What? Where's the Windows Explorer association with this file?

On Nov 17, 5:57*pm, Franc Zabkar wrote:
On Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:44:55 -0800 (PST), "Robert A. Macy"
put finger to keyboard and composed:

Remember it was missing some double quotes between .exe and the %1

Whenever a file spec contains a space, it needs to be enclosed in
quotes.

In my case the Open command line is ...

"C:\Program Files\Riva\Riva FLV Player\Riva FLV Player.exe" "%1"

If there were no quotes, as in the following ...

C:\Program Files\Riva\Riva FLV Player\Riva FLV Player.exe %1

... then the OS would be looking for a file named Program.com or
Program.exe or Program.bat in the root directory (C:\).

The argument, %1, is substituted at run time with the name of the FLV
file. It, too, can have spaces and must therefore be enclosed in
quotes.

The following example (in a Windows DOS box) illustrates the
behaviour.

C:\cd C:\Program Files
Too many parameters - Files

C:\cd "C:\Program Files"

C:\Program Files

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.


Whenever a file spec contains a space, it needs to be enclosed in
quotes.

There is a big potential problem with that simplistic approach to
working path strings. The Open With widget can't read across spaces
even when they are quoted (or even double quoted) so your Open With
list winds up with entries like Program for a now defunct Program
Files path and the Riva FLV Player will wind up as a generic DOS entry
labled RIVA.

We should be striving to use DOS 8.3 names in all command path and
file specs if possible. Then the Open With list won't contain
abandoned executables that can't be found to be used even if you DO
have the gonads to try one when you come across it.

The Open With list is generated on the fly every time you use the
right click +SHIFT key option. It reads the registry and lists what
it thinks are valid executables with valid associations. It can not
do quoted long file name directories or spaces in file names and thus
the need to keep it an all 8.3 path and filespec. Progra~1 works but
"Program Files" won't. Unless you WANT an entry in your Open With
list entitled Program with a generic DOS icon. Windows will also
sometimes ask you to find the program Program, same cause and cure.

The use of %1 comes from DOS batch files and would represent a passed
parameter. In this case it's the file name including path that has
been clicked upon. In order to work properly, it needs to maintain
one space character between it and the executable's name so that the
executable will be able to find it when it goes looking for any such
passed parameters as they used to do it way back in the just DOS days.

C:\Program Files\Riva\Riva FLV Player\Riva FLV Player.exe %1
should be
""C:\Progra~1\Riva\RivaFL~1\RivaFL~1.exe" "%1""
the quotes are used only to maintain the single space just in front of
the passed path and filespec parameter. Of course if the right click
properties' DOS name for the Riva FLV Player folder isn't RivaFL~1
then the above string won't work, you must find out what names are as
used on your own machine. There COULD be a Progra~2 name for the
Program Files folder but it's usually the right one with ~1 and the
same goes for all other short named folders.