How does the Apple iTunes web site launch the iTunes application on my computer when I click the blue “Launch iTunes” button?

Question

This is new to me as a desktop developer.

If I could figure out how this is accomplished, it may be relevant to some research I\'m doing, specifically how to migrate

Answer 1

In Windows this is called a Pluggable Protocol Handler. This article on CodeProject shows how to implement a pluggable protocol handler on Windows.

Note, this is more involved then just registering a new protocol in the registry, such as myprotocol:// and having it start a specific exe whenever a myprotocol:// anchor is clicked.

It actually allows your application to receive and process the request and to create response data dynamically. If your protocol will also be called programmatically this is usually important.

This may be overkill for your situation however it is handy to know about.