Delphi help needed

I want to create a program with buttons that would start another application (in my case my games and programs). I use this line in delphi:

ShellExecute(self.WindowHandle,'open',PChar('D:\Games\Simbin\GTR2\GTR2.exe',nil,nil, SW_SHOWNORMAL);

But it only works on some games (it doesn't work on GTR2, LFS2, NFS U2, NFS MW, NFS Carbon...)

Where's the problem?

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/12/2006 01:44PM by anze89.

anyone? :s

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I think there's no real need to cast the filename to PChar as Delphi should do that for you.
You're also being inconsistent as LPCTSTR lpOperation (2nd parameter) is also a PChar in Delphi.
Anyway, my first bet would be the working directory of the apps you're trying to launch.

ShellExecute(0,'open','D:\Games\Simbin\GTR2\GTR2.exe',nil,'D:\Games\Simbin\GTR2\', SW_SHOWNORMAL);

Grab the Shellexecute return code in an int and check if it is other than 32.
If it is, then look up the error number or compare it to

ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND
ERROR_PATH_NOT_FOUND
ERROR_BAD_FORMAT
SE_ERR_ACCESSDENIED
SE_ERR_ASSOCINCOMPLETE
SE_ERR_DDEBUSY
SE_ERR_DDEFAIL
SE_ERR_DDETIMEOUT
SE_ERR_DLLNOTFOUND
SE_ERR_FNF
SE_ERR_NOASSOC
SE_ERR_OOM
SE_ERR_PNF
SE_ERR_SHARE

To see why it is failing

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I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2006 02:06AM by ZaZ.

thanks for the help ZaZ! The program now works!

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I realise that you may just be doing this for the fun of it. But you know there's a handy little bit of Windows that does just what you're wanting?

It looks a bit like this:

is that vista or just a vista theme? In any case it looks nice, but it becomes useless IMO when you have around 60 games and programs. I'm now trying to figure it out how could I minimalize my program to tray bar, so that I could quickly start the application that I want (through my program).

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