Hi, just posted this on BetaNews:
EDIT 11/23/07 re below quote:
1. Bobad: there is one main UniExtract shortcut in Send To, if all else fails.
2. BUT more importantly to the author:
Bobad may be on to something here-- my context menu entries for Universal Extractor have disappeared(for .zip, .msi & .exe), on Vista Home Premium Sp1. I've tried reinstalling, w/ all possible context entries enabled and .zip associated w/ it, of course-- to no avail.
Of note-- may help you-- re related programs:
- Others having issues--
PeaZip: all entries disappeared as well HOWEVER, all Send To entries still in place.
ZipInstaller: context entry ONLY appears after archive is opened & listed in Explorer 'Folder' Pane-- ALTHOUGH ONLY if right-clicked from that side, NOT if right-clicked in File pane.
ExtractNow context entries have disappeared for .exe files, but for .zip have NOT disappeared.
7Zip main context 'name' entry is still there, BUT its command submenu NEVER LOADS.
Other related programs
- "still functioning properly(each/all the very latest release, even if beta/rc/etc.)"--
#7Z, AlZip, IzArc, GSplit.
BTW
A. Universal Extractor, even before reinstall, was the last program of its kind installed.
B. SP1 for Vista was only installed 2 days ago.
C. Universal Extractor was upgraded to this Beta, w/ no issues, from the day it was released to the public.
Dollars to Doughnuts this is a Vista change issue--
1. NO such issues on WinXP SP3
2. Going by MS deadline to programmers to comply with all Vista OS changes: something along the lines that 'initially' older programs could still run normally w/ some older behaviors allowed & expected folder locations still in place... until xx date.
Reviewer: bobad Aug 13, 2007
Version: 1.6 Beta
Very good program. Extremely useful. My only wish is that it have a Context Menu item for "Open With Uni Extractor". That way you could peek inside a compilation without extracting the whole thing. Drag-and-drop would be excellent too, but I don't know if that's possible unless ported to a full programming language. Give it a 4.6/5 :)
Rating: 5
What's funny about all this is that a not recently updated prog like IzArc has no such issues, yet some of the more constantly-updated ones, like 7zip suffer.
PS I love Universal Extractor... and i have a ton of computers & OSes, feel free to use me to troubleshoot.
G'Luck, all the best,
charles langer msmvp
Edit by jbreland: cleaned up the invalid tags so the post will display with proper formatting on this forum
Re: ALL Context entries have disappeared
One last thing, 'just in case'-- let me know what critical windows services "need to be set to Automatic" for Universal Extractor to function properly... i constantly weed out unnecessary ones-- although rarely Disabled, usually set to Manual.
Example: i had slsvc & SLUINotify set to Manual... and lost Control Panel functionality. They MUST be set to Auto.
Great work on your part.
PS i DON"T have MS Update set to auto.
Re: ALL Context entries have disappeared
This doesn't depend on any system services. Everything it utilizes is bundled along with it in the bin\ directory.
Well, let me take that back. It's possible that some of the utilities it uses to do the extraction may depend on servers. For example, unpacking MSI packages using the "administrative install" option uses the installed version of msiexec.exe, and this, I believe relies on the Windows Installer service. That's the only one that comes to mind right now, but there may be other similar examples. UniExtract itself, though, doesn't require any services.
--
http://www.legroom.net/
Re: ALL Context entries have disappeared
That's weird. I haven't seen this problem before, but, of course, I don't use Vista. I've also never tried Vista SP1. Some thoughts...
Due to the less-than-ideal way that the context association is currently setup, it's very likely that installing any similar program after UniExtract will overwrite the associations. However, you said that this was not done.
Reinstalling the program, and choosing the "associate" option again, should restore the associations. This is written by the installer during each install, not something that's remembered from the initial install, so anything that's changed should be recognized and accounted for during the reinstall. However, once again you said that you tried this. Have you tried uninstalling/reinstalling, or are you just reinstalling in place? Try uninstalling first and see if that helps.
As for Vista SP1... if it is a problem with that, I'll probably have to wait until I get access to a copy to do some troubleshooting. One of the biggest changes (well, series of changes) in 1.6 was Vista compatibility, and the newest versions of Inno Setup should support it quite nicely as well. I don't know why this would happen after a SP update. I'm hoping to completely revamp filetype associations in v1.7, though, so if this is indeed a Vista problem, hopefully I can get it worked out then. Of course, that's probably a long ways off... :-(
Please let me know if you have any luck with this. Thanks for reporting it.
--
http://www.legroom.net/
Re: ALL Context entries have disappeared
Contextual menus and file associations have disappeared twice (but for .zip files only) and on both occasions after unpacking a .sit (Stuffit) archive. All zip files are then associated with Stuffit. Other archives seem unaffected and reinstalling cures the problem. XP SP2