Forcing an application to front

[mustache]

Hello

I recently began developing a virtual desktop style application similar to "Dexpot". www.dexpot.de

essentially my program offers the ability to display a preview of all open windows similar to functions in ubuntu and osx.

so far i have managed to succesfully display the open windows using DWM_THUMBNAIL. My problem is this: the window which displays these previews doesnt always apear in front of all other windows. Ive tried all possible variations of setForegorundWindow setActiveWindow BringWindowToTop setWindowPos
setting to TOP to TOPMOST etc etc but it seems nothing works consistantly. I then found out that this is intentional and its not supposed to work!A window cannot force itsself to the front.

However i see programs like dexpot forcing their way to the front just fine. My question is: how do they do it? How do you force a program to be ontop of all others?

Hope my question makes sense. english is not my first language. cheers