CreateProcess() doesn't care what the file extension is when you pass the executable filename into the lpApplicationName parameter. I used this feature when I

CreateProcess() doesn't care what the file extension is when you pass the executable filename into the lpApplicationName parameter. I used this feature when I worked on a VR app written in Unity, and I had a little launcher program that checked for updates and then started the main program. I didn't want people to bypass the launcher, so I renamed the main program to have a .VR extension instead of .exe, preventing it from being run directly from File Explorer. The launcher had a .exe extension and could be run normally, and then it used CreateProcess to run the FooBar.VR executable.