Powerpro's *Menu Explorer Last Accessed or Utility Launch Menu --->Recent docs too

Today I learned something related to this idea while trying out some NirSoft tools.

One of the tools is called "ShellBagsView" and within a corresponding .chm file there is this text:

Each time that you open a folder in Explorer, Windows automatically save the settings of this folder into the Registry. This utility displays the list of all folder settings saved by Windows. For each folder, the following information is displayed: The date/time that you opened it, the entry number, display mode (Details, Icons, Tiles, and so on...), the last position of the window, and the last size of the window.

Perhaps leveraging this information would allow an approach that doesn't try to periodically monitor what Windows Explorer is doing.

He he, MilesAhead, I confess I have been a FolderCache user for a bit

btw you may want to try ReOpen instead.  I find sometimes I type a substring in the input filter and I don't get a result in the folder list, but sometimes a recent program that lives in that folder is still in the program list.  Then I can highlight it, press Alt Left Click to paste it into the input line.  Once there I can backspace out the program part to get the folder.

I also cheat by using Everything Search.  If I type in a folder name and come up dry, then I hit ^c to kick off the hotkey search, which I have set to open Everything Search... then the contents of the input filter edit line are sent as a macro.

Do you know if it works on 64 bit versions of Windows?  It doesn't mention 64 bit on the product page.

Assuming it does you could come up with a kludge to add the output to FolderCache.txt.
Only thing is the entries from the file are pushing into the stack of folders from the last line in the file to the first, since it's assumed the first line in the file is the most recent folder.

Instead of just appending your info to the end of FolderCache.txt you would want to format your output to look like the entries in FolderCache.txt, then append FolderCache.txt onto your file, then replace FolderCache.txt with your file.  Also you need to make sure FolderCache is not running while you do this since it rewrites the FolderCache.txt on closing.

A few lines of batch should do it depending on what you have to do to format the output of the ShellBagsView.  By having your lines first in the FolderCache.txt file they won't be discarded because the stack has reached its limit.  They will be the last entries pushed on.

edit: looking at the output I don't see what the information is.  It shows the root of the folder opened for all I can see.  A bunch of C:  X: F: with no particular folder info.. unless something escapes me.


edit2: Sifting through registry mish mash, esp. 32 vs 64 bit is not my thing.  That's why I do the active window in the first place.  If you can some up with something yourself I'd be curious to see it though.

Do you know if it works on 64 bit versions of Windows?  It doesn't mention 64 bit on the product page.

I didn't manage to determine this via some searching.

As far as making info available to FolderCache is concerned, some kind of merging is what I currently have in mind.  No point in duplicating paths.  Perhaps there is some date / time info (may be the last accessed or modification info for FolderCache.txt?) that can be leveraged for this purpose.

Also you need to make sure FolderCache is not running while you do this since it rewrites the FolderCache.txt on closing.

The situations under which it occurred to me to use this is when FolderCache has not been running, so ordinarily it doesn't seem like it'd be a problem, but thanks for the warning.  It'd be good to check for a running FolderCache.  For reference, the cases I have considered so far are:

• When you first install FolderCache
• While performing maintenance / debugging of some sort, it's not unusual for me to shut down a lot of utilities -- sometimes I stop certain things and not others and don't always remember to restart everything (though I wrote a little utility that's been helping me to "fill in the missing processes").
• Accidental process killing without noticing

I am happy to report that I have not yet witnessed FolderCache crashing on its own

A few lines of batch should do it depending on what you have to do to format the output of the ShellBagsView. 

He he.  I will probably avoid batch as I still find it hard to use -- though it's nice that I don't typically need to install anything extra.  (I find coming back to batch good from time to time -- it helps in my appreciation of other programming languages.)

By having your lines first in the FolderCache.txt file they won't be discarded because the stack has reached its limit.  They will be the last entries pushed on.

Thanks for this explanation.

edit: looking at the output I don't see what the information is.  It shows the root of the folder opened for all I can see.  A bunch of C:  X: F: with no particular folder info.. unless something escapes me.

Interesting -- I typically get full path info, though not always.  My current leaning is just to work with full path information, at least to start with.  Hmm, a random thought -- if FolderCache could be handed folder info from other programs (e.g. via command line invocation) whether it's running or not, may be that'd open up some interesting possibilities...

edit2: Sifting through registry mish mash, esp. 32 vs 64 bit is not my thing.  That's why I do the active window in the first place.  If you can some up with something yourself I'd be curious to see it though.

If ShellBagsView isn't managing to extract anything useful, my first inclination would be after doing some further testing and searching to see if others had similar experiences, to try to bug Nir Sofer about it -- I think sifting through registry stuff is one of his things

Nice work with the helpfile, but what if one has the Treepad portable version? Could you add an option to indicate where the Treepad.exe is located?

Ok, I added the feature.  See the FolderCache 4.3 and ReOpen 4.3 threads for details.
The new versions are on my site now.