TextPad 4 Registry Question

[bevhoward]

I know, I know, I use an antique, but I've been using TextPad since it was introduced and the transition to TextPad 5 was too large a leap for my dislexia but I have been happy ever since.

A _long_ time ago I wrote, and posted, a TextPad backup utility as a batch file on the TextPad site that is still there. https://www.textpad.com/addons/utilities

A key part of that process is making a copy of TextPad's registry and using that when I have had to move to a new computer. That's worked without problems until Win 10 (I'm slow on that as well)

I'm getting a good copy of the registry from earlier installs on windows versions up to 8.1, but when using it to populate the registry for a TextPad 4 install on Win 10, the preferences restoration is incomplete, notably with respect to custom keyboard key configurations... (and I have many)

I have even tried going through the individual key setups manually on Win 10, then exporting the TextPad registry and re-importing that and the custom key definitions still default to TextPad 4's defaults using a Win 10 registry export that includes custom key definitions.

Anyone have any info on what's happening in Win 10? I'd like to learn.

Addendum;

Related to this, there have been a couple of mods to my batch file that I think are to address unicode problems, but, I have tried those updates without success.

Thanks in advance,
Beverly Howard

[AmigoJack]

Is Win10 your first 64bit operating system you ever encounter?

• If yes: TextPad 4 only exists as 32bit executable and is more or less "emulated" in a 64bit system. Large parts of the Registry fork for this, too, and I presume this might be new to you. Example:

  Code: Select all

  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Helios\TextPad 4

  must become

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  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wow6432Node\Helios\TextPad 4

  Modify your REG file accordingly and try again - if after that nothing is missing you have your answer.
• If no: is the Registry part really "incomplete" or missing fully?

Keep in mind that any Windows version can be either 32bit or 64bit (even WinXP), so your experience from Win8.1 might still have happened in 32bit only.

[bevhoward]

Excellent information... thanks. It was intimidating, but I slept on it and things made more sense this morning.

I looked a the registry on my Win 8.1 and Win 10 machines and found;

The key

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 HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Helios\TextPad 4

entry was in both registries and, on both machines the registry contains TextPad parameters.

The Win 10 registry contains the key

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 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Helios

but no TextPad 4 reference.

It does contain the key

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HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Helios\TextPad\4.5.0

but the key essentially contains no data

So, that explains a lot, but the location of the custom key definitions is still not apparent. The "old" key on both machines contains a "Preferences" key that contains entries, but none of them appear to be related to custom key definitions

Code: Select all

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Helios\TextPad 4\Preferences]
"locale"=dword:00000009
"RegInit"=dword:fffffff0
"General"=hex:8d,00,00,00
"File"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00
"Editor"=hex:30,00,00,00
"Bindings"=""
"CustomBindings"=dword:00000001
"Backup"=hex:0a,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00
"FilterIndex"=dword:00000002
"View"=hex:3e,1d,02,00
"DefaultExt"=""
"FileFilters"=hex(7):54,00... (25 lines of hex data)

fwiw, when I tried to export this key, win 10 is apparently tries very hard to protect me from myself. It (eventually) "wrote" this file, but it never appeared in the destination directory. I was only able to access the above entries by repeating the export, then opening the previous export from the "save file" dialog box.

Big question... where are the custom keyboard preferences kept?

Again, big thanks... I learned a lot, but would like to know how to work with the win 10 registry.

Beverly Howard

[AmigoJack]

In doubt, it's not about the Registry, but Win10 itself. Different views of the same folder may be a result from being once in the 32bit world and once in the 64bit world. In theory this should be no problem, but with Win10 it's difficult to get any control over things.

Try it backwards: now that you know where TextPad should store Registry keys change something to see if the corresponding Registry value(s) is/are changed (i.e. change the used language and look at the Registry value "locale").

If you verified that, define a few keyboard shortcuts. Check back if the Registry (don't forget to refresh) now contains addition values or even keys. If not, then chances are it's kept in a file lurking in %userprofile% (yes, you can paste this text into the Explorer and it will display the corresponding folder) and beyond. In TextPad 8 this seems to be stored in %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Helios\TextPad\8\custom.bnd

[bevhoward]

custom.bnd

Thanks. I'll chip away at this as time passes and post if I discover anything, but it remains a mystery.

custom.bnd's file date on my win10 machine after manually adding several custom key definitions (that work after exiting and re-entering TP) is 8 years old.

Since custom.bnd is part of my backup and restore process, it doesn't make sense that all of the other user settings seem to transfer but the key definitions don't.

When I have a moment, I'll make a copy of the file, add a key change, then run a binary file compare on the two copies... it could be that TP is writing changes directly to disk rather than rewriting the file.

This might also be the kick in the rear to get me to upgrade four versions... at the very least, I plan to install the latest TP version and give it another try.

Thanks again,
Beverly Howard

[MudGuard]

fwiw, when I tried to export this key, win 10 is apparently tries very hard to protect me from myself. It (eventually) "wrote" this file, but it never appeared in the destination directory.

Make sure Windows does not hide files - per default some files are hidden in Explorer.

See https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/hel ... dden-files to make hidden files visible.

[bevhoward]

Thanks... I have that set, but, in this case, it was my fault.

I created "place holders" on the windows file dialog and they included folders on multiple computers... with the same folder name. The first time I used this, I didn't notice that I had selected the folder on a different computer.

Thanks for the response,
Beverly Howard

[AmigoJack]

it could be that TP is writing changes directly to disk rather than rewriting the file

This is highly unlikely. I still have TextPad 4 somewhere and could test things, but at the same time I don't want to install it.

I plan to install the latest TP version and give it another try

(Edit: this is wrong My biggest loss was that MDI was gone, so I can't freely arrange multiple open documents anymore - displaying it as tabs gives you the possibility to add as many tab groups as you want, which at least goes into the direction of freely arranging documents. I guess this step was (only) done so different skins can be applied (as if that was ever necessary). - TextPad can still do MDI, great!)

The biggest win is without doubt having full Unicode support since 8.0.0. You can install both versions parallely and then compare 4 against 8 - maybe you'll find something you don't like, but it should be rather easy to accept.

[ben_josephs]

TextPad is still an MDI application (with movable, resizable, overlapping windows); I wouldn't use it if it wasn't.

Unfortunately, MDI functionality is switched off when document tabs are switched on. And, irritatingly, if you switch the tabs on and off the positions and sizes of the document windows are forgotten.

So I do without document tabs:
View | Document Tabs
and use the document selector instead:
View | Document Selector

[AmigoJack]

Thanks a lot for reminding! I still appreciate MDI for its flexibility.