Shell Programming

Explore the details of how a Shell Explorer Context Menu works and learn the role played by the registry database.

If you have been using Vista, you would have noticed that MessageBoxes are passé. These have been replaced by the new Task Dialogs. Task dialogs are intended to make the experience more interactive and goal-oriented. Take a tour of the Task Dialog API.

Ever wanted to get a mouse hover/leave message from the system tray? The Windows shell doesn't support that. This class is a solution that works.

A very basic shell extention to add and reterive the comments of the files.

A good starting point if you're looking to add drag and drop support to your app. The demo project has sample code for various clipboard formats.

Simulating the Windows explorer listview of files.

Dino Esposito demonstrates a context menu shell extension which mimics the SendTo menu. It exposes a list of frequently visited folders each with its own icon and also pops up clicking on the folder's background.

Dino Esposito illustrates why and how you can hook the Windows shell in order to log user activity.

Dino Esposito illustrates that modifying the way in which Explorer displays the content of a folder is as easy as modifying the content of an HTT (HyperText Template) file. In fact, it's only minimally more work than changing a plain old HTML page

Have you ever wanted to persist your shell extension settings? Dino Esposito shows an undocumented way to modify the Explorer Folder Options dialog to make your shell extension settings persistent.

Utility that implements a hook to provide an extra caption button next to the minimize/maximize/close buttons on all Windows applications

Shows how to programmatically manipulate the registry to create shortcuts that look and behave like IE shortcut links

Illustrates how to have your dialog based applications minimize to the system tray instead of the task bar

Tuning SHGetFileInfo for Optimum Performance

Animated Tray Icon Class

Command Line Parameters Context Menu Extension

Screen Saver Tray Icon Sample

Adding Icons to the System Tray

Copy Path Shell Extension

Very useful extension that copies the selected file path(s) to the clipboard

DLL Registering/Unregistering using Shell Extensions

Shell Extension Context Menu Sample

Using the Shell Namespace To Get Network Computers, Printers and Recycle Bin Items

Making Shell Popup ToolTips for File Items

A handy function that returns the Target and Arguments of a desktop shortcut (.lnk) as a CString.