C++ bring console window to the front

Question

I've made a little timer program in c++ and once the timer has run out I want the console window to pop up to the foreground in Windows to display the "finished" message. I read about using "SetForegroundWindow(hwnd)" which does exactly what I want when I run the code from visual studio, but when I build a release and run the exe from outside of VS, the console window doesn't pop up, instead it's icon in the system tray flashes. Any ideas why this might be? I've tested it on 64 bit Windows 7 and 10 and both did the same thing.

Answer 1

In most cases you can use SetForegroundWindow as long as the window is properly restored. Sometimes the system may refuse the request (see documentation) There is usually a good reason for it and you should not try to override the system. If SetForegroundWindow failed then you still have the backup option where you get that blinking button in the task bar to alert the user.

void show(HWND hwnd)
{
    WINDOWPLACEMENT place = { sizeof(WINDOWPLACEMENT) };
    GetWindowPlacement(hwnd, &place);
    switch(place.showCmd)
    {
    case SW_SHOWMAXIMIZED:
        ShowWindow(hwnd, SW_SHOWMAXIMIZED);
        break;
    case SW_SHOWMINIMIZED:
        ShowWindow(hwnd, SW_RESTORE);
        break;
    default:
        ShowWindow(hwnd, SW_NORMAL);
        break;
    }
    SetWindowPos(0, HWND_TOP, 0, 0, 0, 0, SWP_SHOWWINDOW | SWP_NOSIZE | SWP_NOMOVE);
    SetForegroundWindow(hwnd);
}

int main()
{
    HWND hwnd = GetConsoleWindow();
    ShowWindow(hwnd, SW_SHOWMINIMIZED);
    //Test: manually click another window, to bring that other window on top
    Sleep(5000);

    //this window should restore itself
    show(hwnd);
    system("pause");
    return 0;
}