Win32Api

As I wanted to make some programing task with Win32Api and VB.net, I would like to share my experience with others. So I began collecting information on the win32api and how it works.
Short Description :
The Windows API, informally WinAPI, is the name given by Microsoft to the core set of application programming interfaces (APIs) available in the Microsoft Windows operating systems. All Windows programs except console programs must interact with the Windows API regardless of the language.
The functionality provided by the Windows API can be grouped into seven categories:
Base Services
Provide access to the fundamental resources available to a Windows system. Included are things like file systems, devices, processes and threads, access to the Windows registry, and error handling. These functions reside in kernel.exe, krnl286.exe or krnl386.exe files on 16-bit Windows, and kernel32.dll and advapi32.dll on 32-bit Windows.
Graphics Device Interface
Provide the functionality for outputting graphical content to monitors, printers and other output devices. It resides in gdi.exe on 16-bit Windows, and gdi32.dll on 32-bit Windows.
User Interface
Provides the functionality to create and manage screen windows and most basic controls, such as buttons and scrollbars, receive mouse and keyboard input, and other functionality associated with the GUI part of Windows. This functional unit resides in user.exe on 16-bit Windows, and user32.dll on 32-bit Windows. Since Windows XP versions, the basic controls reside in comctl32.dll, together with the common controls (Common Control Library).
Common Dialog Box Library
Provides applications the standard dialog boxes for opening and saving files, choosing color and font, etc. The library resides in a file called commdlg.dll on 16-bit Windows, and comdlg32.dll on 32-bit Windows. It is grouped under the User Interface category of the API.
Common Control Library
Gives applications access to some advanced controls provided by the operating system. These include things like status bars, progress bars, toolbars and tabs. The library resides in a DLL file called commctrl.dll on 16-bit Windows, and comctl32.dll on 32-bit Windows. It is grouped under the User Interface category of the API.
Windows Shell
Component of the Windows API allows applications to access the functionality provided by the operating system shell, as well as change and enhance it. The component resides in shell.dll on 16-bit Windows, and shell32.dll and later in Windows 95 shlwapi.dll on 32-bit Windows. It is grouped under the User Interface category of the API.
Network Services
Give access to the various networking capabilities of the operating system. Its sub-components include NetBIOS, Winsock, NetDDE, RPC and many others.
Web
The Internet Explorer web browser also exposes many APIs that are often used by applications, and as such could be considered a part of the Windows API. Internet Explorer has been an integrated component of the operating system since Windows 98, and provides web related services to applications.[10] The integration has stopped with Windows Vista. Specifically, it used to provide:
An embeddable web browser control, contained in shdocvw.dll and mshtml.dll.
The URL monitor service, held in urlmon.dll, which provides COM objects to applications for resolving URLs. Applications can also provide their own URL handlers for others to use.
A library for assisting with multi-language and international text support (mlang.dll).
DirectX Transforms, a set of image filter components.
XML support (the MSXML components).
Access to the Windows Address Book.
Multimedia
Microsoft has provided the DirectX set of APIs as part of every Windows installation since Windows 95 OSR2. DirectX provides a loosely related set of multimedia and gaming services, including:
Direct3D as an alternative to OpenGL for access to 3D acceleration hardware.
DirectDraw for hardware accelerated access to the 2D framebuffer. As of DirectX 9, this component has been deprecated in favor of Direct3D, which provides more general high-performance graphics functionality (as 2D rendering is a subset of 3D rendering).
DirectSound for low level hardware accelerated sound card access.
DirectInput for communication with input devices such as joysticks and gamepads.
DirectPlay as a multiplayer gaming infrastructure. This component has been deprecated as of DirectX 9 and Microsoft no longer recommends its use for game development.
DirectShow which builds and runs generic multimedia pipelines. It is comparable to the GStreamer framework and is often used to render in-game videos and build media players (Windows Media Player is based upon it). DirectShow is no longer recommended for game development.
DirectMusic
Program interaction
The Windows API mostly concerns itself with the interaction between the operating system and an application. For communication between the different Windows applications among themselves, Microsoft has developed a series of technologies alongside the main Windows API. This started out with Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE), which was superseded by Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) and later by the Component Object Model (COM).

Wrapper libraries
Various wrappers were developed by Microsoft that took over some of the more low level functions of the Windows API, and allowed applications to interact with the API in a more abstract manner. Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC) wrapped Windows API functionality in C++ classes, and thus allows a more object oriented way of interacting with the API. The Active Template Library (ATL) is a template oriented wrapper for COM. The Windows Template Library (WTL) was developed as an extension to ATL, and intended as a lightweight alternative to MFC.
Also notable are some of Borland's offerings. Object Windows Library (OWL) was released as a competing product to MFC, and offered a similar object-oriented wrapper. Borland later deprecated it in favour of the Visual Component Library (VCL).
All application frameworks for Windows are (at least partially) wrapping the Windows API. Thus, the .NET Framework and Java, as well as any other programming languages under Windows, are (or contain) Wrapper Libraries.

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