Window.ShowActivated Property (System.Windows)

When a window with its ShowActivated property set to false is opened, the window is not activated and its Activated event is not raised until a user manually activates the window by selecting it. After the window is selected, it activates and deactivates normally.

To prevent a window from being activated when it opens, the ShowActivated property must be set to false before the window is shown (by calling Show); setting ShowActivated to false after a window is shown has no effect.

Setting ShowActivated to false on a window that is opened modally, by calling ShowDialog, has no real impact. Although the modal window will not be activated, the modal window will prevent the user from activating any other open application windows.

The following example shows how to use markup to configure a window to be opened without being activated.

<Window
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    x:Class="WindowShowActivatedSnippets.AWindow"
    ShowActivated="False">

Imports System.Windows ' Window

Namespace WindowShowActivatedSnippets
    Partial Public Class AWindow
        Inherits Window
        Public Sub New()
            InitializeComponent()
        End Sub
    End Class
End Namespace

using System.Windows; // Window

namespace WindowShowActivatedSnippets
{
    public partial class AWindow : Window
    {
        public AWindow()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }
    }
}

The following example shows how to use code to configure a window to be opened without it being activated.

Dim window As New AWindow()
window.ShowActivated = False
window.Show()

AWindow window = new AWindow();
window.ShowActivated = false;
window.Show();

.NET Framework

.NET Framework Client Profile

Windows 7, Windows Vista SP1 or later, Windows XP SP3, 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