How to show "Set program associations" window in Windows 8/8.1?
See the question and my original answer on StackOverflowThis is all explained in the official documentation here: Guidelines for File Associations and Default Programs
To launch this Windows-provided UI, you can use the IApplicationAssociationRegistrationUI interface.
Here is a sample console app that demonstrate this for a fictional "MyApp" application:
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
IApplicationAssociationRegistrationUI app = (IApplicationAssociationRegistrationUI)new ApplicationAssociationRegistrationUI();
int hr = app.LaunchAdvancedAssociationUI("MyApp");
Exception error = Marshal.GetExceptionForHR(hr);
if (error != null)
{
Console.WriteLine("Error: " + error.Message);
}
}
}
[Guid("1f76a169-f994-40ac-8fc8-0959e8874710")]
[InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown)]
public interface IApplicationAssociationRegistrationUI
{
[PreserveSig]
int LaunchAdvancedAssociationUI([MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] string pszAppRegName);
}
[ComImport]
[Guid("1968106d-f3b5-44cf-890e-116fcb9ecef1")]
public class ApplicationAssociationRegistrationUI
{
}
And this is not finished :-) This only works if the registry is properly setup for this "MyApp" application, which is kinda the difficult part. Here are the simplest steps needed for this to work:
1) create a fictional "MyAppHTML" progid in HKCR, like this:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MyAppHTML]
@="MyApp HTML Document"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MyAppHTML\Application]
"ApplicationCompany"="Fictional Software Inc."
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MyAppHTML\shell]
@="open"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MyAppHTML\shell\open]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MyAppHTML\shell\open\command]
@="\"C:\\the app path\\testassoc.exe\""
2) declare a fictional "MyApp" application (I suggest HKCU, but it could be HKLM), from a fictional "FictionalSoftware" company, like this, for example with two file associations:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\FictionalSoftware]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\FictionalSoftware\MyApp]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\FictionalSoftware\MyApp\Capabilities]
"ApplicationDescription"="My Fictional Application"
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\FictionalSoftware\MyApp\Capabilities\FileAssociations]
".htm"="MyAppHTML"
".html"="MyAppHTML"
3) register this application to Windows (again, HKCU could be replaced by HKLM), like this:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\RegisteredApplications]
"MyApp"="Software\\FictionalSoftware\\MyApp\\Capabilities"
If you get errors when running the sample app, then you probably messed up the registry layout. If you got it ok, then you should see something like this: