GetActiveWindow Function

The GetActiveWindow function retrieves the window handle to the active window attached to the calling thread's message queue.

Syntax

HWND GetActiveWindow(VOID);

Return Value

The return value is the handle to the active window attached to the calling thread's message queue. Otherwise, the return value is NULL.

Remarks

To get the handle to the foreground window, you can use GetForegroundWindow.

Windows 98/Me and Windows NT 4.0 SP3 and later: To get the window handle to the active window in the message queue for another thread, use GetGUIThreadInfo.

Function Information

Minimum DLL Versionuser32.dll
HeaderDeclared in Winuser.h, include Windows.h
Import libraryUser32.lib
Minimum operating systems Windows 95, Windows NT 3.1

See Also

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Community Content

Goatspawn
Documentation incorrect
The documentation for this function isn't accurate, or is at least very confusing. The documentation seems to imply that each thread's messaging queue can have, independently, its own "active" window, regardless of what is the global active window that is actually receiving user input. This does not seem to be the case.

A system has only one active window, which GetForegroundWindow() returns. GetActiveWindow() seems to return the same window as GetForegroundWindow() if the foreground window belongs to the current thread. Otherwise, it always returns null, rather than the topmost window of the calling thread.
Tags : contentbug

dmex
vb.net syntax
<DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet:=CharSet.Auto, ExactSpelling:=True)> _
Public Shared Function GetActiveWindow() As IntPtr
End Function
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dmex
C# syntax
[DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet=CharSet.Auto, ExactSpelling=true)]
public static extern IntPtr GetActiveWindow();
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