Hide or disable the Windows’ application bar

Hide or disable the Windows’ application bar

The Windows’ application bar (or Startbar) is a window like any other window in the system, so you can hide/show and enable/disable it. The only thing you need to know is that that the class name of the Start bar window is “Shell_TrayWnd” and that its window name is a null string. Here is the code that lets you do the trick:

Private Declare Function FindWindow Lib "user32" Alias "FindWindowA" (ByVal _    lpClassName As String, ByVal lpWindowName As String) As LongPrivate Declare Function ShowWindow Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As Long, _    ByVal nCmdShow As Long) As LongPrivate Declare Function EnableWindow Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As Long, _    ByVal fEnable As Long) As LongPrivate Const SW_HIDE = 0Private Const SW_SHOW = 5Sub ShowStartBar(ByVal bVisible As Boolean)    Dim hWnd_StartBar As Long    hWnd_StartBar = FindWindow("Shell_TrayWnd", "")    If bVisible Then        ShowWindow hWnd_StartBar, SW_SHOW    Else        ShowWindow hWnd_StartBar, SW_HIDE    End IfEnd SubSub EnableStartBar(ByVal bEnable As Boolean)    Dim hWnd_StartBar As Long    hWnd_StartBar = FindWindow("Shell_TrayWnd", "")    If bEnable Then        EnableWindow hWnd_StartBar, True    Else        EnableWindow hWnd_StartBar, False    End IfEnd Sub

If you like concise code you can rewrite the above procedures as follows:

Sub ShowStartBar(ByVal bVisible As Boolean)    ShowWindow FindWindow("Shell_TrayWnd", ""), IIf(bVisible, SW_SHOW, SW_HIDE)End SubSub EnableStartBar(ByVal bEnable As Boolean)    EnableWindow FindWindow("Shell_TrayWnd", ""), bEnableEnd Sub

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