using autoit to tell a computer how to handle certain file extensions

[pokesquid808]

bascially at my work place, we want to have all the computers open a tsv file using excel. In windows you do this by right clicking on the file, and going to "open with", choosing the program you want to use, then check always open with this program. Sounds easy to walk a client through this, but doing it to over 100 people manually is not exactly what i want to spend my day doing. I used autoit and symantec ghost to deploy programs and enter keys automatically for me which worked beautifully. Is there a way to do this?

so far i figured out how to right click lol. how do i get it to select a certain tsv file?

what i'm thinking is using autoit to copy a dummy .tsv file from a server that everyone has access to to their desktop. From here i would need to select the file and right click on it then do all that jazz. does this make sense?

thanks for the help in advance. i discovered autoit about a month ago and have been reading more into it. some amazing stuff you guys come up with

[Paulie]

bascially at my work place, we want to have all the computers open a tsv file using excel. In windows you do this by right clicking on the file, and going to "open with", choosing the program you want to use, then check always open with this program. Sounds easy to walk a client through this, but doing it to over 100 people manually is not exactly what i want to spend my day doing. I used autoit and symantec ghost to deploy programs and enter keys automatically for me which worked beautifully. Is there a way to do this?

so far i figured out how to right click lol. how do i get it to select a certain tsv file?

what i'm thinking is using autoit to copy a dummy .tsv file from a server that everyone has access to to their desktop. From here i would need to select the file and right click on it then do all that jazz. does this make sense?

thanks for the help in advance. i discovered autoit about a month ago and have been reading more into it. some amazing stuff you guys come up with

You could make it write to the registry so that .tsv files will automatically be associated with Excel.

Then you could just Run() it

Edited June 12, 2007 by Paulie

[/dev/null]

see commands "assoc" and "ftype" at the dos level. Otherwise check HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. Copy the .xls or .csv entry with RegRead() and RegWrite().

[MrCreatoR]

Hi, you will need to write registry entries i think... try this:

SetExtension("tsv", "Excel", "exe", "Path\to\Excel.exe")

Func SetExtension($Extension, $AppName, $AppExt, $AppPath)
    RegWrite("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\." & $Extension, "Application", "REG_SZ", $AppName & "." & $AppExt)
    
    RegWrite("HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\" & $AppName & "\Shell", "", "REG_SZ", "Open in " & $AppName)
    RegWrite("HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\" & $AppName & "\Shell\Open", "", "REG_SZ", "Open in " & $AppName)
    RegWrite("HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\" & $AppName & "\Shell\Open\command", "", "REG_SZ", '"' & $AppPath & '" %1')
EndFunc

Edited June 12, 2007 by MsCreatoR

[pokesquid808]

Hi, you will need to write registry entries i think... try this:

SetExtension("tsv", "Excel", "exe", "Path\to\Excel.exe")

Func SetExtension($Extension, $AppName, $AppExt, $AppPath)
    RegWrite("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\." & $Extension, "Application", "REG_SZ", $AppName & "." & $AppExt)
    
    RegWrite("HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\" & $AppName & "\Shell", "", "REG_SZ", "Open in " & $AppName)
    RegWrite("HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\" & $AppName & "\Shell\Open", "", "REG_SZ", "Open in " & $AppName)
    RegWrite("HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\" & $AppName & "\Shell\Open\command", "", "REG_SZ", '"' & $AppPath & '" %1')
EndFunc

that worked! thank you very much. now i'm gonna spend the next few hours trying to learn how you wrote that

[Paulie]

that worked! thank you very much. now i'm gonna spend the next few hours trying to learn how you wrote that

A little help along the way, if you haven't already found it

http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=21048

[pokesquid808]

thanks for the info.