All about Windows Shell

Posted by Mr. Spark (admin) in Featured Articles, Learning Resource, Windows on 07 21st, 2009 | one response

winspark_app_icon Windows Shell is an variety of Objects necessary for accessing the resources of the computer as well as the resources of connected devices and networked computers. These resources include applications such as folders and shortcuts, files, printers, Control Panel, and other virtual objects, shell services, and certain UI components.

Windows Shell is the container in which the entire Windows user interface is presented, including the taskbar, the Desktop, Windows Explorer, and many of the dialog boxes and interface controls.

Examples of shell services include file operations, Web and file browsing, drag-and-drop operations, and file and device synchronization.

The availability and functionality of DLLs changed with each version of Windows, although Microsoft changes many GUI controls and looks in every successor of previous windows version.

The Shell is distributed over a number of dynamic link libraries, including these primary DLLs:

Shell32.dll	: Implements the core Shell runtime and APIs.
Shlwapi.dll	: Offers a range of lightweight utility and wrapper functions. For example, this DLL provides limited Unicode functionality for legacy Windows operating systems.
Comctl32.dll	: Contains the Windows Common Controls.
Shdocvw.dll	: Contains the Internet Explorer browser component.
Url.dll	: Contains APIs for working with URLs, their associated content, and also other Internet information protocols.
Dwmapi.dll	: Implements the Desktop Window Manager runtime and APIs.
Propsys.dll	: Handles PROPVARIANT, VARIANT and VARTYPE, and PROPERTYKEY structure types.

All but a handful of the programming elements are contained in three DLLs: Comctl32.dll, Shell32.dll, and Shlwapi.dll.

Version	DLL	Distribution Platform
4.0	All	Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0
4.7	All	Windows Internet Explorer 3.x
4.71	All	Internet Explorer 4.0. See note 2.
4.72	All	Internet Explorer 4.01 and Windows 98. See note 2.
5.0	Shlwapi.dll	Internet Explorer 5 and Windows 98 SE. See note 3.
5.5	Shlwapi.dll	Internet Explorer 5.5 and Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me)
6.0	Shlwapi.dll	Windows XP and Windows Vista
5.0	Shell32.dll	Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me). See note 3.
6.0	Shell32.dll	Windows XP and Windows Vista
5.8	Comctl32.dll	Internet Explorer 5. See note 3.
5.81	Comctl32.dll	Windows 2000 and Windows Me. See note 3.
5.82	Comctl32.dll	Windows XP and Windows Vista. See note 4.

The following table outlines the different DLL versions and how they were distributed dating back to Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0, Microsoft Windows 95, and Microsoft Windows NT 4.0.

Microsoft is going to release Windows 7 with New API and GUI which contains new Shell Interfaces, Properties and Functions | Listed here.