WMI wizardry

So it turns out that there's an easier way to get to most of the Windows shell functionality, through the Windows scripting interface and -- even better -- WMI, the "Windows Management Interface" which is a huge, sprawling attempt to put all the administrative stuff in Windows into one scriptable place. There's a truly inspired Python wrapper from Tim Golden which provides wonderful introspection and scripting, and Microsoft also has an entertaining column on general scripting and WMI at Hey, Scripting Guy!

I've asked the Scripting Guys about how to move icons. I still think it ain't possible, although the quest has reminded me of a lot of Windows API stuff and also brought home to me how many (half-assed implementations of) nice mechanisms have arisen in the fifteen years since last I tried all this.

I almost have the PyPop GUI interpreter up and running for you. It's up and running but I want to add one more feature (the ability to register file extensions) before I release v1.0. Might happen today.