Using Explorer's File Copy Dialog Box

Ever wanted to use the dialog box that appears when you do file operations in Explorer? Well, it is not that hard to work, and can be used to provide some very neat little features for your application. One little warning before we go too much further: you can easily use this function to delete entire directories without any confirmation; I recommend that you create some temporary directories that you can play about with, rather than destroying any useful directories.

All the dialog boxes are based around one function, SHFileOperation. It is very easy to use, and only has one parameter, a SHFILEOPSTRUCT user-defined type. Here are the declarations that you will need:

Public Declare Function SHFileOperation Lib _
"shell32.dll" Alias "SHFileOperationA" _
(lpFileOp As Any) As LongPublic Declare Sub _
    SHFreeNameMappings Lib _
"shell32.dll" (ByVal hNameMappings As Long)

Public Declare Sub CopyMemory Lib "KERNEL32" _
Alias "RtlMoveMemory" (hpvDest As Any, hpvSource _
As Any, ByVal cbCopy As Long)Public Type SHFILEOPSTRUCT
hwnd As Long
wFunc As FO_Functions
pFrom As String
pTo As String
fFlags As FOF_Flags
fAnyOperationsAborted As Long
hNameMappings As Long
lpszProgressTitle As String 'only used if FOF_SIMPLEPROGRESS
End Type

Public Enum FO_Functions
FO_MOVE = &H1
FO_COPY = &H2
FO_DELETE = &H3
FO_RENAME = &H4
End Enum

Public Enum FOF_Flags
FOF_MULTIDESTFILES = &H1
FOF_CONFIRMMOUSE = &H2
FOF_SILENT = &H4
FOF_RENAMEONCOLLISION = &H8
FOF_NOCONFIRMATION = &H10
FOF_WANTMAPPINGHANDLE = &H20
FOF_ALLOWUNDO = &H40
FOF_FILESONLY = &H80
FOF_SIMPLEPROGRESS = &H100
FOF_NOCONFIRMMKDIR = &H200
FOF_NOERRORUI = &H400
FOF_NOCOPYSECURITYATTRIBS = &H800
FOF_NORECURSION = &H1000
FOF_NO_CONNECTED_ELEMENTS = &H2000
FOF_WANTNUKEWARNING = &H4000
End Enum

Public Type SHNAMEMAPPING
pszOldPath As String
pszNewPath As String
cchOldPath As Long
cchNewPath As Long
End Type

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This article was originally published on November 20, 2002