SHDOCVW Functions

The table on this page is this study’s master list of functions that appear in the export directory of any known version of SHDOCVW. It gives for each function just brief summaries of the applicable SHDOCVW versions and of the function’s status with respect to Microsoft’s documentation (not that there’s much to say on this point, given that Microsoft documents no more than a handful). Some functions link directly to an attempt at alternative documentation.

Additional explanatory notes follow the table.

Notes

Names

Function names are reproduced from the export directory of the SHDOCVW.DLL executable, wherever possible. For functions that are not exported by name (i.e., are exported only by ordinal) from any known SHDOCVW version, names are inferred from symbol files that Microsoft supplies for customer support. If a function is known as an ordinal-only export from at least one SHDOCVW version, then even if later versions also export the function by name, the ordinal persists and is given in brackets immediately after the function’s name. An ordinal is also given in brackets even if a function is exported by name in all known SHDOCVW versions, provided that the ordinal breaks the auto-numbering of named exports and seems to persist across versions.

Versions

The SHDOCVW versions shown for each function are inferred from a study of known releases, making reasonable assumptions about likely continuity, especially to suppose that a function will exist in future versions or that a function exists in all (released) builds of a version if no counter-example is yet known.

Documentation Status

Except where otherwise stated, the reference version for Microsoft’s documentation is the January 2007 edition of the Windows Vista Software Development Kit (as distributed by Microsoft on MSDN Disc 3667). There is no one section for SHDOCVW functions. That a function is not marked above as “documented” (or is marked on other pages as “undocumented”) does not mean for certain that Microsoft does not document it, just that I haven’t yet found where.

Some functions that predate the January 2004 edition of the MSDN Library on CD (which was the previous reference version for a separate but related study of the Windows Shell) and were not documented therein have got documented since. These are labelled as “documented 2004-2006”, this being as much precision as I happen to know.

A few functions are not documented specifically as exports from SHDOCVW but fit some general cases. These are indicated by enclosing the documentation status in brackets.