How to detect windows8.1 start menu?

Question

When we press start menu on windows 8.1 it show up all new start menu with apps in form of tiles. This menu shows up on entire screen. Is there a way to detect if this menu is o

Answer 1

Call CoCreateInstance(CLSID_AppVisibility,...) to get the object that implements IAppVisibility then call IAppVisibility::IsLauncherVisible to see if the start menu is visible.

This is demonstrated in the Start screen visibility sample