disabling button in another prog

I recently downloaded the new MSN .NET Messenger. And frankly the block button cudn't be in a worse place. my friends keep on accidently pressing it.

I was wondering how i cud disable the block button, preferably without actually patching the program, but instead by having another program running all the time to disable it. I was thinking if i cud get the handle of the button i cud use SendMessage() to disable the button. Or change the window class of the button so it is in a different position in the parent window.

Cud sumone tell me if I am newhere near close to wot i wud have todo.

Any suggestions are much apreciated.

Cheers.
Chris.

It's hard to tell if you could...hmmm...that could be something interesting to work on...I mean, I KNOW you probably could...unless they used a resource to make it...or VB...well, where there's a will there's a way...maybe I'll work on this...

OK, how do you make a button disabled...? lol

EnableWindow(); lol

You would haveto find the handle of the block button first. Once you do, try:

SendMessage(*Handle to block button*, WM_DISABLE, (LPARAM)0, (WPARAM)0);

That might work. You just need to find the button's handle.

Yeah that's wot i thought, but just thinking about it now, wouldn't u need tot have the handle of the application sumwhere as well.

Because just using SendMessage(*Handle to block button*, WM_DISABLE, (LPARAM)0, (WPARAM)0);

wud be trying to send it to a control in my own app with that handle. or am i being stupid? or cud it be that u were thinking of patching the original messenger so this code is actually in the messenger executable file.

chris.

I think you might have to pass the handle to the main window, and in wParam pass the handle to the button.

OOO just had a very quick look at my API docs and thought it mite be better to use PostMessage.

You can't stop another app processing its messages before yours.(as far as I know)


Find an external resource editor , extracts the resource script of an .exe for editing.
They are available to remove ads, ect from programs .
If they have used a script you will be able to load their resources and move/remove/disable the button. Everybody will have to have your edit of the program though.

I dug up some code i wrote a while ago that sent a destroy msg to another prog.

This could i suspect be easily adapted to msns block button:

HWND Control = FindWindow(NULL, "Program Title");
SendMessage(Control, WM_DESTROY, wParam, lParam);

Now thats pretty simple, i dunno but for a button you would use FindWindow with param 2 as the button caption, then do an enable window on it, somthing like this:

//Get a handle to the button
HWND Control = FindWindow(NULL, "Block");

//disable the button
EnableWindow(Control, FALSE);

in theory that should work, but as msn dosnt have a button caption and uses and icon instead, i dunno but thats how it would work, if msn is written in c++ or somthing, but no vb as ken said....

Hope that helps
TNT

That looks very interesting TNT, even if it won't work for this particualr problem. Mite have to start playing around with that now.

Cheers.
Chris

i wrote this little Win32 Console program to show you how. it is designed for Yahoo Messenger, since i don't use MSN Messenger. it disables the Search button.

when you open this program it searches for Yahoo Messenger. if its not open or the title of the window is different than "Yahoo Messenger". you get an error. if it is open it finds the Search button. and disables it.

Code:

---

#include<iostream.h>
#include<windows.h>

BOOL CALLBACK EnumProc(HWND hwnd, LPARAM lParam)
{
        char wndtitle[255];

        GetWindowText(hwnd, wndtitle, 254);

        if(!strcmp(wndtitle, "&Search"))
        {
                EnableWindow(hwnd, FALSE);
        }

        return TRUE;
}

int main()
{
        HWND hYahoo;

        hYahoo = FindWindow(0, "Yahoo! Messenger");

        if(hYahoo == NULL)
        {
                cout<<"Yahoo! Messenger is not open or has a different title";

                return 0;
        }

        EnumChildWindows(hYahoo, EnumProc, 0);
        return 0;
}

---

i don't have much time. so repost if you dont understand.