Has anyone been able to programmatically retrieve the "Properties" of a file?

I am not talking about the usual properties but instead those properties you get when right-clicking on a file in Windows Explorer.

When you right-click on a Word Document you get both the Builtin and Custom properties for that doucment and you can modify them.

I really want to be able to get at these properties without having to actually open up Word, load it and modify them.

If anyone has ANY help whatsoever PLEASE, please, please put your 2c worth in. Even if its just to point the finger in some direction I would appreciate it... an API even ;-)