Is there any way, in any language, to hook my program when a user renames a file?
For example: A user renames a file and presses enter (or clicks away) to confirm the rename action. BEFORE the file is actually renamed, my program "listens" to this event and pops up a message saying "Are you sure you want to rename C:\test\file.txt to C:\test\test.txt?".
I'm thinking/hoping this is possible with C++, C# or .NET.. But I don't have any clue where to look for.
Thank you.
My guess is that this is not possible, I did find this which is for monitoring operations (including rename) on a folder, but there does not appear to be a similar method for files.
@Richard, FileSystemWatcher is good if you only need to monitor changes, but he needs to interrupt them which it cannot do.
You can probably solve this by using the FileSystemWatcher class in .NET framework.
From the class remarks:
You can watch for renaming, deletion, or creation of files or directories. For example, to watch for renaming of text files, set the Filter property to "*.txt" and call the WaitForChanged method with a Renamed specified for its parameter.
What if the program sits in the system tray. Would this make any difference..?
(VS.85).aspx">IFileOperationProgressSink.PreRenameItem is the closest supported thing I know of. Unfortunately, it's not a hook into Explorer - so you can only use it for your own IFileOperation actions. Depending on your needs, you can write a shell extension to do your own ConfirmRename (or something), and branch from there.
Otherwise, you're looking at hooking SHFileOperation, I think. This would have to be done in unmanaged code, as you'll be loaded into Explorer.exe. For Vista, this has been changed to IFileOperation - which probably means you'll have to hook the creation of it and pass out your mock.
Personally, I think since you're talking a rename, wilhelmtell's idea of confirming after the change, and undoing it if necessary is the best idea.