This section contains information about the Microsoft Windows Shell.

The Windows user interface (UI) provides users with access to a wide variety of objects necessary for running applications and managing the operating system. The most numerous and familiar of these objects are the folders and files that reside on computer disk drives. There are also a number of virtual objects that allow the user to perform tasks such as sending files to remote printers or accessing the Recycle Bin. The Shell organizes these objects into a hierarchical namespace and provides users and applications with a consistent and efficient way to access and manage objects.

This documentation is broken into two major sections: The Shell Developer's Guide provides conceptual material about how the Shell works and how to use the Shell's API in your application, and the Shell Reference which contains all of the individual elements that make up the various Shell APIs.

The following table provides an outline of the Shell Reference section.