Easiest way without using Win32 shell functions is to simply launch explorer.exe with the /select
parameter. For example, launching the process
explorer.exe /select,"C:\Folder\subfolder\file.txt"
will open a new explorer window to C:\Folder\subfolder with file.txt selected.
If you wish to do it programmatically without launching a new process, you'll need to use the shell function SHOpenFolderAndSelectItems
, which is what the /select
command to explorer.exe will use internally. Note that this requires the use of PIDLs, and can be a real PITA if you are not familiar with how the shell APIs work.
Here's a complete, programmatic implementation of the /select
approach, with path cleanup thanks to suggestions from @Bhushan and @tehDorf:
public bool ExploreFile(string filePath) {
if (!System.IO.File.Exists(filePath)) {
return false;
}
//Clean up file path so it can be navigated OK
filePath = System.IO.Path.GetFullPath(filePath);
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("explorer.exe", string.Format("/select,\"{0}\"", filePath));
return true;
}
Reference: Explorer.exe Command-line switches