Keyboard Blocker

Copyright © 2025 Pavel Bashkardin

Description

Keyboard Blocker is a small Windows utility that completely blocks keyboard input. It runs in the background with an icon in the system tray (near the clock).

• First launch: keyboard is blocked, a notification balloon appears.
• Second launch (or selecting "Exit" from the tray menu): keyboard is unblocked, the application exits.

The program uses a low‑level keyboard hook (WH_KEYBOARD_LL) to intercept and discard all keyboard messages. It is intended for situations where you want to prevent a child (or anyone) from accidentally pressing keys while watching a video.

Compilation Requirements

• Windows operating system.
• MinGW‑w64 compiler (TDM‑GCC recommended) with windres (resource compiler) and objdump (usually included).
• Optional: UPX (Ultimate Packer for eXecutables) for further size reduction.

Download Links

• TDM-GCC (MinGW-w64)
• Official MinGW-w64
• UPX or UPX on SourceForge

The provided build script assumes the compiler is installed at:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Embarcadero\Dev-Cpp\TDM-GCC-64\bin
If your compiler is located elsewhere, edit the set PATH= line in build.bat.

How to Build

Simply double‑click build.bat or run it from the command prompt.
The script will:

1. Delete old object files and the previous executable.
2. Compile the resource script (resource.rc) into resource.o.
3. Compile the main source (keyblock.c) into keyblock.o.
4. Link everything into keyblock.exe with optimizations for small size.
5. Display the list of imported DLLs (to verify no unexpected dependencies).
6. If UPX is found, compress the executable (optional).

After a successful build you will find keyblock.exe in the same folder.

Usage

• Run keyblock.exe once – the keyboard becomes blocked.
• Run it again – the first instance exits, unblocking the keyboard.
• Right‑click the tray icon and select "Exit" to unblock manually.
• Left‑click the tray icon to repeat the notification message.

The program is designed to be as unobtrusive as possible: no windows, only a tray icon and occasional balloons.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License – see the license in the source files for details. In short, you may use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the software, provided that the copyright notice and permission notice appear in all copies.

Author

Pavel Bashkardin

For questions or suggestions, feel free to contact the author via GitHub or e-mail