HOWTO: How to Change a Window's Parent

SUMMARY

The following information describes how to change a window's parent in Windows versions 2.x and 3.x.

The correct way to do this in Windows versions 2.x is to destroy the child and then re-create the child with the proper handle to the parent. The following steps can be used to do this:

1. Perform a ShowWindow(hWnd, HIDE_WINDOW) call.
2. Change the handle to the child using the SetWindowWord function.
3. Perform a ShowWindow(hWnd, SHOW_WINDOW) call.

NOTE: Microsoft does not recommend that this method and does not guarantee it to work in future releases of Windows.

In Windows versions 3.x, the SetParent function should be used to set the parent of a window.