Shell Explorer's Cookbook — Table of contents

This whole document is organized in sections broken down in the 4 major categories below. I'm the kind of guy that reads interesting books from cover to cover, hence the information here is provided with such a sequential access in mind. Still, once you read through the Background Information category (or if you already know about these issues), the remaining subjects are fairly self-contained and could be read in any order.

Folks in a hurry for answers could find the subject index useful. There I provide lists of specific questions that link up to the exact place in the documentation where the respective answers can be found.

IMPORTANT: sample code omits normal error-correction code. This code has been removed only to make the code more readable. You should include all appropriate error-correction code in your own applications.

Background Information

Component Object Model (COM) basics
Fundamental Shell concepts

Basic Operations

Exploring the filesystem portion
Exploring all of shell's namespace
Managing file operations
Obtaining information for shell objects
Shell context menu support

Advanced Operations

Data objects and the clipboard
Shell data transfer: Clipboard and Drag-Drop
Taking advantage of the AutoCompletion object
Adding extra columns with item details
In-place browsable rooted extensions

Miscellaneous Topics

The Windows Scripting Host: using 32-bit batch files
Windows shell power user's tricks and tips




Introduction Subject index