Archive for the ‘Windows’ Category
Oct
18
At least this worked really well for me, and a few other folk that tried it. I don’t know if this is a Windows 7 thing since it seems that most folks experiencing this problem were running Win7, but not everyone. Either way, I culled this from bits and pieces of other suggested solutions I found and thought I would share it. You never know, it might help someone else like it helped me, and that’s what this site is all about, eh?
OK, on with the goodness! Quick summary, I had Notepad++ (one badass text editor for Windows if you don’t already know about it) installed on my main machine, the Mothership running Windows 7. I had a context menu entry so that I could write click on darn near anything and have the option to “Edit with Notepadd++”. This has been a real handy option living in my context menu for years, and when it started flaking out I wasn’t happy about it. At first I figured it was just Windoze being Windoh’s and it would be OK after the next time I rebooted. However, as time went on, after the next reboot or two, it was still messed up.
Messed up how you ask? Well, I could open the program with the standard shortcut, no problem. Once open I could open files, no problem. I could drag and drop files and Notepad++ would open them fine. It was only when I tried to fire up Notepad++ with a file argument after the executable’s path (like the context menu) that I would get the following error message:
Error in CreateProcess (740): Is this command correct?
“C:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe”
“D:\path\to\the\file_I_was\opening.txt”
That was it, no joy after that. Nothing. Nada. Irritating. Well, to make a longer story shorter, I did some research and found that it came down to two problems. Maybe only one, but I think it really had to do with both. These were/are:
- Windows 7 (and maybe Windows in general, regardless of the version) doesn’t like the “++” in the path. The theory goes that Windows doesn’t have a publicly reported problem, like by Microsoft, but nonetheless it sometimes just lets special characters get on its bad side, and starts throwing some errors.
- Windows 7 (and maybe Windows in general, regardless of the version) does not like the Notepad++ option during setup that says don’t use %AppData% for storing config settings. This allows you to override Windows default behavior and store your config data in the program directory like in the old days. Well, Windows 7 especially (maybe others) really hates this, and will fight with you over it.
So, what was the fix? The fix should be pretty obvious after reading the two items above, but I’ll lay it out for you anyway, cause that’s what I do!
- First, uninstall Notepad++, make sure to completely remove it.
- Next, re-install Notepad++, you might as well snag the latest version from their site (http://notepad-plus-plus.org/) while you are at it.
- During the re-install, make sure you change the installation path so as to remove the “++” from the install directory. As a suggestion, I used “C:\Program Files\NotepadPP\”, substituting a capital P for each +.
- Also, as you are installing, make sure you do not check the option that says to not use %AppData%, go ahead and let the installer put the config files where it wants.
- Now, once the install is done, test it out. For me, this fixed my problems, Notepad++ runs faster and smoother than ever before, which is a great thing.
I sure hope this helps you fix the problems you are having with Notepad++ and opening files from a context menu. If not, drop a comment and share some details, maybe we can get folk to chime in and help you out! Enjoy 
Sep
11
Here is a quick tip for any and all of you VB.NET heads out there. Need to make a button on your form the default one to fire off when you hit the enter key (while that form has focus naturally)? In the old days, it was a button property, and now it has become a form property. It actually kind of makes sense when you think about it. I mean, you can only have one default button on a form, right? Anyway, go to the properties of the form in question and look for an option called “AcceptButton”. This will be a drop down list comprised of all the buttons that have been placed on the form. Pick the one you want as the default and there you have it, your button is ready to go! Hope that helps …
Aug
14
We have all seen them, the commercials for fixit web sites that declare all you have to do is visit their site and they will magically fix your computer or make it run faster or any of a number promises. Well, I don’t want to sound like the Grinch on Christmas, but these sites just don’t live up to all of the hype that they promise. When you go to one of these sites, you are going to have to have some type of software to download, you just cannot do all that much solely through the web browser. So, just how much can these guys cram into a small, probably activex plugin? My guess is not near as much as some of the better known and trusted applications like Symantec’s Norton Utilities
, System Mechanic
, and Fix-It Utilities
to name a few.
I am sure that there are some of these web based tune up sites/companies that are legit and are trying to help people, but I would be careful because I have seen a few that look pretty shady and for all we know, instead of scanning for and removing spyware and such, they could be installing more! The real bottom line here is that even if these sites are trying to do right by you, there is a limit on what can be done by software, especially software delivered over the web and made generic enough to work on a wide range of platforms. It’s like the old joke about a mechanic in a can for your car, there just isn’t one, just like there is no magic bullet for your PC. You just cannot beat a trusted technician, who is well trained and experienced, and has your best interests in mind. Someone there looking at the screen, analyzing what they find and making good decisions on what to do to make it better versus a script that boils down to a bunch of If/Then questions and loops.
I just wanted to make sure that people think before they use these sites, and don’t go blindly forth, sucked in by slick commercials and ending up with computers that are worse off than when you started. There may be some good sites out there, and if/as I find them I will post them on the site so everyone will know. Good luck!
Aug
8
Just in case I am not the only one to run into this, I thought I would post the answer to a problem that vexed me for a while. I run avast! Internet Security for my software host based firewall and anti-virus on my Windows boxes. On some of those I also have VMware Workstation installed. I noticed that when all of the protection settings or “shields” as they are called were turned on, my virtual machines couldn’t talk to anything else on the network when in bridged mode. If I went to NAT mode or turned the avast! shields off, it would work, but neither of these solutions was satisfactory to me. So, I kept on digging, even checked in with tech support to no avail. Finally I found it, something so simple and trivial I wanted to scream, but my family is asleep right now so I didn’t. In avast! Internet Security, there is an option to tell the firewall to allow Internet Sharing. I guess multiple computers communicating in a shared manner like that looks bad if you didn’t plan it that way. Well, when your virtual machines are running, it looks just like Internet Sharing, at least it does to avast! anyway. Simply open up the main window, go to the firewall section and hit the “Expert Settings” button. On the dialog that pops up there is a check box about in the middle (maybe a little lower) of the page to enable Internet Sharing. Turn that on and your virtual machines will be talking like teenage girls with unlimited text plans. Hope that helps someone out there, enjoy!
Jul
13
I was working on a spreadsheet where I had a range of cells I wanted a drop down date picker/calendar for. Now, I could have just added a bazillion calendar controls (one to each cell) but I knew that was cheesy and that there had to be a better way. Well now, I found an awesome tutorial on adding just the thing and I had to share. One control and a little bit of VBA code and you are all set working like a pro. Check it out, the info at the end of this link rocks! Enjoy!!
http://www.rondebruin.nl/calendar.htm
Apr
2
OK folks, here is a nifty tool for you. It’s called Taskbar Shuffle, and if you are running Windows this is a handy little item. Just like the name implies, you can take items that are in the Windows taskbar and shuffle or move them around. This is pretty cool in many ways, but I know from my own use, it can be nice to organize items together that go together or in some way that makes more sense that just the way they were opened, especially if you have lots and lots of windows open like I often do. It’s easy to use too, just drag ‘em around to wherever you want them, it’s that easy. Best of all, like many of the best pieces of software that I have come across, it’s totally free so go check it out now. Go ahead, RFN!
Here is the URL: http://nerdcave.webs.com/
While you are at it, check out all of the Cool Tools we have in the Cool Tools section, as well as everything in the Library, there’s lots of good stuff in there …
**Note: Don’t forget that the author of Taskbar Shuffle, just like many others out there including Solarum here, gives away the product for free despite all of the personal time invested in bringing you that product. If you find something that you really like and find useful, think about the last time you paid for an app the didn’t live up to your expectations and make a donation to the little guy(s) and gal(s) out there writing the good stuff for free.
