Control Hardware (TFT Display, Monitor) with .NET / C#

Question

Hi,

I know, I am propably way out of line here :-)

I want to control my Display from within a .NET application. Background is simple: There is a really nice Tablet which should become my little helper. For this reason, it will be always on. But the display can be switched off if not needed, and switched on when something interesting happens..

So how would you solve this:

MyPc.Utils.SwitchOnDisplay();

Man, I wish it would be that easy... I am sure I have to dig into some DLLs, but hey, perhaps at least somebody know a search word better than DIM DISPLAY C#

Chris

PS: Assume a WinXP, and all screensavers or powermanagement dimming stuff set to never. Oh, and in a few weeks, I will have the same question with Windows 7 :-)

Answer 1

See Turn off your monitor via code (C#). That's pretty thorough, but turning it on from a WinForms app boils down to:

SendMessage(this.Handle.ToInt32(), WM_SYSCOMMAND, SC_MONITORPOWER, –1);

Answer 2

You could use CIM_DesktopMonitor.SetPowerState to handle this. It is supported on Windows 2000 and above, including XP and Win7.