File Association for my own Visual Basic application

Question

I made my application that can read some specific extension on load in Visual Basic 2017.

 Private Sub Form1_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        If Environment.GetCommandLineArgs(1).ToString = My.Application.Info.DirectoryPath.ToString + "\" + My.Application.Info.AssemblyName + ".exe" Then

        Else
            If System.IO.Path.GetExtension(Environment.GetCommandLineArgs(1)) = ".myOwnExt" Then
                Dim fileReader As String
                fileReader = My.Computer.FileSystem.ReadAllText(Environment.GetCommandLineArgs(1).ToString)
                MsgBox(fileReader)
            End If
        End If
    End Sub

But I want to make my program default for that extension and I want to set my icon for those files. Is it possible to make it happen with Visual Basic?

This is something you would do in Windows (or whatever operating system you are using) — Magnus, Jul 14 '17 at 12:42
Perhaps something like: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2681878/associate-file-extension-with-application — Magnus, Jul 14 '17 at 12:49
The term you are looking for is File Association. Gobs of posts here to create them in code, with a .REG file, via an installer or manually. There is no need to check for the extension in code - when the user opens a file with your properly registered extension, Windows will start your app and send the while file name on the as a command line arg. — Ňɏssa Pøngjǣrdenlarp, Aug 04 '17 at 00:58
@Plutonix I know that but I didn't want other extensions to be opened with my app. I know that something similar to DWRoelands answer might work but he didn't explain anything and his code does not work, so I want someone to answer properly. Thanks — Djordje Vujicic, Aug 04 '17 at 10:29

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 14 '17 at 12:47

1

Your code would look something like this...

My.Computer.Registry.ClassesRoot.CreateSubKey(".myOwnExt").SetValue("", _
          "myOwnExt", Microsoft.Win32.RegistryValueKind.String)     
My.Computer.Registry.ClassesRoot.CreateSubKey("MyProgramName\shell\open\command").SetValue("", _
          Application.ExecutablePath & " ""%l"" ", Microsoft.Win32.RegistryValueKind.String)

answered Jul 14 '17 at 12:47

DWRoelands

4,878
4
29
42

It doesn't do anything. I want my program to be default for opening `.myOwnExt` It only shows error when I open it through file – Djordje Vujicic Jul 14 '17 at 13:22

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 09 '17 at 12:58

Here is a full example on how to do this in VB .NET. Like mentioned above you need to change some registry settings.

https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/18594/File-Association-in-VB-NET

On a quick glance at your code GetCommandLineArgs(1) needs to be changed to GetCommandLineArgs(0) to get this working.

File Association for my own Visual Basic application

2 Answers2