Name of window manager for Windows

Question

Hello,

i have a simple question,

i search the exact name of the window manager for Windows.

For Unix : X Window System

Mac : Quartz

Windows : ?

Thanks you.

Answer 1

Its called "Windows Explorer"

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_manager

Answer 2

It's got a really original name - It's called the "Desktop Window Manager". You can see they thought long and hard about how to get that one exactly right.

(This obviously had absolutely nothing to do with the Microsoft marketing department, otherwise it would have been called something crazy and unrelated like silverstuff or aero.)

Answer 3

In the sense of the linked article, Windows does not have a discrete window manager. The windowing system is responsible for drawing the windows, and "the shell" - typically explorer - is responsible for displaying a task bar and any icons on the desktop.

The appearance of a window manager however is an emergent property in Microsoft Windows: All windows have a WindowProc that handles messages - and all messages not handled by the application code must get passed to a function called DefWindowProc. DefWindowProc handles the clicks in the non client areas of the windows to perform the tasks typical of window managers - sizing, moving, maximizing and so on.

Because all window's WindowProcs get to choose how to handle messages, they can choose to not implement the typical window manager behaviors by handling the message them self and not calling DefWindowProc.

The taskbar - provided by explorer - provides buttons to manipulate windows but ultimately (a) Its just a regular window itself, and (b) It sends messages to the windows to get them to maximize, minimize, restore etc. themselves, so again, any particular window could choose to not act like the other windows.

DefWindowProc is implemented in user32.dll - so really that is the window manager.

Answer 4

The thing that does the drawing of lines and pixels on the screen has traditionally been GDI (gdi32.dll), or now WDDM (for Win7) - Windows Display Driver Model, which has another layert on top of that, DWM - Desktop Window Manager.

On top of all that, you have Aero and then Windows Explorer that display and manipulates windows.

Oh yes, I nearly forgot about Direct2D which is another rendering layer that fits in there somewhere. I suppose they'll come up with a final technology one day that'll form the basis of graphics and windowing for the next 25 years.