Using SystemParametersInfo from C# (SPI_GETSCREENREADER SPI_SETSCREENREADER)

James picture James · Mar 25, 2011 · Viewed 10.6k times · Source

Am I doing this correctly?

[DllImport("user32", CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
internal static extern long SystemParametersInfo(long uAction, int lpvParam, ref bool uParam, int fuWinIni);

...

public static bool IsScreenReaderRunning()
{
    long SPI_GETSCREENREADER = 70L;
    bool bScreenReader = false;
    long retVal;

    retVal = SystemParametersInfo(SPI_GETSCREENREADER, 0, ref bScreenReader, 0);

    //uint iParam = 0;
    //uint iUpdate = 0;
    //bool result = false;
    //bool bReturn = SystemParametersInfo(SPI_GETSCREENREADER, iParam, &bScreenReader, iUpdate);
    return bScreenReader;
}

public static void ScreenReaderOn()
{
    long SPI_GETSCREENREADER = 71L;
    bool bScreenReader = true;
    long retVal;

    retVal = SystemParametersInfo(SPI_GETSCREENREADER, 0, ref bScreenReader, 0);
}

public static void ScreenReaderOff()
{
    long SPI_GETSCREENREADER = 71L;
    bool bScreenReader = false;
    long retVal;

    retVal = SystemParametersInfo(SPI_GETSCREENREADER, 0, ref bScreenReader, 0);
}

Answer

Hans Passant picture Hans Passant · Mar 25, 2011

The pinvoke declaration is completely wrong, it was copied from VB6 code. The return type and arguments are not long (the VB6 int32 type), they are int. Pinvoke.net is a decent site to get good declarations.

[DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
static extern bool SystemParametersInfo(int uiAction, int uiParam, IntPtr pvParam, int fWinIni);

Don't forget to throw Win32Exception when you get a false return so failure isn't silent.