Loosing Settings

[Jaykul]

OK, what's going on with the settings?

* All my old settings are gone. After a quick check, It appearsthe settings were being stored in a new key ...
* I changed my columns and set the panes to horizontal, the way I like them, and even saved them as a "Layout," but when I closed x2 and re-opened it, lo and behold, it had gone back to the default layout!
* I selected the layout from the list, added the quick preview, and saved it as another layout, and noticed for the first time that A) I can't set the hotkey for the layout when I save it, I have to go to the organize dialog, and B) I can't use the move up/move down arrows in the organize dialog.
* I closed BOTH windows again -- why do we get a new window when selecting a new layout from the menu? When I started x2 again, it's still going back to the "default" layout. I tried deleting the default layout, but it can't be deleted
* I tried the hotkey I had set for my layout. Nothing happened.

I think I figured this out: apparently "layout" hotkeys have to be ALT+#, and aren't allowed to be ALT+CTRL+# (if so, there should be a warning like on the bookmarks, and these things should be greyed out, and the hotkey rules here are starting to feel a bit restrictive).

* I chose the layout from the menu, and I got my layout back, but in a new window (ok, by this time, I'm tired of new windows, but I close them in roder, making sure the one I like is closed last in case the changes are being saved in my layout list, still doesn't help)
* This time I'm done messing around, so i go into regedit and switch the names of one the key for my settings and the (obviously default) HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ZabaraKatranemia Plc\xplorer2_UC ... and when I restart x2 it uses my settings, finally.

[fgagnon]

Exactly, you have hit upon the recommended way to keep your old settings.
viz: regedit >> rename existing preference keys to add "_UC"
(after deleting the default installed _UC keys)

[nikos]

sorry about that, it's a hard life for testers!
but you'll appreciate the unicode version so much more
with fred's workaround you'll be able to rescue most of your settings

what i like about this "new layout in new window" is that i can hilight a folder that i want to see differently and then clone the window layout + read it in 1 step. You just have to think a little in advance, that's all

plus i don't have to switch back to my "normal" layout mode, i just discard the new window

keep in mind that these extra windows consume very little of your resources

[Jaykul]

I just want to make sure you realize that the key thing I'm getting at is that I had to edit the registry to get it to run "my" way. Totally aside from the fact that I lost my old settings, I couldn't find any way to make my preffered settings come up at startup!

[nikos]

it doesn't make any sense though!
perhaps you had some xplorer2 locked in memory (we've been getting a few of those)

try it again:
* goto task manager and ensure that all x2 processes are killed
* rename the good registry keys to something else to protect them
* do a fresh install (overwrite) and try your layout saving again

i'm sure it will be fine since i've been using the unicode version for months now

[nikos]

ps re-reading your post i realized that the problem may be something else. When you "save a layout" you just set the registry key name for that instance. Nothing is saved in the registry till you quit the program or till you clone with Ctrl+N. Not sure what happens if you clone using the added layout, i'll have to look in the code!

anyway, obviously this layout thingy will have to be in the shortlist for immediate improvements, but there's no stopping me now, this version goes out as it is!