>It seems like OLE Automation might be useful but I have no way of knowing what the appropriate load commands are for the various applications associated with the documents. If I could only emulate what Explorer is doing.
>

Use the GetObject() function to launch the application, passing only the first parameter (the document). That'll launch or connect to the appropriate application, if it's an Automation server and return a reference to the document object within the server:

oDocument = GetObject( cFileName )

There are issues you'll have to deal with, of course. The biggest is that some of the associated applications may not be servers. You mentioned Notepad, for example - I'm pretty sure it's not an Automation server.

Tamar