Blank app name in "open with ..." list

[who where]

From somewhere at some time in the past (I don't use this all that
often) a new entry has appeared at the top of the app-list in the
"open with ..." selection box. It has the generic .exe icon (white
box with blue title bar at the top) and a blank name.

If I select say a .txt file on the desktop and try to open it with
this blank-named app, I get a WinExploder window showing C:\ - and NOT
in the normally selected view options either.

While it (presumably) isn't doing any harm, I would like to get rid of
it. But how - there is of course no corresponding entry in the
ControlPanel->Add/RemovePrograms list.

[Lostgallifreyan]

who where <no...@home.net> wrote in
news:ashcc7hfmgkolmas2...@4ax.com:

Got to work backwards to fix that one. Start by exporting the whole registry
to a file on the destop.

Open in a text editor. A good one, Notepad won't touch this...

Search for this exact string:
\shell\open\command]

Look at the line immediately below each occurence (of many) that you will
find. Look for anything that does not look like a standard path.
@="D:\\ZoodleWurdle.exe %1" Is a valid path, it has a double ('escaped')
backslash in it, meaning a single one will appear correctly in the registry
editor if you look at it there. The %1 passes the filename you're asking it
to handle. Most if not all occurences will be like this, so look for one that
is not. If the actual file a valid path points to is absent, you'll get an
access error message, not what you saw.

This broken path thing WILL cause the event you saw, a basic Explorer view of
the root of the install drive (Usually C:\), but there may be other ways. If
you DO find some broken path, look at the base of the branch, the bit
immediately before \shell\open\command] and search for that in the registry
editor. You should find two occurences (plus at least one duplicate of each
in another part of the registry). The first is the filetype (rooted as .lll
or some such, basically the file extension), the second is the association,
rooted by the specific name you found immediately before \shell\open\command]
which you just searched for. Delete both branches, and the blank entry will
also vanish.

When you figure out what original association broke, and want it back, set it
up as normal, using Open With, etc...

[Lee]

On Nov 18, 6:54 am, Lostgallifreyan <no-...@nowhere.net> wrote:
> who where <no...@home.net> wrote innews:ashcc7hfmgkolmas2...@4ax.com:

I duplicated the OP's entry by modifiying the .com file entry with a
leading space, like so.

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\comfile\shell\open\command]
@=" \"%1\" %*"

normally it's supposed be like this
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\comfile\shell\open\command]
@="\"%1\" %*"

Probably easier to just use regedit's search function on the word
command than export the entire registry. Pressing F3 searches from
where you left off so nonsense entries and entries that do not apply
are quickly passed by.

[Lostgallifreyan]

Lee <mel...@my-deja.com> wrote in news:f30428d2-5fe5-41f2-991c-
b12dfa...@h31g2000pro.googlegroups.com:

> Probably easier to just use regedit's search function on the word
> command than export the entire registry. Pressing F3 searches from
> where you left off so nonsense entries and entries that do not apply
> are quickly passed by.
>

Can be. I like to export them because TextPad is especially good at this sort
of editing, uses RegExp, etc. That and I like to stay familiar with reg file
innards, it makes things easier for me.

About that preceding space, did it fix immediately if you restored proper
format? When I was experimenting I thought I saw an odd persistence implying
some extra mechanism I didn't find. (Interestingly, at least one standard
Windows default command format in there is borked. I can't remember which
one, but it had mismatched quotes (an odd number, not even) and wouldn't take
longnames with spaces. This error was in the default install or W98.)

[who where]

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 07:54:06 -0600, Lostgallifreyan
<no-...@nowhere.net> wrote:

>Got to work backwards to fix that one. Start by exporting the whole registry
>to a file on the destop.
>
>Open in a text editor. A good one, Notepad won't touch this...
>
>Search for this exact string:
>\shell\open\command]
>
>Look at the line immediately below each occurence (of many) that you will
>find. Look for anything that does not look like a standard path.
>@="D:\\ZoodleWurdle.exe %1" Is a valid path, it has a double ('escaped')
>backslash in it, meaning a single one will appear correctly in the registry
>editor if you look at it there. The %1 passes the filename you're asking it
>to handle. Most if not all occurences will be like this, so look for one that
>is not. If the actual file a valid path points to is absent, you'll get an
>access error message, not what you saw.

After getting cramps in my left hand, arched over the kbd above the F3
key, I have hopefully found all such entries and Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V-ed the
suspicious ones to a notepad file so that they can be revisited in
less than the hour this took.

There were many "well-formed" as per your example. There were almost
as many of the form @="rundll32.exe shdocvw.dll,OpenURL %l" also.

There was one which explicitly invoked Explorer /root:


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\CLSID\{0CD7A5C0-9F37-11CE-AE65-08002B2E1262}\shell\open]
@="View"


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\CLSID\{0CD7A5C0-9F37-11CE-AE65-08002B2E1262}\shell\open\command]
@="explorer /root,{0CD7A5C0-9F37-11CE-AE65-08002B2E1262},%1"

That key in regedit is tagged "Cabinet"

There were threee of the form

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\exefile\shell\open]
@=""
"EditFlags"=hex:00,00,00,00


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\exefile\shell\open\command]
@="\"%1\" %*"

(the "wrap" is there) for exe, com and bat files - which seemed
credible.

The occurrence of


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\InterTrustSPOP\shell\open]


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\InterTrustSPOP\shell\open\command]
@=""

refused to copy/paste, appearing instead as

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\ASFFile\shell\open]
@="&Open"


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\ASFFile\shell\open\command]
@="\"C:\\PROGRAM FILES\\CCCP\\MPC\\MPLAYERC.EXE\" \"%1\""
"mplayerc.exe.bak"="\"C:\\PROGRA~1\\WINDOW~1\\mplayer2.exe\"
/Play \"%L\""

That is a WTF.

and there was one more with that same double-ext
"mplayerc.exe.bak"="".

>This broken path thing WILL cause the event you saw, a basic Explorer view of
>the root of the install drive (Usually C:\), but there may be other ways. If
>you DO find some broken path, look at the base of the branch, the bit
>immediately before \shell\open\command] and search for that in the registry
>editor. You should find two occurences (plus at least one duplicate of each
>in another part of the registry). The first is the filetype (rooted as .lll
>or some such, basically the file extension), the second is the association,
>rooted by the specific name you found immediately before \shell\open\command]
>which you just searched for. Delete both branches, and the blank entry will
>also vanish.

None of the above that I found help me with that step in regedit. Can
you see anything among them that I should pursue?

>When you figure out what original association broke, and want it back, set it
>up as normal, using Open With, etc...

BTW, did you copy/paste this post or free-type it? If the latter, you
deserve a medal.

[Lostgallifreyan]

who where <no...@home.net> wrote in

news:bogkc7dr6dap0sfsg...@4ax.com:

I copied the \shell\open\command] bit. :)

The Rundll commands run a DLL like an EXE, getting some internal function.
The Open With entries will rarely if ever take that form.

I still don't know about EditFlags, when I encounter that I either leave as is,
or omit if I can see nothing bad resulting. In saved REG files, I comment a
line with preceding semicolon if in doubt.

The one that refused to copy/paste isn't the same branch before copy and after
paste so double-check that one... if the issue is just the '&Open' bit, that
could just mean it assumes a default must exist for handling, so creates one.
That & is useful, it sets where the menu underline goes for keyboard shortcuts.
Renaming entries and editing those can make a BIG difference to fast keyboard
access to stuff. These registry entries offer a lot of customisable control...

The mplayerc.exe.bak thing might be something specific to the CCCP codec pack,
if it installs its own version of a player. It appears to keep an older copy it
found (in this case the original Windows Media Player v6, probably), to try in
case its own fails to handle something. All this is guessing...

Lee's post mentions that a preceding space can cause what you saw in the
'Open With' dialog. Sometimes it can be hard to spot these things, harder still
to prevent them, but as you're ok with this kind of effort, take a look at a
couple of posts I made last night, for a template for file associations.
They won't always take that form, they're often more complex, but once you install
some program you trust, especially audio tools (because they often fight for
ownership of many file types), export the types and associations from registry,
and clean out any [HKEY.../xxxx/yyyy..] lines that have NO text immediately below
them, to lighten the weight a bit, and make the top level ones copied right under
REGEDIT4 with the dash inside the first [ bracket. This way if it ever borks, or
something steals file types, you can use that saved file to instantly fix it.

THis method sounds tedious, but it's no harder than the work you already did.
Also, it is a good basis for automatic reinstalls of many programs after a fresh
Windows install. With REG files, and a batch file to call them and do a few sysfile
copies, the equivalent of a large electronic music studio can be installed to a
new machine with one double-click this way. The work needed to do it saves
incalculable amounts of other work, and it's easier to do than trying to
understand why some of the innards break the way they do at times.

[Lee]

On Nov 21, 5:27 am, Lostgallifreyan <no-...@nowhere.net> wrote:
> Lee <mel...@my-deja.com> wrote in news:f30428d2-5fe5-41f2-991c-

> b12dfa1dd...@h31g2000pro.googlegroups.com:

For me the fix was immediate, but there is a trick to use when such
registry changes are NOT immediate - go to Start|Shut Down and select
cancel. The creation of the Shut Down dialog box rewrites any current
ShellIconCache file and pending registry changes such that once you
cancel the shutdown, your registry has different contents. At least
sometimes.

I was going to dive into a diatribe on how spaces were not allowed in
longnames no matter what the quote pair count situation was, but then
I saw evidence to the contrary so I thought it best not to speak on it
at all in my first post. By my "old" understanding it shouldn't have
worked out, but
""C:\Apps\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe" "%1""
does. It should have resulted in a dead end entry of ACROBAT but does
not. AcroRd32 instead is there with it's proper icon too. WTF? So
double quotes DO appear to work with spaces and longnames after all?

As a side note, I see that my ShellIconCache file has swelled to
6,613KB in size - anybody got a bigger one?

Errors such that you report as "This error was in the default install
on W98", I now believe are created by DOS mode hard disk write errors
at installation time. Usually happens only to cheap crap machines
with permanently broke DMA like mine which in the early days of 98
required a re-installation of Windows almost quarterly. And because I
was such a dangerous fool, I often got it without asking for it. Not
so much lately, but then I've got DMA working properly from DOS mode
now. And that would be applied before DOS mode Vmm32.vxd et.al. gets
loaded. Which totally explains why the VXD fix worked so good for me
way back then against ALL advice to the contrary from the sage
pundits. Sage pundits apparently can afford better machines than I
can and don't suffer the problem to begin with.

[Lee]

On Nov 21, 5:42 am, who where <no...@home.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 07:54:06 -0600, Lostgallifreyan
>
>
>
>
>
> <no-...@nowhere.net> wrote:
> >Got to work backwards to fix that one. Start by exporting the whole registry
> >to a file on the destop.
>
> >Open in a text editor. A good one, Notepad won't touch this...
>
> >Search for this exact string:
> >\shell\open\command]
>
> >Look at the line immediately below each occurence (of many) that you will
> >find. Look for anything that does not look like a standard path.
> >@="D:\\ZoodleWurdle.exe %1" Is a valid path, it has a double ('escaped')
> >backslash in it, meaning a single one will appear correctly in the registry
> >editor if you look at it there. The %1 passes the filename you're asking it
> >to handle. Most if not all occurences will be like this, so look for one that
> >is not. If the actual file a valid path points to is absent, you'll get an
> >access error message, not what you saw.
>
> After getting cramps in my left hand, arched over the kbd above the F3
> key, I have hopefully found all such entries and Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V-ed the
> suspicious ones to a notepad file so that they can be revisited in
> less than the hour this took.
>
> There were many "well-formed" as per your example.  There were almost
> as many of the form @="rundll32.exe shdocvw.dll,OpenURL %l" also.
>
> There was one which explicitly invoked Explorer /root:
>

> [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\CLSID\{0CD7A5C0-9F37-11CE-AE65-08002B2­E1262}\shell\open]
>         @="View"
>
> [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\CLSID\{0CD7A5C0-9F37-11CE-AE65-08002B2­E1262}\shell\open\command]

> deserve a medal.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

The comfile mod that I "found" does open Windows Explorer in single
pane web view as you describe, perhaps take off your glasses and look
closer at that single entry? Real close.

It almost has to be an extra leading space in an un-named executable
entry.

Dan Rather said if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it
probably is a duck, but then he also said about his career ending Bush
snafu "it could be true so it probably is". There has to be a point
in there somewhere? maybe not

[Lostgallifreyan]

Lee <mel...@my-deja.com> wrote in news:611be992-64d4-4b4a-b074-
742f0b...@i12g2000prl.googlegroups.com:

> For me the fix was immediate, but there is a trick to use when such
> registry changes are NOT immediate - go to Start|Shut Down and select
> cancel. The creation of the Shut Down dialog box rewrites any current
> ShellIconCache file and pending registry changes such that once you
> cancel the shutdown, your registry has different contents. At least
> sometimes.
>

The registry updates immediately, but the stuff that has to read it might
not. I didn't know that the shurdown dialog would cause the shell to do this,
and I suspect it may be limited, but there is a related method that always
forces a complete shell reload: Ctrl+Alt+Del, click Explorer in the list,
then click the End Task button. This will bring uo the Shutdown dialog but
click NO. And wait. :) Eventually the End Task dialog pops up asking if you
want to shut down Explorer. This time click YES, and it will immediately
close and restart. Not that any active system tray icons vanish, and a few
other quirks result, but this can bail a person out of a broken session where
it is critical that some program remains running. If you develop a massive
GDI memory leak during a major XviD encode, for example. This might at least
get you a fresh shell that won't crash, allowing safe monitoring of the task
that has to complete.

> I was going to dive into a diatribe on how spaces were not allowed in
> longnames no matter what the quote pair count situation was, but then
> I saw evidence to the contrary so I thought it best not to speak on it
> at all in my first post. By my "old" understanding it shouldn't have
> worked out, but
> ""C:\Apps\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe" "%1""
> does. It should have resulted in a dead end entry of ACROBAT but does
> not. AcroRd32 instead is there with it's proper icon too. WTF? So
> double quotes DO appear to work with spaces and longnames after all?
>

Yep, it definitely does. If you look at that command you'll see the %1 is
also quoted. In many cases it isn't! THis is one of the less important errors
in default registries, but it explains why some programs can't take filenames
with spaces wven if the path to the program can because that part of the
command does (usually) get its quotes.

Try omitting one quote while keeping the other. That might get you a blank
entry in Open With, perhaps.. Or at least a blank look from the OS.

> As a side note, I see that my ShellIconCache file has swelled to
> 6,613KB in size - anybody got a bigger one?
>

Smaller here.

> Errors such that you report as "This error was in the default install
> on W98", I now believe are created by DOS mode hard disk write errors
> at installation time. Usually happens only to cheap crap machines
> with permanently broke DMA like mine which in the early days of 98
> required a re-installation of Windows almost quarterly. And because I
> was such a dangerous fool, I often got it without asking for it. Not
> so much lately, but then I've got DMA working properly from DOS mode
> now. And that would be applied before DOS mode Vmm32.vxd et.al. gets
> loaded. Which totally explains why the VXD fix worked so good for me
> way back then against ALL advice to the contrary from the sage
> pundits. Sage pundits apparently can afford better machines than I
> can and don't suffer the problem to begin with.
>

I worked on building VMM32 last year, there's no doubt that some static, real
mode VXD's can be replaced with newer and better ones. Most are ok though.

Thing is, the registry paths thing wouldn't be related to a disk failure, or
if it was, then far more diabolical things are likely to get noticed first.
At that early stage in boot, significant troubles likely result in protected
mode errors, and Windows won't boot at all, the machine usually shuts right
down cold so fast we don't even get time to read why.

There may be situations that cause multiple errors to appear (or just get
noticed because we start lookign closely), but the mismatched quotes thing is
almost certainly a typo by someone at Microsoft. If you examine the few
filetypes and associations in a small 98-Lite instal you'll see enough of
them. I suppose it's possible that Shane Broosk did it. :) I think not
though, that stuff usually gets hoiked out of standard INF files at install
time. INF files are so tortuous that human error does creep into them, a lot.

[who where]

On Mon, 21 Nov 2011 07:19:31 -0600, Lostgallifreyan
<no-...@nowhere.net> wrote:

>who where <no...@home.net> wrote in
>news:bogkc7dr6dap0sfsg...@4ax.com:

(snip)

>> BTW, did you copy/paste this post or free-type it? If the latter, you
>> deserve a medal.
>
>I copied the \shell\open\command] bit. :)

that's a relief to hear ;-)

>The Rundll commands run a DLL like an EXE, getting some internal function.
>The Open With entries will rarely if ever take that form.

There were definitely a few like:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\InternetShortcut\shell\open]
"CLSID"="{FBF23B40-E3F0-101B-8488-00AA003E56F8}"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\InternetShortcut\shell\open\command]
@="rundll32.exe shdocvw.dll,OpenURL %l"

>I still don't know about EditFlags, when I encounter that I either leave as is,
>or omit if I can see nothing bad resulting. In saved REG files, I comment a
>line with preceding semicolon if in doubt.
>
>The one that refused to copy/paste isn't the same branch before copy and after
>paste so double-check that one...

I just re-exported HKLM/Software/CLASSES and found it again. This
time it copied/pasted faithfully. I guess that was just a PEBKAC
moment, even though i did it several times in my disbelief.

You didn't think anything odd/coincidental that the one opening
Explorer/root happened to mimic the action of the subject entry?

(snip)

>The mplayerc.exe.bak thing might be something specific to the CCCP codec pack,
>if it installs its own version of a player. It appears to keep an older copy it
>found (in this case the original Windows Media Player v6, probably), to try in
>case its own fails to handle something. All this is guessing...
>
>Lee's post mentions that a preceding space can cause what you saw in the
>'Open With' dialog. Sometimes it can be hard to spot these things, harder still
>to prevent them, but as you're ok with this kind of effort, take a look at a
>couple of posts I made last night, for a template for file associations.

Which posts? Where should I be looking?

>They won't always take that form, they're often more complex, but once you install
>some program you trust, especially audio tools (because they often fight for
>ownership of many file types), export the types and associations from registry,
>and clean out any [HKEY.../xxxx/yyyy..] lines that have NO text immediately below
>them, to lighten the weight a bit, and make the top level ones copied right under
>REGEDIT4 with the dash inside the first [ bracket. This way if it ever borks, or
>something steals file types, you can use that saved file to instantly fix it.
>
>THis method sounds tedious, but it's no harder than the work you already did.

which *was* tedious ....

[who where]

On Mon, 21 Nov 2011 08:53:00 -0800 (PST), Lee <mel...@my-deja.com>
wrote:

>The comfile mod that I "found" does open Windows Explorer in single
>pane web view as you describe, perhaps take off your glasses and look
>closer at that single entry? Real close.

Actually put ON glasses to use the pooter, but in fixed-width font in
Notepad (where I copied/pasted the entries of "interest") spaces are
far easier to spot than in the more normal proprtional fonts, and all
three - exe, com, bat - were identical:

shell\open\command]
@="\"%1\" %*"

the only space being before the second %.

BTW, the regedit entry among that group was @="regedit.exe \"%1\""

>It almost has to be an extra leading space in an un-named executable
>entry.

If it is, I'm having trouble finding it!

>Dan Rather said if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it
>probably is a duck, but then he also said about his career ending Bush
>snafu "it could be true so it probably is". There has to be a point
>in there somewhere? maybe not

I think the duck test has been determined as requiring a third
condition to be met, just two being inconclusive.

Whether it is a space or not, something is causing that aberrant
entry.

[Lostgallifreyan]

who where <no...@home.net> wrote in

news:113mc75k8mmt6v9n2...@4ax.com:

> Actually put ON glasses to use the pooter, but in fixed-width font in
> Notepad (where I copied/pasted the entries of "interest") spaces are
> far easier to spot than in the more normal proprtional fonts, and all
> three - exe, com, bat - were identical:
>
> shell\open\command]
> @="\"%1\" %*"
>
> the only space being before the second %.
>
> BTW, the regedit entry among that group was @="regedit.exe \"%1\""
>

Commands take a form like lists of arguments, so when you get the %1 in the
first instance it means run itself, rather than a file passed TO it. And the
%* may mean run itself, and any file passed to it. (I say 'may' because I'm
too tired to test this one before posting, but it seems right enough).

SCR files are another case where you'll likely see a %1 in FIRST place like
an EXE or COM, which is why SCR's have been used to carry malicious payloads.
""%1" /S" is shat I get to run it, without the /S switch it calls up their
inbuilt configs. WHich may also be a limited protection against things
pretending to be SCR's but I remember that many screensavers can be renamed
as *.EXE and will run like one! I don't know if this is a risk or not these
days.. But it's one of the things that registry fishing teaches us about.....

>>Dan Rather said if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it
>>probably is a duck, but then he also said about his career ending Bush
>>snafu "it could be true so it probably is". There has to be a point
>>in there somewhere? maybe not
>
> I think the duck test has been determined as requiring a third
> condition to be met, just two being inconclusive.
>

Got to duck the issue this time...

[Lostgallifreyan]

who where <no...@home.net> wrote in

news:3c3mc7pm5415b9lj6...@4ax.com:

>>The Rundll commands run a DLL like an EXE, getting some internal
>>function. The Open With entries will rarely if ever take that form.
>
> There were definitely a few like:
>
> [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\InternetShortcut\shell\open]
> "CLSID"="{FBF23B40-E3F0-101B-8488-00AA003E56F8}"
>
> [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\InternetShortcut\shell\open\command]
> @="rundll32.exe shdocvw.dll,OpenURL %l"
>

CLSID (Class ID's) are beyond me, all I know is they're usually allocated to
avoid conflict for more complex functions. There are tools that can make them
at will. Plugins, shell extensions, and some inbuilt stuff like the main
Explorer window that appears when double-clicking the top left standard
desktop icon, and the control panel, use them. They always obscure more than
they show so I never pretend to understand them. Even Rundll entries are
awkward but it is possible to examine function lists exported from DLL's so
it's a bit less mystifying than the CLSID thing, at least to me.

> You didn't think anything odd/coincidental that the one opening
> Explorer/root happened to mimic the action of the subject entry?
>

Nope. :) That window on root is a standard fallback, so many things might
invoke it. Just double clicking the top left desktop icon too quickly and
often right after booting can be enough to trigger one.

>>Lee's post mentions that a preceding space can cause what you saw in the
>>'Open With' dialog. Sometimes it can be hard to spot these things,
>>harder still to prevent them, but as you're ok with this kind of effort,
>>take a look at a couple of posts I made last night, for a template for
>>file associations.
>
> Which posts? Where should I be looking?
>

905848 and 905850, timed 21st Nov at 01:10 and 01:28 (but times might not
mean much).

[Lostgallifreyan]

Lostgallifreyan <no-...@nowhere.net> wrote in
news:Xns9FA52CDA353...@216.196.109.145:

> shat

'what'.
Shat is what my brain did, as it does at this time of night.

[who where]

On Mon, 21 Nov 2011 22:38:42 -0600, Lostgallifreyan
<no-...@nowhere.net> wrote:

>who where <no...@home.net> wrote in
>news:3c3mc7pm5415b9lj6...@4ax.com:

>> Which posts? Where should I be looking?
>>
>
>905848 and 905850, timed 21st Nov at 01:10 and 01:28 (but times might not
>mean much).

Suspecting those are giganews numbers and you are referring to posts
in this ng(?), they must be in a thread I have marked as
do-not-follow.

N/g and thread title?

[Lee]

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion/msg/f30f25f68ceddcd6

I think mainly just that one as you've been conversing within my other
posts so you can see at least the ones where I reply to you - in that
first one I replied to Lostgallifreyan so maybe you didn't even see it?

[Lostgallifreyan]

Lee <mel...@my-deja.com> wrote in
news:e2420b98-3140-462f...@a3g2000prd.googlegroups.com:

Different thread. :) (And same group as this one).
Re: 1. how to get rid of "suspend" 2. a GREAT utility (no, not for IE)

Last two posts of mine there... (The times I gave may help too).
The numbers I gave were Easynews based maybe, but I assumed that they'd be
unique based on other details and be the same on other servers, but I guess
not.

[Bill Blanton]

On 11/21/2011 23:24, Lostgallifreyan wrote:
> who where<no...@home.net> wrote in
> news:113mc75k8mmt6v9n2...@4ax.com:
>
>> Actually put ON glasses to use the pooter, but in fixed-width font in
>> Notepad (where I copied/pasted the entries of "interest") spaces are
>> far easier to spot than in the more normal proprtional fonts, and all
>> three - exe, com, bat - were identical:
>>
>> shell\open\command]
>> @="\"%1\" %*"
>>
>> the only space being before the second %.
>>
>> BTW, the regedit entry among that group was @="regedit.exe \"%1\""
>>
>
> Commands take a form like lists of arguments, so when you get the %1 in the
> first instance it means run itself, rather than a file passed TO it. And the
> %* may mean run itself, and any file passed to it. (I say 'may' because I'm
> too tired to test this one before posting, but it seems right enough).

I know what you're saying, but technically the %1 *is* the passed
filename. It's just that in this case the passed filename is the
executable being passed from the explorer shell to the process that
loads the executable.

For example, if you click on notepad.exe, then the string "notepad.exe"
is passed where
%1 = notepad.exe

If you click on foo.txt where the registry reads "notepad.exe %1" (for
class of .txt) then
%1 = foo.txt

%1 is the filename/object passed.
%* is additional arguments (which could be filenames)

[Lostgallifreyan]

Bill Blanton <bbla...@REMmagicnet.net> wrote in
news:4ecc70dd$0$9890$9a6e...@unlimited.newshosting.com:

>> Commands take a form like lists of arguments, so when you get the %1 in
>> the first instance it means run itself, rather than a file passed TO
>> it. And the %* may mean run itself, and any file passed to it. (I say
>> 'may' because I'm too tired to test this one before posting, but it
>> seems right enough).
>
> I know what you're saying, but technically the %1 *is* the passed
> filename. It's just that in this case the passed filename is the
> executable being passed from the explorer shell to the process that
> loads the executable.
>
> For example, if you click on notepad.exe, then the string "notepad.exe"
> is passed where
> %1 = notepad.exe
>
> If you click on foo.txt where the registry reads "notepad.exe %1" (for
> class of .txt) then
> %1 = foo.txt
>
> %1 is the filename/object passed.
> %* is additional arguments (which could be filenames)
>

True. A file can't literally run itself... I ended up with the relative
concept instead of the absolute one because I found it easier when handling
Lua where the script is a data file seen by Lua or wxLua, but an executable
as seen from the perspective of files passed to the script. It's not fully
correct but it can be easier to relate it to the level I'm working on
directly.