Running .exe gui in a windows form container

[Gerry]

I need to display two VB6 applications side by side within a single
'windows manager'

My thought is that I could use a split screen form, using the 2.0
framework and visual studio 2005, that display the UI of each of the
VB6 apps within some control or container on the windows form.

The obvious solution is to rebuild the VB6 apps as com objects and
place the com objects on the form. Is there a solution that doesn't
require me to rebuild the VB6 apps?

 

[Greg Young [MVP]]

Something like this ??

namespace WindowsApplication2

{

public partial class Form1 : Form {

public Form1()

{

InitializeComponent();

}

private void LoadProcessInControl(string _Process, Control _Control)

{

System.Diagnostics.Process p = System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(_Process);

p.WaitForInputIdle();

Native.SetParent(p.MainWindowHandle, _Control.Handle);

}

private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

LoadProcessInControl("notepad.exe", this.splitContainer1.Panel1);

LoadProcessInControl("notepad.exe", this.splitContainer1.Panel2);

}

}

public class Native {

[DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]

public static extern uint SetParent(IntPtr hWndChild, IntPtr hWndNewParent);

}

}

 

[Greg Young [MVP]]

http://geekswithblogs.net/gyoung/archive/2006/04/26/76521.aspx

Cheers,

Greg

 

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

http://geekswithblogs.net/gyoung/archive/2006/04/26/76521.aspx

Note that this is not guaranteed to work. From the documentation of
'SetParent':

| An application can use the 'SetParent' function to set the
| parent window of a pop-up, overlapped, or child window.
| The new parent window and the child window must belong
| to the same application.

 

[Greg Young [MVP]]

You are correct ... but the other alternative is the CreateDesktop route
which from what I understand which get extremely nasty and this works on
everything now.

Greg

 

[Gerry]

Thanks Greg, I'll give this a shot.

This is for a demo so if it's not 100% I'm OK.