Explorer Skin

• Download source files - 91.5 Kb
• Download demo project - 63.1 Kb

Introduction

May be you wonder how some sites like Hotbar, can change your IE rebar! In this article, I show you how you can change your IE rebar by yourself. For this reason I create a shell extension context menu that will apear if you right click on a bitmapped file (*.bmp).
Above Figure shows this context menu.

Hacking Registry

As you know, Windows Explorer (and IE) are very customizable applications. This means that you can change behavior and the overall face of them very easily. But from where does IE know when and how to change itself?

Answer: Registry.

Windows Explorer saves any GUI related information and data in the registry. For changing IE skin, it's sufficent to change value of BackBitmap, to path of desired bitmap in the following registry path:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar

As you see, this registry path points to Toolbar of Internet Explorer. Figures 2 and 3 show effect of this utility.

Before (Fig 2) :

After (Fig 3) :

Installing/Uninstalling

It's very easy to Install/Uninstall this shell extension. For installing it, run Install.bat, this batch file copies IESkin.dll to System32 directory of Windows and then registers it automatically. For uninstalling IESkin, run Uninstall.bat, this batch file unregisters IESkin.dll and delete it from system32 directory of Windows.

Credits

I should thank Michael Dunn for his article "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Shell Extension - Part I". Enjoy!