Questions regarding file associations affected by SP2

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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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