization tool
// When calling it, the system sends WM_PAINT and waits for it to be processed
// Note: if hWnd is hung, the following call will hang as well
PrintWindow(hWnd, NULL, 0);

SetWindowsHook Global not very Global

I'm playing around with SetWindowsHookEx, specifically I would like be able to find out about any window (on my desktop) thats been activated, via mouse or keyboard.
Reading through MSDN docs for SetWindowsHookEx it would appear that a WH_CBT type would do the job. I've created a dll and put all the code in there, which I control from a gui app (which also handles the unhook).
BUT I only appear to be getting the activation code when I activate my gui app though, any other app I activate is ignored.
In my dll I have the setup code and the CBTProc like so:
LRESULT WINAPI CBTProc(int Code, WPARAM W, LPARAM L) {
if(Code<0) CallN....
if (Code == HCBT_ACTIVATE) { // never get unless I activate my app
HWND a = reinterpret_cast<HWND>(W);
TRACE("this window was activated %d\n", a);
}
CallNext....
}
EXPORTED HHOOK WINAPI Setup(HWND MyWind) {
...
// gDllUInstance set in dllmain
return SetWindowsHookEx(WH_CBT, CBTProc, gDllUInstance, 0);
}
All pretty simple stuff, i've tried moving the setup out of the dll but I still get the same effect.
It would appear that the dll is getting loaded into other processes, I'm counting the number of DLL_PROCESS_ATTACHs I'm getting and can see its going up (not very scientific i know.
NOTE that this is 32 bit code running on 32bit OS - win2k3.
Are my expectations of the hooking mechanism wrong? should I only be getting the activation of my app or do I need a different type of hook?
EDIT: the trace function writes to a file telling me whats sending me activations
TIA.
Turns out its working ok, as Hans points out, i'm just not seeing the output from the debugger from the other processes, if I put in some extra tracing code - one trace file per attached process - I can see can see that things are working after all.
Many thanks for the replies.

Problems with 'cross process subclassing'

Two questions.
1) I understand this must be an expected outcome but maybe someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong; I'm trying to subclass all window classes in a global hook and it works except that I'm not able to close shop as I should and when the program initially registering the hook unregisters the hook and exits, subclassed applications start crashing.
Here's how I'm trying to do it..
// stores original wndprocs. In the hook dll, outside the shared memory.
map<HWND, WNDPROC> origWndProcs;
// in an EnumWindows callback, executed for all HWND's, also in the hook dll (UWM_REMOVE_HOOK is a registered unique message)
SendMessageTimeout(hWnd, UWM_REMOVE_HOOK, 0, 0, SMTO_ABORTIFHUNG | SMTO_NORMAL, 15000, res);
// Still in the same hook, in the subclassing wndproc..
if (msg == UWM_REMOVE_HOOK) {
if (origWndProcs.find(hwnd) != origWndProcs.end()) {
SetWindowLongPtr(hwnd, GWL_WNDPROC, (LONG_PTR)origWndProcs[hwnd]);
}
}
// clears the hook..
__declspec(dllexport) BOOL ClearHooks(HWND hWnd) {
BOOL unhooked = UnhookWindowsHookEx(hook) &&
UnhookWindowsHookEx(kb_hook) &&
UnhookWindowsHookEx(mouse_hook) &&
UnhookWindowsHookEx(cbt_hook);
if(unhooked)
hWndServer = NULL;
return unhooked;
}
In DllMain I don't do anything on DLL_PROCESS_DETACH. Instead, ClearHooks() is called from the program originally registering the hooks and there only after the hook has sent a message signalling that it has executed the EnumWindows operation (restores original wndprocs, see above).
I subclass windows in a WndProc hook; all visible windows that receive a message and whose current wndproc is not the one in the dll, are subclassed.
Basically all (as far as I can tell) applications crash on exit despite the fact that windows do seem to get the wndproc set back to what it was when it was replaced. Anyone have a clue what I might be doing wrong?
2) I need this to intercept WM_MINMAXINFO and modify window maxsize whenever a window is maximized. Unfortunately I can't do this in the dll but I have to talk with a program to get the size info. So, what's the best way to talk to that window; I need it to pass back some info so I can modify the structure that came with the original WM_MINMAXINFO message. Will a structure in WM_COPYDATA preserve it's data until the call to SendMessageTimeout returns?
Thanks
There are plenty of pain points here. You assume that no other code will subclass the window. And that such code will un-subclass it in the right order. There is no right order, your hooking is quite asynchronous from the program's execution.
But, the workaround is simple enough. You are already hooking with SetWindowsHookEx, might as well do one more. WH_CALLWNDPROC or WH_CALLWNDPROCRET, depending on what you want to do.

Attach window to running application

I have customer that uses older, custom built ERP application for which they don't have source code and company that developed it does not exist any more. Application is developed in 2000 and it's built with Delphi. Since last executable is from 2003, it could be D6 or D7.
On one important form there are some fields where customer would like to display additional data from other databases and asked me if it's possible to "duct tape" data over existing form.
First idea I got is to build application that will:
browse list of windows target application creates and find controls on form
attach "some" event when to get notified when target form is displayed
attach "some" event when to get notified when field on target form is changed
display additional information in small window overlaying target form
Are there any examples on how to do something like this. I searched google with variations of this question title, but without success.
Note - rewriting of ERP application is not planned.
About language - I can do it with C# or Delphi.
I'm going to answer this from a purely C & Win32 point of view, because I don't know Delphi or its libraries. Converting this to C# can be accomplished via p/invoke, but some parts may/will need to be unmanaged.
First off, no guarantees. If the target application is doing windows-less controls (if there isn't an HWND under every on-screen control) you're pretty much out of luck. This isn't all that uncommon, so yeah...
Step 1, register a window hook listening for new windows created by the target process*:
//dllHMod is an HMODULE that refers to the DLL containing ShellHookProc
HHOOK hook = SetWindowsHookEx(WH_SHELL, ShellHookProc, dllHMod, 0);
// error handling, stashing hook away for unregistering later, etc...
LRESULT CALLBACK ShellHookProc(int nCode, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
{
if(nCode < 0) return CallNextHookEx(NULL, nCode, wParam, lParam);
if(nCode == HSHELL_WINDOWCREATED)
{
WindowCreate((HWND)wParam);
}
return 0;
}
WindowCreated(HWND) should stash the HWND away if the correct process (determined via GetWindowThreadProcessId) owns it. At this point, you'll be able to get every top-level window owned by the target process. Note that registering a global hook carries a notable performance penalty, not that it really matters in your case but you should expect it.
Now for the fun part. There's no reliable way to tell when a window is fully constructed, or when its done rendering (there are ways to tell when it STARTS rendering, but that doesn't really help). My advice, guess. Just throw some arbitrary wait in there and then try and enumerate all the child windows.
To enumerate child windows (if you know enough about the target window, there are better ways to do this; but I'm assuming a search is easiest):
//targetHWND is an HWND of one of the top-level windows you've found
EnumChildWindows(targetHWND, ChildWindowCallback, NULL);
//more code...
BOOL ChildWindowCallback(HWND window, LPARAM ignored)
{
if(IsTargetWindow(window)) { /* Do something */ }
return TRUE;
}
Implementing IsTargetWindow is another tricky part. Hopefully you'll find some reliable test for doing so (like checking the class name, window name, style, something; look at GetWindowInfo).
Once you have the window you want to monitor, you can use SetWindowLongPtr and GWLP_WNDPROC to watch all messages it receives. This will require code injection (and thus unmanaged code) and is awfully low level. I'd advise against it if you could possibly avoid it, but lacking the source...
I think this answers is a decent starting point, but once again this is going to be incredibly painful if its even possible at all. Good luck.
*Alternatively, if you know that the target app doesn't create windows except at startup (or at detectable/predictable points in time) you can use EnumWindows.

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