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c#windowskeypresssendkeys
PentaPenguin
PentaPenguin

Reputation: 216

How to press the Windows key programmatically using C# SendKeys

Basically I want to simulate in code a user clicking on the windows key. I know there is SendKeys which allows me to send key presses to windows if I get a handle to them, but what I can't figure out is what I need to get a handle on in order to send Windows key commands. E.g. Windows key + L. Having read into this a bit it appears that CTRL-ESC should pop up the Start Menu also but not sure how to tell it to send the keys to Windows (if this is even possible). Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers!

Upvotes: 10

Views: 10076

Answers (4)

Angelo Cresta
Angelo Cresta

Reputation: 142

I've used the class provided here by user703016 and worked fine!

for ref:

using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Windows.Forms;

static class KeyboardSend
{
    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    private static extern void keybd_event(byte bVk, byte bScan, int dwFlags, int dwExtraInfo);

    private const int KEYEVENTF_EXTENDEDKEY = 1;
    private const int KEYEVENTF_KEYUP = 2;

    public static void KeyDown(Keys vKey)
    {
        keybd_event((byte)vKey, 0, KEYEVENTF_EXTENDEDKEY, 0);
    }

    public static void KeyUp(Keys vKey)
    {
        keybd_event((byte)vKey, 0, KEYEVENTF_EXTENDEDKEY | KEYEVENTF_KEYUP, 0);
    }
}

used in this way:

KeyboardSend.KeyDown(Keys.LWin);
KeyboardSend.KeyDown(Keys.D4);
KeyboardSend.KeyUp(Keys.LWin);
KeyboardSend.KeyUp(Keys.D4);

Upvotes: 1

Allon Guralnek
Allon Guralnek

Reputation: 16121

Some of the things that a user would do via a WinKey shortcut can be done programmatically in other ways. To take your WinKey+L example, you could instead just use the following statement:

Process.Start("rundll32.exe", "user32.dll,LockWorkStation");

If you could elaborate on what exactly you're trying to accomplish, maybe there's a better way than keybd_event (as Dale has suggested).

Upvotes: 5

Dale
Dale

Reputation: 13014

I don't think you can do this using SendKeys, you will need to p/invoke to an API function instead, probably keybd_event to send either CTRL+ESC or the Windows key.

Here is an example of opening the start menu this way in VB and here is keybd_event with its C# signature on pinvoke.net.

Upvotes: 9

Pete OHanlon
Pete OHanlon

Reputation: 9146

You need to use a global keyboard hook to hook into keyboards outside your application. There's an article on how to do it here.

Upvotes: -2

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