Is Excel's Application.Hwnd property usable from 64 bit VBA?

Question

I need to obtain the Excel 2013 x64 window handle from 64 bit VBA code running in a spreadsheet. There are a couple of options to do this:

Read Application.Hwnd (MSDN Application.Hwnd Property (Excel))
Call FindWindow, imported from user32, e.g. as described in the accepted answer here: What are the differences between VBA 6.0 and VBA 7.0?:

    Declare PtrSafe Function FindWindow Lib "user32" Alias "FindWindowA" ( _
           ByVal lpClassName As String, _
           ByVal lpWindowName As String) As LongPtr

The problem is that Application.Hwnd returns a Long, i.e. 32 bits (I've verified this with MsgBox TypeName(Application.Hwnd) within a 64 bit environment), whereas FindWindow returns a LongPtr, which is 64 bits long in Office x64.

Does this mean that the Application.Hwnd property can't be trusted to always be correct in a 64 bit environment?

It's fine, window handles still work as a 32-bit value in 64-bit code. The upper 32 bits are always 0 anyway. — Hans Passant

Siddharth Rout Siddharth Rout · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-22T13:08:20

Does this mean that the Application.Hwnd property can't be trusted to always be correct in a 64 bit environment?

No that is not true. The LongPtr is just a variable data type which is a 4-bytes data type on 32-bit versions and an 8-byte data type on 64-bit versions of Office 2010.

You can read more about LongPtr Here

In case the above link dies...

LongPtr (Long integer on 32-bit systems, LongLong integer on 64-bit systems) variables are stored as signed 32-bit (4-byte) numbers ranging in value from -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647 on 32-bit systems; and signed 64-bit (8-byte) numbers ranging in value from -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 on 64-bit systems.

Note

LongPtr is not a true data type because it transforms to a Long in 32-bit environments, or a LongLong in 64-bit environments. Using LongPtr enables writing portable code that can run in both 32-bit and 64-bit environments. Use LongPtr for pointers and handles.

Suggested for further Reading:

Compatibility Between the 32-bit and 64-bit Versions of Office 2010

Followup from comments

However, I'm worried that since FindWindow can return a larger value, a window handle may exceed 32 bits at some stage. And if that's true, then Application.Hwnd would be unable to return the correct value. Or are you saying that a window handle will never exceed 32 bits?

The following link explains it beautifully. Interprocess Communication Between 32-bit and 64-bit Applications

Is Excel's Application.Hwnd property usable from 64 bit VBA?

1 Answers