Sep. 2, 2007 @ 14:29

Well I knew I was taking a bit of a risk with my first Vista compatible shell extension and yes, some bugs did creep in. I do test my stuff as thoroughly as I can but sometimes things slip through the net. :o(

Thanks to those who did take the time to contact me and report their bugs. The two most common problems seems to be missing C++ Runtime files (Microsoft requires specific versions for applications compiled with VS2005 SP1) and the extensions crashing when you right-click on a thumbnail.

The runtime issue is solved by installing them as necessary – I’ve provided links to them above the shell extension download page.

The thumbnail crash problem I’ve tracked down and have released an update to the extensions. As normal, you’ll need to uninstall the old version before installing the new but hopefully this will solve it.

For those of you still having problems, especially with Vista, please let me know if you’re getting any wierd error messages or so on. The easiest way to track and solve a bug is if I can get reproduceable proof of the bug and enough info to diagnose it.

Been a bit quite of late due to a huge ammount of work to get through… Sorry ’bout that.

Anyway, allied to my previous blog post, I’ve now finished re-writing my VTF Shell Extensions and posted them up for download.

What’s new this version?

Short version: Re-written, added support for Vista and with a much improved installer.

Long version: Updates to VTFLib so that it would compile under Visual Studio 2005 as a 32-bit and 64-bit DLL. ‘ve also added basic support for version 7.3 of the VTF format but that’s only of any interest to you if you work at Valve or are from the future and creating content for TF2. Re-written the actual shell extension code to combine both extensions into one DLL for XP/W2k and inplement some speed enhancements and better error handling. For Vista, I’ve implemented the new Property Handler system. Installer auto-detects what OS you’re running and installs the correct DLLs (32bit or 64bit) to match, handles registration better and adds a proper un-install option in the Add/Remove Programs dialog. (*phew*)

If you’re using a previous version I would recommend you un-install it and update to this new version. Please do use the un-installer as it helps remove the risk of something being left behind and screwing up. The installer for this version will attempt to remove any previous versions but it’s brute force and a last ditch method if it finds any offending files floating around.

UPDATE: Turns out that people installing the extensions on Vista 64bit were having issues. I tracked it down to needing the VS2005 SP1 Runtimes installed first. I’ve added links to where you can download the installer for these files on the download page.

So I took my first tentative steps at programming the Vista shell today. Oh sweet lord what have I gotten myself into…

First up was the problem of actually getting Vista set-up so I could work with it. As I’m going to need 32-bit and 64-bit versions for development I ended up using VMWare Workstation 6 and installing a virtual machine for each version. I must admit I’m impressed with VMWare, especially the fact it lets me run a 64-bit virtual machine on a 32-bit host OS. How it does it I do not know but anything that saves me having to re-partition my hard disk to run a new OS for development is just fine by me!

So my first task was to look at updating my VTF Shell Extensions for Vista. The old versions did work but need to be installed under compatibility mode. If I’m going to port them to 64-bit versions I also need to move them from Visual Studio 2003 to 2005. The Visual Studio upgrade was pretty flawless and I only had to change a couple of small things codewise to get it to compile.

VTF Thumbnails in Vista

Holy crap! It works in Vista!

I’d been considering looking at the new IThumbnailProvider interface that Microsoft provides specifically for Vista but I decided to stick with IExtractImage. Vista still supports this interface and testing the plug-in, it still works as expected and the thumbnails are drawn to my liking. I do have to say, I love the way you can scale up the size of the thumbnails – very handy when you’re trying to find a texture.

Since the last version of my VTF shell extensions, I’ve been added a few more functions to it to try and make it as useful as possible. Things like more informative tool-tips, better column info support and possible a properties sheet with all the data on the texture. Some of these functions came about for a “special” version (1.0.4) which I wrote for Valve to use in-house.

What has thrown a spanner in the works for me is that Vista no longer supports some of the interfaces I was using for these extras. IColumnProvider which I was using for the extra info columns in detail view has gone and been replaced by Property Handlers. I’m still chewing through the documentation for these and trying to get the SDK sample to work but it seems I’m not the only one having issues.

So at this point it time it seems that the next release, 1.0.5, will be the updated extensions for W2k/XP, Thumbnail view only for Vista and hopefully 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Oh and maybe an installer which doesn’t make Vista light up like a christmas tree.

In the meantime, if anyones had any luck with property handlers with Vista, let me know.