ShelExec v1.02

ShelExec v1.02

Welcome to ShelExec v1.01, A very simple utility to allow you to call the ShellExecute API from the command line.

Contents

History

HISTORY:

V1.01 (16 July 1999)

V1.02 (9 April 2000)

Fixed a bug where the verb "Open" was always used.
Program now understands a /Verb:Value command line which allows the verb to be specified as used in the ShellExecute call. Not specifying a verb will use the default value for the file as setup in the registry.
Program now understands a /ShowCmd:Value command line which allows the "nShowCmd" value to be specified as used in the ShellExecute call. Not specifying a value will use the value SW_SHOW.
Code now uses MFC internally.
Code now supports UNICODE and build configurations are provided

INSTALLATION REQUIREMENTS:

The program is for Win32 only and has no external requirements on dlls other than the ones shipped as standard with any Win32 platform.

USAGE:

Places where you might find ShelExec useful are in adding an Autorun.inf file to your CD-R / CD-RW Discs. For example suppose you have a HTML page called index.htm on the root of your CD which you would like to run automatically whenever the user inserts the CD. All you need to do is put ShelExec.exe, some ico file and the index.htm files into the root directory and create a autorun.inf file with the following contents:

[autorun]
open=ShelExec.exe index.html
icon=youricon.ico

Items that ShelExec can handle include any file which is registered with the shell e.g. Word .Doc files, Text Files, batch files etc etc. It can also handle URLS such as "http://somesite.com", "ftp://www.microsoft.com" and "mailto:pjna@naughter.com".
The more technically minded of you may say why is there a need to have this program since you can use "start filename" on autorun CD's without any apparent problems. The problem with this approach is that it does not work on NT because on NT "start" is implemented as an "Internal" command in cmd.exe (as opposed to a standard exe on 95/98) with the upshot that your CD's will not AutoRun on NT 4 or Windows 2000. Using ShelExec will mean that your CD's will autorun on all OS's which support it.

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