The Desktop is a window like any other window in the system, so you can hide/show and enable/disable it. The only details you need to know is how to retrieve the handle to the Desktop window. It turns out that this window is the first child window of the “Program Manager” window, so all you need is a couple of API functions:
Private Declare Function FindWindow Lib "user32" Alias "FindWindowA" (ByVal _ lpClassName As String, ByVal lpWindowName As String) As LongPrivate Declare Function GetWindow Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As Long, _ ByVal wCmd As Long) 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 GW_CHILD = 5Private Const SW_HIDE = 0Private Const SW_SHOW = 5Sub ShowDesktopIcons(ByVal bVisible As Boolean) Dim hWnd_DesktopIcons As Long hWnd_DesktopIcons = GetWindow( FindWindow("Progman", "Program Manager"), _ GW_CHILD) If bVisible Then ShowWindow hWnd_DesktopIcons, SW_SHOW Else ShowWindow hWnd_DesktopIcons, SW_HIDE End IfEnd SubSub EnableDesktop(ByVal bEnable As Boolean) Dim hWnd_Desktop As Long hWnd_Desktop = GetWindow( FindWindow("Progman", "Program Manager"), _ GW_CHILD) If bEnable Then EnableWindow hWnd_Desktop, True Else EnableWindow hWnd_Desktop, False End IfEnd SubYou can make the above code more concise in this way:
Sub ShowDesktopIcons(ByVal bVisible As Boolean) ShowWindow GetWindow( FindWindow("Progman", "Program Manager"), GW_CHILD), _ IIf(bVisible, SW_SHOW, SW_HIDE)End SubSub EnableDesktop(ByVal bEnable As Boolean) EnableWindow GetWindow( FindWindow("Progman", "Program Manager"), GW_CHILD), _ bEnableEnd Sub
