Context menu not working properly in 6.1

TECK · Post by **TECK** » Sat Jun 09, 2012 5:10 am

I installed Textpad 6.1 today and tried to open a info.log file by right clicking on it. The logs content is not displayed. Is this the intended behavior? If I drag a file into Textpad window, it opens and show the contents.

ineuw · Post by **ineuw** » Sat Jun 09, 2012 4:11 pm

You have three choices.

1. In Preferences replace Notepad, because Windows assigned the .log extension to be opened with Notepad. Don't do this if you have a specific reason to keep Notepad separately.

2. Add *.log to the text file in document classes.

3. Add .log to Associated files.

TECK · Post by **TECK** » Sun Jun 10, 2012 6:03 am

Thank you for the reply. I thought Textpad can open any file, if you right-click on it and select Textpad into context menu?

ineuw · Post by **ineuw** » Sun Jun 10, 2012 7:27 am

TECK wrote:Thank you for the reply. I thought Textpad can open any file, if you right-click on it and select Textpad into context menu?

You're welcome and hope that it helped. As far as I remember, one can open any file from within Textpad - text or binary. I also had this problem with .dat text files but it was Spybot that prevented opening them. So, I sent it to Textpad in the right click context menu.

fel0niousmonk · Post by **fel0niousmonk** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 2:12 pm

I have a similar problem .. however it started in version 5, at least.

If I right-click a file (no matter the type), and select 'TextPad', AND textpad is not already open, the file WILL NOT open.

If TextPad is already open, then the file will open. In other words, I have to keep Textpad running or use the context menu twice to open files.

rather tedious.

hladikz · Post by **hladikz** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 4:14 pm

I got to this type of problems if I invoked fist time Textpad from elevated cmd prompt in W7 or Vista. There is one way barrier for sending of unelevated request (explorer rightclick does it) to open file to already running elevated program. So this is opposite symptoms as described by you. May be you have "run as administrator" bit set on Textpad shortcut? Right click request unelevated open so Textpad must run unelevated...
Opening from inside Textpad program is OK...

fel0niousmonk wrote:I have a similar problem .. however it started in version 5, at least.

If I right-click a file (no matter the type), and select 'TextPad', AND textpad is not already open, the file WILL NOT open.

If TextPad is already open, then the file will open. In other words, I have to keep Textpad running or use the context menu twice to open files.

rather tedious.

Andrew_w · Post by **Andrew_w** » Sun Jun 17, 2012 12:17 am

I have found the context menu to disappear when upgrading from 5.4.2 to 6.1
(Windows 7 64 bit system)

I have confirmed the:
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\TextPad]
entry is removed and added with the changing of the Context menu tick box in the General Preferences settings

zisco · Post by **zisco** » Thu Jun 28, 2012 9:20 am

I have exactly the same problem as fel0niousmonk:

If I right-click a file (no matter the type), and select 'TextPad', AND textpad is not already open, the file WILL NOT open.

If TextPad is already open, then the file will open. In other words, I have to keep Textpad running or use the context menu twice to open files.

Any solution, yet?

thenetsmith · Post by **thenetsmith** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:25 pm

Andrew_w wrote:I have found the context menu to disappear when upgrading from 5.4.2 to 6.1
(Windows 7 64 bit system)

I have confirmed the:
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\TextPad]
entry is removed and added with the changing of the Context menu tick box in the General Preferences settings

I am experiencing this same behavior with TextPad 6.1 on Windows 7 64-bit.

Can anyone confirm that the "TextPad" option appears on their 64-bit Windows Explorer right-click context menu?

Prior to 6.1 (and 64-bit Windows), I heavily relied upon the ability to open files in TextPad from the context menu. Not adding TextPad to the "Open With..." pop-out menu, but from the main file context menu. I researched enough to know that a 64-bit menu handler DLL has to be compiled a certain way in order to function properly, but that's all I know.

ACRobin · Post by **ACRobin** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 6:40 pm

Definitely works on Win7 Pro 64bit - for me.

thenetsmith · Post by **thenetsmith** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 6:46 pm

with TextPad 6.1?

ACRobin · Post by **ACRobin** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 7:25 pm

Yes, tp6.1 - win7 pro 64 bit.

thenetsmith · Post by **thenetsmith** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 7:43 pm

Ok, this is weird.

I just went back to the registry and saw that the TextPad entry under shellex\ContextMenuHandlers was still there, but the CLSID was not registered as it should have been.

So I opened TextPad, opened the Preferences dialog, toggled the "Context menu" option off, clicked Apply, toggled it back on, clicked Apply, and now everything is registered properly and my context menu is working!

I swear I had done this several times already! *sigh*

In any case, thanks for responding, ACRobin.

dbedford · Post by **dbedford** » Wed Oct 10, 2012 5:24 pm

Any updates on this? I have textpad 6.1 on Win 7 64 bit and cannot get the context menu to work. FWIW I am on an active directory system... could this be a permissions issue?

Xcamr · Post by **Xcamr** » Thu Oct 11, 2012 10:30 pm

I just upgraded from 5 to 6.1.3 and I also had the problem where my context menu option would show, but nothing would ever open.

To fix this I did the following (WARNING: STEPS CONTAIN REGISTRY MODIFICATIONS):

Disabled the Context Menu setting and then exited Textpad.
Removed all Helios registry entries whose registry location looks similar to this: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Helios\TextPad 5\...
Modified all registry values similar to "C:\Program Files\TextPad 5\TextPad.exe" to "C:\Program Files\TextPad 6\TextPad.exe"
Restarted explorer.exe (which requires Process Explorer). To do this via Process Explorer (obviously start the program), you find explorer.exe listed on the left side of the window, right click it, then select restart.
Started up Textpad and enabled the Context Menu setting and tested it. Worked perfectly.

The hitch is, I'm not sure if the registry value changes helped or not. I may not have seen any difference after making the registry changes at first b/c explorer.exe was using cached values, and hadn't picked up the latest changes. It is possible therefore that by restarting explorer.exe, that I was forcing it to recache the applicable registry values.

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