How do you create your own moniker (URL Protocol) on Windows systems?

Question

How do you create your own custom moniker (or URL Protocol) on Windows systems?

Examples:

• http:
• mailto:
• service:

Answer 1

Take a look at Creating and Using URL Monikers , About Asynchronous Pluggable Protocols and Registering an Application to a URL Protocol from MSDN

Answer 2

Here's some old Delphi code we used as a way to get shortcuts in a web application to start a windows program locally for the user.

procedure InstallIntoRegistry;
var
  Reg: TRegistry;
begin
  Reg := TRegistry.Create;
  try
    Reg.RootKey := HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT;
    if Reg.OpenKey('moniker', True) then
    begin
      Reg.WriteString('', 'URL:Name of moniker');
      Reg.WriteString('URL Protocol', '');
      Reg.WriteString('Source Filter', '{E436EBB6-524F-11CE-9F53-0020AF0BA770}');
      Reg.WriteInteger('EditFlags', 2);

      if Reg.OpenKey('shell\open\command', True) then
      begin
        Reg.WriteString('', '"' + ParamStr(0) + '" "%1"');
      end;
    end else begin
      MessageBox(0, 'You do not have the necessary access rights to complete this installation!' + Chr(13) +
        'Please make sure you are logged in with a user account with administrative rights!', 'Access denied', 0);
      Exit;
    end;
  finally
    FreeAndNil(Reg);
  end;

  MessageBox(0, 'Application WebStart has been installed successfully!', 'Installed', 0);
end;

Answer 3

Inside OLE from Craig Brockschmidt probably has the best coverage on monikers. If you want to dig a little deeper into this topic, I'd recommend getting this book. It is also contained on the MSDN disk that came along with VS 6.0, in case you still have that.