Visual Basic Classic
Visual Basic Classic

Open an application within VB

I need to add two buttons to a VB app. These buttons need to open Internet Explorer and Adobe Acrobat. I would like to know is there any way to open their .exe's without giving the total, specific path? I've gotten it to work with the shell command but I need to hard code the entire path to the exe. This is not acceptable in the application since clients could have these particular executables in several locations, depending on the version. Can anyone help?

danettehAsked: 2000-03-30

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caraf_gCommented: 2000-03-30

Yes, it's possible.

I don't know about Adobe Acrobat, but the principle is the same as for Internet Explorer.

For internet explorer, do the following

1 - in the registry, find key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.html
In there you'll find a (default) value. This will contain a value, typically: htmlfile

Use this value to find the next key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\htmlfile

Take the sub key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\htmlfile\shell\open\command
The (Default) value in there contains the command that is used, and hence the full path. In my case, for example:

"C:\PROGRA~1\Plus!\MICROS~1\iexplore.exe" -nohome

Et voilá

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tkuppinenCommented: 2000-03-30

Have you tried the shellExecute API? This function will open specific files with their default program. So if you pass a .pdf file to this function it will open acrobat and the file associated file, so all you would need is the path to the file. If you pass a url to this same function it will open the site using the default browser.

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caraf_gCommented: 2000-03-30

Check out also the following sample program:

http://homepage.eircom.net/~carafa/VBSamples/VBAll/shellexecute.zip

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caraf_gCommented: 2000-03-30

Ah, I think I know... Adobe Acrobat opens .pdf files, right?

So find
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.pdf
instead of
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.html

And continue in a similar fashion to .html

etcetera...