I'm moving some legacy code using Office Interop libraries to epplus, one thing I can't figure out is how to set a Workbook to ask the user on open the file to open it read only. Like if the user clicks on File -> Info -> Protect Workbook -> Always Open Read-Only
I've tried to set the DocSecurity property stated here (https://sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/TagNames/OOXML.html), but to no success. excelWorkBook.Properties.SetExtendedPropertyValue("DocSecurity", "2");
I also tried to add the following node to the workbookxml <fileSharing readOnlyRecommended="1"/>
I even tried to compare the unzipped excel files protected, non protected, but there were too many changes.
It can be done but it is not really straightforward. Setting DocSecurity can be done by generating the Workbook.Properties object. But that is only half of it. You also need to set the flag inside the Workbook itself which can only be done via XML manipulation.
[TestMethod]
public void DocSecurity_Test()
{
//https://stackoverflow.com/questions/58335624/is-there-a-programmatically-way-for-excels-protect-workbook
var fi = new FileInfo(#"c:\temp\DocSecurity_Test.xlsx");
if (fi.Exists)
fi.Delete();
using (var package = new ExcelPackage(fi))
{
//Create a simple workbook
var workbook = package.Workbook;
var worksheet = workbook.Worksheets.Add("Sheet1");
worksheet.Cells["A1"].Value = "Test";
//Extended properties is a singleton so reference it to generate the app.xml file
//needed and add the security setting
var extProps = workbook.Properties;
extProps.SetExtendedPropertyValue("DocSecurity", "2");
//Also need to tell the workbook itself but can only do it via XML
var xml = workbook.WorkbookXml;
var att = xml.CreateAttribute("readOnlyRecommended");
att.Value = "1";
const string mainNs = #"http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/spreadsheetml/2006/main";
var fileSharing = xml.CreateElement("fileSharing", mainNs);
fileSharing.Attributes.Append(att);
//Element must be at the beginning of the tree
xml.DocumentElement.PrependChild(fileSharing);
package.Save();
}
}
Which will look like this:
Related
I've defined an Excel template using Xml mappings that will generate the Excel report based on the Xml that I import.
I need to generate this report on the server so I can't use Microsoft Interopt. How can I do the following (C#) with an open source library?
Application excel = new Application();
Workbook workbook = excel.Workbooks.Open(Path.Combine(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory(), "TestTemplate.xlsx"));
var result = workbook.XmlMaps[1].Import(Path.Combine(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory(), "TestData.xml"), true);
workbook.Save();
workbook.Close();
excel.Workbooks.Close();
This allows me to do formatting of the Excel sheet on my own PC (with Office 365) and then save the template and publish with the project and just update the XML data and save as a new report.
I ended up going with ClosedXML's reporting plugin that has a variable replacement function that ended up working just as well.
The example from their website:
protected void Report()
{
const string outputFile = #".\Output\report.xlsx";
var template = new XLTemplate(#".\Templates\report.xlsx");
using (var db = new DbDemos())
{
var cust = db.customers.LoadWith(c => c.Orders).First();
template.AddVariable(cust);
template.Generate();
}
template.SaveAs(outputFile);
//Show report
Process.Start(new ProcessStartInfo(outputFile) { UseShellExecute = true });
}
I am exporting protected excel sheet using EPPlus in my winform(C#) project. Now I want functionality to allow user to edit ranges in that protected excel sheet using same plugin.
It would be great if you provide Code snippet.
Thanks in advance.
var fileName = "sample.xlsx";
var fileInfo = new FileInfo(fileName);
using (var excel = new ExcelPackage(fileInfo))
{
var ws = excel.Workbook.Worksheets.Add("sheet1");
ws.Protection.IsProtected = true;
ws.ProtectedRanges.Add("editable", new ExcelAddress("C:N"));
excel.Save();
}
I know its very late to reply but may help others. I had a similar issue and was struggling to get sorting and auto-filtering in protected worksheet.
After protecting the worksheet, I have added below two settings that allow sorting and auto-filtering.
ws.Protection.IsProtected = True
ws.Protection.AllowSort = True
ws.Protection.AllowAutoFilter = True
In my case however the next requirement was to unlock some columns to allow editing, I achieved that using:
ws.Column(12).Style.Locked = False
If you have a range however you can try something like this:
For Each cell In ws.Cells("B1:C8")
cell.Style.Locked = False
Next
I'm trying to find out how to read/write to the extended file properties in C#
e.g. Comment, Bit Rate, Date Accessed, Category etc that you can see in Windows explorer.
Any ideas how to do this?
EDIT: I'll mainly be reading/writing to video files (AVI/DIVX/...)
For those of not crazy about VB, here it is in c#:
Note, you have to add a reference to Microsoft Shell Controls and Automation from the COM tab of the References dialog.
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
List<string> arrHeaders = new List<string>();
Shell32.Shell shell = new Shell32.Shell();
Shell32.Folder objFolder;
objFolder = shell.NameSpace(#"C:\temp\testprop");
for( int i = 0; i < short.MaxValue; i++ )
{
string header = objFolder.GetDetailsOf(null, i);
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(header))
break;
arrHeaders.Add(header);
}
foreach(Shell32.FolderItem2 item in objFolder.Items())
{
for (int i = 0; i < arrHeaders.Count; i++)
{
Console.WriteLine(
$"{i}\t{arrHeaders[i]}: {objFolder.GetDetailsOf(item, i)}");
}
}
}
Solution 2016
Add following NuGet packages to your project:
Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack-Shell by Microsoft
Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack-Core by Microsoft
Read and Write Properties
using Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack.Shell;
using Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack.Shell.PropertySystem;
string filePath = #"C:\temp\example.docx";
var file = ShellFile.FromFilePath(filePath);
// Read and Write:
string[] oldAuthors = file.Properties.System.Author.Value;
string oldTitle = file.Properties.System.Title.Value;
file.Properties.System.Author.Value = new string[] { "Author #1", "Author #2" };
file.Properties.System.Title.Value = "Example Title";
// Alternate way to Write:
ShellPropertyWriter propertyWriter = file.Properties.GetPropertyWriter();
propertyWriter.WriteProperty(SystemProperties.System.Author, new string[] { "Author" });
propertyWriter.Close();
Important:
The file must be a valid one, created by the specific assigned software. Every file type has specific extended file properties and not all of them are writable.
If you right-click a file on desktop and cannot edit a property, you wont be able to edit it in code too.
Example:
Create txt file on desktop, rename its extension to docx. You can't
edit its Author or Title property.
Open it with Word, edit and save
it. Now you can.
So just make sure to use some try catch
Further Topic:
Microsoft Docs: Implementing Property Handlers
There's a CodeProject article for an ID3 reader. And a thread at kixtart.org that has more information for other properties. Basically, you need to call the GetDetailsOf() method on the folder shell object for shell32.dll.
This sample in VB.NET reads all extended properties:
Sub Main()
Dim arrHeaders(35)
Dim shell As New Shell32.Shell
Dim objFolder As Shell32.Folder
objFolder = shell.NameSpace("C:\tmp")
For i = 0 To 34
arrHeaders(i) = objFolder.GetDetailsOf(objFolder.Items, i)
Next
For Each strFileName In objfolder.Items
For i = 0 To 34
Console.WriteLine(i & vbTab & arrHeaders(i) & ": " & objfolder.GetDetailsOf(strFileName, i))
Next
Next
End Sub
You have to add a reference to Microsoft Shell Controls and Automation from the COM tab of the References dialog.
Thank you guys for this thread! It helped me when I wanted to figure out an exe's file version. However, I needed to figure out the last bit myself of what is called Extended Properties.
If you open properties of an exe (or dll) file in Windows Explorer, you get a Version tab, and a view of Extended Properties of that file. I wanted to access one of those values.
The solution to this is the property indexer FolderItem.ExtendedProperty and if you drop all spaces in the property's name, you'll get the value. E.g. File Version goes FileVersion, and there you have it.
Hope this helps anyone else, just thought I'd add this info to this thread. Cheers!
GetDetailsOf() Method - Retrieves details about an item in a folder. For example, its size, type, or the time of its last modification. File Properties may vary based on the Windows-OS version.
List<string> arrHeaders = new List<string>();
Shell shell = new ShellClass();
Folder rFolder = shell.NameSpace(_rootPath);
FolderItem rFiles = rFolder.ParseName(filename);
for (int i = 0; i < short.MaxValue; i++)
{
string value = rFolder.GetDetailsOf(rFiles, i).Trim();
arrHeaders.Add(value);
}
Jerker's answer is little simpler. Here's sample code which works from MS:
var folder = new Shell().NameSpace(folderPath);
foreach (FolderItem2 item in folder.Items())
{
var company = item.ExtendedProperty("Company");
var author = item.ExtendedProperty("Author");
// Etc.
}
For those who can't reference shell32 statically, you can invoke it dynamically like this:
var shellAppType = Type.GetTypeFromProgID("Shell.Application");
dynamic shellApp = Activator.CreateInstance(shellAppType);
var folder = shellApp.NameSpace(folderPath);
foreach (var item in folder.Items())
{
var company = item.ExtendedProperty("Company");
var author = item.ExtendedProperty("Author");
// Etc.
}
After looking at a number of solutions on this thread and elsewhere
the following code was put together. This is only to read a property.
I could not get the
Shell32.FolderItem2.ExtendedProperty function to work, it is supposed
to take a string value and return the correct value and type for that
property... this was always null for me and developer reference resources were very thin.
The WindowsApiCodePack seems
to have been abandoned by Microsoft which brings us the code below.
Use:
string propertyValue = GetExtendedFileProperty("c:\\temp\\FileNameYouWant.ext","PropertyYouWant");
Will return you the value of the extended property you want as a
string for the given file and property name.
Only loops until it found the specified property - not until
all properties are discovered like some sample code
Will work on Windows versions like Windows server 2008 where you will get the error "Unable to cast COM object of type 'System.__ComObject' to interface type 'Shell32.Shell'" if just trying to create the Shell32 Object normally.
public static string GetExtendedFileProperty(string filePath, string propertyName)
{
string value = string.Empty;
string baseFolder = Path.GetDirectoryName(filePath);
string fileName = Path.GetFileName(filePath);
//Method to load and execute the Shell object for Windows server 8 environment otherwise you get "Unable to cast COM object of type 'System.__ComObject' to interface type 'Shell32.Shell'"
Type shellAppType = Type.GetTypeFromProgID("Shell.Application");
Object shell = Activator.CreateInstance(shellAppType);
Shell32.Folder shellFolder = (Shell32.Folder)shellAppType.InvokeMember("NameSpace", System.Reflection.BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, shell, new object[] { baseFolder });
//Parsename will find the specific file I'm looking for in the Shell32.Folder object
Shell32.FolderItem folderitem = shellFolder.ParseName(fileName);
if (folderitem != null)
{
for (int i = 0; i < short.MaxValue; i++)
{
//Get the property name for property index i
string property = shellFolder.GetDetailsOf(null, i);
//Will be empty when all possible properties has been looped through, break out of loop
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(property)) break;
//Skip to next property if this is not the specified property
if (property != propertyName) continue;
//Read value of property
value = shellFolder.GetDetailsOf(folderitem, i);
}
}
//returns string.Empty if no value was found for the specified property
return value;
}
Here is a solution for reading - not writing - the extended properties based on what I found on this page and at help with shell32 objects.
To be clear this is a hack. It looks like this code will still run on Windows 10 but will hit on some empty properties. Previous version of Windows should use:
var i = 0;
while (true)
{
...
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(header)) break;
...
i++;
On Windows 10 we assume that there are about 320 properties to read and simply skip the empty entries:
private Dictionary<string, string> GetExtendedProperties(string filePath)
{
var directory = Path.GetDirectoryName(filePath);
var shell = new Shell32.Shell();
var shellFolder = shell.NameSpace(directory);
var fileName = Path.GetFileName(filePath);
var folderitem = shellFolder.ParseName(fileName);
var dictionary = new Dictionary<string, string>();
var i = -1;
while (++i < 320)
{
var header = shellFolder.GetDetailsOf(null, i);
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(header)) continue;
var value = shellFolder.GetDetailsOf(folderitem, i);
if (!dictionary.ContainsKey(header)) dictionary.Add(header, value);
Console.WriteLine(header +": " + value);
}
Marshal.ReleaseComObject(shell);
Marshal.ReleaseComObject(shellFolder);
return dictionary;
}
As mentioned you need to reference the Com assembly Interop.Shell32.
If you get an STA related exception, you will find the solution here:
Exception when using Shell32 to get File extended properties
I have no idea what those properties names would be like on a foreign system and couldn't find information about which localizable constants to use in order to access the dictionary. I also found that not all the properties from the Properties dialog were present in the dictionary returned.
BTW this is terribly slow and - at least on Windows 10 - parsing dates in the string retrieved would be a challenge so using this seems to be a bad idea to start with.
On Windows 10 you should definitely use the Windows.Storage library which contains the SystemPhotoProperties, SystemMusicProperties etc.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/files/quickstart-getting-file-properties
And finally, I posted a much better solution that uses WindowsAPICodePack there
I'm not sure what types of files you are trying to write the properties for but taglib-sharp is an excellent open source tagging library that wraps up all this functionality nicely. It has a lot of built in support for most of the popular media file types but also allows you to do more advanced tagging with pretty much any file.
EDIT: I've updated the link to taglib sharp. The old link no longer worked.
EDIT: Updated the link once again per kzu's comment.
Is it possible to enable "Sharing" on excel documents through OpenXML or ClosedXML? Or any other library if it can help... I believe this is usually performed when you save the document (at least that's how it works in VBA), but I can't find how to specify saving arguments in C#.
I'd like to avoid using InterOp since I might batch this process on multiple files through a network.
EDIT: According to some old pages from 2009, there are limitations where OpenXML cannot operate protected files. However, would that apply to sharing too?
Sharing Excel documents using OpenXML SDK is not well documented.
I did some tests and found that it is possible to enable sharing on Excel documents
using OpenXML SDK. The following steps are necessary to enable sharing:
Add a WorkbookUserDataPart to your Excel document. Add an empty Users collection
to the part. In this collection Excel stores all users who currently have
this shared workbook open.
Add a WorkbookRevisionHeaderPart to your Excel document. Add a Headers collection
to the part. In this collection Excel will store references to history, version and revision
information. Add a first element (Header) to the collection which contains the
SheetIdMap (used for tracking revision records). In the code sample below
I've added all worksheets included in the document.
Furthermore add a WorkbookRevisionLogPart to the workbook's revision header part.
In the log part a list of revision made to the document is stored.
The code sample below shows how to enable sharing on an Excel document.
The code also checks whether sharing is already enabled on a document.
Before you enable sharing you should create a backup of your original documents.
using (SpreadsheetDocument sd = SpreadsheetDocument.Open("c:\\temp\\enable_sharing.xlsx", true))
{
WorkbookPart workbookPart = sd.WorkbookPart;
if (workbookPart.GetPartsCountOfType<WorkbookRevisionHeaderPart>() != 0)
{
Console.Out.WriteLine("Excel document already shared!");
return;
}
// Create user data part if it does not exist.
if (workbookPart.GetPartsCountOfType<WorkbookUserDataPart>() == 0)
{
Console.Out.WriteLine("Adding user data part");
WorkbookUserDataPart workbookUserDataPart = workbookPart.AddNewPart<WorkbookUserDataPart>();
Users users = new Users() { Count = (UInt32Value)0U };
users.AddNamespaceDeclaration("r", "http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships");
workbookUserDataPart.Users = users;
}
// Create revision header part and revision log part.
WorkbookRevisionHeaderPart workbookRevisonHeaderPart = workbookPart.AddNewPart<WorkbookRevisionHeaderPart>();
WorkbookRevisionLogPart workbookRevisionLogPart = workbookRevisonHeaderPart.AddNewPart<WorkbookRevisionLogPart>();
// Create empty collection of revisions.
Revisions revisions = new Revisions();
revisions.AddNamespaceDeclaration("r", "http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships");
workbookRevisionLogPart.Revisions = revisions;
string lastSetOfRevisionsGuid = Guid.NewGuid().ToString("B");
// Create headers collection (references to history, revisions)
Headers headers = new Headers() { Guid = lastSetOfRevisionsGuid };
headers.AddNamespaceDeclaration("r", "http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships");
int worksheetPartsCount = workbookPart.GetPartsCountOfType<WorksheetPart>();
// Create first element in headers collection
// which contains the SheetIdMap.
Header header = new Header() { Guid = lastSetOfRevisionsGuid, DateTime = DateTime.Now,
MaxSheetId = (UInt32Value)(uint)worksheetPartsCount+1, UserName = "hans", Id = "rId1" };
// Create the list of sheet IDs that are used for tracking
// revision records. For every worksheet in the document
// create one SheetId.
SheetIdMap sheetIdMap = new SheetIdMap() { Count = (UInt32Value)(uint)worksheetPartsCount };
for (uint i = 1; i <= worksheetPartsCount; i++)
{
SheetId sheetId = new SheetId() { Val = (UInt32Value)i };
sheetIdMap.Append(sheetId);
}
header.Append(sheetIdMap);
headers.Append(header);
workbookRevisonHeaderPart.Headers = headers;
}
I'm trying to find out how to read/write to the extended file properties in C#
e.g. Comment, Bit Rate, Date Accessed, Category etc that you can see in Windows explorer.
Any ideas how to do this?
EDIT: I'll mainly be reading/writing to video files (AVI/DIVX/...)
For those of not crazy about VB, here it is in c#:
Note, you have to add a reference to Microsoft Shell Controls and Automation from the COM tab of the References dialog.
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
List<string> arrHeaders = new List<string>();
Shell32.Shell shell = new Shell32.Shell();
Shell32.Folder objFolder;
objFolder = shell.NameSpace(#"C:\temp\testprop");
for( int i = 0; i < short.MaxValue; i++ )
{
string header = objFolder.GetDetailsOf(null, i);
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(header))
break;
arrHeaders.Add(header);
}
foreach(Shell32.FolderItem2 item in objFolder.Items())
{
for (int i = 0; i < arrHeaders.Count; i++)
{
Console.WriteLine(
$"{i}\t{arrHeaders[i]}: {objFolder.GetDetailsOf(item, i)}");
}
}
}
Solution 2016
Add following NuGet packages to your project:
Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack-Shell by Microsoft
Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack-Core by Microsoft
Read and Write Properties
using Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack.Shell;
using Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack.Shell.PropertySystem;
string filePath = #"C:\temp\example.docx";
var file = ShellFile.FromFilePath(filePath);
// Read and Write:
string[] oldAuthors = file.Properties.System.Author.Value;
string oldTitle = file.Properties.System.Title.Value;
file.Properties.System.Author.Value = new string[] { "Author #1", "Author #2" };
file.Properties.System.Title.Value = "Example Title";
// Alternate way to Write:
ShellPropertyWriter propertyWriter = file.Properties.GetPropertyWriter();
propertyWriter.WriteProperty(SystemProperties.System.Author, new string[] { "Author" });
propertyWriter.Close();
Important:
The file must be a valid one, created by the specific assigned software. Every file type has specific extended file properties and not all of them are writable.
If you right-click a file on desktop and cannot edit a property, you wont be able to edit it in code too.
Example:
Create txt file on desktop, rename its extension to docx. You can't
edit its Author or Title property.
Open it with Word, edit and save
it. Now you can.
So just make sure to use some try catch
Further Topic:
Microsoft Docs: Implementing Property Handlers
There's a CodeProject article for an ID3 reader. And a thread at kixtart.org that has more information for other properties. Basically, you need to call the GetDetailsOf() method on the folder shell object for shell32.dll.
This sample in VB.NET reads all extended properties:
Sub Main()
Dim arrHeaders(35)
Dim shell As New Shell32.Shell
Dim objFolder As Shell32.Folder
objFolder = shell.NameSpace("C:\tmp")
For i = 0 To 34
arrHeaders(i) = objFolder.GetDetailsOf(objFolder.Items, i)
Next
For Each strFileName In objfolder.Items
For i = 0 To 34
Console.WriteLine(i & vbTab & arrHeaders(i) & ": " & objfolder.GetDetailsOf(strFileName, i))
Next
Next
End Sub
You have to add a reference to Microsoft Shell Controls and Automation from the COM tab of the References dialog.
Thank you guys for this thread! It helped me when I wanted to figure out an exe's file version. However, I needed to figure out the last bit myself of what is called Extended Properties.
If you open properties of an exe (or dll) file in Windows Explorer, you get a Version tab, and a view of Extended Properties of that file. I wanted to access one of those values.
The solution to this is the property indexer FolderItem.ExtendedProperty and if you drop all spaces in the property's name, you'll get the value. E.g. File Version goes FileVersion, and there you have it.
Hope this helps anyone else, just thought I'd add this info to this thread. Cheers!
GetDetailsOf() Method - Retrieves details about an item in a folder. For example, its size, type, or the time of its last modification. File Properties may vary based on the Windows-OS version.
List<string> arrHeaders = new List<string>();
Shell shell = new ShellClass();
Folder rFolder = shell.NameSpace(_rootPath);
FolderItem rFiles = rFolder.ParseName(filename);
for (int i = 0; i < short.MaxValue; i++)
{
string value = rFolder.GetDetailsOf(rFiles, i).Trim();
arrHeaders.Add(value);
}
Jerker's answer is little simpler. Here's sample code which works from MS:
var folder = new Shell().NameSpace(folderPath);
foreach (FolderItem2 item in folder.Items())
{
var company = item.ExtendedProperty("Company");
var author = item.ExtendedProperty("Author");
// Etc.
}
For those who can't reference shell32 statically, you can invoke it dynamically like this:
var shellAppType = Type.GetTypeFromProgID("Shell.Application");
dynamic shellApp = Activator.CreateInstance(shellAppType);
var folder = shellApp.NameSpace(folderPath);
foreach (var item in folder.Items())
{
var company = item.ExtendedProperty("Company");
var author = item.ExtendedProperty("Author");
// Etc.
}
After looking at a number of solutions on this thread and elsewhere
the following code was put together. This is only to read a property.
I could not get the
Shell32.FolderItem2.ExtendedProperty function to work, it is supposed
to take a string value and return the correct value and type for that
property... this was always null for me and developer reference resources were very thin.
The WindowsApiCodePack seems
to have been abandoned by Microsoft which brings us the code below.
Use:
string propertyValue = GetExtendedFileProperty("c:\\temp\\FileNameYouWant.ext","PropertyYouWant");
Will return you the value of the extended property you want as a
string for the given file and property name.
Only loops until it found the specified property - not until
all properties are discovered like some sample code
Will work on Windows versions like Windows server 2008 where you will get the error "Unable to cast COM object of type 'System.__ComObject' to interface type 'Shell32.Shell'" if just trying to create the Shell32 Object normally.
public static string GetExtendedFileProperty(string filePath, string propertyName)
{
string value = string.Empty;
string baseFolder = Path.GetDirectoryName(filePath);
string fileName = Path.GetFileName(filePath);
//Method to load and execute the Shell object for Windows server 8 environment otherwise you get "Unable to cast COM object of type 'System.__ComObject' to interface type 'Shell32.Shell'"
Type shellAppType = Type.GetTypeFromProgID("Shell.Application");
Object shell = Activator.CreateInstance(shellAppType);
Shell32.Folder shellFolder = (Shell32.Folder)shellAppType.InvokeMember("NameSpace", System.Reflection.BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, shell, new object[] { baseFolder });
//Parsename will find the specific file I'm looking for in the Shell32.Folder object
Shell32.FolderItem folderitem = shellFolder.ParseName(fileName);
if (folderitem != null)
{
for (int i = 0; i < short.MaxValue; i++)
{
//Get the property name for property index i
string property = shellFolder.GetDetailsOf(null, i);
//Will be empty when all possible properties has been looped through, break out of loop
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(property)) break;
//Skip to next property if this is not the specified property
if (property != propertyName) continue;
//Read value of property
value = shellFolder.GetDetailsOf(folderitem, i);
}
}
//returns string.Empty if no value was found for the specified property
return value;
}
Here is a solution for reading - not writing - the extended properties based on what I found on this page and at help with shell32 objects.
To be clear this is a hack. It looks like this code will still run on Windows 10 but will hit on some empty properties. Previous version of Windows should use:
var i = 0;
while (true)
{
...
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(header)) break;
...
i++;
On Windows 10 we assume that there are about 320 properties to read and simply skip the empty entries:
private Dictionary<string, string> GetExtendedProperties(string filePath)
{
var directory = Path.GetDirectoryName(filePath);
var shell = new Shell32.Shell();
var shellFolder = shell.NameSpace(directory);
var fileName = Path.GetFileName(filePath);
var folderitem = shellFolder.ParseName(fileName);
var dictionary = new Dictionary<string, string>();
var i = -1;
while (++i < 320)
{
var header = shellFolder.GetDetailsOf(null, i);
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(header)) continue;
var value = shellFolder.GetDetailsOf(folderitem, i);
if (!dictionary.ContainsKey(header)) dictionary.Add(header, value);
Console.WriteLine(header +": " + value);
}
Marshal.ReleaseComObject(shell);
Marshal.ReleaseComObject(shellFolder);
return dictionary;
}
As mentioned you need to reference the Com assembly Interop.Shell32.
If you get an STA related exception, you will find the solution here:
Exception when using Shell32 to get File extended properties
I have no idea what those properties names would be like on a foreign system and couldn't find information about which localizable constants to use in order to access the dictionary. I also found that not all the properties from the Properties dialog were present in the dictionary returned.
BTW this is terribly slow and - at least on Windows 10 - parsing dates in the string retrieved would be a challenge so using this seems to be a bad idea to start with.
On Windows 10 you should definitely use the Windows.Storage library which contains the SystemPhotoProperties, SystemMusicProperties etc.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/files/quickstart-getting-file-properties
And finally, I posted a much better solution that uses WindowsAPICodePack there
I'm not sure what types of files you are trying to write the properties for but taglib-sharp is an excellent open source tagging library that wraps up all this functionality nicely. It has a lot of built in support for most of the popular media file types but also allows you to do more advanced tagging with pretty much any file.
EDIT: I've updated the link to taglib sharp. The old link no longer worked.
EDIT: Updated the link once again per kzu's comment.