C#: How to open Windows Explorer windows with a number of files selected

Question

In the Library of Windows Media Player you can select one or more music files. You can then right-click and in their context menu choose Open File Location. This wi

Answer 1

Disclaimer: I think VirtualBlackFox's answer is better than mine although it has less votes at present, so scroll down and read that one first :)

Easy method (might not work on all platforms):

Process.Start(String, String)

First argument is the application, second argument is the command line parameters of the application..

So for example:

Process.Start("explorer.exe",
"/select,Z:\Music\Thursday Blues\01. I wish it was friday.mp3")

Process.Start("explorer.exe",
"/select,Z:\Music\Counting Sheep\01. Sheep #1.mp3 /select,Z:\Music\Counting Sheep\02. Sheep #2.mp3")

(I think you might need escaped quotes around the file paths if they have spaces).

more info: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/h6ak8zt5.aspx

(compiled from several answers to this question)

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Harder method, but more likely to work, taken from this answer to another question:

Use the shell function SHOpenFolderAndSelectItems

Here is some sample code showing how to use the function in C/C++, without error checking:

//Directory to open
ITEMIDLIST *dir = ILCreateFromPath(_T("C:\\"));

//Items in directory to select
ITEMIDLIST *item1 = ILCreateFromPath(_T("C:\\Program Files\\"));
ITEMIDLIST *item2 = ILCreateFromPath(_T("C:\\Windows\\"));
const ITEMIDLIST* selection[] = {item1,item2};
UINT count = sizeof(selection) / sizeof(ITEMIDLIST);

//Perform selection
SHOpenFolderAndSelectItems(dir, count, selection, 0);

//Free resources
ILFree(dir);
ILFree(item1);
ILFree(item2);