Thumbsplus file assoc frustration

[davenn]

hi guys

is there any way to turn off the auto file assoc that Tp9 does ?
I find it incredibly frustrating. i dont want it to be assoc with any file types at all as I still wish windows pic and fax viewer to be the default viewer when I double click on a pic in a folder when using Win Explorer.
The fact that Tp9 completely boots up every time means that viewing images randomly is VERY SLOW!!!! where with Win Pic viewer i see the image immediately

I uninstalled and reinstalled Tp9 hoping that I had missed the file assoc option during the install .... no such luck.
Also looked through all the preference/option settings, couldnt see anything obvious in there for turning the file assoc off.

if I use Win Explorer to change file assoc,  Tp9 just overrides them and reassoc's
I'm starting to spit fire with frustration!!!!


This is really crappy to force people to have to wait for Tp9 to boot up every time a single pic needs to be viewed. for heaven's sake guys, give people a choice!!!

PLEASE give people a choice :)

[Daan van Rooijen]

Hi Dave,

Yes, the implementation of these filetype associations is frustrating. When you tell ThumbsPlus to associate a filetype to itself, it doesn't treat that as a one-time command like all other programs known to me do, but as a permanent setting. In other words: it will re-associate that filetype to itself everytime that you launch it, even if you had since associated that filetype to a different program.

This behavior is turned on or off through the "Associate this file type with ThumbsPlus" setting in each filetype definition, that you'll find under Options | Preferences | Filetypes (pick a filetype and press Edit to get to its settings).

Of course, this means that if you want to turn this off for all 100+ (or whatever) filetypes, you'll be spending quite a lot of time..

There's a workaround that should work faster, but it may require some advanced editing skills. The settings are saved in a textfile named Thumbs9.typ. Its entries look like this:

[FileTypes]
.ai=Adobe Illustrator|Raster|Cerious Plug-in|plug_gs.tpp|Association||Internal||0|2|
.art=AOL Art|Raster|Internal||Association||Internal||0|2|
.au=Audio File|Sound|Internal||Association||None||0|5|

When the 'associate this file type' option has been set, then the second-last number will be a 1 instead of a 0. In my example above, the setting is off for all three filetypes. Had they been on, the definitions would have looked like this:

[FileTypes]
.ai=Adobe Illustrator|Raster|Cerious Plug-in|plug_gs.tpp|Association||Internal||1|2|
.art=AOL Art|Raster|Internal||Association||Internal||1|2|
.au=Audio File|Sound|Internal||Association||None||1|5|

So, with that knowledge, you can edit the file directly. Be sure to do so only when TP is not running, otherwise it will overwrite your changes when you exit. You should not launch TP until you have finished editing and you have saved Thumbs9.typ.

If you don't know where Thumbs9.typ is on your system, look in the program under Help | System Info and check the path that is mentioned as your 'preferences path'.

I hope this helps!

[davenn]

Daan

thankyou so much :)

there was only ~ 6 file types I was really concerned with
GIF, JPG, BMP, PNG and my Canon and Pentax Camera RAW files

they were easily excluded

I guess if I had delved through many pages of help files I may have eventually found that info  haha


I appreciate you fast response and help

Regards
Dave

[BryanOB]

Daan,

Is there a way to install ThumbsPlus 9 without the install wizard associating every file type with it?
That is not the behavior I want.

Thanks for the reply,
Bryan

[Daan van Rooijen]

Hi Bryan,

I wish I could help here, but I'm afraid that I can't. I'm not sure if the installer actually makes those filetype associations, or if TP9 itself does so when it is launched for the first time. If it's the latter, you might be able to simply edit thumbs.typ (as explained in my earlier response in this thread) before launching TP9, or replace it with an earlier copy that has the associations turned off. I'm sorry, but I don't remember how the installer works exactly, having used it only once myself. I don't recall having any problems with filetype associations myself, though, so there must be a way to avoid them.

btw, I am using a (highly recommended) real-time system monitor utility named WinPatrol Plus that alerts me whenever a program is trying to do something questionable or unsafe, such as adding a boot-time startup program or a browser add-on or changing (certain) filetype associations. I don't think that I used it myself for TP9, but if you happen to have WinPatrol too, you could tell it to monitor the relevant filetypes (jpg, gif, avi, etc) and then it would help you to quickly restore your associations if something went wrong.

[BryanOB]

Daan,

Thanks for your feedback, and for your tip about WinPatrol.

Anyway, I think I have a better perspective about what had happened to my file format associations.

When I installed TP9 on my other computer, I had a previous version (TP8) installed as well. I might have also upgraded using the beta versions as they came along.

One of them, whether it was TP8 beta or TP9 beta I didn't know, associated every file type it handled, with itself. Consequently, When I installed the released version of TP9, the same thing happened. As a result, I assumed that TP9 had the same bad behavior.

I just installed TP9 on a new computer build. I checked the file and found that NONE of the file associations I was concerned about, were assigned.

I then checked the other computer and realized that TP9 was using the old file, which when checked, had assigned all of the file associations I was concerned about.

For those who had my problem, here as link that might help restore some of the more traditional file associations:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/19449-default-file-type-associations-restore.html

I'm a happy camper now. :-)

Regards,
Bryan

[Daan van Rooijen]

That's good news! I didn't know that TP would use an existing .typ file from a previous release, but it explains what we both have seen.