Finding exe's......

[Pc_Madness]

I want my program to be able to find exe's, similar to that of Window's Run, so that I don't have to specify which directory the program is in. This eliminates the problem of the Program being opened not being in the default directory and having the user not being able to open the program when they know its there.

Does anyone know how to do it???

[Joacim Andersson]

You can use the SearchPath API function.

The following code will search for an application in the way specified in the comments.
The Run dialog box however will also check this all keys in the registry under the following path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths

Private Declare Function SearchPath _
 Lib "kernel32" Alias "SearchPathA" ( _
 ByVal lpPath As String, _
 ByVal lpFileName As String, _
 ByVal lpExtension As String, _
 ByVal nBufferLength As Long, _
 ByVal lpBuffer As String, _
 ByVal lpFilePart As String) As Long
 
Private Function SearchFile(ByVal sFileName As String)
    'This function will search after the file in the following order
    ' 1. The directory the app is loaded from
    ' 2. The active directory
    ' 3. Windows System directory (winnt\system32 or windows\system)
    ' 4. The Windows directory
    ' 5. The directories listed in the PATH environment variable
    Dim sBuffer As String
    Dim nLen As Long
    
    sBuffer = Space$(260)
    nLen = SearchPath(vbNullString, sFileName, vbNullString, _
     Len(sBuffer), sBuffer, vbNullString)
    SearchFile = Left$(sBuffer, nLen)
End Function
 
Private Sub Command1_Click()
    'This is an example on how to call the code.
    'If the file isn't found an empty string is returned
    MsgBox SearchFile("notepad.exe")
End Sub

Best regards