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!
I was born in Shiraz, a very beautiful famous city in Iran. I started programming when I was 12 years old with GWBASIC. Since now, I worked with various programming languages from Basic, Foxpro, C/C++, Visual Basic, Pascal to MATLAB and now Visual C++.
I graduated from
Iran University of Science & Technology in Communication Eng., and now work as a system programmer for a telecommunication industry.
I wrote several programs and drivers for Synthesizers, Power Amplifiers, GPIB, GPS devices, Radio cards, Data Acquisition cards and so many related devices.
I'm author of several books like Learning C (primary and advanced), Learning Visual Basic, API application for VB, Teach Yourself Object Oriented Programming (OOP) and etc.
I'm winner of January, May, August 2003 and April 2005 best article of month competition, my articles are:
You can see list of my articles, by clicking here