Hi,

Have run up against what, based on my web searches, is a very common
problem.

I want to incorporate a browseforfile dialog box in my script. I'm
using Windows 7.

Is there a simple way to do this, without resorting to references to
IE?

Thanks,
Stuart

Kryten wrote:
> I want to incorporate a browseforfile dialog box in my script. I'm
> using Windows 7.
> 

hi Kryten,

You may use the Browse_for_Folder dialog to Browse_for_FILE.

This may sound a little questionable, but it works, at least
for me.  Try the following code (provided by "Joe Earnest").
Beware, some of the lines are "wrapped":

--- <code> ---
' Use BrowseForFolder to return file name...
'   by: Joe Earnest, posted on vbScript ng, 09Jan03
'
' 11Jan03: added comments by jw (sorry Joe, couldn't resist)
' Note(jw): Haven't seen this particular edition of BFF before.
'   For one thing, it comes with a textbox (i.e., an edit control)
'   just under the "title" (i.e., a label).  You may type any
'   filespec or folder name you wish directly into the textbox.
'   For another thing, the "TreeView" control is set up to show
'   individual files as well as folders, and Joe's code shows
'   how to retrieve the filename...
'
Option Explicit
'
Dim oSHApp : Set oSHApp= CreateObject("Shell.Application")
'
' Function Template:
'   BrowseForFolder(Hwnd As Long, Title As String,
'       Options As Long, [RootFolder]) As Folder
'
' Browsing for directory constants (from shlobj.h)...
Const BIF_RETURNONLYFSDIRS   = &H0001  ' For finding a folder to start 
document searching
Const BIF_DONTGOBELOWDOMAIN  = &H0002  ' For starting the Find Computer
Const BIF_STATUSTEXT         = &H0004
Const BIF_RETURNFSANCESTORS  = &H0008
Const BIF_EDITBOX            = &H0010
Const BIF_VALIDATE           = &H0020  ' insist on valid result (or CANCEL)
Const BIF_NEWDIALOGSTYLE     = &H0040  ' (Version 5.0). use the new user 
interface.
' (you get a larger dialog box, with several new capabilities - see msdn)...
'
Const BIF_BROWSEFORCOMPUTER  = &H1000  ' Browsing for Computers
Const BIF_BROWSEFORPRINTER   = &H2000  ' Browsing for Printers
Const BIF_BROWSEINCLUDEFILES = &H4000  ' Browsing for Everything
'
' Shell Special Folder constants...
Const ssfDESKTOP = 0
Const ssfPROGRAMS = 2
Const ssfCONTROLS = 3
Const ssfPRINTERS = 4
Const ssfPERSONAL = 5
Const ssfFAVORITES = 6
Const ssfSTARTUP = 7
Const ssfRECENT = 8
Const ssfSENDTO = 9
Const ssfBITBUCKET = 10         ' a.k.a. recycle bin
Const ssfSTARTMENU = 11
Const ssfDESKTOPDIRECTORY = 16  ' (&H10)
Const ssfDRIVES = 17            ' (&H11) MyComputer Drives
Const ssfNETWORK = 18           ' (&H12)
Const ssfNETHOOD = 19           ' (&H13)
Const ssfFONTS = 20             ' (&H14)
Const ssfTEMPLATES = 21         ' (&H15)
Const ssfCOMMONSTARTMENU = 22   ' (&H16)
Const ssfCOMMONPROGRAMS = 23    ' (&H17)
Const ssfCOMMONSTARTUP = 24     ' (&H18)
Const ssfCOMMONDESKTOPDIR = 25  ' (&H19)
Const ssfAPPDATA = 26           ' (&H1A)
Const ssfPRINTHOOD = 27         ' (&H1B)
Const ssfLOCALAPPDATA = 28      ' (&H1C)
Const ssfALTSTARTUP = 29        ' (&H1D)
Const ssfCOMMONALTSTARTUP = 30  ' (&H1E)
Const ssfCOMMONFAVORITES = 31   ' (&H1F)
Const ssfINTERNETCACHE = 32     ' (&H20)
Const ssfCOOKIES = 33           ' (&H21)
Const ssfHISTORY = 34           ' (&H22)
Const ssfCOMMONAPPDATA = 35     ' (&H23)
Const ssfWINDOWS = 36           ' (&H24)
Const ssfSYSTEM = 37            ' (&H25)
Const ssfPROGRAMFILES = 38      ' (&H26)
Const ssfMYPICTURES = 39        ' (&H27)
Const ssfPROFILE = 40           ' (&H28)
Const ssfSYSTEMx86 = 41         ' (&H29)
Const ssfPROGRAMFILESx86 = 48   ' (&H30)
'
Dim oFolder  ' as folder object
Const hDesktop = 0  ' use desktop as parent window...
Const sTitle = "Select a File or Folder... "
Dim vOptions : vOptions = BIF_BROWSEINCLUDEFILES _
                Or BIF_NEWDIALOGSTYLE Or BIF_VALIDATE Or BIF_EDITBOX

Dim vRootFolder : vRootFolder = ssfDRIVES
'
Dim sResult  ' as string
' --- end of constants and declarations ----------

   ' will return a (valid) file or folder...
   Set oFolder = oSHApp.BrowseForFolder(hDesktop, sTitle, vOptions, 
vRootFolder)

   ' o.k., all the hard work is over, now interpret the results...
   If (oFolder Is Nothing) then MsgBox("You clicked CANCEL") : WScript.Quit

   ' note: we insisted on a valid result, so if it's not nothing
   '   then the result must be a folder or file.  NOTA BENE: even if
   '   a FILE is returned, the TypeName function will say folder object...
   If (UCase(TypeName(oFolder)) = "FOLDER") Then  ' verify folder
     On Error Resume Next
     sResult = oFolder.ParentFolder.ParseName(oFolder.Title).Path
     If Err Then Err.Clear : sResult = oFolder.Title  ' has no parent
     On Error GoTo 0  ' turn off error processing
     MsgBox("BFF returned: " & sResult)

   Else  ' something went wrong, it should have been "FOLDER"...
     MsgBox("Unexpected result, BFF returned: " & oFolder.Title)
   End If

--- </code> ---

If this does work for you, you may question WHERE ARE THE FILES?

Try this, click on the little boxes-with-plus-signs.  That should
open up the drives or folders and show the files.

Also, you might try reading further in msdn about what one can
do with the edit box.  For example, I typed in "*.zip" and it
gave me back the "first" zip file it found.  While I can''t
say for sure, this implies some "search" capabilities.
otoh, we already have "Find Files" for that.

cheers, jw
____________________________________________________________

You got questions?  WE GOT ANSWERS!!!  ..(but, no guarantee
    the answers will be applicable to the questions)

Doesn't the basic IE method work?

'---------------------
Function Browse()
On Error Resume Next
 Dim Q2, sRet
    Q2 = chr(34)
    Browse = ""
   Set IE = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
        IE.visible = False
        IE.Navigate("about:blank")
    Do Until IE.ReadyState = 4
    Loop

    IE.Document.Write "<HTML><BODY><INPUT ID=" & Q2 & "Fil" & Q2 & "Type=" &
Q2 & "file" & Q2 & "></BODY></HTML>"
       With IE.Document.all.Fil
           .focus
           .click
           sRet = .value
       End With
    IE.Quit
    Set IE = Nothing
    Browse = sRet
End Function
'---------------------------

  On most systems that shows a simple file browsing
window. I don't think I've tried it with IE8, though. If
it doesn't work then you probably need to use a 3rd-party
control. There are plenty of those, but they need to be
registered, so you wouldn't have a script that runs
anywhere without dependencies.

mr_unreliable's method may work, too. I seem
to remember a problem on at least some systems with
browsing to select a file. I thought that was disabled
with XP, but maybe I'm wrong. The other down side
of that method, of course, is that it's a bit hokey and
potentially confusing. People are not used to being
able to select files from a BrowseForFolder window.

mayayana wrote:
> Doesn't the basic IE method work?
> 

The way I read the original posting, the op didn't want
to "resort to references to IE".

cheers, jw

Kryten wrote:
> I want to incorporate a browseforfile dialog box in my script. 
> 

hi Kryten,

If you happen to have ms's Common Dialogs control (comdlg32.ocx),
then you could use that:

--- <code> ---
Set oCD = WScript.CreateObject("MSComDlg.CommonDialog")

  ' set the dialog's titlebar caption...
  oCD.DialogTitle = "Select the file you want to open"
  oCD.MaxFileSize = 260
  oCD.ShowOpen

  MsgBox(oCD.FileName)
--- </code> ---

cheers, jw
____________________________________________________________

You got questions?  WE GOT ANSWERS!!!  ..(but, no guarantee
    the answers will be applicable to the questions)

Kryten wrote:
> I want to incorporate a browseforfile dialog box in my script. 
> 

hi Kryten,

If you don't mind using a 3rd-party control, I recommend
the CCRP (Common Controls Replacement Project) "Extended
File Dialogs" actX object, by Domenico Statuto, found here:

   http://ccrp.mvps.org/index.html?controls/ccrpfiledlgdll6.htm

The CCRP were a bunch of guys (sorry, no gals) who were so
arrogant that they thought that they could do a better job
of the common controls than ms.  imho, they succeeded.

cheers, jw
____________________________________________________________

You got questions?  WE GOT ANSWERS!!!  ..(but, no guarantee
    the answers will be applicable to the questions)

p.s.  if you don't mind using another scripting language,
you will find that almost all of them have the open/saveas
dialogs built-in to the language...

p.p.s. if you don't mind calling the system api from script,
(that requires another 3rd-party control) then you can
instantiate the open file dialog directly.

> If you happen to have ms's Common Dialogs control (comdlg32.ocx),
> then you could use that:
>

   It's not enough to have it. That's a licensed
control. You have to have a license. So if a
script is running elsewhere than just locally
(with a license) then comdlg32.ocx doesn't make
much sense. Most people don't have it and/or
can't use it. (Some people may have it because
it was installed by specific software, but in that
case only the installed software has the license
to use the control.)

   Given that, a 3rd-party control would be a
much better choice. It has the disadvantage
that it must be delivered to and registered on
the target. But it can, at least, be used on
all targets.

> If you don't mind using a 3rd-party control, I recommend
> the CCRP (Common Controls Replacement Project) "Extended
> File Dialogs" actX object, by Domenico Statuto, found here:
>
>    http://ccrp.mvps.org/index.html?controls/ccrpfiledlgdll6.htm
>

  You sure do have a way of giving people confusing
answers. You seem to delight in providing obscure,
tricky, or even irrelevant options. Why do you send
people on a wild goose chase?

  There are lots of free components designed for script.
I've written two myself that have File Open dialogues:

http://www.jsware.net/jsware/scripts.php5#brows
http://www.jsware.net/jsware/scripts.php5#jssys

   I expect there are probably several others to choose
from. Yet you provided a link to a fairly complex library
that's not designed for script, after first suggesting a
control that needs a license, without explaining that
it needs a license. Do you *like* to confuse people?

   The DLL you linked is not designed for scripting. It
uses events and strict data types. I didn't try a test
script myself. It looks like it would be a fair amount
of work just to see if it's usable. If you know that it
does work in script then it might help people reading
this thread if you'd at least post some sample code.

Thanks to everyone who replied.

I have issues with the browseforfolder method. I had
experimented with it before actually and was able to get
it to expose files, OK but it always emits an error
after selecting one of them. Never able to properly
update the OpenfileDialog.Filename property.

The IE method, for me runs but does not result
in a filebrowser. Deconstructing the code I can
certainly get the IE about:blank to show but the
underlying functionality isn't there. Maybe because
I'm using W7/IE7? Not sure.

The jsware stuff looked really promising until I
got the "Windows Vista is not supported exception".
Looking around the jsware site it looks like I may
be out of luck using these controls in Vista and W7 ;-)

This may not be too much of a problem right now
as the desktops I'm developing the script for all
run XP/SP2 and will do till the end of this year.

My scripting language of choice is actually Powershell,
where thanks to applications like ASE and PrimalForms
it's trivial to create Windows Forms Applications.

It also makes instantiating .NET objects easy too.
Such as $browse = new-object system.windows.forms.openfiledialog

Any ideas, or boilerplate code for using that .NET object in
VBScript ( Once it gets > 100 lines I lose interest though! ).

Thanks again,
Stuart

> The IE method, for me runs but does not result
> in a filebrowser. Deconstructing the code I can
> certainly get the IE about:blank to show but the
> underlying functionality isn't there. Maybe because
> I'm using W7/IE7? Not sure.
>
   Interesting. I'll have to do some testing. I think
I've used it in XP with IE8, but I'm not certain. You
used essentially what I posted? The IE window is
not supposed to show. You're supposed to just get
a File Open window. That's the nice thing about it.
The fact that it's an IE hack is not apparent. But it
is limited. You can't assign a filetype filter, etc.

> The jsware stuff looked really promising until I
> got the "Windows Vista is not supported exception".
> Looking around the jsware site it looks like I may
> be out of luck using these controls in Vista and W7 ;-)
>

   Woops. Sorry, I forgot about that. If you need it
for Vista/7, though, you still should be able to find
options. The actual Win32 API code to show a browsing
window is minimal, so it's easy to wrap it.

>
> Any ideas, or boilerplate code for using that .NET object in
> VBScript ( Once it gets > 100 lines I lose interest though! ).
>

  .Net is not COM-based, unfortunately, so most of
it is not usable by VBS. You might check in the
..Net or powershell groups, though. Maybe something
can be worked out. It would mean a massive dependency,
but probably not an issue if you only want it for in-house
use.
   If you're also willing/able to use .Net you might be able
to wrap the object in Interop for script. I don't know
much about .Net myself, but as I understand it there's
something they call Interop (I don't know what it involves)
that can serve as an interface between .Net and COM.
The whole thing would be rather clunky: .Net serves as
a superfluous wrapper around the system, which is mainly
COM. But .Net is not directly COM-compatible. So Interop
allows the wrapper to connect back to COM again. Then
script gets indirect access to that via WSH. :)
   But it's only a File Open dialogue, so it's not as though
there'd be a performance issue.

Thank you for the advice Mayayana!

I have actually gone ahead and used the
jsware dialog and I'm really happy with it and
grateful for the pointer to it.

I'm actually scripting for SecureCRT and this
is giving me everything I need. When the customer
upgrades to W7 later in the year...well, I'll rethink it
then!

Much appreciated!

Stuart

  I just did an interesting test. Using the code that
I posted for calling an IE dialogue, I tried it on
XP (NTFS formatting, running as admin) with IE8.
If I load the script from an HTA it works fine. (I
load an external .vbs file into the HTA with
<SCRIPT SRC=.....)

   If I run the code directly from a script under WSH
it also works, but it returns a dummy path. No matter
what file I select, from any drive, I get something like:

C:\fakepath\text1.txt

  The file name is right but the path is false. I found
info. about it here:
http://acidmartin.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/the-mystery-of-cfakepath-unveiled
/

   According to that page it will work if your Local
Zone is trusted, but starting with XP SP2 the Local
Zone uses the "Lockdown" settings, putting it into
the equivalent of the Restricted Zone. You can change
the Local Zone security settings. I don't know whether
that equates to putting it into the Trusted Zone.

   Also according to the link above, this new security
took effect with IE8. I don't have IE7 handy to test,
but I would think that if you want to be sure about
whether it will work on different machines then you'll
need to test both IE7 and IE8, under both normal
XP security and Vista/7 extreme security.

   I guess the good news is that if you can call it
from an HTA you should be OK on all systems.

Hi Mayayana,

Yep, I'm getting the fakepath syndrome too!

Thanks for the link explaining the backstory, I think
that might have driven me insane trying to figure
that one out otherwise.

I'm playing around with :-


Set ie = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
ie.Offline = True
IE.navigate "about:blank"

Do
  WScript.Sleep 100
Loop While ie.Busy

szHTMLBody = "<input type=file name=file>"
ie.document.Body.InnerHTML = szHTMLBody
ie.width = 0
ie.height = 0
ie.Document.All("file").Click
Set chosen = ie.Document.All("file").Value
if chosen = "" Then
    MsgBox "User Cancelled."
Else
    MsgBox chosen
end If
ie.quit


It's actually working rather well.

Thanks again,
Stuart

>
> I'm playing around with :-
>

  So far I've only tried your version on 98. There's
an error due to the use of Set chosen, since
ie.Document.All("file").Value is not an object.

>
> Set ie = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
> ie.Offline = True
> IE.navigate "about:blank"
>
> Do
>   WScript.Sleep 100
> Loop While ie.Busy
>
> szHTMLBody = "<input type=file name=file>"
> ie.document.Body.InnerHTML = szHTMLBody
> ie.width = 0
> ie.height = 0
> ie.Document.All("file").Click
> Set chosen = ie.Document.All("file").Value
> if chosen = "" Then
>     MsgBox "User Cancelled."
> Else
>     MsgBox chosen
> end If
> ie.quit
>
>
> It's actually working rather well.
>
> Thanks again,
> Stuart
>
>

Same here.  I am programming in Office 2010 64-bit VBA on Windows 7 64-bit.  
I can see individual files but when I select them it errors.  It does not 
error when I select folders or libraries.  Error message is: Method 
BrowseForFolder of object IShellDispatch5 failed.
Here is my code:

Sub testopen()
Dim objShell As Object
Dim strPath As String
Dim objFile
Set objShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
'Shows dialog but errors when you select a file:
Set objFile = objShell.BrowseForFolder(0, "Choose a file:", &H4000)
strPath = objFile.Title  '& vbCrLf & objFile.self.Path
MsgBox strPath
Set objFile = Nothing
Set objShell = Nothing
End Sub

"Kryten" wrote:

> Thanks to everyone who replied.
> 
> I have issues with the browseforfolder method. I had
> experimented with it before actually and was able to get
> it to expose files, OK but it always emits an error
> after selecting one of them. Never able to properly
> update the OpenfileDialog.Filename property.
> 
> The IE method, for me runs but does not result
> in a filebrowser. Deconstructing the code I can
> certainly get the IE about:blank to show but the
> underlying functionality isn't there. Maybe because
> I'm using W7/IE7? Not sure.
> 
> The jsware stuff looked really promising until I
> got the "Windows Vista is not supported exception".
> Looking around the jsware site it looks like I may
> be out of luck using these controls in Vista and W7 ;-)
> 
> This may not be too much of a problem right now
> as the desktops I'm developing the script for all
> run XP/SP2 and will do till the end of this year.
> 
> My scripting language of choice is actually Powershell,
> where thanks to applications like ASE and PrimalForms
> it's trivial to create Windows Forms Applications.
> 
> It also makes instantiating .NET objects easy too.
> Such as $browse = new-object system.windows.forms.openfiledialog
> 
> Any ideas, or boilerplate code for using that .NET object in
> VBScript ( Once it gets > 100 lines I lose interest though! ).
> 
> Thanks again,
> Stuart
> 

same here as well. I've come across the following 4 options so far, and 
neither of them are yet reliable in win7:

<Option 1>
This returns error in both winXP and win7 when certain file is selected:

Function Browse()
	Const sHandle=&H0
	Const sText = "Browse"
	Const sOption=&H4000
	Const sOption2=&H0001
	Const iRoot = 0
	Dim oS: Set oS=CreateObject("Shell.Application")
	Dim oF: Set oF=oS.BrowseForFolder(sHandle,sText,sOption,iRoot)
	Dim sF: sF=oF.self.path
	Browse=sF
End Function

It returns namespace value successfully when:
1. any folder is selected
2. any one of these file is selected(.zip, .pdf,..html)
And it fails when:
1. any other file format is selected including (.txt, .doc, .xml, etc...)

<Option 2>
On the other hand, the following code works but only in XP, and not in Win7:

Function Browse()
	Browse=Null
	Dim oCD: Set oCD=CreateObject("UserAccounts.CommonDialog")
	oCD.Filter = "Text Files|*.txt|All Files|*.*"
	oCD.FilterIndex = 1
	oCD.InitialDir = "C:\"
	Dim iReturn: iReturn=oCD.ShowOpen
	If iReturn = 0 Then Exit Function
	Dim sFN: sFN=oCD.FileName
	Browse=sFN
	Set oCD = Nothing
End Function

Win 7 doesn't seem to come with the dll required to call UserAccounts..

<Option 3>
Use of MSComDlg is not an option for me for the same reason listed by others.

<Option 4>
Use of IE seems to work fine in both WinXP and Win7, yet the speed is an 
issue as it hungs a bit while booting IE.


Any advice?


"jeng02" wrote:

> Same here.  I am programming in Office 2010 64-bit VBA on Windows 7 64-bit.  
> I can see individual files but when I select them it errors.  It does not 
> error when I select folders or libraries.  Error message is: Method 
> BrowseForFolder of object IShellDispatch5 failed.
> Here is my code:
> 
> Sub testopen()
> Dim objShell As Object
> Dim strPath As String
> Dim objFile
> Set objShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
> 'Shows dialog but errors when you select a file:
> Set objFile = objShell.BrowseForFolder(0, "Choose a file:", &H4000)
> strPath = objFile.Title  '& vbCrLf & objFile.self.Path
> MsgBox strPath
> Set objFile = Nothing
> Set objShell = Nothing
> End Sub
> 
> "Kryten" wrote:
> 
> > Thanks to everyone who replied.
> > 
> > I have issues with the browseforfolder method. I had
> > experimented with it before actually and was able to get
> > it to expose files, OK but it always emits an error
> > after selecting one of them. Never able to properly
> > update the OpenfileDialog.Filename property.
> > 
> > The IE method, for me runs but does not result
> > in a filebrowser. Deconstructing the code I can
> > certainly get the IE about:blank to show but the
> > underlying functionality isn't there. Maybe because
> > I'm using W7/IE7? Not sure.
> > 
> > The jsware stuff looked really promising until I
> > got the "Windows Vista is not supported exception".
> > Looking around the jsware site it looks like I may
> > be out of luck using these controls in Vista and W7 ;-)
> > 
> > This may not be too much of a problem right now
> > as the desktops I'm developing the script for all
> > run XP/SP2 and will do till the end of this year.
> > 
> > My scripting language of choice is actually Powershell,
> > where thanks to applications like ASE and PrimalForms
> > it's trivial to create Windows Forms Applications.
> > 
> > It also makes instantiating .NET objects easy too.
> > Such as $browse = new-object system.windows.forms.openfiledialog
> > 
> > Any ideas, or boilerplate code for using that .NET object in
> > VBScript ( Once it gets > 100 lines I lose interest though! ).
> > 
> > Thanks again,
> > Stuart
> > 
> 

> <Option 4>
> Use of IE seems to work fine in both WinXP and Win7, yet the speed is an
> issue as it hungs a bit while booting IE.
>

   You might check what extensions or BHOs are
barnicled onto IE. If you use IE online it's easy to
end up with all sorts of "toolbars" and other junk.
They not only need to load, but some of them may
also go online or do other setup operations when
IE starts.
   Also check for problematic
software running. (In my experience, the major
AV programs like Norton and McAffee can slow
things to a crawl.)

   Windows seems to get slower with each version,
but I've used the IE dialogue on 98/XP quite a bit
myself and I find it to be pretty much instant in its
operation. (Without any special hardware: Athlon
1660 with 500 MB RAM and IDE drives.) In fact, that's
all I use for File Open dialogues. Anything else, as you
so thoroughly detailed, comes with caveats and
limitations.

     XP is never as zippy as 98, even when
it's running lean with few services, And Vista/7 is a
whole other order of bloat -- 7-9 times the size of
XP on disk. But you shouldn't be finding that IE takes
a long time to load. Most of it is already loaded.
You're only starting up iexplore.exe, which is just a
"chrome" skin for the browser window.

  My experience with IE 7/8 is limited, mostly to test
webpages, so I can't be sure about those. It'd be
interesting to know if other people have found IE 7/8
too slow to be usable.