How to hide close button in WPF window?

I just got to similar problem and Joe White's solution seems to me simple and clean. I reused it and defined it as an attached property of Window

public class WindowBehavior
{
    private static readonly Type OwnerType = typeof (WindowBehavior);

    #region HideCloseButton (attached property)

    public static readonly DependencyProperty HideCloseButtonProperty =
        DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached(
            "HideCloseButton",
            typeof (bool),
            OwnerType,
            new FrameworkPropertyMetadata(false, new PropertyChangedCallback(HideCloseButtonChangedCallback)));

    [AttachedPropertyBrowsableForType(typeof(Window))]
    public static bool GetHideCloseButton(Window obj) {
        return (bool)obj.GetValue(HideCloseButtonProperty);
    }

    [AttachedPropertyBrowsableForType(typeof(Window))]
    public static void SetHideCloseButton(Window obj, bool value) {
        obj.SetValue(HideCloseButtonProperty, value);
    }

    private static void HideCloseButtonChangedCallback(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        var window = d as Window;
        if (window == null) return;

        var hideCloseButton = (bool)e.NewValue;
        if (hideCloseButton && !GetIsHiddenCloseButton(window)) {
            if (!window.IsLoaded) {
                window.Loaded += HideWhenLoadedDelegate;
            }
            else {
                HideCloseButton(window);
            }
            SetIsHiddenCloseButton(window, true);
        }
        else if (!hideCloseButton && GetIsHiddenCloseButton(window)) {
            if (!window.IsLoaded) {
                window.Loaded -= ShowWhenLoadedDelegate;
            }
            else {
                ShowCloseButton(window);
            }
            SetIsHiddenCloseButton(window, false);
        }
    }

    #region Win32 imports

    private const int GWL_STYLE = -16;
    private const int WS_SYSMENU = 0x80000;
    [DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    private static extern int GetWindowLong(IntPtr hWnd, int nIndex);
    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    private static extern int SetWindowLong(IntPtr hWnd, int nIndex, int dwNewLong);

    #endregion

    private static readonly RoutedEventHandler HideWhenLoadedDelegate = (sender, args) => {
        if (sender is Window == false) return;
        var w = (Window)sender;
        HideCloseButton(w);
        w.Loaded -= HideWhenLoadedDelegate;
    };

    private static readonly RoutedEventHandler ShowWhenLoadedDelegate = (sender, args) => {
        if (sender is Window == false) return;
        var w = (Window)sender;
        ShowCloseButton(w);
        w.Loaded -= ShowWhenLoadedDelegate;
    };

    private static void HideCloseButton(Window w) {
        var hwnd = new WindowInteropHelper(w).Handle;
        SetWindowLong(hwnd, GWL_STYLE, GetWindowLong(hwnd, GWL_STYLE) & ~WS_SYSMENU);
    }

    private static void ShowCloseButton(Window w) {
        var hwnd = new WindowInteropHelper(w).Handle;
        SetWindowLong(hwnd, GWL_STYLE, GetWindowLong(hwnd, GWL_STYLE) | WS_SYSMENU);
    }

    #endregion

    #region IsHiddenCloseButton (readonly attached property)

    private static readonly DependencyPropertyKey IsHiddenCloseButtonKey =
        DependencyProperty.RegisterAttachedReadOnly(
            "IsHiddenCloseButton",
            typeof (bool),
            OwnerType,
            new FrameworkPropertyMetadata(false));

    public static readonly DependencyProperty IsHiddenCloseButtonProperty =
        IsHiddenCloseButtonKey.DependencyProperty;

    [AttachedPropertyBrowsableForType(typeof(Window))]
    public static bool GetIsHiddenCloseButton(Window obj) {
        return (bool)obj.GetValue(IsHiddenCloseButtonProperty);
    }

    private static void SetIsHiddenCloseButton(Window obj, bool value) {
        obj.SetValue(IsHiddenCloseButtonKey, value);
    }

    #endregion

}

Then in XAML you just set it like this:

<Window 
    x:Class="WafClient.Presentation.Views.SampleWindow"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    xmlns:u="clr-namespace:WafClient.Presentation.Behaviors"
    ResizeMode="NoResize"
    u:WindowBehavior.HideCloseButton="True">
    ...
</Window>

WPF doesn't have a built-in property to hide the title bar's Close button, but you can do it with a few lines of P/Invoke.

First, add these declarations to your Window class:

private const int GWL_STYLE = -16;
private const int WS_SYSMENU = 0x80000;
[DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
private static extern int GetWindowLong(IntPtr hWnd, int nIndex);
[DllImport("user32.dll")]
private static extern int SetWindowLong(IntPtr hWnd, int nIndex, int dwNewLong);

Then put this code in the Window's Loaded event:

var hwnd = new WindowInteropHelper(this).Handle;
SetWindowLong(hwnd, GWL_STYLE, GetWindowLong(hwnd, GWL_STYLE) & ~WS_SYSMENU);

And there you go: no more Close button. You also won't have a window icon on the left side of the title bar, which means no system menu, even when you right-click the title bar - they all go together.

Important note: all this does is hide the button. The user can still close the window! If the user presses Alt+F4, or closes the app via the taskbar, the window will still close.

If you don't want to allow the window to close before the background thread is done, then you could also override OnClosing and set Cancel to true, as Gabe suggested.