OpenFileMappingW function (memoryapi.h)

Article
07/27/2022

Opens a named file mapping object.

Syntax

HANDLE OpenFileMappingW(
  [in] DWORD   dwDesiredAccess,
  [in] BOOL    bInheritHandle,
  [in] LPCWSTR lpName
);

Parameters

[in] dwDesiredAccess

The access to the file mapping object. This access is checked against any security descriptor on the target file mapping object. For a list of values, see File Mapping Security and Access Rights.

[in] bInheritHandle

If this parameter is TRUE, a process created by the CreateProcess function can inherit the handle; otherwise, the handle cannot be inherited.

[in] lpName

The name of the file mapping object to be opened. If there is an open handle to a file mapping object by this name and the security descriptor on the mapping object does not conflict with the dwDesiredAccess parameter, the open operation succeeds. The name can have a "Global" or "Local" prefix to explicitly open an object in the global or session namespace. The remainder of the name can contain any character except the backslash character (\). For more information, see Kernel Object Namespaces. Fast user switching is implemented using Terminal Services sessions. The first user to log on uses session 0, the next user to log on uses session 1, and so on. Kernel object names must follow the guidelines outlined for Terminal Services so that applications can support multiple users.

Return value

If the function succeeds, the return value is an open handle to the specified file mapping object.

If the function fails, the return value is NULL. To get extended error information, call GetLastError.

Remarks

The handle that OpenFileMapping returns can be used with any function that requires a handle to a file mapping object.

When modifying a file through a mapped view, the last modification timestamp may not be updated automatically. If required, the caller should use SetFileTime to set the timestamp.

When it is no longer needed, the caller should release the handle returned by OpenFileMapping with a call to CloseHandle.

In Windows Server 2012, this function is supported by the following technologies.

Technology	Supported
Server Message Block (SMB) 3.0 protocol	Yes
SMB 3.0 Transparent Failover (TFO)	Yes
SMB 3.0 with Scale-out File Shares (SO)	Yes
Cluster Shared Volume File System (CsvFS)	Yes
Resilient File System (ReFS)	Yes

Examples

For an example, see Creating Named Shared Memory.

Requirements

Requirement	Value
Minimum supported client	Windows XP [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server	Windows Server 2003 [desktop apps only]
Target Platform	Windows
Header	memoryapi.h (include Windows.h, Memoryapi.h)
Library	onecore.lib
DLL	Kernel32.dll

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