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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-31T05:11:34+00:00

Normally the Alt key opens the menu in Windows. I need this to be

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Normally the Alt key opens the menu in Windows.

I need this to be disabled, because I need Alt key for my application. (It is an emulator of old computer, so I need to mimic its behaviour.) I write it in pure Windows API, so I expect there must be some message which is sent and needs to be disabled, discarded or ignored.

Alt+Tab is no problem, as well as other system keys and key combinations, I just need to ignore Alt when it opens the menu.

(My application uses DirectInput to read the keys, so it works well. I just need to disable the functionality which opens the menu with Alt key. I will open the menu using mouse.)

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    How about checking for WM_SYSCOMMAND, and when wParam is SC_KEYMENU, return 0?

    Update / exact solution:

    if(wParam==SC_KEYMENU && (lParam>>16)<=0) return 0;
return DefWindowProc(hwnd, message, wParam, lParam);

    Description: If lParam>>16 is positive then menu is activated by mouse, when it is zero or negative then menu is activated by Alt or Alt+something.

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