Whirling Dervishes Software, the company founded by Windows API expert Henk Devos, claims to have broken Microsoft's monopoly on applications that reside in Windows Explorer. Microsoft allegedly opened up Windows APIs last year, and Devos had some pithy comments on the subject. Now, Devos claims that Microsoft's disclosures remain sufficiently inaccurate and incomplete for developers to continue using his own documentation.

His 'monopoly-breaking' software is the latest version of NSELib, the Namespace Extension Library. Namspace extensions are virtual folders within Windows Explorer, and are used for example in Control Panel, the Internet Explorer FTP client and the Compressed Folders application.

Devos claims that Whirling Dervishes has discovered hidden Windows interfaces that are crucial for the development of such applications, but whose existence is denied by Microsoft. Not much change there then, post-lawsuit. These and other interfaces which Devos says should have been part of the API disclosures are used in NSELib, and he proposes to make public full documentation on how to use them. More info at Whirling Dervishes Software. ®