HOWTO: Call SHFormatDrive in Windows 95 and Windows NT
ID: Q173688
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The information in this article applies to:
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Microsoft Win32 Application Programming Interface (API)
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Microsoft Windows 2000
SUMMARY
Although most Win32 applications do not need to be able to format disks,
some do. Windows 95 and Windows NT provide an API function called
SHFormatDrive, which presents the same dialog box as the Windows 95 and
Windows NT shells, formats the specified diskette. This article describes
how to call SHFormatDrive.
MORE INFORMATION
Currently, SHFormatDrive is not in the Platform SDK documentation or
SHELLAPI.H. However, it is in SHELL32.LIB. Until the documentation and
SHELLAPI.H are updated, use the following declarations and function
description:
#if !defined(SHFMT_OPT_FULL)
#if defined (__cplusplus)
extern "C" {
#endif
/*****************************************************************
The SHFormatDrive API provides access to the Shell's format
dialog box. This allows applications that want to format disks to bring
up the same dialog box that the Shell uses for disk formatting.
PARAMETERS
hwnd = The window handle of the window that will own the
dialog. NOTE that hwnd == NULL does not cause this
dialog to come up as a "top level application"
window. This parameter should always be non-null,
this dialog box is only designed to be the child of
another window, not a stand-alone application.
drive = The 0 based (A: == 0) drive number of the drive
to format.
fmtID = Currently must be set to SHFMT_ID_DEFAULT.
options = There are currently only two option bits defined.
SHFMT_OPT_FULL
SHFMT_OPT_SYSONLY
SHFMT_OPT_FULL specifies that the "Quick Format"
setting should be cleared by default. If the user
leaves the "Quick Format" setting cleared, then a
full format will be applied (this is useful for
users that detect "unformatted" disks and want
to bring up the format dialog box).
If options is set to zero (0), then the "Quick Format"
setting is set by default. In addition, if the user leaves
it set, a quick format is performed. Under Windows NT 4.0,
this flag is ignored and the "Quick Format" box is always
checked when the dialog box first appears. The user can
still change it. This is by design.
The SHFMT_OPT_SYSONLY initializes the dialog to
default to just sys the disk.
All other bits are reserved for future expansion
and must be 0.
Please note that this is a bit field and not a
value, treat it accordingly.
RETURN
The return is either one of the SHFMT_* values, or if
the returned DWORD value is not == to one of these
values, then the return is the physical format ID of the
last successful format. The LOWORD of this value can be
passed on subsequent calls as the fmtID parameter to
"format the same type you did last time".
*****************************************************************/
DWORD WINAPI SHFormatDrive(HWND hwnd,
UINT drive,
UINT fmtID,
UINT options);
//
// Special value of fmtID which means "use the defaultformat"
//
#define SHFMT_ID_DEFAULT 0xFFFF
//
// Option bits for options parameter
//
#define SHFMT_OPT_FULL 0x0001
#define SHFMT_OPT_SYSONLY 0x0002
//
// Special return values. PLEASE NOTE that these are DWORD values.
//
#define SHFMT_ERROR 0xFFFFFFFFL // Error on last format,
// drive may be formatable
#define SHFMT_CANCEL 0xFFFFFFFEL // Last format wascanceled
#define SHFMT_NOFORMAT 0xFFFFFFFDL // Drive is not formatable
#if defined (__cplusplus)
}
#endif
#endif
Here is an example call to SHFormatDrive that will format a diskette in
drive "A:".
SHFormatDrive (hMainWnd, 0 /* A: */, SHFMT_ID_DEFAULT, 0);
Normally, if a diskette is not in the drive when SHFormatDrive is called,
the system displays a critical error dialog box that asks the user to
Abort, Retry, or Ignore. You can prevent the system from displaying this
dialog box by calling the SetErrorMode API with SEM_FAILCRITICALERRORS. If
the application has already set this flag, the critical error dialog box
will not appear. If you want this dialog box to appear, use the following
code:
UINT OldMode = SetErrorMode(0); // Get the current Error Mode settings.
SetErrorMode(OldMode & !SEM_FAILCRITICALERRORS); // Force O/S to handle
//critical errors.
// Call SHFormatDrive here.
SetErrorMode(OldMode); // Put it back the way it was.
Additional query words:
format disk diskette initialize create critical error
Keywords : kbAPI kbFileIO kbKernBase kbLib kbNTOS400 kbWinOS2000 kbGrpUser kbWinOS95 kbWinOS98 kbshell kbGrpShell
Version : WINDOWS:; winnt:
Platform : WINDOWS winnt
Issue type : kbhowto