Can the last opened file location be directly altered?

Question

As I understand it, when a file open dialog box (such as GetOpenFileName) is used, Windows will automatically remember where the last file was that was opened by the program, and Windows remembers these locations separately for each program. Is there a way to directly alter this, in order to cause the file picking dialog for program X to start in C:\Example\Directory?

I'm attempting to automate a program which has been programmed to work only through a GUI, and I don't have any access to the internals of this program (such as being able to alter how it calls the file picker). Instead, I'm using a mouse macro (via AutoHotkey). If I can be completely sure that the file picker will start in a particular place, I should be able to automate the rest with mouse clicks.

Answer 1

If you had access to the source code, I'd suggest you just change the lpstrInitialDir property of the OPENFILENAME passed to GetOpenFileName().

Outside of that, you'll want to change the registry keys for the MRUs:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ComDlg32

What might make more sense, and might fix the issue you're having, is also changing the Working Directory so that the default location isn't "My Documents", if you're experiencing that.

Depending on the operating system, the results vary: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms646839%28v=vs.85%29.aspx