“Introduction to Windows Shell” inside “Introducing Windows 7 for Developers”

Our book, Introducing Windows 7 for Developers, has quite a few pages on how to interact with the Windows 7 Taskbar and Libraries using the Windows Shell interfaces.

Unfortunately, the section that introduces the Windows Shell and lists the primary shell COM interfaces has ended up on page 89, in the Libraries chapter (Chapter 4), even though it’s cross-referenced elsewhere as if it appears in Chapter 1. (I noticed the omission thanks to this review.)

If you were looking for that section to brush up your Windows Shell programming skills, it’s right there on page 89, titled “Working with the Shell Namespace”, and starting with the following paragraph:

Before we dive into the Shell Libraries programming model, we need to understand how the Windows Shell works. The Windows Shell is the main area of user interaction in Windows. The Shell includes user-facing Windows feature such as the Taskbar, the Start Menu, Windows Explorer windows, search results, and even less obvious windows such as the Control Panel. The shell is hosted in a process called explorer.exe, and most users recognize it as Windows Explorer.