I have written a C# based console application. Due to some issues
thats been causing me endless nightmares, I was wondering, is there a
way to prevent right mousebutton clicks on my application when it
appears on the task bar? I don't want the context menu showing up
when a user right clicks on it. I don't want the user to be able to
do anything with it other than stare at it in its minimized form. I
know we can P/Invoke into some Win32 APIs to hide it completely
(FindWindow/ShowWindow/SW_HIDE) but for the moment is what I am aiming
to do possible?

I know there are many other ways to sidestep this problem completely
but the for the moment I am stuck with what I have (due to legacy
issues) and I need to find a way to disable the context menu from
showing up when an user right clicks on my app on the task bar.

On Jun 18, 5:08*pm, Dilip <rdil...@lycos.com> wrote:
> I have written a C# based console application. *Due to some issues
> thats been causing me endless nightmares, I was wondering, is there a
> way to prevent right mousebutton clicks on my application when it
> appears on the task bar? *I don't want the context menu showing up
> when a user right clicks on it. *I don't want the user to be able to
> do anything with it other than stare at it in its minimized form. *I
> know we can P/Invoke into some Win32 APIs to hide it completely
> (FindWindow/ShowWindow/SW_HIDE) but for the moment is what I am aiming
> to do possible?

It sounds unlikely.

> I know there are many other ways to sidestep this problem completely
> but the for the moment I am stuck with what I have (due to legacy
> issues) and I need to find a way to disable the context menu from
> showing up when an user right clicks on my app on the task bar.

I'm intrigued to hear why you're stuck with it being a console
application when you don't need a console. Why not just make it a GUI
app which doesn't show any forms?

Jon

On Jun 18, 11:15 am, "Jon Skeet [C# MVP]" <sk...@pobox.com> wrote:
> On Jun 18, 5:08 pm, Dilip <rdil...@lycos.com> wrote:
> > I know there are many other ways to sidestep this problem completely
> > but the for the moment I am stuck with what I have (due to legacy
> > issues) and I need to find a way to disable the context menu from
> > showing up when an user right clicks on my app on the task bar.
>
> I'm intrigued to hear why you're stuck with it being a console
> application when you don't need a console. Why not just make it a GUI
> app which doesn't show any forms?

Because its a humongous application Jon. I don't know what might
happen if I convert it to an GUI app. It interacts with so many other
apps via remoting and such. At the very least it is going to involve
re-testing the entire functional specifications which probably will
not happen this late in the day. That is a kind of change the mgmt
won't allow anyway. At least for the current release I need to find a
way to prevent the context menu from showing up.

On Jun 18, 5:29*pm, Dilip <rdil...@lycos.com> wrote:

<snip>

> Because its a humongous application Jon. *I don't know what might
> happen if I convert it to an GUI app.

All you'd be changing is whether or not a console is allocated. Just
the project type, in the project settings. I'm not suggesting adding
an actual UI or anything like that - just changing a single property
of the project.

> *It interacts with so many other
> apps via remoting and such. *At the very least it is going to involve
> re-testing the entire functional specifications which probably will
> not happen this late in the day. *That is a kind of change the mgmt
> won't allow anyway. *At least for the current release I need to find a
> way to prevent the context menu from showing up.

I'm 99% sure that if you *do* find a way of doing that, it'll involve
considerably more risky changes than just changing it from a console
app to a WinForms app which happens not to ever create or display
anything.

If you're afraid of anything concrete in terms of not allocating a
console, how convinced are you that disabling the context menu won't
have similar effects?

Jon

"Dilip" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:3f8415c0-e2bb-4306-afe2-(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> I have written a C# based console application. Due to some issues
> thats been causing me endless nightmares, I was wondering, is there a
> way to prevent right mousebutton clicks on my application when it
> appears on the task bar? I don't want the context menu showing up
> when a user right clicks on it. I don't want the user to be able to
> do anything with it other than stare at it in its minimized form. I
> know we can P/Invoke into some Win32 APIs to hide it completely
> (FindWindow/ShowWindow/SW_HIDE) but for the moment is what I am aiming
> to do possible?
>
> I know there are many other ways to sidestep this problem completely
> but the for the moment I am stuck with what I have (due to legacy
> issues) and I need to find a way to disable the context menu from
> showing up when an user right clicks on my app on the task bar.
>

I used the gpedit.msc in the Run box on the machine running Vista Ultimate,
went to the group policy listed below and enabled it. No one can
right-click an application setting on the task bar.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro....mspx?mfr=true

Maybe, that's what you need to do, if this is a dedicated machine for
running legacy solutions.

The link was for Win 2K, but the same thing can be done on Vista, and I will
assume it can be done for other MS NT class O/S(s).