KeyPress on form load

Question

Is there a way for me to determine if a key is pressed during the launch of my program? I would like the user to hold down a key when launching my application and then I want to find out what that key is once the program is launched. Currently I have implemented both the KeyPress event and the KeyUp event but neither seem to respond unless the key was pressed after the application launched. Upon the form loading, I want to be able to see if a key is down and then determine what the key is. Can this be done?

crausch · Answer

I tried the KeyDown event and the application did not fire the event. As it turns out what I am trying to do is not a good idea any way. If the desktop has focus and you press a key (lets say [R]) then the desktop focus immediately jumps to a shortcut whos name begins with R (for me the recycle bin). Even though I double-click on my application's icon the RecycleBin explorer window opens up. So you can see that depending on the names of your shortcuts you could end up with various results. Here was my original intent: I have the need to access different drives or Network shares continuously through the day. Instead of having multiple shortcuts for Windows Explorer on my desktop (each one configured to open with a differnt drive expanded) I wanted to create an app that would launch the Windows Explorer and expand the directory tree of the drive letter (the key) that the user had pressed during the launch of my app. This way all I would need is one desktop shortcut instead of many. As it turns out I built the app so that when it is launched a tiny window (big enought for a label) opens and instructs the user to Press a Drive letter!. If after a few seconds no drive letter is pressed the app launches Windows Explorer with it's default settings. It works great!

mibuyt · Answer

Hi Did you actually look at KeyDown event? Yeah it can detect the character entered first before showing anything... Give it a try and let me know ok! Cheers.