Why can't I start the Windows Update control panel with WinExec?

Question

In Executing Control Panel Items, MSDN says this:

Windows Vista Canonical Names

In Windows Vista and later, the preferred method of launching a Control Panel item from a command line is to use the Control Panel item's canonical name.

According to the Microsoft website this should work:

The following example shows how an application can start the Control Panel item Windows Update with WinExec.

WinExec("%systemroot%\system32\control.exe /name Microsoft.WindowsUpdate", SW_NORMAL);

For Delphi 2010 I tried:

var
  CaptionString: string;
  Applet: string;
  Result: integer;
  ParamString: string;
CaptionString := ListviewApplets1.Items.Item[ ListviewApplets1.ItemIndex ].Caption;
if CaptionString = 'Folder Options' then
    { 6DFD7C5C-2451-11d3-A299-00C04F8EF6AF }
    Applet := 'Microsoft.FolderOptions'
  else if CaptionString = 'Fonts' then
    {93412589-74D4-4E4E-AD0E-E0CB621440FD}
    Applet := 'Microsoft.Fonts'
  else if CaptionString = 'Windows Update' then
    { 93412589-74D4-4E4E-AD0E-E0CB621440FD }
    Applet := 'Microsoft.WindowsUpdate'
  else if CaptionString = 'Game Controllers' then
    { 259EF4B1-E6C9-4176-B574-481532C9BCE8 }
    Applet := 'Microsoft.GameControllers'
  else if CaptionString = 'Get Programs' then
    { 15eae92e-f17a-4431-9f28-805e482dafd4 }
    Applet := 'Microsoft.GetPrograms'
//...

ParamString := ( SystemFolder + '\control.exe /name ' ) + Applet;
WinExec( ParamString, SW_NORMAL); <= This does not execute and when I trapped the error it returned ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND.

I tried a ExecAndWait( ParamString ) method and it works perfectly with the same ParamString used with WinExec:

ParamString := ( SystemFolder + '\control.exe /name ' ) + Applet;
ExecAndWait( ParamString ); <= This executes and Runs perfectly

The ExecAndWait method I used calls Windows.CreateProcess:

if Windows.CreateProcess( nil, PChar( CommandLine ), nil, nil, False, 0, nil, nil, StartupInfo, ProcessInfo ) then
  begin
    try

Does WinExec require a different ParamString, or am I doing this wrong with WinExec? I did not post the full ExecAndWait method but I can if someone wants to see it.

Answer 1

Could you try to modify ParamString so it just contains 'control.exe /name' + Applet and then run it through WinExec?

Answer 2

@Bill the WinExec function is deprecated,

from MSDN Site

this function is provided only for compatibility with 16-bit Windows. Applications should use the CreateProcess function

try this sample using the CreateProcess function

program ProjectTest;

{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}

uses
  Windows,
  SysUtils;

var
  App        : String;
  Params     : String;
  StartupInfo: TStartupInfo;
  ProcessInfo: TProcessInformation;
begin
  try
   App    := 'control.exe';
   Params := '/Name Microsoft.GetPrograms';
   FillChar(StartupInfo, SizeOf(StartupInfo), 0);
   StartupInfo.cb := SizeOf(StartupInfo);
   if not CreateProcess(nil, PChar(App+' '+Params), nil, nil, False, 0, nil, nil, StartupInfo, ProcessInfo) then
    RaiseLastOSError;
    //Readln;
  except
    on E: Exception do
      Writeln(E.ClassName, ': ', E.Message);
  end;
end.