How to make application display in full screen mode, covering the Start menu?

Question

I'm developing an application for Honeywell Dolphin 6100, a mobile computer with a barcode scanner that uses Windows CE 5.0 like OS.

The problem is that I can not put the application into full screen (the start menu below the screen insist to be appeared), I tried many codes like below but unfortunately with no success:

Solution 1:

int w = Screen.PrimaryScreen.Bounds.Width;
int h = Screen.PrimaryScreen.Bounds.Height;
this.Location = new Point(0, 0);
this.Size = new Size(w, h);

Solution 2:

this.TopMost = true;
this.FormBorderStyle = FormBorderStyle.None;
this.WindowState = FormWindowState.Maximized;

Does anyone have a solution for this?

Answer 1

You can autohide the taskbar by going Start->Settings->Taskbar and Start Menu... and deselect Always on top and select Auto hide.

If that isn't an option there is a dangerous way to prevent explorer.exe from loading during the boot process. For that to work [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\init] mustn't be write protected. To prevent explorer.exe from loading you modify the following registry key

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\init]
Launch50="explorer.exe"

to for example no_explorer.exe. The 50 in Launch50 will vary depending on the device.

If you mess up here you will need telnet access to your device so you can boot up explorer.exe manually or a way to factory reset the device. It's recommended that you have a way to factory reset the device before trying this out. It's important to note that your application must be started from an OEM launcher or by adding your own application to the device's boot process. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms901773.aspx for information on how to do it.

Edit: If you go the route of adding the application to the boot process you need to signal the system that the application has started. You could make a simple bootstrapper in C++ to accomplish this.

#include "stdafx.h"
#include <Windows.h>
#include <iostream>

void StartMyAppFunction();


int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance,
                   HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
                   LPTSTR    lpCmdLine,
                   int       nCmdShow)
{
    StartMyAppFunction( );
    // Since this is application is launched 
    // through the registry HKLM\Init we need 
    // to call SignalStarted passing in 
    // the command line parameter
    SignalStarted(_wtol(lpCmdLine));
    return 0;
}

void StartMyAppFunction() ...

Answer 2

Use some technique for auto-hiding the task bar (Which option is already present in control panel of WinCE. You can refer that).

Task bar auto-hide = Full-screen Application.. :)