On a Windows PC there are always many programs running – some in the foreground and some of them are running in the background. Some of these programs run completely hidden from the user while some others have a user interface. The user interface could be a command line user interface (CLI) or a graphical user interface (GUI).
As far as GUI programs are concerned, you can monitor them al using a free application from Nir Sofer called GUIPropView. This program can continuously scan your system for all the running programs with a window and lists all the open windows by their handles. A Window handle is a unique numeric ID assigned to all the created windows. We can find any window by its handle. It can also be used to control that window or change its properties.
In the GUIPropView window, there are two sections – the upper section and the lower section. The upper section shows a list of all the open windows. For each of the window, it displays the the window handle, the window title, the state, the visibility, the position and the size. From this list you can see if a window is hidden and also can change its property if needed.
The lower section displays all the child windows when you select one of the parent windows displayed in the upper list. The child windows are also windows but are usually for smaller tasks. You can right-click on any of the window in the list and choose one of the operations available for them. Among the various operations, you can switch to the respective window, close, hide, show, minimize, maximize, center, or set the window title.
GUIPropView also comes with a window finder button using which you can select a window that you want to watch. It is really helpful for the programmers who want to know about the inner names of various windows. It is similar to a program Microsoft Windows Spy that used to come with Microsoft Visual Studio.
You can download GUIPropView from https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/gui_prop_view.html.