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FindExecutableW function (shellapi.h)

  • Article

Retrieves the name of and handle to the executable (.exe) file associated with a specific document file.

Syntax

HINSTANCE FindExecutableW(
  [in]           LPCWSTR lpFile,
  [in, optional] LPCWSTR lpDirectory,
  [out]          LPWSTR  lpResult
);

Parameters

[in] lpFile

Type: LPCTSTR

The address of a null-terminated string that specifies a file name. This file should be a document.

[in, optional] lpDirectory

Type: LPCTSTR

The address of a null-terminated string that specifies the default directory. This value can be NULL.

[out] lpResult

Type: LPTSTR

The address of a buffer that receives the file name of the associated executable file. This file name is a null-terminated string that specifies the executable file started when an "open" by association is run on the file specified in the lpFile parameter. Put simply, this is the application that is launched when the document file is directly double-clicked or when Open is chosen from the file's shortcut menu. This parameter must contain a valid non-null value and is assumed to be of length MAX_PATH. Responsibility for validating the value is left to the programmer.

Return value

Type: HINSTANCE

Returns a value greater than 32 if successful, or a value less than or equal to 32 representing an error.

The following table lists possible error values.

Return code/value Description
SE_ERR_FNF
2
 The specified file was not found.
SE_ERR_PNF
3
 The specified path is invalid.
SE_ERR_ACCESSDENIED
5
 The specified file cannot be accessed.
SE_ERR_OOM
8
 The system is out of memory or resources.
SE_ERR_NOASSOC
31
 There is no association for the specified file type with an executable file.

Remarks

Use FindExecutable for documents. If you want to retrieve the path of an executable file, use the following:

AssocQueryString(ASSOCF_OPEN_BYEXENAME,
                 ASSOCSTR_EXECUTABLE,
                 pszExecutableName,
                 NULL,
                 pszPath,
                 pcchOut);

Here, pszExecutableName is a pointer to a null-terminated string that specifies the name of the executable file, pszPath is a pointer to the null-terminated string buffer that receives the path to the executable file, and pcchOut is a pointer to a DWORD that specifies the number of characters in the pszPath buffer. When the function returns, pcchOut is set to the number of characters actually placed in the buffer. See AssocQueryString for more information.

When FindExecutable returns, the lpResult parameter may contain the path to the Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) server started if a server does not respond to a request to initiate a DDE conversation with the DDE client application.

Note

The shellapi.h header defines FindExecutable as an alias which automatically selects the ANSI or Unicode version of this function based on the definition of the UNICODE preprocessor constant. Mixing usage of the encoding-neutral alias with code that not encoding-neutral can lead to mismatches that result in compilation or runtime errors. For more information, see Conventions for Function Prototypes.

Requirements

Requirement Value
Minimum supported client Windows XP [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server Windows 2000 Server [desktop apps only]
Target Platform Windows
Header shellapi.h
Library Shell32.lib
DLL Shell32.dll

See also

ShellExecute