The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Shell Extensions

A shell extension is a COM object that adds some kind of functionality to the Windows shell (Explorer). There are all kinds of extensions out there, but very little easy-to-follow documentation about what they are, and how to write your own. I highly recommend Dino Espositos great book Visual C++ Windows Shell Programming if you want an in-depth look into lots of aspects of the shell, but for folks who don't have the book, or only care about shell extensions, I've written up this tutorial that will astound and amaze you, or failing that, get you well on your way to understanding how to write your own extensions. This guide assumes you are familiar with the basics of COM and ATL