Form top most?

Question

How can I display something over all other application. I want to to display something over all form of my program and all other programs open on my desktop (not mine).

*Top Most doesn't work I have tested and my browser can go OVER my application :S

Here is an image of when I use TopMost to TRUE. You can see my browser is over it...

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/5a98165605.png

Answer 1

You can use the form instance and set the property TopMost to True.

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If you want to be over all Windows, there are another way with Win32 Api calls.

Here is what you could do:

In your form class add :

[System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("user32.dll")]
public static extern bool SetForegroundWindow(IntPtr hWnd);

In the form load you can add :

SetForegroundWindow(this.Handle);

This should do the trick.

Update

TopMost should do the job BUT: Top most OR/AND the Win32 Api call will only work not inside Visual Studio (well for Vista and with VS2008 I tested it... I can't tell for other). Try running the program with the .Exe from the /bin directory, it will works.

Answer 2

The Form.TopMost property will set your form the top form above all other running windows applications (not just your forms.)

myForm.TopMost = true; // This will do the job

Answer 3

TopMost property is what you need (never had a problem with that)

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On MSDN it says:

A topmost form is a form that overlaps all the other (non-topmost) forms even if it is not the active or foreground form. Topmost forms are always displayed at the highest point in the z-order of the windows on the desktop.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.form.topmost.aspx

Answer 4

In my team we had a internal tool that keeps on running after Windows startup. It is a WinForm with TopMost set to ture. On Vista, sometimes we had the same problem. At very random times, the form will lost TopMost property and other non-topmost window can appear above it. I had a log of researches but found no answer and many other people had this same problem, it seems that on Vista at very low level there is a bug about TopMost property.