Question

I wonder how to switch desktop to metro UI programmatically. I know pressing Windows key can do it but how to do same thing by code?

Answer 1

For the desktop application

1. You can you window service host. Refer to link Pro-grammatically open window start menu

2. Use P/Invoke to send window key (From the link)

   private static extern int keybd_event(Byte bVk, Byte bScan, long dwFlags, long dwExtraInfo);
   private const byte UP = 2;
   private const byte CTRL = 17;
   private const byte ESC = 27;
   
   Finally on the event where you want to open start menu use :
   // Press Ctrl-Esc key to open Start menu
   keybd_event(CTRL, 0, 0, 0);
   keybd_event(ESC, 0, 0, 0);
   
   // Need to Release those two keys
   keybd_event(CTRL, 0, UP, 0);
   keybd_event(ESC, 0, UP, 0);
   

For the modern UI app, I am not sure if it is possible to do so due to limited API support.