Thanks Ed I'll take a look at the documentation right away.

>If you omit the verb, 'OPEN' in the ShellExecute call, and pass it a null (pass a 0 value, not an empty string), ShellExecute() will perform the default verb defined in the registry for the file extension. Win2K behaves slightly differently, since it's possible to have no default verb available, in which case, ti takes the first verb encountered in the registry subtree.
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>You can take a closer look at exactly how ShellExecute() works by looking it up in the MSDN docs if you have the library subscription, or find it in the Platform SDK docs through the MSDN OnLine site.
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>If you use VFP6, the FFC provides a solid wrapper with source you can examine.