I have a directory within a network drive which mainly stores MS-Office documents. I would like to alter the desktop.ini to display the title-column by default whenever someone opens this folder in his explorer.
In another directory I have a bunch of folders with additional comments to guide the users through the structure / explain the correct purpose of each folder, etc... By default the comment-column is disabled so I also need a way to enable this column by default.
Does anybody have an idea how to do this?
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We recently switched servers and many times in the past it has not been an issue, but this time the My Documents folders had some issues on the server somehow, so everyone's getting an error prompt when they open a MS Access file ("cant change working directory").
Googling it, it appears to be due to the path listed in File -> Options -> General -> Default Database Folder.
Does every user have to change this themselves to their actual My Documents folder? Why isn't it linking automatically like it has in the past? Is there a way I can automate / change it for anyone who opens the database?
For instance if I know their current default path looks like \\OLD_SERVER\tshome$\user_name\my documents can I change it to \\NEW_SERVER\tshome$\user_name\my documents automatically?
When you open an XCode project it can automatically write to the enclosing folder of the respective .xcodeproj file.
In a sandboxed application you can only write to files that are opened, or write to directories that have been opened with NSOpenPanel.
What I'm trying to achieve is the same functionality as XCode ; my app makes a project file (a document much like an .xcodeproj file) that is saved to a user-selected directory, and within that directory other files are created relating to that project file. However, if the file is re-opened after terminating the app, I end up losing permission to write to the enclosing directory.
I see bookmarks are an option but they do not provide the same functionality. If the project file is moved to a new directory it makes no sense to keep writing to the old directory, and I'd have to ask the user for permission to write to the new directory. I don't find this user-friendly. Is there absolutely no way to resolve this problem?
If the project file is moved to a new directory it makes no sense to keep writing to the old directory, and I'd have to ask the user for permission to write to the new directory. I don't find this user-friendly. Is there absolutely no way to resolve this problem?
Unfortunately for you this is Apple's sandbox model and you need to adapt to it. The process you describe is a good way to handle your situation - when you first create a project file ask the user to select the folder to store it and save a bookmark to that folder, when an existing project file is opened check whether you have a saved bookmark for its parent folder and if not put up a dialog explaining the file has been moved and ask the user for permission to use the new parent folder and keep a bookmark to it.
Users are used to these dialogs from apps, the sandbox has been around a long time. You might find keeping a number of saved bookmarks and optimising your collection will improve your users experience. E.g. remember that a bookmark to a folder grants access to all the files and folders within it, and the files/folders within those folders, etc. This means if a user reorganises by moving projects into sub folders may not require you to ask for a new bookmark, and similarly when a new bookmark is acquired any existing ones you have stored to folders contained by the new bookmark's folder are redundant and can be removed from your collection of stored bookmarks.
Not the answer you really wanted, but hope it helps!
I am attempting to make an instructional app for the call canter that I work at. Part of the code allows users to display information through the use of several files in our directory with drop down combo boxes.
For instance, a small portion of the code is similar to this (I did not save the app and bring it home so I am going off memory):
If cboGlossaryTerm.SelectedItem("MSN")Then
Process.Start("S:\MSN.pdf")
End If
I put the pdf files in My Resources and the Word files are added under the Solution folder.
I am using filepaths in the code as well.
(I attempted to save the pdf files in the Solutions folder but the pdf was not compatible.
With me adding the files this way, will users who do not have access to the S drive folder be able to display the files? Also, will the files remain accessible in the program if they are deleted from the S drive? If not, how should I be referencing the files in my project? Do I have to reference the pdf files from My Resources? If so, how do I do that in an If-Then statement similar to the one above?
from what you have there it doesn't look like the pdfs in the S:\ would be available to anyone who doesn't have the drive mapped on their local machine.
as for if the files are deleted, if they are being loaded from the S:\ then when they are deleted from there the program will not be able to find them to load them.
if the program is being installed on the local machines you might want to look at just including the pdfs in the installer and accessing them through the program files path.
When setting up local synchronization with a Sharepoint 2010 site using Sharepoint Workspace, where are the local files stored? More importantly, how can I change the storage location?
There is a folder-like object created under username\Workspaces, but when checking the path in the explorer address bar, it shows simply username\Workspaces, unlike other folders that show as C:\Users\username\xxxx. Right clicking the folder only provides the option to open in new window - it can't even be deleted! There are no options for setting storage location within the Workspace application itself.
Using an SSD system drive, I don't have the space to put all this data on C:. Only part of my user profile has been relocated to other drives, so the default for new items is still C:. Without a knowledge of the real path where this is stored, I can't even use junction points to redirect.
Much web searching has revealed nothing on this subject. Your help is appreciated.
the data is stored within the users profile. I don't think taht you're able to relocated the synched database. The synchronized data isn't encrypted or password protected. So you should consider to activate profile encryption within your organization.
In addition to the location you aren't able to activate any kind of OOB protection for the local SQL CE which is responsible for storing the synched data!
The default location is %localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\14.0\OfficeFileCache.
The files in this location don't look like the actual files, and contain a lot of metadata.
Per Microsoft KB 2020636, you can change the location of the OfficeFileCache by adding an Expandable String Value named OfficeCacheLocation to registry subkey HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Common\Internet with the new path. (This key is for Office 2010 only.)
In my organization, we reviewed the option of using Workspace for making files available offline, but in the end opted for a third party SharePoint add-on.
Since all of out users have Outlook and use it on daily basis, it made sense to have an Outlook sidebar available with all the users' relevant files. It also can synchronize a SharePoint library or folder and makes its items available offline using Microsoft Outlook, so we opted to use it instead of the OOB feature, which was too limited and had various security problems.
Just came across this and I think this will do the trick: How to change the default location of the Office 2010 Document Cache (NB: I haven't actually done it myself yet).
I don't have enough "reputation" on this site to post additional links, but if you search on the following, you can find more background:
OfficeFileCache Folder Size 3-4x Larger than Actual Content (SharePoint Workspace 2010)
Sharepoint Workspace Fills Hard Drive – WTF?
Is there a way (via shell extension or registry setting) to tell Windows Explorer that it shouldn't read files in the folder being shown in order to extract metadata or create thumbnails?
The problem is that when the user navigates to the folder, Windows Explorer attempts to read all files in the folder and extract certain metadata from them. If the medium is slow, this takes ages and causes unnecessary load on the file system. This is especially true in case of thumbnails, when the whole graphic file is read.
I am looking for ways to do this (restrict Explorer) in code, so "don't use Thumbnail mode" is not an acceptable answer :).
Upd: per-user settings won't work unfortunately cause we as a disk provider can deal only with our own disk (and the user might want to have separate settings for regular disks and virtual disks). I believe there must be some way to "explain" the OS that the drive is slow.
Maybe there's some IRP on driver level that we need to handle to tell the OS that the medium is slow?
Is there a way (via shell extension or
registry setting) to tell Windows
Explorer that it shouldn't read files
in the folder being shown in order to
extract metadata or create thumbnails?
Not that I know off, but depending on the priorities regarding the use case details you outlined there might be two options still to approximate the desired result:
Via group policy
Note that this essential expands/details the network folder related aspect of Freds answer, which you dismissed in your update; however, you claim to be able to deploy shell extensions or registry settings and the following two group policies simply execute the latter by administrative means:
User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Explorer:
Turn off the display of thumbnails and only display icons **on network folders**
Turns off the caching of thumbnails in hidden thumbs.db files.
This boils down to the following registry settings:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer]
"DisableThumbnailsOnNetworkFolders"=dword:00000001
"DisableThumbsDBOnNetworkFolders"=dword:00000001
Of course this is still not per folder, but at least limited to network folders and ignores regular disks and virtual disks.
Via hackish workaround
Given your statement we as disk provider can deal only with our own disk there might be a hackish workaround, though I'm afraid it lacks the last mile (untested by myself).
Starting from Chris W. Reas own answer to How can I suppress those annoying Thumbs.db files in Windows Vista and Windows 7?:
Also worth knowing: In Vista and Windows 7, Thumbs.db applies to network folders only. For local folders, Vista and Windows 7 instead save thumbnail cache information to a database in a local folder at "%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer"
Continuing from there, Wil claims the following potentially clever solution to work on a per folder basis:
Go to the drive and create a file called thumbs.db (in notepad or anything), then change the permissions on the file for everyone (including SYSTEM) to deny all.
Unfortunately, aside from the automation requirements to create the dummy thumbs.db in each folder, the outcome depends on how Explorer will react on the inaccessible file - because caching is optional as per group policy, it might as well display thumbnails without caching them, making the bandwidth issue even worse in turn ...
Good luck!
I'm not sure if you can disable thumbnail generation/display for certain folders but this article talks about a script which could quickly disable it via context menu.
The script modifies a value in the registry key HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\. I suppose you could find something similar in that key for the other metadata. ShowInfoTip sounds promising. There might be relevant information in other nearby keys.
This may be a complete non-answer depending on your needs, but how about storing the files without file extensions that the OS wants to make thumbnails of? Call it file.jpg.abc and it won't be reading thumbnails, for sure.