EnumDisplayDevices vs WMI Win32_DesktopMonitor, how to detect active monitors?

Question

For my current C++ project I need to detect a unique string for every monitor that is connected and active on a large number of computers.

Research has pointed to 2

Answer 1

The Win32_DesktopMonitor method only returns 1 monitor on my Vista machine as well. The PnP ID seems to be set correctly, though.

I've had a quick play with the EnumDisplayDevices API, and while it seems to discover the adapter details reliably (presumably because most people won't leave it as "Standard VGA" for long), it only returns "Plug and Play Monitor" for the connected monitors.

This echoes research that I did into this several years ago (had to put some code together to aid in dusting those memories off).

This is from a normal user account. If you've got a reliable way to get EnumDisplayDevices to return the PnP ID, even in normal user sessions, I'd be interested -- we're currently investigating if any of this information is available to a device driver.

One thing you could do, if running the code from session #0 isn't reliable enough, is to see if you can spawn a helper process (either using CreateProcessAsUser or using COM with activation monikers) that'll run in the user's context.

Answer 2

We've been toying with EnumDisplayDevices in order to detect if the current video card manufacturer is NVIDIA. It's not the same, but maybe it would help. Our piece looked like this:

int disp_num = 0;
    BOOL res = TRUE;
    do {
        DISPLAY_DEVICE disp_dev_info; 
        ZeroMemory( &disp_dev_info, sizeof(DISPLAY_DEVICE) );
        disp_dev_info.cb = sizeof(DISPLAY_DEVICE);
        res = EnumDisplayDevices( 0, disp_num++, &disp_dev_info, 0x00000001 );
        if(res &&
           disp_dev_info.DeviceString[0]!=0 && disp_dev_info.DeviceString[0]=='N' &&
           disp_dev_info.DeviceString[1]!=0 && disp_dev_info.DeviceString[1]=='V' && 
           disp_dev_info.DeviceString[2]!=0 && disp_dev_info.DeviceString[2]=='I' && 
           disp_dev_info.DeviceString[3]!=0 && disp_dev_info.DeviceString[3]=='D' && 
           disp_dev_info.DeviceString[4]!=0 && disp_dev_info.DeviceString[4]=='I' && 
           disp_dev_info.DeviceString[5]!=0 && disp_dev_info.DeviceString[5]=='A'){
            isNVidia = true;
        }
        int x = 0;
    }while( res != FALSE );

Pretty dumb, but working.

Answer 3

This is my current work-in-progress code for detecting the monitor device id, reliably.

CString DeviceID;
DISPLAY_DEVICE dd; 
dd.cb = sizeof(dd); 
DWORD dev = 0; 
// device index 
int id = 1; 
// monitor number, as used by Display Properties > Settings

while (EnumDisplayDevices(0, dev, &dd, 0))
{
    DISPLAY_DEVICE ddMon;
    ZeroMemory(&ddMon, sizeof(ddMon));
    ddMon.cb = sizeof(ddMon);
    DWORD devMon = 0;

    while (EnumDisplayDevices(dd.DeviceName, devMon, &ddMon, 0))
    {
        if (ddMon.StateFlags & DISPLAY_DEVICE_ACTIVE && 
                     !(ddMon.StateFlags & DISPLAY_DEVICE_MIRRORING_DRIVER))
        {
            DeviceID.Format (L"%s", ddMon.DeviceID);
            DeviceID = DeviceID.Mid (8, DeviceID.Find (L"\\", 9) - 8);
        }
        devMon++;

        ZeroMemory(&ddMon, sizeof(ddMon));
        ddMon.cb = sizeof(ddMon);
    }

    ZeroMemory(&dd, sizeof(dd));
    dd.cb = sizeof(dd);
    dev++; 
}

Answer 4

I've never tried doing it from a service, but EnumDisplayDevices generally works well when run as a user. I believe that services run in a separate (and headless) session, which could explain the problem you're seeing there.

Could you run a helper program from your service, impersonating a user account that has access to the displays?

Answer 5

I've just discovered you can query Win32_PnPEntity for service="monitor", and it will return all monitors.

Results on my machine:

select * from Win32_PnPEntity where service="monitor"

Availability | Caption               | ClassGuid                              | CompatibleID | ConfigManagerErrorCode | ConfigManagerUserConfig | CreationClassName | Description           | DeviceID                           | ErrorCleared | ErrorDescription | HardwareID  | InstallDate | LastErrorCode | Manufacturer | Name                  | PNPDeviceID                        | PowerManagementCapabilities | PowerManagementSupported | Service | Status | StatusInfo | SystemCreationClassName | SystemName
             | Dell 2007FP (Digital) | {4d36e96e-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318} | array[0..0]  | 0                      | False                   | Win32_PnPEntity   | Dell 2007FP (Digital) | DISPLAY\DELA021\5&4F61016&0&UID257 |              |                  | array[0..0] |             |               | Dell Inc.    | Dell 2007FP (Digital) | DISPLAY\DELA021\5&4F61016&0&UID257 |                             |                          | monitor | OK     |            | Win32_ComputerSystem    | 8HVS05J
             | Dell ST2320L_Digital  | {4d36e96e-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318} | array[0..0]  | 0                      | False                   | Win32_PnPEntity   | Dell ST2320L_Digital  | DISPLAY\DELF023\5&4F61016&0&UID256 |              |                  | array[0..0] |             |               | Dell Inc.    | Dell ST2320L_Digital  | DISPLAY\DELF023\5&4F61016&0&UID256 |                             |                          | monitor | OK     |            | Win32_ComputerSystem    | 8HVS05J