.net - Losing focus after creating an IE object

I have an application which runs in the background and occasionally creates a hidden IE object. Whenever this object is created tho it causes the window I was viewing to lose focus. Is there a way to make it so whenever it creates an IE object it doesn't cause my current window to lose focus开发者_开发问答?

oIE = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
oIE.Visible = False

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No, this is being controlled by the OS... CreateObject() creates a COM object, which in this case is the full-blown IE app. Behind the scenes, COM is calling into the object you're creating, which is launching a browser window. There are no parameters you can pass to CreateObject(), because this call literally has no control over what the instantiated COM object does.

However, the OS has a setting to disable windows from stealing focus when they are launched... this is what you need.

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windowsxp/ht/stealingfocus02.htm - link with instructions to disable this.

If you're still using XP, you can download a tool called TweakUI that will let you set this.

HTH,
James

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Assuming you're talking about windows foms, simply call Window.Activate after setting the ie object to visible.

And BTW, I would suggest you to import the com dll to your application as a reference, rather than doing it the tough way using CreateObject(), CreateObject() is a recipe for failure and not a good practice if it can be avoided.
You need to add to your project a reference to the SHDocVw.dll, then you can simply declare the InternetExplorer object strongly typed and not hard-coded:

Public Class Form1 : Inherits Form
  Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs) _
      Handles MyBase.Load
    Dim ie As New SHDocVw.InternetExplorer
    ie.Navigate("http://google.com")
    ie.Visible = True
    Me.Activate()
  End Sub
End Class

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FYI using TweakUI or changing the 'ForegroundLockTimeout' Registry entry does not solve the problem. Every time you run oIE.Navigate IE will steal focus from your active window, even if oIE.Visible = False.

There is no known solution for this at the time of this writing (maybe that's why the op ended up just having to deal with it as he stated).