Getting CLSID for a DLL file?

windows com dll clsid
user202987 picture user202987 · Feb 17, 2010 · Viewed 7.9k times · Source

I want to create a small app to add and remove user defined context menu entries from the registry. To make this, somehow I need to get the CLSID of an arbitrary DLL so I can back up previous entries if they exist before writing new ones.

Although regsrv32 somehow manages to create this magical number, I didn't find any way to get that number myself.

I hope there is something better than this:

  1. scanning registry for the DLL name
  2. if not found, register it, scan again, and then unregister it again

If the DLL has been renamed, I can see a possibility for problems.

Answer

Trevor Tippins picture Trevor Tippins · Feb 17, 2010

You could consider calling LoadTypeLibEx on the DLL specifying REGKIND_NONE and then examine get the TypeLibInfo information available via the ITypeLib interface passed back to you.

There's some information about this sort of thing on MSDN. It's an old VB6-focused link but has useful information about inspecting COM components in this way.

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