Simulate Control-Alt-Delete key sequence in Vista and XP

Question

Can I simulate in C#/C++ code Control-Alt-Delete sequence in Vista? When UAC enabled/disabled? How it is done in XP?

Can you provide a code sample that works in Vista?

Answer 1

PostMessage(HWND_BROADCAST, WM_HOTKEY, 0, MAKELONG(MOD_ALT | MOD_CONTROL, VK_DELETE));

You get PostMessage from the user32 dll

edit: CodeProject article that has code for it

edit: There is some discussion from VNC on why that won't work in Vista and how to set up UAC to allow it.

Answer 2

Existing code to simulate the Secure Attention Sequence (SAS), which most people refer to as control alt delete or ctrl-alt-del, no longer works in Windows Vista. It seems that Microsoft offers a library that exports a function called SimulateSAS(). It is not public and one is supposed to request it by sending a mail to [email protected].

There is a similar library available with the following features:

• Works both with and without User Account Control (UAC)
• Supports current, console and any Terminal Server session
• Does not need a driver
• The calling application does not need to be signed or have a special manifest
• Supports multiple programming languages

Please note that this library is not free. Meanwhile you can contact [email protected] if you are interested in it.