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C++ Builder 6

I am mostly a Java programmer with very limited experience in C++,
so please bear with me.

I have been investigating how to add Custom Properties to a Windows
file in order to display them and perform sortings based on them,
when the user selects "View Detail" in the so-called Windows Explorer
(according to most Microsoft documention, the environment I am
interested in customizing is actually called "the Windows Shell").

It seems that I will have to implement a "shell extension" and
more specifically, I will have to register a "column handler".

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/shellcc/platform/shell/programmersguide/shell_int/shell_int_extending/extensionhandlers/columnproviderhandlers.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwui/html/shellcolhand.asp

Could you folks provide further pointers and advice?

I have never written a .DLL, is it hard?
Will I really have to learn a lot of OLE and/or COM to
write my shell-extension program?


Thanks for any assistance,

-Ramon F Herrera