Open file with associated application

Question

i want to ask for help with opening a file from c  app with associated app  I tried this        ProcessStartInfo pi   new ProcessStartInfo file         pi Arguments   Path GetFileName file         pi UseShellExecute   true        pi WorkingDirectory   Path GetDirectoryName file         pi FileName   file        pi Verb    quot OPEN quot         Process Start pi    or this        Process Start file    where string file in both examples represents full path to the file trying to open  Now  everything is working well  except the  jpg  images with ACDSee app  Irfanview associations works well  MS office documents too  After trying to open the jpg image associated with acdsee it just runs the acdsee in the notification area and does not open the file  I discovered  that in the registry CLASSES ROOT for   jpg images  there is an ACDSee JPG value as associated app  and under this key there is in the shell- gt Open- gt Command a path   quot C  Program Files ACD Systems ACDSee ACDSee exe quot   dde  and I thing that this weird  dde is the reason  why i cannot open the file  I realized that in the same reg key shell- gt Open there is some DDEExec key entry with value  open  quot  1 quot    For Irfan view or other checked app there is not a ddeexec  just the normal command like  quot C  Program Files  x86  IrfanView i view32 exe quot   quot  1 quot   that can be run from command line after swaping the  1 for file name  but I could not run the command from acdsee entry in the command line    So my question is  how can I set up the ProcessStartInfo object to ensure that it will run all the files as it would be in the explorer by doubleclick  the standards and this DDEExec ones  Is there something other like DDEExec that I shoul be aware of  thanks and sorry for my EN UPDATE  because this question still gets upvotes  I want to clarify that accepted answer works  I only had problem with old version of ACDSee and not with the Process Start command or with the jpg extension

User · Answer

This is an old thread but just in case anyone comes across it like I did. pi.FileName needs to be set to the file name (and possibly full path to file ) of the executable you want to use to open your file. The below code works for me to open a video file with VLC.

var path = files[currentIndex].fileName;
var pi = new ProcessStartInfo(path)
{
    Arguments = Path.GetFileName(path),
    UseShellExecute = true,
    WorkingDirectory = Path.GetDirectoryName(path),
    FileName = "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\VideoLAN\\VLC\\vlc.exe",
    Verb = "OPEN"
};
Process.Start(pi)

Tigran's answer works but will use windows' default application to open your file, so using ProcessStartInfo may be useful if you want to open the file with an application that is not the default.

User · Answer

Just write    System Diagnostics Process Start   file path      example   System Diagnostics Process Start   C  foo jpg    System Diagnostics Process Start   C  foo doc    System Diagnostics Process Start   C  foo dxf          And shell will run associated program reading it from the registry  like usual double click does

User · Answer

In  Net Core  as of v2 2  it should be   new Process       StartInfo   new ProcessStartInfo   file path                 UseShellExecute   true         Start      Related github issue can be found here

[c#] Open file with associated application

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