OFF2000: Programmatically Hiding and Unhiding the Windows Taskbar

ID: Q202099

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Office 2000
Microsoft Access 2000
Microsoft Excel 2000
Microsoft Word 2000

SUMMARY

Advanced: Requires expert coding, interoperability, and multiuser skills.

By using API calls in Visual Basic for Applications, you can programmatically hide the Microsoft Windows 95/98 or Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 taskbar. This article shows you how to create the two functions that you need to hide and unhide the taskbar.

MORE INFORMATION

Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language being demonstrated and the tools used to create and debug procedures. Microsoft Support professionals can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific needs. If you have limited programming experience, you may want to contact the Microsoft fee-based consulting line at (800) 936-5200. For more information about the support options available from Microsoft, please see the following page on the World Wide Web:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/

To create the functions and to see how they work, follow these steps:

Press ALT+F11 to start the Visual Basic Editor. Type the following code in a new module:


Option Compare Database
Option Explicit

Dim handleW1 As Long

Private Declare Function FindWindowA Lib "user32" _
   (ByVal lpClassName As String, _
   ByVal lpWindowName As String) As Long

Private Declare Function SetWindowPos Lib "user32" _
   (ByVal handleW1 As Long, _
   ByVal handleW1InsertWhere As Long, ByVal w As Long, _
   ByVal x As Long, ByVal y As Long, ByVal z As Long, _
   ByVal wFlags As Long) As Long

Const TOGGLE_HIDEWINDOW = &H80
Const TOGGLE_UNHIDEWINDOW = &H40

Function HideTaskbar()
   handleW1 = FindWindowA("Shell_traywnd", "")
   Call SetWindowPos(handleW1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, TOGGLE_HIDEWINDOW)
End Function

Function UnhideTaskbar()
   Call SetWindowPos(handleW1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, TOGGLE_UNHIDEWINDOW)
End Function

On the View menu, click Immediate Window, type the following command and then press ENTER:
?HideTaskBar()
Note that the taskbar is no longer visible.

To restore the taskbar, type the following command in the Immediate Window, and then press ENTER:
?UnHideTaskBar()
Note that the taskbar is now visible.

REFERENCES

For additional information about getting help with Visual Basic for Applications, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q163435 VBA: Programming Resources for Visual Basic for Applications

Additional query words: inf vba OFF2000


Keywords          : kbdta AccCon KbVBA 
Version           : WINDOWS:2000
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbinfo

Last Reviewed: June 28, 1999