The form assigned to the owner form remains owned until the RemoveOwnedForm method is called. You can also make a form owned by another by setting the Owner property with a reference to its owner form.

When a form is owned by another form, it is closed or hidden with the owner form. For example, consider a form named Form2 that is owned by a form named Form1. If Form1 is closed or minimized, Form2 is also closed or hidden. Owned forms are also never displayed behind their owner form. You can use owned forms for windows such as find and replace windows, which should not be displayed behind the owner form when the owner form is selected.

Note
If the form is a multiple-document interface (MDI) parent form, this property returns all forms that are displayed with the exception of any MDI child forms that are currently open. To obtain the MDI child forms opened in an MDI parent form, use the MdiChildren property.

The following code example demonstrates how to use the AddOwnedForm method to display a form as an owned form of another form. Once the owned form is shown, you can minimize its owner form and the owned form will minimize with it. The example requires that the code in the example is called from another event or method of a form.

Private Sub ShowMyOwnedForm()
   ' Create an instance of the form to be owned.
   Dim ownedForm As New Form()
   ' Set the text of the form to identify it is an owned form.
   ownedForm.Text = "Owned Form"
   ' Add ownedForm to array of owned forms.
   Me.AddOwnedForm(ownedForm)

   ' Show the owned form.
   ownedForm.Show()
End Sub

private void ShowMyOwnedForm()
{
   // Create an instance of the form to be owned.
   Form ownedForm = new Form();
   // Set the text of the form to identify it is an owned form.
   ownedForm.Text = "Owned Form";
   // Add ownedForm to array of owned forms.
   this.AddOwnedForm(ownedForm);

   // Show the owned form.
   ownedForm.Show();
}

private:
   void ShowMyOwnedForm()
   {
      // Create an instance of the form to be owned.
      Form^ ownedForm = gcnew Form;

      // Set the text of the form to identify it is an owned form.
      ownedForm->Text = "Owned Form";

      // Add ownedForm to array of owned forms.
      this->AddOwnedForm( ownedForm );

      // Show the owned form.
      ownedForm->Show();
   }

.NET Framework

.NET Framework Client Profile

Windows 7, Windows Vista SP1 or later, Windows XP SP3, Windows XP SP2 x64 Edition, Windows Server 2008 (Server Core not supported), Windows Server 2008 R2 (Server Core supported with SP1 or later), Windows Server 2003 SP2

Reference

Other Resources