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Thread: How shells work?

  1. 12-15-2002, 10:45 PM #1
    Sleeka
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    How shells work?

    So I am a little confused at how the Explorer shell works. So I have written a program in Visual Basic that visually goes through albumns or will start DVD's, GPS, etc by starting there appropriate .exe or M3U extensions a if clicking on them in explorer. As I understand it I can have my program start up instead of Explorer but I am wondering if my program will function properly? Does it require Explorer to be running to start an exe file? Also can I simply have a button written in VB to start Explorer if I need it for accessing other things? Will this save time at boot up?

    Lots of questions that I assume are pretty easy to answer. I just have no idea how the whole Windows system functions?
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  2. 12-16-2002, 12:04 AM #2
    magnetik
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    Re: How shells work?

    explorer is in no way required to run .exe's..... so you can safely replace explorer.exe with your custom application no-sweat and it should function 100%...

    either hack system.ini in W9X versions, or adjust the registry in Win2K/XP to achive this task...
    Project - GAME OVER :(
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  3. 12-16-2002, 12:40 AM #3
    Sleeka
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    Quick response, thanks. So if I change the system.ini to say shell=c:\(my program) will this work? I would be putting a button in my program as I said before that would run Explorer.exe if I needed. Does this sound correct? If all fails, then how do I put Explorer.exe back into my system.ini file?

    I'm sure it's simple but I am scared of changing it and ending up stuck in my program forever.

    (EDIT) I think I was jumping the gun a little. I was assuming the Explorer.exe file in the windows directory was the explorer in the shell. Maybe it is and I'm confused. My understanding is that by shell it means the visual interface being used. So the desktop and the START button along with everything you see is part of Explorer, correct? Explorer.exe seemed to be the program for browsing your files. So how would I start the regular windows interface (Explorer) through VB?
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  4. 12-16-2002, 01:17 AM #4
    magnetik
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    first part, yes it will work - just ensure u give a full path to the .exe file, otherwise windows will assume that the file will be found in the C:\WINDOWS folder, or whatever.....

    yeah, if your VB app wants to run explorer.exe too, that will be fine.... not sure if u get 100% functionnality tho, since it will not be running technically as 'the shell'.... thus u may not get the start menu/etc.....

    in win98/95 its easy to change back.... just press [F8] at bootup, goto a command prompt, navigate to the c:\windows\ folder and do a good-old' "c:\windows\edit system.ini" and change it back...

    and your assumption in your edit bit is correct too... explorer.exe can be found in the c:\windows folder and is the one that is executed by default.... there is no 'special version' of it...

    i dont think you can get the start menu back after boot-up has completed... since you cant change windows shells 'on the fly' to the best of my knowledge...
    Project - GAME OVER :(
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