Docking Window inside another Window

Solution 1:

The solution I have used before is to set the application window as a child of the control you want to dock it in.

using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

private Process pDocked;
private IntPtr hWndOriginalParent;
private IntPtr hWndDocked;

[DllImport("user32.dll")]
public static extern IntPtr SetParent(IntPtr hWndChild, IntPtr hWndNewParent);

[DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
public static extern bool MoveWindow(IntPtr hWnd, int X, int Y, int nWidth, int nHeight, bool bRepaint);

private void dockIt()
{
    if (hWndDocked != IntPtr.Zero) //don't do anything if there's already a window docked.
        return;
    hWndParent = IntPtr.Zero;

    pDocked = Process.Start(@"notepad");
    while (hWndDocked == IntPtr.Zero)
    {
        pDocked.WaitForInputIdle(1000); //wait for the window to be ready for input;
        pDocked.Refresh();              //update process info
        if (pDocked.HasExited)
        {
            return; //abort if the process finished before we got a handle.
        }
        hWndDocked = pDocked.MainWindowHandle;  //cache the window handle
    }
    //Windows API call to change the parent of the target window.
    //It returns the hWnd of the window's parent prior to this call.
    hWndOriginalParent = SetParent(hWndDocked, Panel1.Handle);

    //Wire up the event to keep the window sized to match the control
    Panel1.SizeChanged += new EventHandler(Panel1_Resize);
    //Perform an initial call to set the size.
    Panel1_Resize(new Object(), new EventArgs());
}

private void undockIt()
{
    //Restores the application to it's original parent.
    SetParent(hWndDocked, hWndOriginalParent);
}

private void Panel1_Resize(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    //Change the docked windows size to match its parent's size. 
    MoveWindow(hWndDocked, 0, 0, Panel1.Width, Panel1.Height, true);
}

Solution 2:

* Adding some solution in Answer..**

This code has helped me to dock some executable in windows form. like NotePad, Excel, word, Acrobat reader n many more...

But it wont work for some applications. As sometimes when you start process of some application.... wait for idle time... and the try to get its mainWindowHandle.... till the time the main window handle becomes null.....

so I have done one trick to solve this

If you get main window handle as null... then search all the runnning processes on sytem and find you process ... then get the main hadle of the process and the set panel as its parent.

            ProcessStartInfo info = new ProcessStartInfo();
            info.FileName = "xxxxxxxxxxxx.exe";
            info.Arguments = "yyyyyyyyyy";
            info.UseShellExecute = true;
            info.CreateNoWindow = true;
            info.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Maximized;
            info.RedirectStandardInput = false;
            info.RedirectStandardOutput = false;
            info.RedirectStandardError = false;

            System.Diagnostics.Process p = System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(info); 

            p.WaitForInputIdle();
            Thread.Sleep(3000);

            Process[] p1 ;
        if(p.MainWindowHandle == null)
        {
            List<String> arrString = new List<String>();
            foreach (Process p1 in Process.GetProcesses())
            {
                // Console.WriteLine(p1.MainWindowHandle);
                arrString.Add(Convert.ToString(p1.ProcessName));
            }
            p1 = Process.GetProcessesByName("xxxxxxxxxxxx");
            //p.WaitForInputIdle();
            Thread.Sleep(5000);
           SetParent(p1[0].MainWindowHandle, this.panel2.Handle);
        }
         else
        {
           SetParent(p.MainWindowHandle, this.panel2.Handle);
        }