how to show console app window hidden by createprocess function

Question

I have a GUI in c++. The GUI used to start another independent console based application using CreateProcess method. I am hiding these console apps by passing CREATE_NO_WINDOW flag in CreateProcess. Now I want to make it visible again. How do I do that?

Answer 1

Instead of using the CREATE_NO_WINDOW flag, use the wShowWindow member of the STARTUPINFO struct instead. Set it to SW_HIDE initially (and set the dwFlags member to STARTF_USESHOWWINDOW), then you can use ShowWindow() to show/hide the console window when needed. To find the window that belongs to the new process, use EnumWindows() and GetWindowThreadProcessId() to find the window whose process/thread IDs match the IDs that CreateProcess() returns in the PROCESS_INFORMATION struct.

Answer 2

You had one shot at getting the window created and you passed it up. Thats right but you can show or hide gui, after createProcess method.

PROCESS_INFORMATION pi;
STARTUPINFO si;
ZeroMemory(&si,sizeof(si));
si.cb = sizeof(si);
ZeroMemory(&pi, sizeof(pi);
si.wShowWindow = SW_SHOW;
si.dwFlags = STARTF_USESHOWWINDOW;
si.lpTitle ="my_process_console";
CreateProcess(null,"my.exe",null,null,false,CREATE_NEW__CONSOLE,null,null,&si,&pi);

I created process.Now I use find method and then I can show GUI.

HWND console_name =FindWindow(null,"my_process_console");
if(console_name){
  ShowWindow(console_name,SW_SHOW);
}