• Fact: Shell scripting is a must for any serious IT admin managing a server. From automating backups to checking logs and keeping server performance and load in check, scripting is a must.
• Fact: Shell scripting on Windows sucks. Monad (Microsoft Power Shell) attempts to fix that, but so far the results are mixed.
• Fact: Shell scripting on Linux and other *nix operating systems is powerful, well-documented, and quite straight-forward.

Most people take a look at these three facts, and instantly come to a conclusion.. the wrong conclusion: you can’t properly manage a Windows server because it’s inherently lacking in the shell scripting department.

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Mono is the open-source version of Microsoft’s .NET Framework. It implements most of the backend framework features, but unfortunately, falls flat on its pretty little face when attempting to display the user interface - which is what desktop apps are all about.

Wine on the other-hand, is a Linux port of (major parts of) Microsoft’s Win32 library - the core dependencies of the Windows development libraries, and more importantly, the win32 interface elements. With Wine, you can run many traditional C++ win32 executables on Linux, with certain limitations.

Mono’s biggest stumbling block is the GUI and .NET programs that use P/Invoke to call native non-managed win32 dlls - Mono is a pure .NET environment, and can’t handle them. But from the description above, that’s exactly what WINE excel at… So can’t we use WINE + Mono to make just about any .NET program run on Linux fresh out of the .NET compiler?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Back when the Mono project was first starting out, the Mono development team considered using WINE to implement the System.Windows.Forms namespace of the .NET Framework (which is practically 100% native C++ unmanaged win32 code in .NET wrappers). But they made the right choice in deciding to not take the easy way and go that route, leaving the integrity of the Mono project intact and focusing on true cross-platform user interface libraries instead (the GTK# is now the UI Library of choice for cross-platform .NET applications).

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Overview

In my earlier post, I showed how to create a Shell Namespace Extension using the default IShellView implementation (also known as DefView).  One thing you might have noticed from the sample is that the Commands Module is void of even the default items such as “Organize” and “Views”. 

If you are developing your own Namespace and want to include the default buttons and/or add your own elements to the Commands Module as well, how do you accomplish this?  The answer:   you must implement the IExplorerCommand, IExplorerCommandProvider and IEnumExplorerCommand interfaces.

Below I describe what each of the interfaces is used for and what you need to do to properly implement them in your code.

IExplorerCommandProvider

After your Namespace is loaded, the Shell will ask your Namespace for an instance of an IExplorerCommandProvider.  This interface exposes two methods:  GetCommand and GetCommands.  The Shell calls the GetCommand method to retrieve a specific IExplorerCommand object that matches the supplied GUID (Each command is identified by a GUID).  The

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