How can you open a file with the program associated with its file extension?

Question

Is there a simple way to open a file by its associated program in windows? (like double clicking it in windows explorer but done automatically with my code)

For exam

Answer 1

See Launching Applications:

ShellExecute(NULL, "open", L"c:\\outfile.txt", NULL, NULL, SW_SHOW);

On windows, a good memory hook is to think of all data-files being executable by the shell. You can also try it out in a command box, where you can just type a filename, and it will be opened up. Or, the other way around, every file in Windows can be opened, and the default opening-action for executable files is to execute them.