by VB FAQ (6 Submissions)
Category: Files/File Controls/Input/Output
Compatability: Visual Basic 3.0
Difficulty: Unknown Difficulty
Date Added: Wed 3rd February 2021
Rating: 
(9 Votes)
How do I launch a file in its associated program?
The Shell statement unfortunately only supports launching an EXE file directly. If you want to be able to launch, i.e. Microsoft Word by calling a .DOC file only, you can make your VB application launch the associated program with the document using the following method:
API Declarations
#IF WIN32 THEN
Private Declare Function ShellExecute Lib "shell32.dll" Alias "ShellExecuteA" _
(ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal lpOperation As String, ByVal lpFile As String, _
ByVal lpParameters As String, ByVal lpDirectory As String, ByVal nShowCmd _
As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GetDesktopWindow Lib "user32" () As Long
#ELSE
Declare Function ShellExecute Lib "SHELL" (ByVal hwnd%, _
ByVal lpszOp$, ByVal lpszFile$, ByVal lpszParams$, _
ByVal lpszDir$, ByVal fsShowCmd%) As Integer
Declare Function GetDesktopWindow Lib "USER" () As Integer
#END IF
Private Const SW_SHOWNORMAL = 1
VBcodersFunction StartDoc(DocName As String) As Long
Dim Scr_hDC As Long
Scr_hDC = GetDesktopWindow()
StartDoc = ShellExecute(Scr_hDC, "Open", DocName, "", "C:\", SW_SHOWNORMAL)
End Function
Private Sub Form_Click()
Dim r As Long
r = StartDoc("c:\my documents\word\myletter.doc")
Debug.Print "Return code from Startdoc: "; r
End Sub