ProjectWise Open document with dialog box

This is surprisingly complicated, a lot of it because Microsoft has done some truly bizarre things.

Not sure how familiar you are with Program Classes they are mostly what ProjectWise uses to decide which programs to list as available programs. You can also, with a bit of work, hard code a path to an application and user's sometimes manage to do this for User Associations. This is pretty fragile. For example OpenRoads Designer, OpenRail Designer, OpenBridge Modeler are all dual installable now, which means the 10.9 and 10.10 versions install in different paths. If you have a hard-coded path to OpenRoads Designer 10.9 and install 10.10 and remove 10.9 there's a fair chance it won't show up (depends on other settings outlined below).

The Program Class name is a registry entry used by Windows to figure out what application to launch. It is different than old school "file association" that you can assign in Windows Explorer. Using Windows to change what dgn is associated too typically doesn't help.

Bentley has a hierarchy of Program Class names that allow a default and version specific Program Classes to be defined.

For MicroStation:

• Bentley.MicroStation.Application => generic MicroStation, can be v8i or Connect
• Bentley.MicroStation.Application.{B1E9E1E2-213C-47e5-BDD0-6A528DAE0244} => MicroStation V8i
• Bentley.MicroStation.Application.{39949BF5-7E21-4A7B-A640-6E7199B7D588} => MicroStation Connect

ProjectWise build a list of what applications to show by first adding what Bentley.MicroStation.Application points to. That's usually the last MicroStation installed. Then it adds all the Program Class defined as an Open action in the datasource application properties. Then it adds whatever the user has in their User Associations. Duplicates & programs that don't exist locally are then removed from the list and that's what you see.

If you have a user with no user associations, and on their machine Bentley.MicroStation.Application points at MicroStation Connect, and the datasource is set to use a program class name of Bentley.MicroStation.Application (or Bentley.MicroStation.Application.{39949BF5-7E21-4A7B-A640-6E7199B7D588}), the user will only see MicroStation Connect.

If in user associations they pick MicroStation V8i, that will be listed too. If you add an additional Open option in the datasource global properties with program class name Bentley.MicroStation.Application.{B1E9E1E2-213C-47e5-BDD0-6A528DAE0244}, then that too will add MicroStation V8i to the list.

Now the verticals have their own Program Class names. The generic names I've run into are:

• Bentley.OpenRoadsDesigner.Application
• Bentley.OpenRailDesigner.Application
• Bentley.OpenBridgeModeler.Application
• Bentley.PowerInRoads.Application
• Bentley.PowerGEOPAK.Application

For 10.9 and 10.10 each has it's own Class ID version too (that's the number in {} after the generic name). For PowerGEOPAK, PowerInRoads and PowerRailTrack they have different class ids for SS2 & SS10 (SS4 & SS10 have the same class id).

So you have a couple of options: show users how to use User Associations to add exactly the application they want, or if you want to list every installed application automatically you can add the version specific Program Classes. If you don't have that many applications to support this is probably better. I did this method but because we still support the Power V8i SS2 & SS10 versions, plus 10.9 and 10.10, plus i list MicroStation for externals that's 12 program class names to assign.

After doing that this is what my Open With looks like on the computer i use to test Connect applications. (I just relized i don't have OBM 10.10 listed, need to fix that) (user's only see what's actually installed on the their computer so the list isn't quite so overwhelming for them)

This is surprisingly complicated, a lot of it because Microsoft has done some truly bizarre things.

Not sure how familiar you are with Program Classes they are mostly what ProjectWise uses to decide which programs to list as available programs. You can also, with a bit of work, hard code a path to an application and user's sometimes manage to do this for User Associations. This is pretty fragile. For example OpenRoads Designer, OpenRail Designer, OpenBridge Modeler are all dual installable now, which means the 10.9 and 10.10 versions install in different paths. If you have a hard-coded path to OpenRoads Designer 10.9 and install 10.10 and remove 10.9 there's a fair chance it won't show up (depends on other settings outlined below).

The Program Class name is a registry entry used by Windows to figure out what application to launch. It is different than old school "file association" that you can assign in Windows Explorer. Using Windows to change what dgn is associated too typically doesn't help.

Bentley has a hierarchy of Program Class names that allow a default and version specific Program Classes to be defined.

For MicroStation:

• Bentley.MicroStation.Application => generic MicroStation, can be v8i or Connect
• Bentley.MicroStation.Application.{B1E9E1E2-213C-47e5-BDD0-6A528DAE0244} => MicroStation V8i
• Bentley.MicroStation.Application.{39949BF5-7E21-4A7B-A640-6E7199B7D588} => MicroStation Connect

ProjectWise build a list of what applications to show by first adding what Bentley.MicroStation.Application points to. That's usually the last MicroStation installed. Then it adds all the Program Class defined as an Open action in the datasource application properties. Then it adds whatever the user has in their User Associations. Duplicates & programs that don't exist locally are then removed from the list and that's what you see.

If you have a user with no user associations, and on their machine Bentley.MicroStation.Application points at MicroStation Connect, and the datasource is set to use a program class name of Bentley.MicroStation.Application (or Bentley.MicroStation.Application.{39949BF5-7E21-4A7B-A640-6E7199B7D588}), the user will only see MicroStation Connect.

If in user associations they pick MicroStation V8i, that will be listed too. If you add an additional Open option in the datasource global properties with program class name Bentley.MicroStation.Application.{B1E9E1E2-213C-47e5-BDD0-6A528DAE0244}, then that too will add MicroStation V8i to the list.

Now the verticals have their own Program Class names. The generic names I've run into are:

• Bentley.OpenRoadsDesigner.Application
• Bentley.OpenRailDesigner.Application
• Bentley.OpenBridgeModeler.Application
• Bentley.PowerInRoads.Application
• Bentley.PowerGEOPAK.Application

For 10.9 and 10.10 each has it's own Class ID version too (that's the number in {} after the generic name). For PowerGEOPAK, PowerInRoads and PowerRailTrack they have different class ids for SS2 & SS10 (SS4 & SS10 have the same class id).

So you have a couple of options: show users how to use User Associations to add exactly the application they want, or if you want to list every installed application automatically you can add the version specific Program Classes. If you don't have that many applications to support this is probably better. I did this method but because we still support the Power V8i SS2 & SS10 versions, plus 10.9 and 10.10, plus i list MicroStation for externals that's 12 program class names to assign.

After doing that this is what my Open With looks like on the computer i use to test Connect applications. (I just relized i don't have OBM 10.10 listed, need to fix that) (user's only see what's actually installed on the their computer so the list isn't quite so overwhelming for them)

Oh, i found my list of Program Class Names for the Bentley software. I haven't updated it for 10.10 versions yet but:

Thank you very much for your help.

Do you know where I can find the program class names for the version specific applications I have installed? Would this be in the registry or does Bentley have a list of these somewhere?

I use the registry. If you have administrator installed on a machine with the software installed you can click the ... and select the application in the Program Class section. Sometimes that puts in the exact version program class, sometimes it puts in the generic. that'll at least get you a start.

in the registry, on a machine with the software installed, go to Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\. Scroll down that list until you see the Bentley keys start to show up. So far the form for all the apps I've needed has been Bentley.XXX.Application.VERSION_GUID where XXX is a short name for the application (without spaces) so OpenRoadsDesigner or MicroStation. VERSION_GUID is the long string in {}.

To figure out which version the GUID goes to I then search the registry for the GUID (including {}) as a key name. You should find it under Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID. Under the GUID is a LocalServer32 folder, the default value in that folder is the path to the application that guid is assigned to.