2.4 beta: Explorer context menus

[Pete]

I'm very glad to have the Explorer context menu available inside BC. Here are a couple of notes about build 236 and my Windows XP computer:

1) In BC's folder view, if no files/folders are selected I receive an access violation if I accidentally use the main-menu command "Action > Explorer". (I realize that it makes no sense to use that menu command without a selection.)

2) In "Tools > Options > General", BC doesn't seem to remember that I selected "Include BC in Explorer context menu" whenever I restart BC. Perhaps it's just a cosmetic thing, because the context menu is always available in Windows Explorer.

[Zoë]

Re: 2.4 beta: Explorer context menus

In BC's folder view, if no files/folders are selected I receive an access violation if I accidentally use the main-menu command "Action > Explorer".

Thanks for the bug report. We'll get that fixed in the next release.

In "Tools > Options > General", BC doesn't seem to remember that I selected "Include BC in Explorer context menu" whenever I restart BC. Perhaps it's just a cosmetic thing, because the context menu is always available in Windows Explorer.

Have you rebooted since you installed the beta? When BC fills that checkbox it checks both that it's included in Explorer and that it's the one in the same directory as the BC2 executable. So if you have the regular version installed and the beta, one will have the checkbox checked and one won't.

[edvh1001]

Re: 2.4 beta: Explorer context menus

1) In BC's folder view, if no files/folders are selected I receive an access violation if I accidentally use the main-menu command "Action > Explorer".

I've experience a similar problem. When I compare a zip file to a directory or another zip file, and I right click on any file in the zip and then pass the mouse over the Explorer menu item, I receive a dialog box stating:
"The system cannot find the file specified."

[Pete]

Re: 2.4 beta: Explorer context menus

Regarding the checkbox in options for "Include BC in Explorer context menu", I did reboot and I only have one installation folder (I installed the beta on top of the previous installation). I'm not sure why the checkbox doesn't stay selected.

Perhaps it's related to the fact that I have always installed BC on an encrypted volume that isn't available when Windows starts. Maybe this behavior has always existed on my computer but I only noticed it now.

Regardless, it doesn't seem to be a problem for me because everything works fine after I mount the encrypted volume and begin using BC's commands in Windows Explorer's context menu.

FYI, when I start BC and open the options dialog, the encrypted volume and thus BC's installation folder have already been visible and accessible for some time.

A few of my Registry entries:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\BC ShellEx]
@="{B22A40F0-BD69-11D3-8D28-006097C82E57}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{B22A40F0-BD69-11D3-8D28-006097C82E57}]
@="BCShellEx"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{B22A40F0-BD69-11D3-8D28-006097C82E57}\InProcServer32]
@="N:\\Apps\\Beyond Compare\\BCShellEx.dll"
"ThreadingModel"="Apartment"

The last entry contains the correct path to my BC installation folder and everything works fine, so I don't know why the checkbox in BC's options would say otherwise.

[Zoë]

Re: 2.4 beta: Explorer context menus

The other thing to check is to make sure you have the correct version of the shell extension installed. Check the file properties for BCShellEx.dll. If it's the version included in the beta it should be v2.4.0.0 and should be 97KB. We changed the shell extension slightly when we were adding the support for 64-bit Windows, and the change was such that if you're using an older BCShellEx BC won't detect it as installed.

[Pete]

Re: 2.4 beta: Explorer context menus

The other thing to check is to make sure you have the correct version of the shell extension installed.

You were right on the mark, Craig. My BCShellEx.dll was indeed obsolete -- version 2.1.0.0 from November 2003 even though I had installed several versions of BC since then! In retrospect I imagine that the BC installation process has been unable to update this file because the installation folder is unmounted when Windows restarts and tries to update the file. On a side note, I don't understand why BC wants to restart Windows XP to do this. The DLL is not in use during installation and it seems like the installation program could simply overwrite the existing obsolete file. I would sooner expect a required restart in Windows 95 than in Windows XP.

Anyway, the problem is now solved and in BC's options the checkbox is now selected as expected. Thanks for your help.

FYI, to prevent such a problem from happening again, I decided to uninstall BC from my encrypted volume and then I installed it to the C: drive. I was able to keep my sessions and settings files on the encrypted volume by using the tweak to specify the location of my settings files in HKLM. The hard part of that was remembering where I had read about the tweak and finally found it in the ChangeLog for 2.3 or something.