SHELL32 Functions

The very large table on this page is this study’s master list of functions that appear in the export directory of any known version of SHELL32. It gives for each function just brief summaries of the applicable versions and of the function’s status with respect to Microsoft’s documentation.

This master list is the key to other lists. More detail on each function’s availability and documentation status is to be found by looking for the function in the history lists, according to the function’s first version and to whether it is exported by name or with an ordinal. A separate list covers usage by other executable modules distributed with Windows (though presently specific to Windows XP Service Pack 1a). Some functions link directly to an attempt at alternative documentation.

More explanatory notes follow the table.

Notes

Familiarity is assumed with the Reading Guide for the Windows Shell Study.

Names

Function names are reproduced from the export directory of the SHELL32.DLL executable, wherever possible. For functions that are not exported by name (i.e., are exported only by ordinal) from any known SHELL32 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 SHELL32 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.

Versions

The SHELL32 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 builds of a version if no counter-example is yet known.

Documentation Status

Except where otherwise stated, the reference for all comment on Microsoft’s documentation is the January 2007 edition of the Windows Vista Software Development Kit (as distributed by Microsoft on MSDN Disc 3667), especially but not only under the heading Shell Functions. Some SHELL32 functions are documented under headings that have no immediate relationship to SHELL32. For instance, some are documented in the Icon Reference under Windows User Interface (with functions that are mostly exported from USER32). I expect this scattering occurs because the documentation models someone’s notions of functionality, regardless of where the functionality actually got implemented. However it comes about, it makes as good a reminder as any for caution: that a function is not marked above as documented (or is marked elsewhere as undocumented) does not mean for certain that Microsoft does not document it, just that I haven’t yet found where.

Functions that were documented among the Settlement Program Interfaces in late 2002 are labelled specifically as “documented for settlement”. Some functions that predate the January 2004 edition of the MSDN Library on CD (which was the previous reference version for this study) and were not documented therein have got documented since. These are labelled “documented” but with a year or range of years, with as much precision as I happen to know.

Some functions are not documented as exports from SHELL32 but fit a general case described in the reading guide, such that it would be ungenerous to expect documentation specifically for COMCTL32. These are indicated by enclosing the whole documentation status in brackets.

A few functions are shown as documented but with “SHLWAPI” in brackets. Strictly speaking, these are undocumented as SHELL32 functions. Each has long been either coded as a simple redirection to an implementation in the Shell Light-Weight Utility (SHLWAPI) library or just forwarded through the export directory, and it is this other implementation, not the one in SHELL32, that Microsoft documents.