MFC: WM_GETTEXT spamming WS_POPUP dialogs

Question

I have an MFC project running on WinCE 6.0 R3.  In general, the UI is constructed with WS_POPUP CDialogs with no title bars.

Because remote spy has been broken for some time on WinCE, I implemented a simple spy mechanism using OnWndMsg handlers.  Recently, I noticed that all dialogs in the system, whether hidden or visible, are constantly receiving WM_GETTEXT messages (0x0d).

I see no traffic or updates elsewhere in the application (our system is not doing work, the application is "idle").  I put breakpoints on every call to GetWindowText and SetWindowText throughout the GUI, none were hit.  I see no traffic in the thread's PreTranslate or in any dialog's PreTranslate.  No timers are running under any CWnd objects.  From what I can tell, none of my code is running besides the OnWndMsg hook; the messages just show up then disappear back into the CDialog handler.

I don't see any messages for any of the various widgets in the system; only for CDialogs, and then only for those with the WS_POPUP style...I have some child dialogs which are not receiving the messages.

I tried intercepting these messages in OnWndMsg and returning TRUE (to say they were handled), which didn't stop them.  FALSE also did not work.

I tried handling these messages using ON_MESSAGE.  In the handler, I tried returning zero.  I also tried copying a static string ("dialog") into the buffer and returning the requisite number of characters.  Neither stopped the messages.

Any ideas on where these messages are coming from?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Because remote spy has been broken for some time on WinCE

Why would you say that? I just connected remote spy and it seemed to work fine on my WinCE 6R3 system.

The only reason I can think that remote spy doesn't work is if you are building explorer.exe and activesync into the image but are launching your own application instead of explorer - in that case we had to create a dummy taskbar to handle the window api registration stuff and then all the remote tools work correctly.

Sorry can't help with the rest!

Answer 2

Thanks for the reply.

Perhaps there was some registration item I missed with Spy.  From what I remember, it would show my application but couldn't look at the windows inside it.  Did some Googling and found people complaining that it was broken, so that was my assumption and I moved on. 

Either way, I don't think the Spy issue is related to the WM_GETTEXT messages, just wanted to explain the purpose of the OnWndMsg override.