WPF Kiosk app Disable edge swipe on windows 8.1 devices

Question

We have a WPF kiosk application that we've had released for a few years now, touch based on windows vista and 7.

We're looking at moving to running the software on windows 8.1 devices such as the surface pro and some of the newer dell tablets but we've run into a problem.

We need to be able to disable the charms bar, and the swipe down from top gesture from our application to prevent users from getting to the start page.

I've looked into the System.EdgeGesture.DisableTouchWhenFullScreen and tried an implementation of it but it seems to have no effect. the edge gestures are still enabled.

The c++ implementation of the DisableTouchWhenFullScreen is as follows

extern "C" __declspec(dllexport) bool SetTouchDisableProperty(HWND hwnd, BOOL fDisableTouch)
{
	IPropertyStore* pPropStore;
	HRESULT hrReturnValue = SHGetPropertyStoreForWindow(hwnd, IID_PPV_ARGS(&pPropStore));
	if (SUCCEEDED(hrReturnValue))
	{
		PROPVARIANT var;
		var.vt = VT_BOOL;
		var.boolVal = fDisableTouch ? VARIANT_TRUE : VARIANT_FALSE;
		hrReturnValue = pPropStore->SetValue(PKEY_EdgeGesture_DisableTouchWhenFullscreen, var);
		pPropStore->Release();
	}
	return TRUE;
}

Then in our wpf app we are using dllImport 

[DllImport("disableFullScreenGesturesDLL.dll", EntryPoint = "SetTouchDisableProperty", ExactSpelling = false, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl)]
        static extern bool SetTouchDisableProperty(IntPtr hWnd, bool fDisableTouch);

and the acctual call

public KioskNewMain()
        {
            //Name	PID	Status	User name	CPU	Memory (private working set)	Description
            //MethasoftKiosk.vshost.exe	8340	Running	Dave	00 	10,388 K	vshost32.exe

            IntPtr intPtr = System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess().MainWindowHandle;//.GetProcessesByName("MethasoftKiosk.vshost.exe")[0].MainWindowHandle;
            
            SetTouchDisableProperty(intPtr, true);

            InitializeComponent();
}

What could i be doing wrong?

Thanks

Answer 1

If it's a kiosk app then doesn't that mean it's the only thing running on the device?

http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-disable-charms-bar-completely-in-windows-8-1/

Those settings must be stored in the registry somewhere.

Edit:

Ahah!

http://en.kioskea.net/faq/29733-windows-8-1-prevent-the-automatic-display-of-the-charms-bar

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Hope that helps
Please don't forget to up vote answers you like or which help you and mark one(s) which answer your question.

Answer 2

Thanks for the info.

it definitely helps, however what that does (at least for me) is disable the showing of the charms bar from the mouse over hotspots in top and bottom corners of the screen.

You can still get charms to show up via swiping into the screen from the right hand side (touchscreen device).

It will normally be the only application running on the device.

Answer 3

I don't have a win8.1 touch screen device to experiment on, I'm afraid.

This article here

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/faq/id-2082953/disable-swipe-windows.html

Seems to claim switching off that "when I point to the upper right corner...." setting turns swipe off.

That's the first tick box on that first link I posted.

Did you try that?

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Hope that helps
Please don't forget to up vote answers you like or which help you and mark one(s) which answer your question.

Answer 4

We have the same issue und hier is our solution:

add Microsoft Windows API code pack with shell extention

using following code:

static PropertyKey PKEY_EdgeGesture_DisableTouchWhenFullscreen = new PropertyKey("32CE38B2-2C9A-41B1-9BC5-B3784394AA44", 2); 
...

WindowProperties.SetWindowProperty(this, PKEY_EdgeGesture_DisableTouchWhenFullscreen, "-1");

I hope it helps.

cheers

Answer 5

Great stuff.

Thanks for providing a solution.

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Hope that helps.

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