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DONE - IDEA: modify system path (System Path Commander)

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mouser:
coding snacks downlload page has been updated.

Dragonrider:
Hi Mouser & Chr15:
Thank you VERY much for the quick response & sensitivity to others problems.

> =========== Mouser Wrote: ===========
> it seems this touched a raw nerve with you  :) - just don't get mad at chr, im sure he didnt realize that there
> would be issues for visually impaired..

Not a raw nerve per se, but I will say a sensitive 1.  I wasn't mad, just frustrated.  I wanted to use this excellent program & couldn't.  There are so many really excellent programs out there that a person who can't see well (or at all) can't use due to an oversight by the designer.  When a person doesn't have a particular problem, it is very easy to just not see the trees for the forest (not forest for the trees).  :)

> so here's a question for you, in spc, it uses 2 alternative colorings to indicate that an entry is either invalid
> (red) or changed (gree), are those also unreadable, and if so, what would you recommend from a visually
> imparied standpoint, regarding colors..

For my eyes, the higher the contrast between font color & background color the better.  The way I have set up the program for me is:

Normal:               Font = clWhite
                Background = clBlack
Updated:             Font = clYellow
                Background = clNavy
Invalid:                Font = clWhite
                Background = clMaroon

This may not (& doesn't for my son who has similar vision problems) work for someone else, but is extremely effective for me.

But my post wasn't about me.  It was about the fact that the coloring couldn't be changed to take into account these type of problems.

Stepping down from soapbox...

Thanks again for not only the quick changes chr15, but a really nicely done program as well.

Regards
Dragonrider

chr15:
np KC,

Have fun with it :)

Scott:
 
Why does System Path Commander 1.18 change the data type of the Path value from its default of REG_EXPAND_SZ, to REG_SZ?  Windows XP always changes it back to the REG_EXPAND_SZ type, when the System Properties applet is used to edit the Path.
 

Scott:
OK, I found out the difference between REG_SZ and REG_EXPAND_SZ, and it's an important one, with very serious applications.  The former does not allow variables to be expanded.  Variable expansion is the whole purpose of REG_EXPAND_SZ.

I also found out that the implications of using the wrong data type can be serious.  I just rebooted after using SPC--without making any actual changes to the path itself--and had serious problems afterward.  (To be clear, what I did was uncheck one of the paths shown in SPC, save the changes, then recheck the path, and save the changes again.  Thus, the path didn't change, but SPC's change was in effect.)  The %SystemRoot% variable wasn't expanded after my reboot, thus instead of being "C:\WINDOWS", it was seen as literally "%SystemRoot%".

Running the command "echo %path%" from a command window shows this.  What I see, after rebooting with a REG_SZ value in place, is:


--- ---C:\Program Files\Console;C:\Program Files\UltraEdit;C:\Program Files\Undelete;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem;D:\Data\Batch Files
What I should see, and what appears when REG_EXPAND_SZ is used, is:


--- ---C:\Program Files\Console;C:\Program Files\UltraEdit;C:\Program Files\Undelete;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;D:\Data\Batch Files
The problems I had included applications that couldn't find supporting files in C:\WINDOWS\system32, and if I let my system lock, it won't let me back in.  I can't even run CHKDSK.EXE normally.  Is this one of those "random features" you talk about?  :o

Sorry I didn't test SPC earlier.  This was my first time using it.

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