Minimizing a window can be usually done by activating the window (bringing it to the foreground) then using SendKeys() to send Alt+Space, then whatever letter your locale has underlined for "Minimize" (N in English Windows). Here's one of possibly dozens of examples of this using VBScript.
That sequence is overused, inelegant, and boring in my opinion -- and it doesn't work for some windows (the cmd console, for example). It is possible to minimize a window without bringing it to the foreground, and without simulating key presses. One simply needs to import a function from user32.dll. And as long as we're going through that trouble, we might as well import a second function to detect the current window state so we can toggle minimized / restored.
We can import the functions using PowerShell like this. Save this Batch / PowerShell hybrid script with a .bat extension and give it a run.
<# : minimize.bat
:: toggles minimized state of a window by its filename
:: minimize.bat /? for usage
:: https://stackoverflow.com/a/34834953/1683264
@echo off & setlocal
if "%~1"=="" goto usage
set "prog=%~n1"
tasklist | findstr /i "\<%prog%\>" >NUL || goto usage
set /P "=Toggling the minimized state of %prog%... " <NUL
powershell -noprofile -noninteractive "iex ((gc \"%~f0\") -join \"`n\")"
goto :EOF
:usage
echo syntax: %~nx0 progname[.exe]
echo;
echo If the program is visible, minimize it. If minimized, restore it.
goto :EOF
:: end Batch / begin PowerShell hybrid chimera #>
Add-Type user32_dll @'
[DllImport("user32.dll")]
public static extern bool ShowWindowAsync(IntPtr hWnd, int nCmdShow);
[DllImport("user32.dll")]
public static extern int GetWindowLong(IntPtr hWnd, int nIndex);
'@ -namespace System
$hwnd = @(Get-Process $env:prog)[0].MainWindowHandle
$state = [user32_dll]::GetWindowLong($hwnd, -16)
# mask of 0x20000000 = minimized; 2 = minimize; 4 = restore
if ($state -band 0x20000000) { $action = 4 } else { $action = 2 }
if ([user32_dll]::ShowWindowAsync($hwnd, $action)) {
write-host "Success" -f green
} else {
write-host "Fail" -f red
}
Now, if your program minimizes to the systray, the previous script will be fine for minimizing, but won't be able to find the window handle when minimized. It will fail when trying to restore. Finding the HWND in this situation is tricky. If one knows the window title, one can find the HWND using the user32.dll FindWindow() or FindWindowEx() functions.
I haven't had much luck using WMI or built-in PowerShell commands for finding the title of a window minimized to the tray. Neither get-process nor gwmi win32_process nor [diagnostics.process]::getProcessByName() yielded success. I did, however, discover that the final line of tasklist /v /fo list will show the window title. That's enough to invoke FindWindow() and get the HWND.
This might be more complicated than it needs to be, but then again it might not. I just know I found 1,000 ways to fail, but one way to succeed. Thanks to JPBlanc for helping me figure out how to pass null arguments into FindWindow() and FindWindowEx().
<# : minimize.bat
:: toggles minimized state of a window by its filename
:: minimize.bat /? for usage
@echo off & setlocal
if "%~1"=="" goto usage
set "prog=%~n1"
tasklist | findstr /i "\<%prog%\>" >NUL || goto usage
set /P "=Toggling the minimized state of %prog%... " <NUL
powershell -noprofile -noninteractive "iex ((gc \"%~f0\") -join \"`n\")"
goto :EOF
:usage
echo syntax: %~nx0 progname[.exe]
echo;
echo If the program is visible, minimize it. If minimized, restore it.
goto :EOF
End batch / begin PowerShell hybrid chimera #>
Add-Type user32_dll @'
[DllImport("user32.dll")]
public static extern bool ShowWindowAsync(IntPtr hWnd, int nCmdShow);
[DllImport("user32.dll")]
public static extern int GetWindowLong(IntPtr hWnd, int nIndex);
[DllImport("user32.dll")]
public static extern IntPtr FindWindow(IntPtr lpClassName, string lpWindowName);
[DllImport("user32.dll")]
public static extern IntPtr FindWindowEx(IntPtr parentHandle, IntPtr childAfter,
IntPtr lclassName, string windowTitle);
'@ -namespace System
$hwnd = (ps $env:prog)[0].MainWindowHandle
if ($hwnd -eq 0) {
tasklist /v /fi "imagename eq $env:prog*" /fo list | %{
$title = $_ -replace '^[^:]+:\s+'
}
$zero = [IntPtr]::Zero
$hwnd = [user32_dll]::FindWindow($zero, $title)
if ($hwnd -eq 0) {
$hwnd = [user32_dll]::FindWindowEx($zero, $zero, $zero, $title)
}
}
$state = [user32_dll]::GetWindowLong($hwnd, -16)
# mask of 0x20000000 = minimized; 2 = minimize; 4 = restore
if ($state -band 0x20000000) { $action = 4 } else { $action = 2 }
if ([user32_dll]::ShowWindowAsync($hwnd, $action)) {
write-host "Success" -f green
} else {
write-host "Fail" -f red
}
