Re: Path for Winword

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Dear Gary:

That would be an excellent adjustment of my approach. Thanks very much.

Do you have any comment on what would be in that key if there were more than
one version of WinWord installed? The one most recently installed, perhaps?

A drawback to your suggestion would be that I would not be in control of
whether the version of Word I invoke is one of a set that I have tested, and
which work with my application. I will be passing a document name and a
macro of other program name along to Word on the command line. I must test
my macro and other programming against various versions of Word to make
certain they work. I do not want to invoke Word at all if it is not a
sufficiently recent version. That's why I suggested I would likely use a
series of keys, each including one of the various versions of Word that
would work. Does that make sense, too?

So, you see, a version independent implementation is not optimal.

Thanks very much for your time and expertise. I welcome further comment.

Tom Ellison


"Gary Smith" <bitbucket@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:OPBtWThLGHA.3272@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
That registry key is certain to be different for different versions since
to "10.0" is a version number. Could you use something like

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Applications\Winword.exe\shell\open\command

or

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App
Paths\Winword.exe

instead? These seem to be version-independent.


Tom Ellison <tellison@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I am considering a distributable add-in for Access that would need to
open
an instance of WinWord.exe. Naturally, the invocation of this requires a
complete path. I have found that in my current registry at:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
SOFTWARE
Microsoft
Office
10.0
Word
InstallRoot
Path

Any idea whether this would be the registry key and name to locate the
installed WinWord even if Word were purchased separately, not as a part
of
Office?

It is possible there would be an older version of WinWord installed,
rather
than 10.0. Any possibility of cataloging for me the versions possible?
I
would have to install each one (I have MSDN Universal access to older
versions) and see which ones work with my application. Would each have a
different entry where this says 10.0? Has the key been kept standard
across
Word versions?

Likely, I would search the registry for each acceptable version, starting
with the newest and most preferable version. So, I need to generate a
list
of keys and search till the first is found (if any). Does this sound
like
the standard approach? Any other methods or suggestions would be most
welcome.

Finally, I don't have the dll and function name for this at hand, that
is,
to pass the key and name and return the value, the path. I'm sure I can
find it in my resources here, but if you have it close at hand, it would
save me a few minutes. If you don't have it very handy, I'll do it for
myself. Just thought I'd ask.

Thanks, very much, for your time and kindness.

Tom Ellison



--
Gary L. Smith
Columbus, Ohio


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