Could a Directory Opus 9.0 user PLEASE try this for me?

[Scott]

In another thread, I mentioned a crash I'd experienced with Directory Opus 9.0.  Well, I've now spent hours of my time last night and today trying to figure out what is going on...  And I think I finally have.

I've now reproduced this crash on my main system and under VMware, where I run a totally clean copy of Windows XP Home (clean, except for VMware Tools).  So, I really think Directory Opus is at fault.

Could someone please try an experiment?  If you run Directory Opus 9.0.0.9, especially under Windows XP, extract the attached file crashDO.zip to your SendTo folder.  The archive contains only an innocuous shortcut, contained in the relative directory [X].  So, after extracting the ZIP file to your SendTo folder, the result should be a single file, Internet - Temp.lnk, under this folder:

C:\Documents and Settings\[user]\SendTo\[X]\

After that is done, restart Directory Opus (i.e. close down all copies of DOpus.exe and then run it again), then right click a file (any file should do) repeatedly in Directory Opus.  It may happen on the first right click or the tenth, but DOpus.exe should crash...  If I'm right.  If you are running any version of Windows other than Windows XP, or any version of Directory Opus under 9.0.0.9, then this test proves nothing if DOpus.exe doesn't crash.

[mrainey]

Running XP Pro.  Followed your instructions, right-clicked a jpg file, Directory Opus crashed right away.

[Darwin]

Me too - running XP Pro, followed your directions and Dopus crashed the second I right clicked on the folder I had just extracted from your attachment above!

[Scott]

Beautiful.  Unassociated third-party confirmation.  I appreciate it.

So, here we have:

• A standard Windows folder.  Yes, naming with brackets (i.e. []) may be somewhat unusual, but it is perfectly allowable to the file system, and to Windows.
• A standard Windows shortcut file, that points to another standard Windows folder.  The shortcut target is not present, but this is also not an abnormal or unacceptable situation; shortcuts may point to network drives, removable drives, encrypted volumes, and other resources that are not always available.  The target must exist when the shortcut is created, but Windows does not go nuts or refuse to boot if the shortcut target disappears afterward.

Unless someone can contort logic enough to claim that a shortcut with an invalid target under the SendTo menu should make Directory Opus crash, I do believe I've found a bug.  The author just replied to me via email and says he will look into it.  He didn't say so explicitly, but I think he was able to reproduce it on his end as well...

This one was tough!  Thank you very much for the confirmation, guys.

[cthorpe]

It took me quite a few right clicks to get a crash, but it came eventually.

[lanux128]

this is a bit off-topic but sometimes a small innocuous item in the context-menu can cause instability.. read about my experience with Screenshot Captor here..

[Scott]

this is a bit off-topic but sometimes a small innocuous item in the context-menu can cause instability.. read about my experience with Screenshot Captor here..

-lanux128 (November 28, 2007, 10:15 PM)

You're right, shell extensions can cause crashes, but this particular crash is not due to any shell extension.  It took me probably a full work day's worth of hassle to prove it, but now I have.