wxChecksums Shell Extension for Microsoft Windows > Manual

wxChecksums Shell Extension for Microsoft Windows 1.1.1 manual

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

Introduction
Installation
Uninstall wxChecksums Shell Extension for Microsoft Windows
Using wxChecksums Shell Extension for Microsoft Windows
Configuration files
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
License
Author
Links

Introduction

wxChecksums Shell Extension for Microsoft Windows is a shell extension for the Windows Explorer to process checksums' files with wxChecksums. If you don't know what is wxChecksums please go to the wxChecksums' website before continuing with this manual.

Note: In this manual some dialogs will be in french because I cannot have access to a Windows in english language. If you have Windows in english, all the dialogs should be displayed in english.

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Installation

Requirements

wxChecksums Shell Extension for Microsoft Windows 1.1.1 needs that wxChecksums 1.1.1 (or more) is installed.

wxChecksums Shell Extension for Microsoft Windows needs Windows NT with Internet Explorer 5 (or more) or Windows 2000/XP.

A version that should work with Windows 98 (maybe 95 too?) with Internet Explorer 5 (or more) and Windows 98SE/ME is provided but you must install it manually. I don't have access to a Windows 9x/ME workstation so I can't say if it really works. :(

Installation with the installer

The installer can be used only with Windows NT 4.0 (be sure that you have installed Internet Explorer 5 (or more)) and Windows 2000/XP. You need the administrative privileges for launching the installer. At the end of the installation, the installer may ask you to reboot your computer.

Do not install this shell extension in the same directory than wxChecksums. A good place for installing it is a sub directory where wxChecksums is installed. For example, the installer of wxChecksums installs it by default in the C:\Program Files\wxChecksums directory and the installer of this shell extension installs it by default in the C:\Program Files\wxChecksums\ShellExt directory.

If you upgrade the shell extension and if you have modified the global configuration file (wxcksumsshellex.ini) make a copy of it before running the installation. The existing file will be overwrited.

Installation from a ZIP archive

Note that this method is intended to the advanced users.

The ZIP archive contains two versions of the shell extension:

The Ansi version should work with all the versions of Windows that meet the requirements listed in the Requirements section above.
The Unicode version works only with Windows NT with Internet Explorer 5 (or more) or Windows 2000/XP.

To install the shell extension, follow these steps:

If a previous version of the shell extension was installed, uninstall it before.
Create a directory where the files of the shell extension should be placed, let's say C:\Program Files\wxChecksums\ShellExt.
Copy the files wxcksumsshellex.dll and wxcksumsshellex.ini from the Ansi or Unicode directory (depending the version that suits to you) in the directory created in the step 2.
Open a DOS Prompt or and Windows Command Prompt.
Go to the directory created in the step 2:
cd "C:\Program Files\wxChecksums\ShellExt"
Register the shell extension:
regsvr32 wxcksumsshellex.dll
The shell extension is now installed.

Installing by compiling the sources

This method is intended to the programmers. The sources come with instructions to compile wxChecksums Shell Extension for Microsoft Windows. Follow the instructions given in the Installation from a ZIP archive section for completing the installation.

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Uninstall wxChecksums Shell Extension for Microsoft Windows

Uninstall with the uninstaller

If you have used the installer, use the uninstaller to uninstall wxChecksums Shell Extension for Microsoft Windows. Note that you'll surely need to reboot after the uninstall process.

It's better to uninstall wxChecksums Shell Extension for Microsoft Windows before wxChecksums itself.

Uninstall manually

If you have installed wxChecksums Shell Extension for Microsoft Windows manually, here's the steps to uninstall it:

Open a DOS Prompt or and Windows Command Prompt.
Go to the directory where the files of the shell extension are:
cd "C:\Program Files\wxChecksums\ShellExt"
Unregister the shell extension:
regsvr32 /u wxcksumsshellex.dll
Reboot to be sure that the explorer don't use the extension anymore.
Remove the files of the shell extension.
The shell extension is now uninstalled.

Known issues

When uninstalling the shell extension (with the uninstaller or manually), on Windows NT and higher the registery key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell Extensions\Approved\{4651C3B8-1503-4edc-8C9A-D0D8DA796737} (with the value wxChecksums Shell Extension) is not deleted. You must delete it manually but if you are unsure what you are doing or how to do it, leaving this on your system will not cause any harm.

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Using wxChecksums Shell Extension for Microsoft Windows

Select one or more file/directory/drive in the explorer and open the contextual menu. A wxChecksums entry in the menu should be displayed:

The Append to... entry permits you to append the selected files to a checksums' file. If the checksums' file doesn't exist, it is created.

The Create a checksums' file... entry permits you to create a checksums' files and append to it the selected files. If the checksums' file already exist, it is overwrited (without any warning message). Prefer in general the Append entries.

The shell extension also provides other entries for quickly append to or create a checksums' file. The name of the checksums' file is created by replacing the extension of the file on which you clicked on when opening the context menu.

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Configuration files

The shell extension uses two configuration files:

wxcksumsshellex.ini is the global configuration file of the extension. It is placed in the same directory than the extension itself.
wxChecksumsShellExt.ini is the user configuration file. It can be found in the %APPDATA%\wxChecksums directory.

Global configuration file

wxcksumsshellex.ini contains all the globals settings and the translations of the GUI. This file is encoded in UTF-8 so be sure to use a text edition that can read UTF-8 text files.

wxChecksums section

Key	Type	Default value	Description
`Path`	string		Path where the wxChecksums executable can be found. Use this parameter if the shell extension can't find wxChecksums executable itself.
`Command`	string	`wxChecksums.exe`	Name of the executable file of wxChecksums.
`AppendSwitch`	string	`-a`	Switch used by wxChecksums to append files to a checksums' file.
`CreateSwitch`	string	`-c`	Switch used by wxChecksums to create checksums' file.
`DeleteTempListSwitch`	string	`--delete-temp-list`	Switch used to delete the given temporary lists of files to wxChecksums.
`CreateTypeSwitch`	string	`-ct`	Switch used to say to wxChecksums which type of checksums' file to create.
`FilesListSwitch`	string	`-fl`	Switch used to give to wxChecksums a list of files.
`CfgDir`	string	`wxChecksums`	Directory relative to `%APPDATA%` where the wxChecksums configuration file it stored.
`CfgFile`	string	`wxChecksums.ini`	Name of the configuration file of wxChecksums.

wxChecksumsShellExt section

Key	Type	Default value	Description
`UserCfgFile`	string	`wxChecksumsShellExt.ini`	Name of the user configuration file of wxChecksums Shell Extension for Microsoft Windows.

Language aliases section

This section is used to convert the languages identifiers of wxChecksums to the languages identifiers of wxChecksums Shell Extension for Microsoft Windows.

wxChecksums Shell Extension for Microsoft Windows use the Microsoft Windows identifiers. A list of these identifers can be found at Table of Language Identifiers of the MSDN website.

Use the following form to make the association:
<wxId>=<wxSEId>

Example:
fr=0x040c

Windows language aliases section

This section is used to say to the shell extension to map a specified language with another language. For example, the following line:
0x080c=0x040c

Says to the shell extension to use French (Standard) language when the user language is French (Belgian).

Translations sections

The translations sections are identified by the code of the language in their hexadecimal form. For example: 0x040c for french.

If you make a new translation be sure to leave the %s in the string that you translate. %s will be used to display a string (a name of file, for example).

User configuration file

Section	Key	Type	Description
`SaveDialog`	`LastTypeUsed`	int	Last type of checksums' file choosed by the user. 0 = SFV, 1 = MD5.
`Language`	`Id`	string	Identifier of the language to use. Example: `0x04c` for french.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q.	How the shell extension chooses the language to use?
A.	The shell extension first looks for the `Id` entry in the `Language` section of the user configuration file. If the language is found, it is used. The shell extension looks in the wxChecksums configuration file. If a known language is found, it is used. The shell extension get the language used by Windows. If a translation is available, it is used. The shell extension used english (by default).

Q.	The shell extension works when I select a few files, but when I select a lot a files, nothing happend. Why?
A.	When you select a lot of files, the extension can't give to wxChecksums all of them by the command line. The extension tries to create a temporary list of files in the temporary directory given Windows. If nothing happend, there could be two reasons: The temporary directory given the environment variables `TMP` or `TEMP` doesn't exist. Note that these environment variables are created by the installer of Windows. There is no enough space on the drive where the temporary directory is, or you don't have the sufficient rights to write a file into.

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License

wxChecksums Shell Extension for Microsoft Windows is released under the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE.
See the LICENSE.txt and gpl.txt files for more details.

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