Shell Miscellaneous Utility Functions

This section describes those Windows Shell functions exported by Shlwapi.dll and defined in Shlwapi.h and Shlwapi.lib that do not fall under one of the other utility function categories.

In this section

Topic	Description
DllInstall	Handles installation and setup for a DLL.
GetProcessReference	Retrieves the process-specific object supplied by SetProcessReference, incrementing the reference count to keep the process alive.
HashData	Hashes an array of data.
IsInternetESCEnabled	Determines whether Windows Internet Explorer is in the Enhanced Security Configuration.
IsOS	Checks for specified operating systems and operating system features.
IStream_Copy	Copies a stream to another stream.
IStream_Read	Reads bytes from a specified stream and returns a value that indicates whether all bytes were successfully read.
IStream_ReadPidl	Reads a pointer to an item identifier list (PIDL) from an IStream object into a PIDLIST_RELATIVE object.
IStream_ReadStr	Reads from a stream and writes into a string.
IStream_Reset	Moves the seek position in a specified stream to the beginning of the stream.
IStream_Size	Retrieves the size, in bytes, of a specified stream.
IStream_Write	Writes data of unknown format from a buffer to a specified stream.
IStream_WritePidl	Writes a PIDL from a PCUIDLIST_RELATIVE object into an IStream object.
IStream_WriteStr	Reads from a string and writes into a stream.
IUnknown_AtomicRelease	Releases a Component Object Model (COM) pointer and sets it to NULL.
IUnknown_GetSite	Calls the specified object's IObjectWithSite::GetSite method.
IUnknown_GetWindow	Attempts to retrieve a window handle from a COM object by querying for various interfaces that have a GetWindow method.
IUnknown_QueryService	Retrieves an interface for a service from a specified object.
IUnknown_Set	Changes the value of a COM interface pointer and releases the previous interface.
IUnknown_SetSite	Sets the specified object's site by calling its IObjectWithSite::SetSite method.
ParseURL	Performs rudimentary parsing of a URL.
QISearch	A table-driven implementation of the IUnknown::QueryInterface method.
SetProcessReference	Provides a COM object that allows hosted Shell extensions and other components to prevent their host process from closing prematurely. The host process is typically Windows Explorer or Internet Explorer, but this function can also be used by other applications.
SHAutoComplete	Instructs system edit controls to use AutoComplete to help complete URLs or file system paths.
SHCreateMemStream	Creates a memory stream using a similar process to CreateStreamOnHGlobal.
SHCreateStreamOnFileEx	Opens or creates a file and retrieves a stream to read or write to that file.
SHCreateThread	Creates a thread.
SHCreateThreadRef	Creates a per-thread reference to a COM object.
SHCreateThreadWithHandle	Creates a new thread and retrieves its handle.
SHGetThreadRef	Retrieves the per-thread object reference set by SHSetThreadRef.
SHGlobalCounterDecrement	Decrements a global counter.
SHGlobalCounterGetValue	Gets the current value of a global counter.
SHGlobalCounterIncrement	Increments a global counter.
SHIsLowMemoryMachine
SHReleaseThreadRef	Releases a thread reference before the thread procedure returns.
SHSetThreadRef	Stores a per-thread reference to a COM object. This allows the caller to control the thread's lifetime so that it can ensure that Windows won't shut down the thread before the caller is ready.