Show/Hide the console window of a C# console application

Question

I googled around for information on how to hide one’s own console window. Amazingly, the only solutions I could find were hacky solutions that involved FindWindow()

Answer 1

You could do the reversed and set the Application output type to: Windows Application. Then add this code to the beginning of the application.

[DllImport("kernel32.dll", EntryPoint = "GetStdHandle", SetLastError = true, CharSet = CharSet.Auto, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.StdCall)]
public static extern IntPtr GetStdHandle(int nStdHandle);

[DllImport("kernel32.dll", EntryPoint = "AllocConsole", SetLastError = true, CharSet = CharSet.Auto, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.StdCall)]
public static extern int AllocConsole();

private const int STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE = -11;
private const int MY_CODE_PAGE = 437;
private static bool showConsole = true; //Or false if you don't want to see the console

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    if (showConsole)
    {
        AllocConsole();
        IntPtr stdHandle = GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE);
        Microsoft.Win32.SafeHandles.SafeFileHandle safeFileHandle = new Microsoft.Win32.SafeHandles.SafeFileHandle(stdHandle, true);
        FileStream fileStream = new FileStream(safeFileHandle, FileAccess.Write);
        System.Text.Encoding encoding = System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding(MY_CODE_PAGE);
        StreamWriter standardOutput = new StreamWriter(fileStream, encoding);
        standardOutput.AutoFlush = true;
        Console.SetOut(standardOutput);
    }

    //Your application code
}

This code will show the Console if showConsole is true

Answer 2

"Just to hide" you can:

Change the output type from Console Application to Windows Application,

And Instead of Console.Readline/key you can use new ManualResetEvent(false).WaitOne() at the end to keep the app running.

Answer 3

Just go to the application's Properties and change the Output type from Console Application to Windows Application.

Answer 4

See my post here:

Show Console in Windows Application

You can make a Windows application (with or without the window) and show the console as desired. Using this method the console window never appears unless you explicitly show it. I use it for dual-mode applications that I want to run in either console or gui mode depending on how they are opened.

Answer 5

Here’s how:

using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

---

[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
static extern IntPtr GetConsoleWindow();

[DllImport("user32.dll")]
static extern bool ShowWindow(IntPtr hWnd, int nCmdShow);

const int SW_HIDE = 0;
const int SW_SHOW = 5;

---

var handle = GetConsoleWindow();

// Hide
ShowWindow(handle, SW_HIDE);

// Show
ShowWindow(handle, SW_SHOW);

Answer 6

If you don't want to depends on window title use this :

    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    static extern bool ShowWindow(IntPtr hWnd, int nCmdShow);

...

    IntPtr h = Process.GetCurrentProcess().MainWindowHandle;
    ShowWindow(h, 0);
    Application.EnableVisualStyles();
    Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
    Application.Run(new FormPrincipale());