CONTENTS OF CODE WINDOWS ON THE FORUM ARE BEING CORRUPTED OVER TIME AND THE CODE NO LONGER WORKS. BECAUSE OF THIS THE CODE HAS BEEN MOVED INTO THIS README FILE AND APPEARS BELOW THE INSTRUCTIONS

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Delete all text down to and including the line CODE STARTS HERE. Click on File on the menu and select Save As.
Choose a folder to save to and click on down arrow at end of "Save as Type" box. Choose "All files". Edit the file name to 
IV_launch 1.vbs and Save

2. The file is is a Visual Basic script that is able to launch Irfanview to browse selected files from a folder, search list or library. Files can be selected in Windows Explorer using the usual methods by holding down Shift and Ctrl keys while clicking with the mouse, and then dragged across onto the VBS icon. A list of names of image files passed by drag and drop onto the VBS file icon are saved in a temporary file created in the same folder as the VBS file and Irfanview is then launched to show just those images, rather than the whole folder as is the normal case. There is a limit of around 500 file names that can be passed this way at any one time. If the limit is exceeded an error message will be shown.

3. If a single file or folder name is passed Irfanview launches normally. There is no limit to the number of files contained in a folder passed this way. Irfanview will also open normally if no file or folder is passed. So it is possible to use the VBS file icon just like a normal shortcut to Irfanview, but with the additional feature described in para. 1 above.

4. The VBS file may be placed anywhere on the computer and the existing desktop shortcut can be changed to send the image files there instead of direct to Irfanview. It needs no installation. To edit the Irfanview desktop shortcut to point to the VBS file right click on the shortcut and select Properties. The address shown in the "Target" box needs to be changed from the existing "i_view32.exe" path and name to that of the VBS file. It is wise to save the exisiting i_view32.exe path and name to the clipboard by pressing Ctrl+C before changing it. It can then be pasted into the VBS file should it be found necessary in para 5 below. 

5. If the Irfanview executable file i_view32.exe is not in the standard Program files location it may be necessary to edit the first line of the VBS file. This can be done in Notepad or other text editor, making the change and saving again. To test if this is necessary double click the VBS icon and either a message box will open stating that the file needs to be changed or Irfanview will open normally.

'CODE STARTS HERE

strApp= "C:\Program files\Irfanview\i_view32.exe"
strTempfile="C:\users\Mike\Appdata\Roaming\Irfanview\listfile.txt"
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
If fso.FileExists(strApp) then
  Set shell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
  Select Case Wscript.Arguments.Count                                           ' How many files were passed?
  Case 0
    shell.Run  chr(34) & strApp & chr(34)                                       ' No files. Just open Irfanview
  Case 1
    shell.Run  chr(34) & strApp & chr(34) & " " & Wscript.Arguments(0)          ' One file or folder. Open Irfanview normally.
  Case Else
    Set f1 = fso.CreateTextFile(strTempfile, True)                              ' More than one. Make a list in a temporary
    For n=0 to Wscript.Arguments.Count-1                                        ' file and use that to launch Irfanview
      f1.WriteLine Wscript.Arguments(n)
    Next
    f1.close
    shell.Run  chr(34) & strApp & chr(34) &" /filelist=" & strTempfile, 1, true
    fso.deletefile (strTempfile)
   End Select
   Set shell = Nothing
Else                                                                             ' Cannot find Irfanview
  msgbox strApp & " not found." & vbCrLf & "Please edit Line 1 of " & wscript.scriptfullname
End If
Set fso=Nothing