Replace Open/Save dialog

Question

Is it possible to make an own save/open dialog (through windows app development) and hook it in to replace the normal save/open dialog?

I'm pretty sure it's not possible through the normal UI/Win10 settings, but what about registry changes and/or replacing a DLL?

Note that I'm talking about completely replacing it - not just changing or adding icons.

I'd to make something similar to the image below. I understand this is not the best for everyone, but for me it will save a lot of clicking per day.

Answer 1

That's not possible unless you do some pretty heavy hacking. To open these dialogs you make calls to the WinApi. Somehow you would need to replace WinApi components to be able to do it with all the issues that this action could rise.

So summarizing I would say that this is not possible if you want to do it in a reliable manner.

Answer 2

I've done custom "file save as" dialogs through DLL function hooking in Windows 7. If you google search apihijack_src.zip it contains a good C++ demo for function hooking with MS Visual Studio.

Usually you just need to intercept these function calls and create your own dialog box that returns the appropriate data. Unless the target application is disabling DLL function hooking.

• COMDLG32.GetOpenFileNameW
• COMDLG32.GetSaveFileNameW

The previous replies are true, though. Changing COMDLG32.DLL to include your custom GetSaveFileName might be difficult.