Name of window manager for Windows

Question

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

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.