ShelExec v1.28 An application + source code
to call the ShellExecute API
Welcome to ShelExec, A very simple utility to allow you to call the ShellExecute
API from the command line.
Places where you might find ShelExec useful are in adding an autorun.inf file to
your CD / DVD +/- RW discs. For example suppose you have a HTML page called index.htm
on the root of your CD which you would like to run automatically whenever the user
inserts the CD. All you need to do is put ShelExec.exe, some ico file (this is optional
as is the icon=... in the autorun.inf file) and the index.htm files into the root
directory and create a autorun.inf file with the following contents:
[autorun]
open=ShelExec.exe @EXEDRV@\index.html
icon=youricon.ico
Note that it is important to use the @EXEDRV@ or @EXEDIR@ replacement parameters
as this helps ensures that ShelExec uses a fully quoted path when it runs your program.
Otherwise you can get some problems on various versions of Windows with your AutoRun
CD's.
Items that ShelExec can handle include any file which is registered with the shell
e.g. Word .Doc files, Text Files, batch files etc etc. It can also handle URLS such
as "http://www.naughter.com",
"ftp://ftp.microsoft.com "
and "mailto:pjna@naughter.com".
The more technically minded of you may say why is there a need to have this program
since you can use "start filename" on autorun CD's without any apparent
problems. The problem with this approach is that it does not work on NT kernel because
on these operating systems "start" is implemented as an "Internal"
command in cmd.exe (as opposed to a standard exe on Windows 9x) with the upshot
that your CD's will not AutoRun on these operating systems. Using ShelExec will
mean that your CD's will autorun on all OS's which support it.
The enclosed zip file contains the ShelExec
source code and a number of prebuilt binaries of ShelExec.
Copyright
- You are allowed to include the source code in any product (commercial, shareware,
freeware or otherwise) when your product is released in binary form.
- You are allowed to modify the source code in any way you want except you
cannot modify the copyright details at the top of each module.
- If you want to distribute source code with your application, then you are
only allowed to distribute versions released by the author. This is to maintain
a single distribution point for the source code.
- The executable file itself, namely "ShelExec.exe" can be freely
redistributed by anyone.
Updates
v1.28 (14 February 2025)
- Updated copyright details.
- Updated CMyCommandLineInfo::ParseParam code to handle "EXE" command line
option case insensitively. Thanks to Tomáš Volko for reporting this issue.
- Updated GetModuleFileName calls to handle path length > _MAX_PATH.
- Reworked CShelExecApp::InitInstance to use std::filesystem::path.
v1.27 (26 May 2022)
- Updated copyright details.
- Updated the code to use C++ uniform initialization for all variable
declarations.
v1.26 (5 April 2020)
- Updated copyright details.
- Fixed more Clang-Tidy static code analysis warnings in the code.
v1.25 (23 December 2019)
- Fixed various Clang-Tidy static code analysis warnings in the code.
v1.24 (1 June 2019)
- Updated copyright details.
- Updated the code to clean compile on VC 2019
v1.23 (2 October 2018)
- Updated copyright details.
- Fixed a number of C++ core guidelines compiler warnings. These changes
mean that the code will now only compile on VC 2017 or later.
v1.22 (27 December 2017)
- Updated copyright details.
- Replaced CString::operator LPC*STR() calls throughout the codebase
with CString::GetString calls
- Replaced NULL throughout the codebase with nullptr. This means that the
minimum requirement for the code is now VC 2010.
v1.21 (23 October 2016)
- Updated the app to allow it to build as both a GUI based application and
now as a console based application. The console based version provides better
usage when used from command line scripts etc. Thanks to "LinuxKungFu"
for prompting this update.
v1.20 (31 July 2016)
- Updated copyright details.
- Remove the TIMEOUT command line parameter and the hidden window which gets
created by ShelExec.
- Fixed a resource leak where the code would not release the hProcess handle
which can be returned from ShellExecuteEx.
- The application now sets the ShelExec process return code based on any error
values which occur while being run.
- Calling the GetShortPathName API to convert from a long filename to a 8.3
filename is now completely based on the "NOSFNC" command line option.
- Reworked the IDP_USAGE messagebox text.
- Tidied up the implementation of the CMyCommandLineInfo::ParseParam method.
- Introduced a new /NOUI command line option.
- Improved the error message displayed when GetModuleFileName API fails.
- Introduced a new /WAITFORINPUTIDLE command line option.
- Introduced a new /MONITOR command line option.
v1.19 (25 July 2015)
- Updated copyright details.
- Updated the project settings to more modern defaults.
- Updated the code to clean compile on VC 2013 & VC 2015.
- The download now includes a number of precompiled binaries of ShelExec.exe.
In the Release directory is an ASCII x86 build, while in the ReleaseU directory
is a Unicode x86 build while the ReleaseU64 directory includes a Unicode x64
build. Thanks to Andrew Leonard for prompting this update.
16 April 2013
- Minor update to the app to refer to the /NOSFNC command line option when
it is run with no command line.
v1.18 (14 April 2013)
- Updated copyright details.
- Updated the code to compile cleanly on VC 2010 and later using /analyze.
- Following a request from Thorsten Schöning, ShelExec now includes support
for a new /NOSFNC command line option. If this is specified, then the program
will pass the long filename down to the Win32 ShellExecute API. If this command
line option is not set (which is the default), then the program will continue
to pass the 8.3 short filename to the API.
v1.17 (12 January 2008)
- Updated copyright details.
- Removed VC 6 style classwizard comments.
- Code now uses the FORMAT_MESSAGE_IGNORE_INSERTS flag when calling FormatMessage.
For more information please see Raymond Chen's blog at
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2007/11/28/6564257.aspx. Thanks
to Alexey Kuznetsov for reporting this issue.
- App now supports environment variable substitution in the Dir and DocumentFile
parameters.
- App now no longer passes GetDesktopWindow() for the parent window in the
call to ShellExecuteEx.
- App now no longer bothers reporting any errors back since the ShellExecuteEx
call is doing this for us anyway because we are not passing the SEE_MASK_FLAG_NO_UI
flag.
- The app now no longer creates the hidden window if the call to ShellExecuteEx
was unsuccessful.
v1.16 (21 December 2006)
- Updated copyright details.
- ShelExec is now built with VC 2005 SP1.
- Updated documentation to use the same style as the web site.
- Code now uses newer C++ style casts instead of C style casts.
v1.15 (23 September 2005)
- Documentation has been updated to show how you should use fully quoted paths
if using ShelExec to create AutoRun applications. Thanks to newsgroup feedback
and John McCoy for reporting this issue.
- ShelExec now reports the fleshed out error description by using the FormatMessage
API.
3 July 2004
- Now includes explicit info on the usage of the executable "ShelExec.exe"
in the documentation
v1.14 (24 January 2003)
- Now provides a /WAIT command line parameter. This allows the ShelExec application
to only return when the application it starts has exited. Thanks to Igor Rabinovich
for this suggestion.
v1.13 (18 October 2002)
- Changed the format of replacable parameters from using a "%" to
now use a "@". This is to avoid problems with replaceable environment
parameters in the OS. Thanks to Ted Tsoutsas for reporting this problem. This
means that the previous example in the v1.12 notes should now be used as:
ShelExec.exe "/PARAMS:/play @EXEDRV@\data\myfile.xyz" /EXE @EXEDIR@\Prog\MyProg.exe
- Added a new replaceable parameter "@QUOTE" which puts a Quote
character i.e. " into the string when the program is called. For example
to call Notepad with the file "c:\A directory with spaces\file.txt"
and ensure that the filename is embedded with quotes, you would use the following
command line:
ShelExec.exe "/PARAMS:@QUOTE@c:\directory with spaces\file.txt@QUOTE@"
/EXE notepad.exe
v1.12 (17 October 2002)
- ShelExec is now compiled with Visual C++ 6 instead of Visual C++ 5.
- Removed an unreferrenced variable in CShelExecApp::InitInstance.
- Program now supports two parameters in the "/DIR", "/PARAMS"
and filename command line values. These are: %EXEDRV% which gets replaced with
the drive letter path where AutoPlay is run from. the other variable is %EXEDIR%.
For example:
ShelExec.exe "/PARAMS:/play %EXEDRV%\data\myfile.xyz"
/EXE %EXEDIR%\Prog\MyProg.exe
What this command line would achieve is
to run a program called MyProg.exe located in the "D:\Prog" directory
on the root of your CD (assuming your CD drive is D:) using the command line "/play
D:\data\myfile.xyz".
Thanks to Ted Tsoutsas for this nice
update.
29 July 2002
- Updated documentation which comes with ShelExec to explain how to work with
filenames which contain embedded spaces.
v1.11 (1 October 2001)
- Fixed a bug which was causing ShelExec to fail on some versions of Windows
with the error code 1155.
- Updated version infos of the exectuable.
- Code now uses ShellExecuteEx instead of ShellExecute internally.
- A hidden window is now created when ShelExec starts. This allows verbs such
as "properties" to now work correctly. Thanks to Santosh Rao for suggesting
this addition.
- Icon used for ShellExec is now consistent with the new icon styles used
by Windows XP.
v1.1 (10 February 2001)
- Program now understands a /EXE command line which allows the a specific
command line to be specified: e.g ShelExec.exe /EXE mplayer2.exe "/PARAMS:/play
E:\WINNT\Media\canyon.mid".
- Program now understands a /DIR:Value command line which allows the startup
directory for an application to be specified.
- Updated copyright information.
10 November 2000
- Updated distribution to include missing files.
v1.02 (9 April 2000)
- Fixed a bug where the verb "Open" was always used.
- Program now understands a /Verb:Value command line which allows the verb
to be specified as used in the ShellExecute call. Not specifying a verb will
use the default value for the file as setup in the registry.
- Program now understands a /ShowCmd:Value command line which allows the
"nShowCmd" value to be specified as used in the ShellExecute
call. Not specifying a value will use the value SW_SHOW.
- Code now uses MFC internally.
- Code now supports UNICODE and build configurations are provided
v1.01 (16 July 1999)