C# – Mouse hook with C#

chookmouse

I am trying to emulate "hardware" mouse clicks as it appears that some software blocks input from PostMessage for instance. I know there's SendInput, but that's not an option as I need this to be compatible in background windows as well. The solution seems to be a low-level mouse hook but I've searched around and couldn't find anything other than just the loggers, no manipulation of moving mouse, clicking etc. I'd like this to happen without having to write some sort of C++/C wrapper to use as a fake mouse driver.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318804, I found this but it doesn't seem to be of any further help.

Any help appreciated 🙂

Best Answer

Not sure what 'some software' might be, but sure, UAC stops you from poking messages into the windows of elevated programs. It is called UIPI, User Interface Privilege Isolation.

In general, faking input with PostMessage doesn't work well at all. It is especially a problem for keyboard input but mouse input has trouble too. There is no good way to alter the keyboard state for another process. That matters when the program checks the state of the Shift, Ctrl and Alt keys when it processes the input message. Many do.

The only real solution is to emulate input with SendInput(). Now you got a focus problem to solve.

Related Solutions

Meant by the term “hook” in programming

Essentially it's a place in code that allows you to tap in to a module to either provide different behavior or to react when something happens.

Python – Controlling mouse with Python

Tested on WinXP, Python 2.6 (3.x also tested) after installing pywin32 (pywin32-214.win32-py2.6.exe in my case):

import win32api, win32con
def click(x,y):
    win32api.SetCursorPos((x,y))
    win32api.mouse_event(win32con.MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTDOWN,x,y,0,0)
    win32api.mouse_event(win32con.MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTUP,x,y,0,0)
click(10,10)

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Meant by the term “hook” in programming

Python – Controlling mouse with Python

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