The find the folder containing the start menu, call
SHGetSpecialFolderPath with the CSIDL_STARTMENU option. (In Win 7,
this is usually c:\ProgramData\MicrosoftWindows\Start Menu, but might
be different in other versions.)
The start menu items will be in .lnk files, which will have the path
to the program. The format of a .lnk file is here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd871305.aspx.
Parsing a .lnk file by hand looks gnarly, here's an example of some
code that should grab the path from the .lnk file, haven't tried it
myself. http://delphi.about.com/od/windowsshellapi/l/aa072704a.htm
HTH
At 03:19 AM 9/6/2014, Irwin Scollar wrote:
More UAC complication:
I have written an application for 64 bit RadXE6 that has to spawn
the Microsoft Image Compositing Editor (ICE) to stitch a large set
of ortho-rectified images created by my program together with very
high accuracy. By default the MSI installer puts ICE on a
subdirectory of Program Files, and that can be found easily by using
the %programfiles% environment variable plus the default ICE directory name.
However, the installer offers the user the option of changing the
directory, partition or drive to put the executable and various
other files like the DLL which actually does the stitching anywhere else.
This is frequently chosen by users who either do not have
permissions needed as granted by the UAC or those who prefer to put
executables, data and the operating system on separate disks or
separate partitions so that backups need not include the OS.
I therefore have to detect where ICE has been installed in order to
spawn it from my executable. In the good old days, I used Turbo
Power's Shell Shock to get a complete list of all programs
accessible from the Start Menu with their installation directories.
Unhappily, Shell Shock is not available in a 64 bit version.
As a "crutch", I wrote a small batch file which runs the WHERE
command and which can search through all disks and partitions to
find the ICE executable and write the information to a tiny file
that is then read to get the required information. However, on a
large workstation with many disks and partitions, this search takes
a long time. It has to be repeated every time my program starts in
case the user has installed an upgrade for ICE to a different drive,
partition or directory. I also have to distinguish between 64 and
32 bit versions of ICE by looking at the size of the stitching DLL.
@echo off
rem done in chunks because of Item number limit in the for command
for %%a in (c d e f g h i j ) do if exist %%a:\ where /r %%a:
ice.exe > found.txt
for %%a in (k l m n o p q r) do if exist %%a:\ where /r %%a:
ice.exe >> found.txt
for %%a in (s t u v w x y z) do if exist %%a:\ where /r %%a:
ice.exe >> found.txt
Is there a way to search through the full Start Menu like I used to
do with Shell Shock to find a program and it's properties including
the installation directory and drive name without using the
elaborate technique employed by Shell Shock's Special Root method
and which doesn't require scanning through all disks and partitions
like I do with my batch file?
Irwin Scollar
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