Activating an application as a child/popup of another application

Question

Under Windows XP, is it possible to execute a 3rd party application, so its main window will be a child/popup window of my VC++ MFC application?

• I want to control it's Z-Order like any other window in my app
• I don't want it be be visible in the taskbar
• I want to catch its WM_CLOSE and handle it in my app

In general, I want my users to feel that this is just another dialog in my application.

Answer 1

Here is an example on hosting other applications in your application:
Hosting .exe applications into a dialog

Also you may want to check out hooks and specifically the WH_CALLWNDPROC if you want to monitor all messages.

Answer 2

Not sure about z-ordering and taskbar visibility, but you could go for CreateProcess . I believe it would be prerfectly get the parent window's parameters and create a window as a child