A1VBCode Forums / Classic Visual Basic (VB 6 or earlier) / General Visual Basic / How to Disable start button in the task bar / Latest Posts

RE: How to Disable start button in the task bar

call4help — Sun, 28 Nov 2004 09:54:15 GMT

sometime back i tried it in my w2k pro & it worked, however it crashed my cousin's pc. anycase its fingering with windows registry; so use it with care & at ur own risk

http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/905/

RE: How to Disable start button in the task bar

Milo — Sun, 28 Nov 2004 05:06:05 GMT

Put this in a module:

Option Explicit

Public Declare Sub CopyMemory Lib "kernel32" Alias "RtlMoveMemory" (Destination As Any, Source As Any, ByVal Length As Long)
Public Declare Function GetKeyState Lib "user32" (ByVal nVirtKey As Long) As Integer
Public Declare Function SetWindowsHookEx Lib "user32" Alias "SetWindowsHookExA" (ByVal idHook As Long, ByVal lpfn As Long, ByVal hmod As Long, ByVal dwThreadId As Long) As Long
Public Declare Function CallNextHookEx Lib "user32" (ByVal hHook As Long, ByVal nCode As Long, ByVal wParam As Long, lParam As Any) As Long
Public Declare Function UnhookWindowsHookEx Lib "user32" (ByVal hHook As Long) As Long
Public Const HC_ACTION = 0
Public Const WM_KEYDOWN = &H100
Public Const WM_KEYUP = &H101
Public Const WM_SYSKEYDOWN = &H104
Public Const WM_SYSKEYUP = &H105
Public Const VK_STARTKEY = &H5B

Public Const WH_KEYBOARD_LL = 13

Public Type KBDLLHOOKSTRUCT
vkCode As Long
scanCode As Long
flags As Long
time As Long
dwExtraInfo As Long
End Type

Dim hhkLowLevelKybd As Long
Dim p As KBDLLHOOKSTRUCT

Function LowLevelKeyboardProc(ByVal nCode As Long, ByVal wParam As Long, ByVal lParam As Long) As Long

Dim fEatKeystroke As Boolean

If (nCode = HC_ACTION) Then
If wParam = WM_KEYDOWN Or wParam = WM_SYSKEYDOWN Or wParam = WM_KEYUP Or wParam = WM_SYSKEYUP Then
CopyMemory p, ByVal lParam, Len(p)
fEatKeystroke = p.vkCode = VK_STARTKEY
End If
End If

If fEatKeystroke Then
LowLevelKeyboardProc = -1
Else
LowLevelKeyboardProc = CallNextHookEx(0, nCode, wParam, ByVal lParam)
End If

End Function

This in Form_Load:

hhkLowLevelKybd = SetWindowsHookEx(WH_KEYBOARD_LL, AddressOf LowLevelKeyboardProc, App.hInstance, 0)

And this in Form_Unload:

UnhookWindowsHookEx hhkLowLevelKybd
hhkLowLevelKybd = 0

RE: How to Disable start button in the task bar

TallOne — Sat, 27 Nov 2004 20:03:54 GMT

What about access to the start button from the keyboard?

RE: How to Disable start button in the task bar

Milo — Sat, 27 Nov 2004 19:31:01 GMT

I found this code on

http://abstractvb.com/code.asp?F=53&P=1&A=970

To hide the start button use: (make a form with 2 command buttons, command1 and command2)

Option Explicit

Private Declare Function ShowWindow Lib "user32" _
(ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal nCmdShow As Long) As Long

Private Declare Function FindWindow Lib "user32" _
Alias "FindWindowA" (ByVal lpClassName As String, _
ByVal lpWindowName As String) As Long

Private Declare Function FindWindowEx Lib "user32" _
Alias "FindWindowExA" (ByVal hWnd1 As Long, _
ByVal hWnd2 As Long, _
ByVal lpsz1 As String, _
ByVal lpsz2 As String) As Long

Sub StartButton(blnValue As Boolean)
Dim lngHandle As Long
Dim lngStartButton As Long

lngHandle = FindWindow("Shell_TrayWnd", "")
lngStartButton = FindWindowEx(lngHandle, 0, "Button", vbNullString)

If blnValue Then
ShowWindow lngStartButton, 5
Else
ShowWindow lngStartButton, 0
End If
End Sub

Private Sub Command1_Click()
StartButton True
End Sub

Private Sub Command2_Click()
StartButton False
End Sub

I then edited the above code to disable start button:Option Explicit

Private Declare Function EnableWindow Lib "user32" _
    (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal fEnable As Long) As Long
    
Private Declare Function FindWindow Lib "user32" _
    Alias "FindWindowA" (ByVal lpClassName As String, _
    ByVal lpWindowName As String) As Long
    
Private Declare Function FindWindowEx Lib "user32" _
    Alias "FindWindowExA" (ByVal hWnd1 As Long, _
    ByVal hWnd2 As Long, _
    ByVal lpsz1 As String, _
    ByVal lpsz2 As String) As Long

Sub StartButton(blnValue As Boolean)
    Dim lngHandle As Long
    Dim lngStartButton As Long

    lngHandle = FindWindow("Shell_TrayWnd", "")
    lngStartButton = FindWindowEx(lngHandle, 0, "Button", vbNullString)

    If blnValue Then
        EnableWindow lngStartButton, 1
    Else
        EnableWindow lngStartButton, 0
    End If
End Sub

Private Sub Command1_Click()
    StartButton True
End Sub

Private Sub Command2_Click()
    StartButton False
End Sub

RE: How to Disable start button in the task bar

DOS — Sat, 27 Nov 2004 10:27:54 GMT

If your using XP, im pretty sure you cant...
but if its not XP, do a search on the main site. It should return something...

DOS

How to Disable start button in the task bar

windshadow2005 — Sat, 27 Nov 2004 08:34:53 GMT

Dear friends

I want to disable the start button in the taskbar. I have already gone through many API function but I cann't root out this problem. What may be the possiblity answer of this question.

Thanking you