Deployment Alternate Association broken

Question

I'm using TestStand v3.5, and we've set the Alternate Association for .seq files to be our Test Executive. The problem we are running into is that the update to the association in the Folder Options File Types for .seq files does not map the location of our Test Executive properly. The path is missing the root drive letter and ends up as "Test\Bin\TestExec.exe" "%1" instead of "C:\Test\Bin\TestExec.exe" "%1".
Also we'd like to be able to add the -useExisting flag to the file association - i.e.; "C:\Test\Bin\TestExec.exe -useExisting " "%1".
Does anyone know what might be causing the drive letter to be omitted from the path to the executable?
Other settings that may be a factor are: we install to the Windows Volume (C:\) drive with no Default Installation subdirectory, since we install files in two different locations that branch from the C:\ drive (C:\Test\... and C:\Program Files\...). Enabling/disabling the Do Not Ask User for Installation Directory option has no effect.
Does anyone know of a work-around that would allow us to get the desired file association programatically (script, batch, hack)?
Our current solution is to turn off this feature and manually edit this association after the install, but we'd really like an automated method.
Thanks,
-Jack

Answer 1

FYI,
I kept digging into this to see how we could get around this issue, and it appears that you can send some command line configurations as Custom Commands. Here are the commands that I found that appear to work (YMMV):
cmd /c "ASSOC .seq=NationalInstruments.TestStandSequenceFile.1"
and
cmd /c "FTYPE NationalInstruments.TestStandSequenceFile.1="C:\Test\Bin\TestExec.exe" "-useExisting" "%1" "
Note that the location of quotes appears to be important. If you're installing on top of an existing TestStand installation, I believe you only need the second command, as the association of the .seq suffix has already been set. I also disabled the Alternate Association of .seq files in the Advanced Options.
I've not gotten a chance to release a deployment using this, but have tested it a few times on the development machine. If anyone sees any potential problems with using this work-around, I'd appreciate hearing about it ASAP!
-Jack