Can you verify a pathless ShellExecute("command")?

[LWC]

Normally one uses ShellExecute("c:\foo\bar.txt"). But there are internal uses too. For example, ShellExecute("winword") launches Microsoft Word. However, ShellExecute("foobar") launches an error message. Is there a way to accept only "legal" values?

In other words, is the word "winword" registered somewhere and can be verified before it's thrown into ShellExecute?

Thanks!

Edited September 1, 2010 by LWC

[damon]

Would not just error checking be the solution you are looking for?

ShellExecute ("foobar")
if @error Then MsgBox(0,"error","error")

just a quick thought

nevermind..... I see what you are wanting now. sorry

Edited September 1, 2010 by damon

[BrewManNH]

The registry key HKCR\Applications appears to hold the registered executable names that will run from the ShellExecute command. I may be mistaken but it does appear to hold the ones that can be run from it from the limited testing I've done.

Try this code out to see what I'm talking about. It will scan the Applications key and show you all of the programs registered under it. I declared the array with a sizeable number to start, just in case the machine you're using has a log of subkeys in it, then I redeclared it with the ReDim command to get rid of the excess to save memory. I'm not sure that it's needed, but it makes for a cleaner display in the end.

#include <Array.au3>
Local $Test[1000]
For $i = 1 To 1000
    $Test[$i] = RegEnumKey("HKCR\Applications\", $i)
    If @error <> 0 Then ExitLoop
Next
ReDim $Test[$i]
$Test[0] = $i-1
_ArrayDisplay($Test)

If you wanted to check that the commands are valid for ShellExecute, you could run a For...Next loop to check all values of the array $Test to see if they match or not. I also set $Test[0] to the size of the array so you could use it as a guide to tell you how many loops you have to try and not have to worry about using UBound.