I have a folder that contains a lot of batch files -- more than can be displayed onscreen at one time in Windows Explorer. Some of these are clustered together, and need to be executed in sequence (but not in the same batch, as intermediate steps are necessary outside that which can be handled by batch files).
One of my files works as expected, but when I run that file, it causes the Explorer window to scroll to the top of the list. This isn't crippling -- but it's a mild irritant, as it distracts me from which file I ran last. (Also, it's just weird, and I'd like to understand what's going on.)
I've isolated the problem to a setx call: If I comment out this line, the batch file executes with no effect on the Explorer window that displays the directory in which it resides. If I uncomment the line and double-click the file, the batch file executes and its Explorer window scrolls to the top.
For diagnostics, I slimmed this down to a single line: I created a file named Test.bat, with only the following line of content:
setx TestValue abc
I put in it a folder with enough files in it that they were not all visible at once -- and, because it starts with a T, Test.bat displayed near the bottom. When I double-clicked it, the window scrolled to the top.
I'm using Windows 10. And tried this on another computer (with the same result) just to be certain it wasn't a quirk of my original machine.
Is this behavior something that can be negated with a command switch or a change to the Windows configuration?
Why?
setx command sends an WM_SETTINGCHANGE message to all top-level windows to notify the changes to the environment (lParam is Environment).
This causes the explorer windows to reprocess their environment and in this process the file list is repositioned.
How to solve?
There is not any way in setx to disable the message sending, and I don't know a way (using only the OS) to indicate to the explorer windows to not process the received message (that needs to be processed so new started processes could see the new variable).
The only way I see to deal with this "problem" is to directly write the variables into the registry and only call setx when you need to inform the rest of the windows of the environment changes.
Related
Note: I am sorry if I posted this in the wrong stack exchange website. I have seen similar questions on this website. Please correct me if it was wrong.
So I installed VLC into the directory D:\misc\vlc and when I type "vlc" into command prompt, it starts the VLC media player. However, I want to run this "vlc" command in the directory D:\slam\ . However, every time I do that, it says that "'vlc' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.".
Is there a way to run the 'vlc' command in any directory?
Any help is appreciated.
You can add the vlc program to the PATH in Windows using the "Edit Environment Variables" dialog. Assuming Windows 10 (though this dialog is present in older versions too), here is how to add a program to the PATH:
Open the Start Search, type in “env”, and choose “Edit the system environment variables”
Click the “Environment Variables…” button.
Under the “System Variables” section (the lower half), find the row with “Path” in the first column, and click edit.
The “Edit environment variable” UI will appear. Here, you can click “New” and type in the new path you want to add. From this screen you can also edit or reorder them.
Dismiss all of the dialogs by choosing “OK”.
Your changes are saved! You will probably need to restart apps for them to pick up the change. Restarting the machine would ensure all apps are run with the PATH change.
In step 4 above, the new path that you will type is the directory containing the vlc program, e.g. "D:\misc". Note that adding this directory will also make any other programs inside of the "misc" directory accessible as well.
When a SAS session starts, there are 5 windows. (Result Viewer, Explorer, Log, Editor, Output).
My desired state is when the session starts:
No result viewer
No output window
No default explorer window
The useable explorer window default open(to clarify this i attached a picture)
Good/Bad explorer window
Enchanced editor open
Log window open
So there will be 3 windows opened at session start, and i would like to resize them into 3 columns.
What i got so far:
I know the task can be done, because i was able to do this on my working computer. Unfortunately they reinstalled my windows without a word, and i lost my setup. And i did not have my autoexec/sasv9cfg file backuped. :(
I can close the output window with dm listing off command in my autoexec.
I can resize the 3 windows if i have them, with dm wdef command as well.
My biggest issue is i cant find again a DM/ODS or any kind of command, which closes the Result Viewer, and the original Explorer, and opens the normal/usable Explorer. In my faded memories i needed only 1 DM/ODS/sth command to achieve these 3 steps at once. Of course, if we can find a solution in more steps, thats also completely fine.
Big thx for any kind of help
You do not want the DMSEXP docked windows (which includes ODS Results tab) at session start up. The only way to do this programmatically is to specify the SAS system option -nodmsexp in the sas.exe command line or config.sys.
So, on my system, I set the target command on my SAS icon to be:
"C:\Program Files\SASHome\SASFoundation\9.4\sas.exe"
-CONFIG "C:\Program Files\SASHome\SASFoundation\9.4\nls\en\sasv9.cfg"
-NODMSEXP
Tweak the SAS DM session window states by placing this code in your autoexec.sas
dm 'dmsexp;tree on;next;listing off;tile vert' ;
You can also fiddle around with your session start up using the system options:
initstmt=
initcmd
I want to set a global shortcut that will open a certain file. When there already is a gvim window that has that file open, I want it to focus on that window, and select the tab with that file. If there isn't, I want it to be opened in a new gvim window, regardless of whether there already are other gvim windows.
I can do part of this with --remote and --servername, but I can't find a way to detect whether there already is a remote server running with the name I use, so I can't quite get everything to work together to come to what I described above.
OK, turns out most can be done using the default behavior of --remote-silent. The whole setup is a matter of making an AutoHotkey script like this:
#!^+1::
Run "c:\Program Files (x86)\vim\vim74\gvim.exe" --servername org --remote-silent %DROPBOX%\org\TODO.org
WinActivate, TODO.org
Return
AHK is needed for the global hotkey as well as activating the window; vim (using --servername and --remote-silent) will start a new session called 'org' if there isn't one yet, and start it otherwise. It even gets the tab activation right when there already is a server called 'org' but if that server has another tab active.
(Not sure if this belongs on superusers, but it seems there is a cmd.exe tag here, so here goes...)
As background, I'm working on a Firefox add-on (This question does not require knowledge of Firefox, btw, as Firefox add-ons can call the command line.) The add-on aims to build different kinds of shortcuts to cmd.exe (especially for the sake of my project https://github.com/brettz9/webappfind which allows files to be opened directly from the desktop into web apps).
Anyways, I'd like to give users the option to associate these shortcuts:
As the default handler for specific file extensions or file types.
To show up within the Open With list of applications (even if the user opts not to make the apps as default handlers)
As far as the default handling, I have found the ftype and assoc (and associate) commands, but I have read that user selections will override their behavior. Is there some way to ensure that I can get priority from the command line in associating file extensions to types and specific executables (until the user changes it again), or if it is not possible, then at least through C++ or the like?
As far as the Open With list:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\<file extension>\OpenWithList
...in my testing (with an exe), this command:
reg add HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.svg\OpenWithList /v d /d D:\wamp\www\webappfind\cplusplus\WebAppFinder-view-mode-Firefox.exe
...did cause the exe file to show up in:
reg query HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.svg\OpenWithList
...but it did not show up when I subsequently right-clicked a file with the ".svg" extension.
I would really appreciate any help with these two points.
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Applications\MYFOO.exe\shell\open\command]
#="\"C:\\MYFOO.exe\" \"%1\""
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.myfoo]
"Application"="MYFOO.EXE"
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.myfoo\OpenWithList]
"a"="MYFOO.EXE"
"MRUList"="a"
So I got to an investigation what makes those file associations. It appears that you have to create a mapping from the bare EXE name to the full path as shown in the first two long-ish lines. Then you must only use the EXE name in the .extension branch. Setting the .extension's Application value will give you your default app instantly. Remember, only use APP.EXE, its full path must be defined as above. This was your main error. The "%1" part allows you to customize the parameters of your program so that it doesn't have to be just the opened document in quotes, as shown here. The backslashes are just escape characters for Regedit, you may discard them as you see fit.
The OpenWithList is tricky in the sense that there are letters for entries and just a blind write may overwrite some of the user's favorite apps. One approach would be to call your item "z" to lower the probability of overwriting. The right way would be enumerating the key and giving your app the first free letter. The MRUList is not essential, although it should have each used letter once and yours bumped to the start.
Note about user friendliness: Explorer will cache these values until next reboot. Make sure you update the registry and place exe first and create your file later. Although the caching only fully influences the display of the file and when it is run, the registry is read again and it will execute as you want.
TIP: If you decide to use Regedit instead of reg, the /s parameter skips the confirmation message and applies the values right away. Make sure you use double backslashes in the full path as shown. When preparing your temporary .reg file, make sure you append two CRLF's to the end or a glitch may cause your last line of code to be ignored. This sample starts with REGEDIT4 which signifies an ANSI file. If you need support for Unicode in your app path, you'll have to start the file with Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 and store it in UTF16. This is already a superior solution to calling reg because there's no way you could get CMD.EXE to process special UTF stuff through the command line without mangling.
I have a batch script under Windows. When anyone will click on that script I want the command window to become full screen like we do by keyboard shortcut [Alt+Enter].
Can it be done automatically using any command in batch file?
In Windows XP, you need to start your program maximized (but not full screen) via "start /max" as follows:
start "Winow Title" /MAX "C:\batches\myfile.bat"
This command would be inside your original batch file, and call the real bath file.
I don't think there's a way to change the full screen-ness of an executing "cmd" command from within a batch file absent someone writing a special app to do so by emulating sending Alt+Enter to the parent process.
In Windows 7 (and probably Vista) you must run inside XP virtual machine for full screen mode.
There is none. You can write a small program doing so for you, though. There is the SetConsoleDisplayMode function.