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I saw this post by Raymond Chen: https://stackoverflow.com/a/12865402/257299

The title says it all: Is it possible to program a custom dialog/pop-up for Alt+Tab switcher on Win 10?

Example: Can I trap EVENT_SYSTEM_SWITCHSTART, then show my custom Alt+Tab dialog with highest Z-Order? To be clear, I know this could be a security issue. Please assume the user local admin access.

Why? I want to program a replacement for the Win 10 "classic" Alt+Tab dialog that allows me to use the arrow keys. On Win 7, it was possible to do a key sequence like this: Alt+Tab (hold), the dialog would pop-up, then arrow keys would allow you to move left/right/up/down. After release Alt+Tab, the window focus would change. Very convenient! For me, the default Win 10 Alt+Tab dialog is awful, but the "classic" mode only needs a minor tweak.

Finally, I have Google'd like crazy before I asked this question. I cannot find anything.

kevinarpe
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  • *"To be clear, I know this could be a security issue."* - I don't see how that would be a security issue. It's not like Windows controls access at the UI level. – IInspectable Feb 10 '22 at 17:48
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    Have you actually tried to code one? There was a powertoy for XP that had a custom alt+tab window so it is possible. – Anders Feb 10 '22 at 19:20
  • @Anders Great tip. I learned more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PowerToys#PowerToys_for_Windows_XP However, the latest version of PowerToys for Win10 no longer has the "Alt-Tab Replacement Task Switcher". And there is no source code for the old XP PowerToys. Good news: I found a similar question with lots of other great links: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13668935/how-to-write-a-new-alttab-task-switcher-for-windows – kevinarpe Feb 11 '22 at 08:44
  • As far as I know, specifically EVENT_SYSTEM_SWITCHSTART does not really work in Windows10. Since you want to do a task switcher replacement I guess you don't really need to listen to that event. But if you still want to capture Alt+Tab, with the win32 api, I guess you can take a look at my solution. https://stackoverflow.com/a/49597746/511801 – mattsson Dec 15 '22 at 11:16

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