DOC: Context Menu Help Text Not Displayed on Windows NT 4.0 or Later (214625)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Platform Software Development Kit (SDK) 1.0, when used with:
    • Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0
    • Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0
    • the operating system: Microsoft Windows 2000
This article was previously published under Q214625

SUMMARY

A context menu extension can return a help text associated with a menu item when the Shell calls IContextMenu::GetCommandString (or IContextMenu2::GetCommandString) with the GCS_HELPTEXT flag. This string is displayed in the status bar of the Explorer window.

MORE INFORMATION

On Windows NT 4.0 or later, the command string returned by the implementation of IContextMenu::GetCommandString may not be displayed in the status bar of Explorer when an ANSI string is returned.

The reason for this behavior is that the implementation of IContextMenu::GetCommandString should return a wide character string on Windows NT/Windows 2000 and an ANSI string on Win95/98. For this purpose, it is advisable to handle both the GCS_HELPTEXTA and GCS_HELPTEXTW flags.
Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:7/11/2005
Keywords:kbContMenu kbdocfix kbinfo KB214625
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