Question

What is the most efficient to fill a ComboBox with all the registered file types in Windows?

I want the full file type, not just the extension. I’m using VB 9 (VS2008).

Answer 1

All the file types are stored in the registry under the HKEY_CLASS_ROOT, which you could obtain using the Framework’s Registry class.

Here’s c# code to perform the task:

using Microsoft.Win32;  public class FileAssoc {     public string Extension;     public string Filetype;      public FileAssoc(string fileext, string name)     {         Extension = fileext;         Filetype = name;     } }  public static class EnumRegFiles {     public static List<FileAssoc> GetFileAssociations()     {         List<FileAssoc> result = new List<FileAssoc>();         RegistryKey rk = Registry.ClassesRoot;          String[] names = rk.GetSubKeyNames();         foreach (string file in names)         {             if (file.StartsWith('.'))             {                 RegistryKey rkey = rk.OpenSubKey(file);                 object descKey = rkey.GetValue('');                  if (descKey != null)                 {                     string desc = descKey.ToString();                     if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(desc))                     {                         result.Add(new FileAssoc(file, desc));                     }                 }             }         }          return result;     } }