Get Shell Icon with only a file extension

Question

I want to get the windows system icon(s) for a file type without necessarily providing an existing file path (required by SHGetFileInfo)

Is this possible, or do I have to resort to creating temporary files or reading the registry?

Answer 1

Yes is possible using file extension as first parameter in SHGetFileInfo. You must also use SHGFI_USEFILEATTRIBUTES flags.

Answer 2

In case you were interested in an implementation I had a blog post on this in 2004 that can still be found here (about the third entry down) Old blog post