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mlagrangeFlag for United States of America

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Open Windows Explorer with wildcard filter?

Hello, a while back, I got help with opening Windows Explorer (in Windows XP) from Access (2003):

    strFldr = "C:\MyFolder"
    strCmd = "explorer.exe /e, " & strFldr
    dblTaskIDWeTempFldr = Shell(strCmd, vbNormalFocus)

Is there a way to add a wildcard filter expression to that? I have trial'd & error'd my way through the examples below, shown on this page:

"Explorer.exe Command-Line Options for Windows XP"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314853

...but no luck. I need to open up Windows Explorer on a particular folder that contains many, many, many, thousands of pdf's, filtered to the ones they just produced in a related process. (WE, so they can double-click on any one of them to open and inspect it)

Thanks

Option            Function
   ----------------------------------------------------------------------   
   /n                Opens a new single-pane window for the default
                     selection. This is usually the root of the drive that
                     Windows is installed on. If the window is already
                     open, a duplicate opens.
 
   /e                Opens Windows Explorer in its default view.
 
   /root,<object>    Opens a window view of the specified object.
 
   /select,<object>  Opens a window view with the specified folder, file,
                     or program selected.
 
   Examples
   -----------------------------------------------------------------------
   Example 1: Explorer /select,C:\TestDir\TestProg.exe
              Opens a window view with TestProg selected.
 
   Example 2: Explorer /e,/root,C:\TestDir\TestProg.exe
              Opens Explorer with drive C expanded and TestProg selected.
 
   Example 3: Explorer /root,\\TestSvr\TestShare
              Opens a window view of the specified share.
 
   Example 4: Explorer /root,\\TestSvr\TestShare,select,TestProg.exe
              Opens a window view of the specified share with TestProg selected.

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Avatar of Scott McDaniel (EE MVE )
Scott McDaniel (EE MVE )
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Avatar of thenelson
thenelson

>I need to open up Windows Explorer on a particular folder that contains many, many, many, thousands of pdf's, filtered to the ones they just produced in a related process. (WE, so they can double-click on any one of them to open and inspect it)<

I would suggest using the Open Save dialog for that. You can apply a filter to display the files you want. The Open Save dialog will return the selected path/filename which you can open with the shell command or they could be opened in a window in your db.

Take a look at http://www.mvps.org/access/api/api0001.htm.
Note: Just copy and paste code after
'***************** Code Start **************
to its own module.
The code above
'***************** Code Start **************
is an example on how to call the Open Save dialog.
The Function TestIt() in the link shows another example for calling the Open Save dialog.
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ASKER

Thanks, but the users will need the functionality of WE, rather than the Open/Save dialog.
The goal here is to show them all the pdf's that were just created in a mail merge process, and let them spot check various ones to confirm the mail merge worked ok.

The FileOpen dialog closes after selecting a single file, and they would have to keep opening it back up.

I have found sample code for the FileSearch object model (by Ken Getz, in the 2002 Developers Handbook).  Just as it is, it would display the files names in a list box, and I could Shell() on the double-click.

It would be so much easier to just open WE to a particular directory, with a wildcard filter in effect. I would have thought somebody would have worked up an API for the Windows Search Companion, but I have Google'd far & wide, and don't see anything like that...

 
Ah, forgot about that. It is very easy to load a listbox with filenames in a folder using the Dir Function.