How to get installed application path for executable in COM - visual-c++

Question

I am trying to get the installed location of all application using COM. I am able to get the display name of each application. But I am not able to get installed path of each application.
MY Code:
CComPtr<IShellItem> spPrinters;
CoInitialize(nullptr);
HRESULT hresult = ::SHCreateItemFromParsingName(L"::{26EE0668-A00A-44D7-9371-BEB064C98683}\\8\\"
L"::{7B81BE6A-CE2B-4676-A29E-EB907A5126C5}", nullptr, IID_PPV_ARGS(&spPrinters));
CComPtr<IEnumShellItems> spEnum;
spPrinters->BindToHandler(nullptr, BHID_EnumItems, IID_PPV_ARGS(&spEnum));
for (CComPtr<IShellItem> spProgram; spEnum->Next(1, &spProgram, nullptr) == S_OK; spProgram.Release())
{
CComHeapPtr<wchar_t> spszName;
spProgram->GetDisplayName(SIGDN_NORMALDISPLAY, &spszName);
CString cDisplayName = spszName;
}
Any idea how to get installed path from IEnumShellItems?

Answer 1

Here is a piece of code that will dump this out. The child's IPropertyStore does not return these, I don't know why, so we have to use the old
IShellFolder2::GetDetailsEx method with a special column id (which is the same as a PROPERTYKEY).
CComPtr<IShellItem> cpl;
CComPtr<IShellFolder2> folder;
CComPtr<IEnumShellItems> enumerator;
PROPERTYKEY pkLocation;
SHCreateItemFromParsingName(L"::{26EE0668-A00A-44D7-9371-BEB064C98683}\\8\\::{7B81BE6A-CE2B-4676-A29E-EB907A5126C5}", nullptr, IID_PPV_ARGS(&cpl));
// bind to IShellFolder
cpl->BindToHandler(NULL, BHID_SFObject, IID_PPV_ARGS(&folder));
// bind to IEnumShellItems
cpl->BindToHandler(NULL, BHID_EnumItems, IID_PPV_ARGS(&enumerator));
// get this property key's value
PSGetPropertyKeyFromName(L"System.Software.InstallLocation", &pkLocation);
for (CComPtr<IShellItem> child; enumerator->Next(1, &child, nullptr) == S_OK; child.Release())
{
// get child's display name
CComHeapPtr<wchar_t> name;
child->GetDisplayName(SIGDN_NORMALDISPLAY, &name);
wprintf(L"%s\n", name);
// get child's PIDL
CComHeapPtr<ITEMIDLIST> pidl;
SHGetIDListFromObject(child, &pidl);
// the PIDL is absolute, we need the relative one (the last itemId in the list)
// get it's install location
CComVariant v;
if (SUCCEEDED(folder->GetDetailsEx(ILFindLastID(pidl), &pkLocation, &v)))
{
// it's a VT_BSTR
wprintf(L" %s\n", v.bstrVal);
}
}
Note it's using an undocumented System.Software.InstallLocation PROPERTYKEY. To find it I just dumped all columns with a code like this for each child:
int iCol = 0;
do
{
SHCOLUMNID colId;
if (FAILED(folder->MapColumnToSCID(iCol, &colId)))
break; // last column
CComHeapPtr<wchar_t> name;
PSGetNameFromPropertyKey(colId, &name);
CComVariant v;
if (SUCCEEDED(folder->GetDetailsEx(ILFindLastID(pidl), &colId, &v)))
{
if (v.vt == VT_BSTR)
{
wprintf(L" %s: %s\n", name, v.bstrVal);
}
else
{
wprintf(L" %s vt: %i\n", name, v.vt);
}
}
iCol++;
} while (true);
}
PS: I've not added much error checking, but you should.