24 June 2011

Problems caused by 32-bit to 64-bit migration tools

  • There is no migration path from 32-bit to 64-bit Windows

    Microsoft do not provide a migration tool to take your installed software with you when you move from a 32-bit version of Windows to a 64-bit version. When you make that move you are expected to re-install all your programs from scratch. This is unlike, say, an upgrade from Windows Vista 32-bit to Windows 7 32-bit where you have the option of doing an in-place upgrade.

    This isn't a case of Microsoft being mean or lazy; there are very good reasons for it. A lot of software will install different (or additional) components, in different places, with different registry settings when on 64-bit Windows. Any tool which naively attempts to move software components and registry settings from a 32-bit machine to a 64-bit machine is not going to know about those differences, especially not for every piece of software you may have installed. Even if it did somehow know, it would not be able to obtain the extra components required on 64-bit versions of Windows.


  • Third-party 32/64-bit migration tools

    Some third-party software vendors have attempted to make tools to migrate your programs from 32-bit to 64-bit Windows. We strongly advise against using these migration tools because they are likely to cause more problems than they solve. There are very good reasons (outlined above) that Microsoft don't provide such a tool themselves.

    As well as leaving your software in a state where parts of it may not work, such 32/64-bit migration tools may also break installers and uninstallers, leaving you unable to update, repair or remove some of your software. This is because the software's components and registry settings will be in "impossible" combinations and places which the installers themselves would never have created on a 64-bit machine.


  • Fixing Directory Opus if you have used such a tool

    GPSoftware have created a special uninstall program designed to clean up the mess created by 32/64-bit migration tools. If you have run such a tool you should run this special uninstaller and then install the 64-bit version of Directory Opus.

    http://www.gpsoft.com.au/files/UninstallDOpus32on64bit.exe

    This will only fix Directory Opus, not all your other software. You should still consider reinstalling Windows to avoid problems with your other software. If you don't, you won't know if any problems you experience down the line are due to incorrectly migrated software or something else. Reinstalling now, getting it over and done with, may save you time in the long run, but it's your computer and your choice.

17 June 2011

Directory Opus 10.0.1.0 now available

Directory Opus 10.0.1.0 is now available as a free update for all Directory Opus 10 users.

You can download the update via the GPSoftware website, or use the Check For Program Updates command in the Help menu from within the program.

This update includes everything from the 10.0.0.x beta versions:

It also includes the following new changes:
  • Clicking files in Go FOLDERCONTENT menus now has the same effect as double-clicking them in the file display. (Previously it was usually the same but not always.)
  • BOM now displayed in description field for .txt files irrespective of their Content Type.
  • Text in replace dialog when copying folders out of ZIP files now wraps correctly.
  • Fix for FTP connection timeouts on some servers that don't support OPTS MLST commands.
  • Resetting the Preferences/Thumbnails page moved all the controls up each time.
  • Improved 'Windows Search not installed' warning on XP machines that don't have WS installed.

9 June 2011

Directory Opus version 10.0.0.6 (Beta)

This is an Opus Beta release only. If you aren't comfortable running the very latest version of Opus then you may like to wait for the next stable/public release.

Directory Opus 10.0.0.6 is available now for all Opus 10 users:


This is a preliminary, beta release. It fixes a number of issues reported since the release of Directory Opus 10:
  • Note: The 'don't sort new files' option has been moved from the Advanced options page back to File Operations / Options
  • Adding or modifying a wildcard label assignment in File and Folder Colors now properly refreshes the folder tree
  • Fixed a case where if you deleted your current folder and were moved back to the parent, the parent folder would remain in the history list (so clicking Back then took you nowhere)
  • Made some changes to NavLock where it will try to get itself back in sync automatically in some cases
  • Rename Script output no longer appears in the FTP 'All Activity' log
  • Added Locate in Google Earth as a default command on the Images filetype group context menu.
    Also made it so Image LOCATE buttons are hidden if GE is not installed.
  • Fixed crash in Customize when clearing the hotkey from a floating toolbar button via the Keys page
  • "Toolbar POS=mouse" was broken.
  • If Windows Search is not installed on Windows XP, Opus now reports this when trying to perform a search
  • If New -> xxx (folder etc) is used and filters are in force that would normally hide the new item, it is now shown so the inline rename can proceed. If the item doesn't match the filter after the inline rename is finished, it will be hidden.
  • Fixed problem where the 'Undo All Changes' toolbar context menu could leave orphaned/cloned location/search fields on toolbar
  • Viewer Panel now remembers when Zoom Size was set to Grow to Page last time it was used
  • Fixed redraw problem when collapsing tree item containing current selection (forum thread)
  • Lister layouts now restore their windows in a fixed order, ensuring consistent window order on the taskbar each time the same layout is opened.
  • When the destination is a writeable CD, {destpath} will usually map to the CD-burning temp folder. You can now add @nolocalizefiles to the command to prevent this and have {destpath} map to the CD itself, for the rare situations where you need that (e.g. when opening a new window for the current folders).
  • Fixed scrolling the utility pane along one axis resetting the scroll position of the other axis.
  • Fixed potential crash in File Collections when fields like Description were enabled
  • Using Copy To / Move To in the standalone Viewer no longer causes focus to be lost (breaking keyboard input)
  • Fixed problem where tree item would lose its expand/collapse box when it only has temporary items below it
  • Fixed problem where refresh when in archive would boot you to the parent folder if archives not normally shown in tree
  • Tree now respects label colors for drive-letter roots.
  • Zip SFX was checking for wrong size maximum zip file
  • Zip folder format was not applied for archives within libraries.
  • Search results collections (from Windows Search) are now shown properly in the tree if the tree doesn't start from the Desktop
  • Now respects the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\link value to disable the "- Shortcut" suffix on new shortcuts
  • The option for "User Profile folder" in the tree now works under Vista as well as Win7
  • Fixed potential crash when accessing NFS shares via drive buttons
  • "Go TABGROUPLIST=icons" was generating buttons with the wrong icon names, resulting in smiley-face placeholder icons instead of tab icons (unless you still had an old icon-set installed).
  • Fixed (Win)RAR progress dialog showing bogus byte-counts that were really percentages ("50 bytes / 100 bytes")
  • Fixed crash from image metadata when GPS tags stored in XMP format
  • Fixed problems creating 7z(etc.) archives due to an error introduced in 10.0.0.5.
  • Thumbnail size would go to minimum if you used a command like "Show THUMBNAILSIZE +32" to adjust the size relative to its current value in a lister where the size had not been adjusted before.
  • Viewer now updates its window position properly if you move it, then switch it to full-screen and then close it.
    - Before it would not update its saved position at all if closed while full-screen.
    - Now it remembers the position it would have used had it been toggled out of full-screen mode.
    - This way, if you move the viewer to another monitor and full-screen it, it will open on that monitor the next time; you don't have to exit full-screen first to save the change.
    - Note: This does not mean the viewer will be full-screen next time you open it; that's still a separate option in Prefs. Just means your non-full-screen size/placement changes are not ignored if you happen to close it when it's full-screen.
  • Fixed checkbox positioning in Power/Details modes when icons were turned off.
  • Fixed checkbox positioning in List and Small Icon modes, especially with themed items.
  • Fixed List-mode checkboxes not painting properly (e.g. when toggled) when themed items were disabled.

6 June 2011

Delphi Source-Code preview handler

Peter Panino, over at the Resource Centre forums, discovered this preview handler that enables Delphi programmers to view their source-code with syntax highlighting:

http://www.delphifeeds.com/go/s/80512

Although it is written for Explorer it reportedly works great in Opus as well.

(If you use other programming languages instead of or as well as Delphi, there is a similar preview handler for many other languages.)

XP-style icons for Directory Opus 10

Cris van Minnen, who made Opus 10's default Vista/Win7-style toolbar icons, has released an alternative version of his icons in the Windows XP style.

This is a drop-in replacement for all 500 standard icons; 250 icons in large (32x32) and small (22x22). Your toolbars will automatically use the icons after installing them.

(Opus 10 also shipped with an updated version of the XP-style icons Trevor Morris originally made for Opus 9, so people who want XP-style icons are now spoiled for choice.)

You can see some of the small (22x22) icons below. For a preview of all the images, and to download the set, see Cris's post at the Resource Centre.

To install the set, download the zip file and extract the .dis file from inside it, then go to Preferences / Toolbars / Icons in Opus, click the Import button (shown below) and choose the .dis file. Then move it to the top of the list, so it takes priority over the other icon-sets you have installed.



Note that each additional icon-set will slightly increase start time and memory usage. If you decide not to use a set after installing it then you can delete it via the Preferences window shown above. (The default set is built into the program and cannot be deleted.)

3 June 2011

Directory Opus version 10.0.0.5 (Beta)

This is an Opus Beta release only. If you aren't comfortable running the very latest version of Opus then you may like to wait for the next stable/public release.

Directory Opus 10.0.0.5 is available now for all Opus 10 users:


This is a preliminary, beta release. It fixes a number of issues reported since the release of Directory Opus 10:
  • Folders with an ampersand in their name are now displayed correctly in the Breadcrumbs bar's dropdown menus
  • Alt+Click on a folder tree in a dual Lister always opened the new tab in the left-hand file display, even if the click was on the right-hand tree
  • The metadata pane now supports PDF metadata stored as XMP
  • Fixed problem with keyboard range selection (shift+cursor up/down) in any of the "icon" modes immediately after entering a new folder
  • A command that combines Set FLATVIEW=On followed by the Select command will now wait for the flatview read to finish before performing the selection
  • Improved performance of the filter bar when filtering large directories
  • Added support for the "Other" device category in the native My Computer display (things like GMail Drive will show up here)
  • Fix for PATH environment variable losing 'user' path components if something made temporary (not saved between reboots) additions to the path variable.
  • Fixed display error with XMP metadata that could result in multiple repetitions of a string in some metadata fields
  • When deleting a folder that's permissioned to deny access (e.g. WindowsImageBackup), Opus now attempts to modify the permissions to allow the delete to proceed (same behaviour as Explorer)
  • The "date only" fields now sort only by date rather than date/time when there is a subsequent sort column specified
  • Improvements to attempt to reduce excessive memory usage when loading large TIFF images
  • Turning off Opus ZIP did not update the archive context menu page until Prefs was exited and re-entered
  • Now supports .PSB (photoshop large) images properly
  • The "Prevent loading of certain types of folders" setting was not respected for a new Lister with multiple tabs
  • The SELECT SOURCETODEST command now causes the destination file list to be rebuilt (meaning a subsequent command in the same function that uses {filepathdest} will pick up the newly selected files
  • Drag & drop from latest Thunderbird versions was broken
  • The Set Metadata dialog now works properly in libraries
  • Files added to collections with the Copy command that specified the filename on the command line, would add them with invalid timestamps
  • Status bar would show incorrect disk space values for DFS redirected share
  • Changed the way file displays get their icons and overlays, so that on Vista/Win7 if an icon overlay handler is installed that provides overlays for junctions/softlinks it will show the correct overlay in Opus
  • Find will now make the output collection name unique if another Find operation is currently open and has already output to that collection. This can be disabled with Preferences / Miscellaneous / Advanced / find_unique_collections option
  • Added audio/mp3 as a supported MIME type for MP3 files in the metapane.
  • The Copy/Delete filter state is now saved in Lister layouts
  • Fixed layout issue with vertical toolbar between tree and file display in dual-horizontal layout
  • Wildcard path formats now treat / and \ as equivalent, so the one pattern can match both real paths and URL-style paths like libraries
  • The Wildcard Folder Format dialog now lets you enter a lib:// style path