I'm Looking For A Control . . .

[Guest]

.. . . that allows me to drag and drop shortcuts on to a form. It should be
able to launch the application when the icon is double-clicked. Is there
such a control in Visual Studio 2005? Are there any third-party controls
that have this functionality?

 

[Dick Grier]

Hi,

You do not need a control. All you need is code like this:

System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("C:\file2run") 'use the actual path

Naturally, you could attach this code to the click event for an image or
command button (for example).

Dick

--
Richard Grier, MVP
Hard & Software
Author of Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to Serial Communications, Fourth
Edition,
ISBN 1-890422-28-2 (391 pages, includes CD-ROM). July 2004, Revised March
2006.
See www.hardandsoftware.net for details and contact information.

 

[Guest]

Thank you for the response. On your suggestion, I've tried out the "Start"
method. It looks like this is used to directly run applications or run a
document with a "File Type" association.

I was really hoping to be able to directly run a shortcut. For example, I
might want to create a shortcut to "System" on "Control Panel" or a printer
and then start that shortcut. When I tried the "Start" method out on a
shortcut it said "No application is associated with the specified file for
this operation".

Is there a similar method that works on shortcuts? Is it possible to pull
the "Target" and icon information out of a shortcut and then use "Start" to
run it? Will this also work with special shortcuts like system objects
(printers and network connections, etc.) or just documents and programs?

 

[Guest]

I think I’m getting closer to finding what I need, but I’m not there yet.

I found this article on Shell Links:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa969393.aspx. Basically, it says
that what I’m trying to do is “resolve†the shell link.

Searching on “resolve shell link†led me
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms630340.aspx which contains a
Visual Basic example of the resolution process. It looks like it was written
for VB 5.0 so I’ve tried to update it to a .Net version. This is what I came
up with.

Imports Shell32
Imports Shell32.ShellSpecialFolderConstants

Module Module1

Public Sub Main()

ResolveShellLink("C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\" & _
"Start Menu\Programs\Accessories", _
"Calculator.lnk")
ResolveShellLink ("C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop", _
"System.lnk")

End Sub


Private Function ResolveShellLink(PathName As String, _
ShortcutName As String) As Boolean

Dim objShell As Shell = New Shell()
If objShell Is Nothing Then Return False

Dim objFolder As Folder = objShell.NameSpace(PathName)
If objFolder Is Nothing Then Return False

Dim objFolderItem As FolderItem = objFolder.ParseName(ShortcutName)
If objFolderItem Is Nothing Then Return False

Dim objShellLink As ShellLinkObject = _
CType(objFolderItem.GetLink(), ShellLinkObject)
If objShellLink Is Nothing Then Return False

objShellLink.Resolve(1)

Return True

End Function

End Module

After adding a reference to COM module “Microsoft Shell Controls And
Automation†I was able to compile and run this code without any errors.
Unfortunately, it didn’t run “Calculator†or the shortcut to “System†that I
had placed on my desktop. What needs to be done to get this to run the
applications in the shortcuts?