Discussion of bugs and problems found in Altap Salamander. In your reports, please be as descriptive as possible, and report one incident per report. Do not post crash reports here, send us the generated bug report by email instead, please.
I have a little problem : When I try to delete the files in my temp directory (of course with SS), there is always a file named "salexten.dll", which could not be deleted, because it's used by SS. What about that? Why SS does'nt use the one placed in plugin subdirectory? Would be nice to change that.
Nevertheless SS ist the best file manager ever!
Merry Christmas and happy new year from Germany to all users and especially the ALTAP team!
This DLL is copied on start of Servant Salamander to user's temporary directory because it's frequently used by Windows Explorer (especially needed for network installations of Servant Salamander) and it's locked by Windows (it makes possible to fully uninstall Servant Salamander without Windows restart - this DLL is removed from temporary directory on next Windows start). This DLL is registered as a Shell Extension in Windows Registry. It provides support for Drag & Drop and Cut / Copy & Paste from archives and plugin file-systems to Windows Explorer. If you need to delete this DLL from temporary directory, close all instances of Servant Salamander (Servant Salamander locks this DLL too) and try to delete it. If it's still not possible to delete it, restart (or at least logoff & logon) your Windows and try to delete it again.
I also have found this file (now apparently renamed to Salexte2.dll when it is copied to the TEMP directory) to be somewhat annoying. Only because it has a tendency to get in the way when deleting old files from the TEMP directory.
If I do this manually (from within SS), I select all files before the date/time of my last startup (after sorting by date). A more automated tool I sometimes use will try to delete all files with a date prior to today.
So, at least for my purposes, the problem is the file date which has a tendency to be 2003-12-19. It seems that if this date could be touched to show current date/time when SS starts that this would make deleting old files a bit easier.
Obviously this is not a BIG issue, but it would made things more convenient.
It was funny, but during my testing of this (deleting file, restarting, etc) somehow the date got updated to current date/time. Don't know how and I've never seen that before. Don't know how long that will last.
Not a BIG issue! This is the dumbest thing I have ever seen from ANY software company! Putting a permanent DLL into the temporary directory!
Stupid thing won't even read it dll from it's own directory! If you can't tell I'm pissed at such stupidity because I am sick of getting the this file could not be deleted when I am cleaning out my temp directory. I have all performance monitors disabled so I don't have any locked files in my temp directory making it quick and easy to delete until I tried out Servant Salamander.
But I am not even going to give Servant Salamander a chance because of the stupidity of putting a permanent dll in windows temp directory. That makes it appear that you want the behavior of a trojan or malware since that is the poor practice they use. I keep my temp directory clean so I know when some crap like malware has found a way onto my system as well as a few other major directories. So needless to say when I saw such stupid behavior from a software I removed it and got rid of the headache.
Quit using poor coding practices that make people think your software has trojans in it because first time someone knowledgeable sees a dll in their temp directory they search on it believing it's a damn trojan! ANY software that is intelligently written puts it's own files in it's own directory and a well written one if it has a temp file to be created will create it in a sub temp directory in their own directory! I've done some database development programming in Delphi and I would NEVER EVER put a file that belongs to the program in any windows directory!
1: Users don't like application that put ANY files in the Windows system directories.
2: Users want to clean their TEMP directories (your case) and the shell extension stays in the way.
3a: Servant Salamander cannot be uninstalled without system reboot (shell extension cannot be unloaded without reboot).
3b: Furthermore, if Servant Salamander is started from the network path and it becomes unaccessible, Windows Explorer can crash.
I don't think installing it to the user's temporary path is a good idea, especially since the extension is registered to the machine dependent hieve of the registry. If the file is copyed to a user specific directory, it ought to be registered for the user only.
I'd prefere however, when Salamander installed this Shell extension officially with the initial install to the directory provided for this purpose by Microsoft (%SYSTEMROOT%\ShellExt) or to a folder determined by the user. Of course with the option of not installing it at all.
On a machine (or for a user on a machine) where the extension is not registered, Salamander should launch a propper install of the extension and install it as above, given the user has sufficient privileges to do this, or else place it in some local user dependent directory and register it for the user only.
This way the user stays informed and in charge of what's going on on his machine. Furthermore everything is in it's propper place or the user himself is responsible for consequences of not placing it there.
SvA good suggestion but I would even be happy if they let us choose the directory in preferences. Where do we wish to locate that dll. That way those who use it over the network without installing can do so but majority that use it on a single computer can have it out of their way.
When they something like either one of the two suggestions than I will take another look at the software but right now the dll gets in my way for me to even bother with it.
SvA wrote:I'd prefere however, when Salamander installed this Shell extension officially with the initial install to the directory provided for this purpose by Microsoft (%SYSTEMROOT%\ShellExt) or to a folder determined by the user. Of course with the option of not installing it at all.
Just curious, on my machine with Windows XP installed 2.2.2002 is %SYSTEMROOT%\ShellExt still empty and never used. Maybe it is the right directory provided for this purpose by Microsoft, but it seems to me that nobody use it.
Context Menu Editor because it shows ones missing files or extensions and allows you to delete them. Very nice to get rid of extensions from a software you have uninstalled.
I would also vote for a different location than the user's temp dir.
I have no issues with using the windows directory (especially as it is such a small file). My %sysytemroot%\ShellExt is also empty. Somehow surprising that nobody uses it but it sounds like the right place for files like that.
Uninstalling without a reboot is also not critical in my opinion as long as the option is offered not to reboot immediately but to complete the uninstall on the next regular reboot/start. As there is still the issue with network installs I would propose to place it into the application directory, if installed locally (should be somehow detectable) and in the ShellExt directory on network startup.
We are working on this issue, the shell extension will be placed to the Servant Salamander directory (from 2.5 RC2). If there will be problems with network setups, we can use %sysytemroot%\ShellExt or Windows system directory.
The Salexten.dll is a bugging thing and I must admit it irritates me each time I clean the temp-directory. Much more than knowing I'll have to reboot, should I choose to uninstall AS.
How come Jan's final post is older than the posts above him?
: When I try to delete the files in my temp directory (of course with SS), there is always a file named "salexten.dll", which could not be deleted, because it's used by SS. What about that? Why SS does'nt use the one placed in plugin subdirectory? Would be nice to change that.
