Questions regarding file associations affected by SP2

From: Mark Belles (mrbelles_at_DEPCOINC.COM)
Date: 08/19/04

  • Next message: 3APA3A: "Security aspects of time synchronization infrastructure"
    Date:         Thu, 19 Aug 2004 10:33:27 -0500
    To: NTBUGTRAQ@LISTSERV.NTBUGTRAQ.COM
    
    

    Hi all,
            This is a strange request for information, however I've simply run out of
    ideas of why a particular problem has surfaced as a result of applying SP2
    on XP. My company has a piece of software that uses file associations to
    open documents. The guys that wrote it never seemed to listen to me about
    the way the file association should be configured in the registry. After
    applying SP2 the assocation no longer works, and I've had to go fix it for
    them. However, I'm terribly curious why this would only surface now, after
    installing SP2 and not before.

    The assocation is set to open using the standard
    <extension>file\shell\open\command key format, and the default value set to
    the path of the exe and any command line needed to open the document. Pretty
    standard right? Well the guys that wrote the app, ignoring my efforts to
    show them the proper way to set them up, ended up quoting the path to the
    exe instead of the command line. This seems to be working fine before SP2
    gets applied.

    After changing the offending value to contain the path the exe and command
    line args, like (C:\Program Files\My Company\My App\App.exe "%1" instead of
    "C:\Program Files\My Company\My App\App.exe" %1) the program runs just fine,
    and the file association is restored. I admit that I think the app is crap
    and doesn't handle it's command lines very well, but regardless it has been
    deployed and I've got to help the geniuses fix it now that it's broken. Now
    I would have assumed that the way the association was setup to begin with
    wouldn't even work, but before applying SP2 it does unfortunately. Now
    everyone is questioning why that is.

    Can anyone tell me what would have changed in SP2 to affect the way command
    line arguments are passed to an application? Could this be related to some
    change in the APIs like PathGetArgs? Something to do with security and
    escape strings? I'm guess and pulling at strings trying to figure out what
    SP2 changed that would suddenly cause the file assocation I mentioned not to
    work, and require sudden tweaking like this.

    Regards,
    Mark

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