Disable Close X button in Winforms using C#

Demo code on how to disable the X button in menu bar in a window. I found a lot of posts on this in VB, but none for C#. So if you are a C# fan like me, this is for you...

1. There is no direct way to disbale the X button, like there is a property for Maximize button called MaximizeBox = false.

2. This is implemented by importing unmanaged dll "user32" and calling it's functions.

3. Before you use this code, make sure to add a Close button in your form so that you can close your app. See the attached screen shot Disabled.jpg. Below is the code for this form.

Add the following library

using

System.Runtime.InteropServices;

Declare the following as class level variable

const

int MF_BYPOSITION = 0x400;

[

DllImport("User32")]

private static extern int RemoveMenu(IntPtr hMenu, int nPosition, int wFlags);

[

DllImport("User32")]

private static extern IntPtr GetSystemMenu(IntPtr hWnd, bool bRevert);

[

DllImport("User32")]

private static extern int GetMenuItemCount(IntPtr hWnd);

In the Form_Load() event, write the following code:

private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

IntPtr hMenu = GetSystemMenu(this.Handle, false);

int menuItemCount = GetMenuItemCount(hMenu);

RemoveMenu(hMenu, menuItemCount - 1, MF_BYPOSITION);

}

4. Run it. Voila! you are done. If you know of a ay to do it without calling unmanaged code, please do let me know.

Disabled.JPG

Comments

• Anonymous
  May 19, 2007
  If you set closebox to false it will get rid of everything but the title. And then settting the title to "" (empty string) you can get rid of the title also.
• Anonymous
  June 02, 2007
  thanks alot !! .. this article is very useful..thank u.
• Anonymous
  June 08, 2007
  where is closebox johnV its not in .net
• Anonymous
  June 14, 2007
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  June 29, 2007
  Very useful article.Thanks.
• Anonymous
  July 19, 2007
  It was a very useful article.  Thanks a lot.
• Anonymous
  September 17, 2007
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  October 16, 2007
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  December 21, 2007
  I also had to add an event handler for FormClosing event, or else pressing Ctrl-F4 in my modeless window would close it just as if clicking on the Close button.
• Anonymous
  April 19, 2008
  Thank you very much,that was a simple yet elegant solution , bulls eye.Sreenivas Kapila
• Anonymous
  April 22, 2008
  Example taken from:http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/DisableClose.aspx//// source code// Code Snippetprivate const int CP_NOCLOSE_BUTTON = 0x200;protected override CreateParams CreateParams{    get    {       CreateParams myCp = base.CreateParams;       myCp.ClassStyle = myCp.ClassStyle | CP_NOCLOSE_BUTTON ;       return myCp;    }}
• Anonymous
  May 03, 2008
  bwing, the codeproject blog you have mentioned was published months after this blog, perhaps you can do the math now :)...
• Anonymous
  July 28, 2008
  Great!!nice and easy!thanks a lot!
• Anonymous
  August 14, 2008
  Nice! It allows you to simulate the behaviour of a MessageBox dialog. Very usefull, thanks.
• Anonymous
  January 11, 2009
  there is a way for ADD a menù botton??
• Anonymous
  January 13, 2009
  Hi..Very nice article ..But do some one know how to remove the maximize button?? :)Hamudi,..
• Anonymous
  January 13, 2009
  I Found it, Thanks, ;)Hamudi
• Anonymous
  February 09, 2009
  Thank you so much...This is real usefull and intresting.
• Anonymous
  March 20, 2009
  Thanks very very very good you code, thx.
• Anonymous
  May 21, 2009
  It's nice article, but when I run my application, the close button is disabled but still I can press Ctrl+F4 and it works. It closes my form.Thanks!
• Anonymous
  June 08, 2009
  Umesh,You must have a CLOSE button on your form. On click event of this button set a global variable like (bool CANCLOSE = true;). The default value of CANCLOSE should be false.Now, in your Form1_FormClosing() event add this:e.Cancel = CANCLOSE==false;You are all set now.Mehdi
• Anonymous
  June 14, 2009
  Sweet, works great, and very easy to implement :)
• Anonymous
  January 22, 2010
  Look here for an easy solution.http://www.php24hours.com/c-sharp-how-to-disable-the-close-button-t164.htmlbiz
• Anonymous
  April 20, 2010
  bwing,thank you for your solution with CreateParam!!!!Loveit--danky
• Anonymous
  November 04, 2010
  Why did microsoft program it in such a way compared to previous form designs, that you need a huge amount of code to do what you want 'closebox  = false?  this is meant to be object orientated, what's their logic??
• Anonymous
  November 11, 2010
  Very useful.  Thanks for writing this up!
• Anonymous
  December 23, 2010
  Thanks dear i got whatever i want. but may i know is there any way we can hide the 'X' close button in the form?thank you once again..
• Anonymous
  February 21, 2011
  Look in the properties panel, see controlbox, change it to false.
• Anonymous
  February 21, 2011
  All three options , minimize, close and maximize can be done without code through the properties panel
• Anonymous
  February 23, 2011
  Is there any way to enable or disable the CLOSE button as per the requirement. The current implementation tells us only to Disable the CLOSE button.
• Anonymous
  April 06, 2011
  waw, really deep in API system.. dont understand anything ^^
• Anonymous
  October 05, 2011
  It works and saved me a lot of research time, but I hope it doesnot have any overhead associated with it
• Anonymous
  December 30, 2011
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  February 13, 2012
  Thank you ,great Solution , I used GreatParm and it worked. any Solution to remove ( not disable ) Max button ?
• Anonymous
  November 27, 2013
  Thank Bro (Y) i was searching for a long time.