Open webcam settings dialog in Windows

There is a webcam settings dialog in Windows which can be accessed inside Skype and some other apps, but I want to be able to open it directly. How can I open it directly? I have attached screenshot of dialog for reference.

VarunAgw

Posted 2018-01-20T14:13:40.370

Reputation: 779

Try Windows Key + R, and enter ms-settings:privacy-webcam – DavidPostill – 2018-01-20T17:27:19.220

@DavidPostill It shows different dialog – VarunAgw – 2018-01-20T20:25:44.707

Anybody?....... – VarunAgw – 2018-01-27T02:40:41.913

1This is really driving me crazy, I can access it Skype, I can write my own program to open it but I just want to open it within Windows... – Fishcake – 2018-02-14T16:46:45.117

@Fishcake How can you open it from your program. What's the API for it? – VarunAgw – 2018-05-28T15:16:24.057

Added as an answer as too much for a comment – Fishcake – 2018-05-30T08:09:35.957

Answers

Thanks to Fishcake's answer, I was able to find a program that offers command-line access to the same ISpecifyPropertyPages interface as AForge's DisplayPropertyPage, and thus allows us to open the dialog: ffmpeg.

Download an ffmpeg Windows executable (e.g. from zeranoe) and expand bin\ffmpeg.exe into a directory, e.g. c:\utils
Start a cmd prompt and change to that directory: cd \utils

Find the exact name of your device, either from Control Panel | Devices and Printers or by running ffmpeg:

C:\utils>ffmpeg -list_devices true -f dshow -i dummy -hide_banner
[dshow @ 0000022fd7ac8440] DirectShow video devices (some may be both video and audio devices)
[dshow @ 0000022fd7ac8440]  "USB 2.0 CAMERA"

Run ffmpeg to show the dialog:

ffmpeg -f dshow -show_video_device_dialog true -i video="USB 2.0 CAMERA"

stevek_mcc

Posted 2018-01-20T14:13:40.370

Reputation: 640

1Amazing work. It worked!! – VarunAgw – 2019-12-21T16:38:03.277

The only way I've managed to launch it without using an external program (e.g. Skype) was to use AForge.Net

Using AForge.Net, you can launch the property window by simply calling DisplayPropertyPage on a VideoCaptureDevice

videoCaptureDevice.DisplayPropertyPage(IntPtr.Zero);

Using AForge.Net might be overkill for just displaying the property page (I was using it already for some image manipulation) but you can view the source to see what it is doing under the hood. The DisplayPropertyPage method is in the class VideoCaptureDevice.cs

Fishcake

Posted 2018-01-20T14:13:40.370

Reputation: 254