Redirect application's graphical output in Windows Vista/7 (with DWM)

Question

I want to create a desktop manager that takes informations of all running applications including states and screenshots to display and manipulate them in my virtual space (probably in 3D). It can be considered as another layer of abstraction on top of Windows itself.

Because many native Windows Vista/7 features like Flip 3D and Live Thumbnails are able to show each window's activities in real-time e.g. video keeps playing in taskbar's thumbnail, I think DWM allows an application to redirect its output to somewhere else or some special processes are able to collect other applications' graphical outputs (maybe of child processes only). Has Microsoft released a set of public APIs to do so? If not, is it technically possible? And is it easier if I limit my scope to just .NET applications with WPF?

Answer 1

You can call DwmRegisterThumbnail and the DWM will draw the live thumbnail inside your window.

I think there's no supported way to get that data and manipulate it yourself but there are some hacks out there but I never used them myself.