Blocking Mouse Hook for a vb.net application when the task manager has focus.

Question

Hello,

For a VB.NET application with WPF, I'm using a transparent window that follows the movement of the mouse cursor on the screen.

This application uses the mouse hook to handle the move event.

This window represents a custom cursor.

This test application works correctly except on Windows applications like Task Manager or Device Manager.

When one of these windows gains focus, the mouse hook is disabled in my application.

How can I prevent this?

I've seen custom cursors using the same principle that don't have this problem.

I'm attaching my test program in VB under WPF.To attach it.

I changed the file extension from .zip to .txt.

To use it, you'll need to change the extension from .txt to .zip.

WpfCursorWindow.txt

Answer 1

If you are signed-on as an account that is a member of the Administrators group then Task Manager will auto-elevate so it will run with a high integrity level. Your application runs at medium integrity so Windows built-in security measures prevent the low-level mouse hook from interacting with Task Manager.

You can work around this by making your application a UIAccess application. This is done by signing the application, installing it to a protected file system location and manifesting it with uiAccess=true. An alternative is to run the application with elevated privileges as Administrator though this is probably not what you would want. The screen capture isn't very good but it does demonstrate the solution works -