Printers

The Printers class is one of many that SHELL32 exposes through its exported DllGetClass function. Instances can therefore be created using such well-documented COM functions as CoCreateInstance, by anyone who knows the CLSID:

The class implements the following interfaces (in the SHELL32 version 6.00 from Windows Vista):

• IBackReferencedObject
• IContextMenuCB
• IDelegateHostItemContainer
• IFolderNotify
• IFolderType
• IObjectWithBackReferences
• IPersistFolder2 and its bases IPersistFolder and IPersist
• IPrinterFolder
• IRegItemFolder
• IRemoteComputer
• IResolveShellLink
• IShellFolder2 and its base IShellFolder
• IShellIconOverlay
• ITransferProvider

 Note that several of these interfaces are acquired by aggregating a RegFolder object.

Namespace

As a registry folder, the Printers object has its namespace built from a standard pattern. Items in the namespace are loaded from registry keys in the following order:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\PrintersAndFaxes\NameSpace
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\PrintersAndFaxes\NameSpace
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\PrintersAndFaxes\NameSpace\DelegateFolders
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\PrintersAndFaxes\NameSpace\DelegateFolders
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\SessionInfo\session\PrintersAndFaxes\NameSpace
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\SessionInfo\session\PrintersAndFaxes\NameSpace\DelegateFolders

in which session is a decimal representation of the current session ID.

Availability

The Printers class is implemented in SHELL32 version 4.00 and higher.