How do I get the icon associated with a file type?

Question

I have a form that displays file information in a TabControl, and I'd like the pages to have the file's icon in their tab. How do I get the icon associated with a file type?

I'd prefer solutions that don't involve looking things up in the registry, but if that's the only way then so be it.

score 12 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 03 '16 at 08:57

12

CodeProject has some classes you can download.

First get the FileAssociationInfo, and from that get the ProgramAssociationInfo. The pai object can give you the icon.

FileAssociationInfo fai = new FileAssociationInfo(".bob");
ProgramAssociationInfo pai = new ProgramAssociationInfo(fai.ProgID);
ProgramIcon icon = pai.DefaultIcon;

edited Oct 03 '16 at 08:57

Irshad

3,071
5
30
51

answered Nov 07 '08 at 13:23

Bill the Lizard

398,270
210
566
880

Looks good, but how do I get the FileAssociationInfo? There's nothing on MSDN about any of those classes. – Simon Nov 07 '08 at 13:25
1

Here you can download the classes: http://channel9.msdn.com/playground/Sandbox/249856-System-File-Association/ – Ikke Nov 07 '08 at 13:30
My bad, I forgot to include the link. – Bill the Lizard Nov 07 '08 at 13:31
Is this a cross-platform solution to this problem, or is it Windows-specific? – Anderson Green Nov 25 '12 at 05:18

score 10 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 07 '08 at 13:30

10

System.Drawing.Icon.ExtractAssociatedIcon(string filePath)

answered Nov 07 '08 at 13:30

leppie

115,091
17
196
297

1

Is this Windows-specific? If so, is there a cross-platform solution? – Anderson Green Nov 25 '12 at 05:16
1

That fails when the file does not exist. This becomes a problem when the file does not exist - because there is no file. – Ian Boyd Sep 07 '16 at 13:50

How do I get the icon associated with a file type?

2 Answers2

Linked

Related