Getting subprocesses to be hidden on Windows

[geoffbache]

On 28 Aug, 18:18, Larry Bates <larry.ba... at websafe.com> wrote:
> geoffbache wrote:
> > Hi,
>
> > As part of my efforts to write a test tool that copes with GUIs
> > nicely, I'm trying to establish how I can start a GUI process on
> > Windows that will not bring up the window. So I try to hide the window
> > as follows:
>
> > info = subprocess.STARTUPINFO()
> > info.dwFlags |= subprocess.STARTF_USESHOWWINDOW
> > info.wShowWindow = subprocess.SW_HIDE
>
> > proc = subprocess.Popen(..., startupinfo=info)
>
> > This works, in a way, but doesn't work recursively. I.e. if the
> > started process itself starts a window, that second window will not be
> > hidden. This even applies to dialog boxes within the application. So
> > instead of a lot of windows popping up I now get a lot of disembodied
> > dialogs appearing, which is a slight improvement but not much.
>
> > Also, certain processes (e.g. tkdiff) seem to ignore the directive to
> > be hidden altogether.
>
> > This is dead easy on UNIX with virtual displays like Xvfb. Can someone
> > shed any light if it's possible on Windows from python?
>
> > Regards,
> > Geoff Bache
>
> While I'm not entirely sure I understand what you want, I think you can
> accomplish it by using win32CreateProcess instead of subprocess.  You can run
> the application minimized or perhaps in a REALLY small window.  If you have
> modal dialog boxes, I don't think you can do anything as they don't run in the
> parent windows frame but rather outside (I could be wrong about this).
>
> -Larry

Hi Larry,

I don't know if that would help. I've tried running minimized from the
command line as
suggested by Mike and that has the same issue (child windows and
dialogs don't get minimized)
So the question is moving away from how to technically achieve this in
Python to whether
Windows even supports it...

Geoff