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January 8, 2000

Open the default program for sending email messages

The ShellExecute API function recognizes email addresses if they are prefixed by the “mailto:” prefix, and correctly run the default program for sending email messages (e.g. Outlook). This lets you

Launch the default browser on a given URL

The following routine launches the default browser and loads the specified URL in it. The argument doesn’t have to include the HTTP:// prefix. If the operation is successful it returns

Get the list of ODBC drivers

The ODBCTOOL.DLL library contains three functions that make it easier to manage DSNs. To run the following code you must add a reference to the “ODBC Driver & Data Source

Get the list of ODBC DSNs

The ODBCTOOL.DLL library contains three functions that make it easier to manage DSNs. To run the following code you must add a reference to the “ODBC Driver & Data Source

Change the ShowInTaskbar property at runtime

The ShowInTaskbar property lets you decide whether a form is visible in Windows taskbar or not. However, this property is read-only at runtime, so it seems that you can’t change

Open Windows’s Start menu

By simulating the pressing of the “Windows” menu – or better yet, of the Ctrl-Escape key combination, which also works on older keyboards – you can programmatically bring up the

To Virtual Or Not To Virtual?

You’re probably aware of the overhead that is associated with calling a virtual member function. However, the performance penalty in this case might even be higher than you think because