win32 VS windows-installer

Yeah, I feel you... docs should be more specific because in v1.1 you only get an ErrorLevel of 1 which means "Yo! There's an error" and that's it. At least in v2, it raises an ERROR_INVALID_HANDLE which at least is in the ballpark.

OK, but how? Does this still apply? is it the same? Oh wait, that doesn't detail how IExplorerCommand is registered. is it just part of the ShellEx key like IContextMenu? Microsoft docs used to be actually good for this, if anything you'd get too many technical details. The documentation for this new way they want everybody to use is seemingly non-existent.

The documentation source is available (e.g. https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/win32) but I can't figure out how to build it. There's hints of docfx being used but I can't get it to build without errors due to the markdown being too deeply nested.

This seems to be a good discussion of mouse messages.

2147500036 from dec to hex is 80004004. When I look at the extended reason code info from https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/win32/blob/docs/desktop-src/TermServ/extendeddisconnectreasoncode.md

A very old, segmented "hive" of numeric and string settings that allow tweaking of Windows internals, services, Group Policy, and any programs that choose to use it for key-value storage. It's also where the system remembers which configuration options are per-user or per-device, and where apps are installed if they are installed at all. If you run "portable" apps (bare binaries, or archives of programs distributed with some included DLLs that simply sit in the same folder and don't need admin to execute) they may never touch the registry, and opt instead to use Linux-like config files in . or in special folders like %APPDATA%. Registry entries have ACLs, and you can get at the registry entries almost like they are files in folders using Win32 APIs, but they aren't necessary unless you're already in the ecosystem (Windows administration or Microsoft-specific development) that uses such things. If you really need an installable program but no other function of the registry, there are installer-builders (e.g. https://github.com/electron/windows-installer) that do this sort of thing for you without any expert knowledge of Win32 paradigms or registry structures.