Other applications open behind the Terminal window - (ConPTY window handle z-order shenanigans with `GetConsoleWindow`)

[amithegde]

Description of the new feature/enhancement

When I open File explorer from terminal using command such as start . control should shift to explorer window but it remains in terminal.

Proposed technical implementation details (optional)

when file explorer starts control should shift to explorer and any further keyboard interaction should be targeted to explorer window.
You can verify how ConEmu or cmd works to validate this.

[amithegde]

I noticed it does shift control some times. So I guess it's a bug? Some times control doesn't shift and some times it shifts?

[zadjii-msft]

This might not be possible. This repros for any conpty session.

I (believe) that traditionally, start uses GetConsoleWindow to get the HWND of the console, to place explorer (or any application really) in the z-order above the conhost.exe window.

For something running in conpty however, the console doesn't actually have a window. The Terminal does, but the console doesn't. So there's no way for start to place something above the console window, since there is no console window.

[fpqc]

I can't imagine it would be hard for a motivated person to write a small Windows program that launches a program and then sets it at the top of the Z-order without comparing against the current window.

[amithegde]

This might not be possible. This repros for any conpty session.

I (believe) that traditionally, start uses GetConsoleWindow to get the HWND of the console, to place explorer (or any application really) in the z-order above the conhost.exe window.

For something running in conpty however, the console doesn't actually have a window. The Terminal does, but the console doesn't. So there's no way for start to place something above the console window, since there is no console window.

I will be demotivated to use Terminal in that case since it doesn't behave consistently with existing tools like cmd😒