FindExecutable API call fails for ACCDB file extensions
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From: Tony Toews [MVP] on 13 Sep 2009 01:50 Folks The API call "FindExecutable: Find Exe Associated with a Registered Extension" http://vbnet.mvps.org/index.html?code/system/findexecutable.htm fails on a file with the ACCDB extension. The API call does work fine with the MDB extension. Clicking on an ACCDB file in Windows Explorer does work. This is a on a new, fresh Win XP/Access 2007 install with nothing else on the system and no uninstalls, etc. This behavior puzzles me greatly. Tony -- Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/ Granite Fleet Manager http://www.granitefleet.com/
From: mayayana on 13 Sep 2009 09:36 > > The API call "FindExecutable: Find Exe Associated with a Registered > Extension" > http://vbnet.mvps.org/index.html?code/system/findexecutable.htm fails > on a file with the ACCDB extension. The API call does work fine with > the MDB extension. Clicking on an ACCDB file in Windows Explorer > does work. Interesting. A look under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT should tell something. I wonder if it has to do with the 5-character extension. It's always been the MS standard to use 3. It seems odd that they've broken with that. Maybe FindExecutable is limited to 3 characters and either finds no match or finds two (if there's a .acc key)?
From: Mike Williams on 13 Sep 2009 12:47 "mayayana" <mayaXXyana(a)rcXXn.com> wrote in message news:eSxNCcHNKHA.1236(a)TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl... >> [Tony Toews said] The API call FindExecutable fails on >> a file with the ACCDB extension. The API call does work >> fine with the MDB extension. Clicking on an ACCDB file >> in Windows Explorer does work. > > [Mayayana said] Interesting. A look under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT > should tell something. I wonder if it has to do with the > 5-character extension. It's always been the MS standard to use 3. > It seems odd that they've broken with that. They can't have done, because long file extensions have been permitted for a long time now and they use four or more characters a lot themselves these days in their own extensions (docx, pptx, etc). > Maybe FindExecutable is limited to 3 characters and either > finds no match or finds two (if there's a .acc key)? Actually I've just been trying a dozen or so different extensions (including the OP's .accdb extension) by registering them with Windows in the normal way so that they open by default with a specific program and all of them work fine as far as Windows Explorer is concerned. However, the FindExecutable function seems to have trouble with many of them. For example, the following registered extensions produced the following result when using the FindExecutable function: .accdb FAILED .abcde FAILED .bcdef FAILED .pqrst SUCCEEDED There were all sorts of strange anomilies where certain file extensions were found by FindExecutable and other file extensions were not, with (up to now) no apparent ryhme or reason behind it. For example neither abcde nor pqrst had any other extension registered with similar preceeding characters on my machine, and in both cases the registry entry in HKCU after manually registering them appeared identical, and yet one failed with FindExecutable whereas the other succeeded. In all cases the file extension was found properly by Windows Explorer and the file opened with the registered default program when double clicked. Unless I've missed something obvious I think this needs a little more investigation. Mike
From: Nobody on 13 Sep 2009 14:39 "Mike Williams" <Mike(a)WhiskyAndCoke.com> wrote in message news:eshjXHJNKHA.504(a)TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl... > > .accdb FAILED > .abcde FAILED > .bcdef FAILED > .pqrst SUCCEEDED I tested ".accdb" on Windows 98 and XP Pro. In Windows 98, it succeeded, in XP Pro, it failed. I tried to restart XP just in case there is some caching going on, but got the same result. I used all lower case letters, but I tried renaming the file with all upper case, and using upper case in the call, with the same failed result, so it's not a case issue. I guess we need to upgrade to Windows 98. Here is my code: Option Explicit Private Const MAX_PATH = 260 Private Const SE_ERR_NOASSOC = 31 Private Const SE_ERR_FNF = 2 ' file not found Private Const SE_ERR_PNF = 3 ' path not found Private Const SE_ERR_OOM = 8 ' out of memory Private Declare Function FindExecutable Lib "shell32.dll" Alias _ "FindExecutableA" (ByVal lpFile As String, ByVal lpDirectory As String, _ ByVal lpResult As String) As Long Private Sub Form_Click() Dim ret As Long Dim sResult As String sResult = String(100, 0) ret = FindExecutable("C:\x.accdb", vbNullString, sResult) Print "FindExecutable returned " & ret & ", LastDllError: " & _ Err.LastDllError sResult = TrimNull(sResult) Print "sResult: '" & sResult & "'" End Sub Private Function TrimNull(s As String) As String Dim pos As Long pos = InStr(s, Chr(0)) If pos <> 0 Then TrimNull = Trim(Left(s, pos - 1)) Else TrimNull = Trim(s) End If End Function
From: Tony Toews [MVP] on 13 Sep 2009 15:30
"Mike Williams" <Mike(a)WhiskyAndCoke.com> wrote: >Actually I've just been trying a dozen or so different extensions (including >the OP's .accdb extension) by registering them with Windows in the normal >way so that they open by default with a specific program and all of them >work fine as far as Windows Explorer is concerned. However, the >FindExecutable function seems to have trouble with many of them. Thanks for testing this. Glad it's not just me. <smile> Tony -- Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/ Granite Fleet Manager http://www.granitefleet.com/ |