"Stealth" functions of the Windows API

[machok]

Hello,

I want to retrieve information displayed by an (other) Windows GUI application that runs on my PC.

I wonder about stealth functions provided by the Windows API, I do not want this external application to detect that I collect information about its objects windows!

It seems to me that the use of functions such as GetWindowInfo, GetWindowText will add messages to the external application of a human user would not have generated.

Do you have any ideas to avoid this problem? How do I know if a function of the API is "stealth" or not?

[Khushal]

Have you used GetWindowInfo () method to send a message to the window?

[PARRISH]

There are many APIs that send some messages to windows (I think) but apart from abusing the window with SendMessage I do not think there have a means to differentiate between the user and another application (and Windows, which uses the Windows API to manage the windows ...).

But conversely, why you worry about that?

[machok]

Thank you for your interest.

I think you're right (GetWindowInfo () does not send a message).

But as regards GetWindowText (), I must replace it with a consignment of WM_GETTEXT message (see MSDN). I believe the overall performance of the functions of the windowing API add a message to the tail of the application will be handled by a callback function. This feature may well increment a counter to see if the application is requested by a non-human user!

[Khushal]

Accessibility software (such as speech) are the GetWindowText () also, you know ...

There are too many things that make calls GetWindowText () so that software can afford to count this as a problem.