Question

I am trying to hide the Windows 7 taskbar in C#. I looked at this post and this page, but after following all the instructions, I ended up with a plain black bar at the bottom.
I ended up with a taskbar class like this:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Diagnostics;

public static class Taskbar
{
    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    private static extern int GetWindowText(IntPtr hWnd, StringBuilder text, int count);
    [DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
    private static extern bool EnumThreadWindows(int threadId, EnumThreadProc pfnEnum, IntPtr lParam);
    [DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    private static extern System.IntPtr FindWindow(string lpClassName, string lpWindowName);
    [DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    private static extern IntPtr FindWindowEx(IntPtr parentHandle, IntPtr childAfter, string className, string windowTitle);
    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    private static extern int ShowWindow(IntPtr hwnd, int nCmdShow);
    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    private static extern uint GetWindowThreadProcessId(IntPtr hwnd, out int lpdwProcessId);

    private const int SW_HIDE = 0;
    private const int SW_SHOW = 5;

    private const string VistaStartMenuCaption = "Start";
    private static IntPtr vistaStartMenuWnd = IntPtr.Zero;
    private delegate bool EnumThreadProc(IntPtr hwnd, IntPtr lParam);

    public static void Show()
    {
        SetVisibility(true);
    }

    public static void Hide()
    {
        SetVisibility(false);
    }

    public static bool Visible
    {
        set { SetVisibility(value); }
    }

    private static void SetVisibility(bool show)
    {
        IntPtr taskBarWnd = FindWindow("Shell_TrayWnd", null);

        IntPtr startWnd = FindWindowEx(taskBarWnd, IntPtr.Zero, "Button", "Start");
        if (startWnd == IntPtr.Zero)
        {
            startWnd = FindWindow("Button", null);

            if (startWnd == IntPtr.Zero)
            {
                startWnd = GetVistaStartMenuWnd(taskBarWnd);
            }
        }

        ShowWindow(taskBarWnd, show ? SW_SHOW : SW_HIDE);
        ShowWindow(startWnd, show ? SW_SHOW : SW_HIDE);
    }

    private static IntPtr GetVistaStartMenuWnd(IntPtr taskBarWnd)
    {
        int procId;
        GetWindowThreadProcessId(taskBarWnd, out procId);

        Process p = Process.GetProcessById(procId);
        if (p != null)
        {
            foreach (ProcessThread t in p.Threads)
            {
                EnumThreadWindows(t.Id, MyEnumThreadWindowsProc, IntPtr.Zero);
            }
        }
        return vistaStartMenuWnd;
    }

    private static bool MyEnumThreadWindowsProc(IntPtr hWnd, IntPtr lParam)
    {
        StringBuilder buffer = new StringBuilder(256);
        if (GetWindowText(hWnd, buffer, buffer.Capacity) > 0)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(buffer);
            if (buffer.ToString() == VistaStartMenuCaption)
            {
                vistaStartMenuWnd = hWnd;
                return false;
            }
        }
        return true;
    }
}

I’ve taken a screenshot of the problem:

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

If you have a WPF window, set its WindowStyle to None, and maximize it, it covers the whole screen (covering the TaskBar). If you use Windows Forms, something similar may also work.