How to detect the currently pressed key?

In Windows Forms, you can know, at any time, the current position of the cursor thanks to the Cursors class.

The same thing doesn't seem to be available for the keyboard. Is it possible to know if, for example, the Shift key is pressed?

Is it absolutely necessary to track down every keyboard notification (KeyDown and KeyUp events)?

if ((Control.ModifierKeys & Keys.Shift) != 0) 

This will also be true if Ctrl+Shift is down. If you want to check whether Shift alone is pressed,

if (Control.ModifierKeys == Keys.Shift)

If you're in a class that inherits Control (such as a form), you can remove the Control.

The code below is how to detect almost all currently pressed keys, not just the Shift key.

private KeyMessageFilter m_filter = new KeyMessageFilter();

private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    Application.AddMessageFilter(m_filter);
}


public class KeyMessageFilter : IMessageFilter
{
    private const int WM_KEYDOWN = 0x0100;
    private const int WM_KEYUP = 0x0101;
    private bool m_keyPressed = false;

    private Dictionary<Keys, bool> m_keyTable = new Dictionary<Keys, bool>();

    public Dictionary<Keys, bool> KeyTable
    {
        get { return m_keyTable; }
        private set { m_keyTable = value; }
    }

    public bool IsKeyPressed()
    {
        return m_keyPressed;
    }

    public bool IsKeyPressed(Keys k)
    {
        bool pressed = false;

        if (KeyTable.TryGetValue(k, out pressed))
        {
            return pressed;
        }

        return false;
    }

    public bool PreFilterMessage(ref Message m)
    {
        if (m.Msg == WM_KEYDOWN)
        {
            KeyTable[(Keys)m.WParam] = true;

            m_keyPressed = true;
        }

        if (m.Msg == WM_KEYUP)
        {
            KeyTable[(Keys)m.WParam] = false;

            m_keyPressed = false;
        }

        return false;
    }
}

You can also look at the following if you use WPF or reference System.Windows.Input

if (Keyboard.Modifiers == ModifierKeys.Shift)

The Keyboard namespace can also be used to check the pressed state of other keys with Keyboard.IsKeyDown(Key), or if you are subscribing to a KeyDownEvent or similar event, the event arguments carry a list of currently pressed keys.

Most of these answers are either far too complicated or don't seem to work for me (e.g. System.Windows.Input doesn't seem to exist). Then I found some sample code which works fine: http://www.switchonthecode.com/tutorials/winforms-accessing-mouse-and-keyboard-state

In case the page disappears in the future I am posting the relevant source code below:

using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

namespace MouseKeyboardStateTest
{
  public abstract class Keyboard
  {
    [Flags]
    private enum KeyStates
    {
      None = 0,
      Down = 1,
      Toggled = 2
    }

    [DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto, ExactSpelling = true)]
    private static extern short GetKeyState(int keyCode);

    private static KeyStates GetKeyState(Keys key)
    {
      KeyStates state = KeyStates.None;

      short retVal = GetKeyState((int)key);

      //If the high-order bit is 1, the key is down
      //otherwise, it is up.
      if ((retVal & 0x8000) == 0x8000)
        state |= KeyStates.Down;

      //If the low-order bit is 1, the key is toggled.
      if ((retVal & 1) == 1)
        state |= KeyStates.Toggled;

      return state;
    }

    public static bool IsKeyDown(Keys key)
    { 
      return KeyStates.Down == (GetKeyState(key) & KeyStates.Down);
    }

    public static bool IsKeyToggled(Keys key)
    { 
      return KeyStates.Toggled == (GetKeyState(key) & KeyStates.Toggled);
    }
  }
}

Since .NET Framework version 3.0, it is possible to use the Keyboard.IsKeyDown method from the new System.Windows.Input namespace. For instance:

if (((Keyboard.IsKeyDown(Key.LeftCtrl) || Keyboard.IsKeyDown(Key.RightCtrl)) && Keyboard.IsKeyDown(Key.F))
{
    // CTRL + F is currently pressed
}

Even though it's part of WPF, that method works fine for WinForm applications (provided that you add references to PresentationCore.dll and WindowsBase.dll). Unfortunately, however, the 3.0 and 3.5 versions of the Keyboard.IsKeyDown method did not work for WinForm applications. Therefore, if you do want to use it in a WinForm application, you'll need to be targeting .NET Framework 4.0 or later in order for it to work.