Question

I am working on a project with some specific requirement: I need to create a program which can monitor and runs exe inside of it using c#. However, an approach of using Console program to actually host another exe seems to be no end. So i used WinForm.

I have been looking and found some quite good solution, which host an UI Application inside the WinForm. But in my case, the exe has no UI, but it is capable of create an UI (OpenGL), so it is not applicable for those solutions. Is there any way to host this kind of exe inside of the WinForm? Which i can run many of it simultaneously?

Thanks

Answer 1

Thank you for all your suggestion. However, i did find out another way around to grab the correct Window which created by my console exe, and put it into the correct winform. This is quite a cheat though.
This idea is originally comes from the Window Tabifier from codeproject: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/WindowTabifier.aspx . As my exe does not have the corresponding UI for the process.WaitForInputIdle, i do a cheat on Thread.Sleep(2000) to skip the starting time, and grab the created Window of the console based on the name of it.

Library import:

    public delegate bool EnumWindowsProc(IntPtr hWnd, int lParam);

    [DllImport("user32.dll", EntryPoint = "GetWindowThreadProcessId", SetLastError = true,
     CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, ExactSpelling = true,
     CallingConvention = CallingConvention.StdCall)]
    private static extern long GetWindowThreadProcessId(long hWnd, long lpdwProcessId);

    [DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    private static extern IntPtr FindWindow(string lpClassName, string lpWindowName);

    [DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    private static extern bool MoveWindow(IntPtr hwnd, int x, int y, int cx, int cy, bool repaint);

    [DllImport("user32", SetLastError = true)]
    [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)]
    private extern static bool EnumThreadWindows(int threadId, EnumWindowsProc callback, IntPtr lParam);

    [DllImport("user32", SetLastError = true)]
    [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)]
    static extern bool EnumChildWindows(IntPtr hwndParent, EnumWindowsProc lpEnumFunc, IntPtr lParam);

    [DllImport("user32", SetLastError = true, CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
    private extern static int GetWindowText(IntPtr hWnd, StringBuilder text, int maxCount);

Some methods to find the correct opened window

    public IntPtr FindWindowInProcess(Process process, Func<string, bool> compareTitle)
    {
        IntPtr windowHandle = IntPtr.Zero;

        foreach (ProcessThread t in process.Threads)
        {
            windowHandle = FindWindowInThread(t.Id, compareTitle);
            if (windowHandle != IntPtr.Zero)
            {
                break;
            }
        }

        return windowHandle;
    }

    private IntPtr FindWindowInThread(int threadId, Func<string, bool> compareTitle)
    {
        IntPtr windowHandle = IntPtr.Zero;
        EnumThreadWindows(threadId, (hWnd, lParam) =>
        {
            StringBuilder text = new StringBuilder(200);
            GetWindowText(hWnd, text, 200);
            if (compareTitle(text.ToString()))
            {
                windowHandle = hWnd;
                return false;
            }
            else
            {
                windowHandle = FindChildWindow(hWnd, compareTitle);
                if (windowHandle != IntPtr.Zero)
                {
                    return false;
                }
            }
            return true;
        }, IntPtr.Zero);

        return windowHandle;
    }

    private IntPtr FindChildWindow(IntPtr hWnd, Func<string, bool> compareTitle)
    {
        IntPtr windowHandle = IntPtr.Zero;
        EnumChildWindows(hWnd, (hChildWnd, lParam) =>
        {
            StringBuilder text = new StringBuilder(200);
            GetWindowText(hChildWnd, text, 200);
            if (compareTitle(text.ToString()))
            {
                windowHandle = hWnd;
                return false;
            }
            return true;
        }, IntPtr.Zero);

        return windowHandle;
    }

Last, start the processes:

            String fileName = "myexe.exe";

            String dir = Path.GetDirectoryName(fileName);
            System.Diagnostics.Process process = new System.Diagnostics.Process();
            process.StartInfo.FileName = fileName;
            process.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory = dir;
            process.Start();

            // Wait for process to be created and enter idle condition
            Thread.Sleep(5000);

            IntPtr appWin = FindWindowInProcess(process, s => s.StartsWith("Built on"));

            // Put it into this form
            SetParent(appWin, this.Handle);

            // Remove border and whatnot
            SetWindowLong(appWin, GWL_STYLE, WS_VISIBLE);

            // Move the window to overlay it on this window
            MoveWindow(appWin, 0, 0, this.Width, this.Height, true);