How to update windows explorer's shell extension without rebooting

Question

There is a windows explorer extension dll.
This dll can be update automatically if there is new one in our server.

I rename the origin dll and download the new dll. But Windows Explorer never reload a new one.

So I kill the windows explorer and relaunch.
But this is looked very ugly. And I don't want to recommend a user should reboot.

How can I tell Windows Explorer to reload a new one?

Answer 1

DLLs are loaded by the program loader, so only at process boot time.
You can make a program that explicitely opens and uses a DLL, and add a command that will close it, reopen it, rebind everything. But you need support of the program for that, so you would need Explorer to support it, or to change its code.

So, with 99% certitude, you can't do what you want without restarting windows explorer. At all.

Answer 2

For those still looking for a quicker way, you can try and close all explorer.exe processes and restart one afterwards. This also updates all shell integrated dll's