I installed the latest WX update when I was prompted a few minutes ago, and now I can't find ANY of my carefully hand-crafted and lacquered Nexus docks!

I had just two nexus docks configured - one dock set up as autohide on the left edge of monitor 1 (Windows secondary display), and one Nexus task dock at the bottom edge of the same monitor.

Immediately after the install, I noticed that a) NextStart started up and b) WS started but only after prompting me during the install to prematurely end WS.

The problem with item a) is, I'm not using NS due to the little problems with menu drawing speed / systray disappearing / 64-32 icons mixup, etc, so I just use WS with the standard windows task manager. I understand that NS may have started in order to read and update current settings, etc, so that's not a big deal.

The problem with b) is that now although WS runs (I can find it in the system tray and I can open and use the config dialog, and it did inherit the "stay on bottom" problem, so I know it read my settings OK), all my trays and nexus docks have gone.

If I mouse over the monitor area, I get the expand sound, but nothing shows on the monitor (no other applications are running).

...Now, after a couple of restarts, the same problem occurs. I've even rebooted the system (first time in 17 days), and that didn't fix it.

The only "unusual" thing about the system (apart from being XP x64) is that I've turned off ALL XP eye-candy - so I'm using "classic" windows titlebars, start menu, etc. I don't know if that's the problem, but it is something a bit unusual.

ANy ideas or suggestions?
[EDIT]
I've uninstalled Winstep (without deleting my settings), and after I reinstalled it (V7.11) from disk, WS is now working again.
So I'll hold off upgrading until we know a bit more about the problem and how to fix it...
[/EDIT]

Before you do anything else, can you please export and send to the Winstep support address the following Windows Registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WinSTEP2000\WorkSHELF\Docks

Since you were not seeing ANYTHING (not even the NeXuS control icon), I don't think, however, that this is a problem witb the contents of the docks but maybe a theme or theme location problem?

Without you re-installing 8.2, and unless somebody else complains, I won't be able to trouble-shoot, sorry.



Actually it started because the Installer at the end of installation presents you with a check box, selected by default, to run 'Winstep Xtreme', which runs both NextSTART and WorkShelf.

I can't help but feel that this might have something to do with you having installed one of the early 8.2 private betas and then going back to 7.11...

Jorge, you may be right - I completely forgot that I'd installed the 8.2 beta... Maybe that's all it was?

I actually exported my registry dock key before I uninstalled, so I'll get that to you in any case in case something's not quite right there. I did notice a shelf offset of -16000 or so, I'm not sure why that is, but it's still set to that setting and WS seems to be working fine. Remember, too, that I've hidden and bottom-ised my WS shelves, I'm just using the Nexus docks.

I'll try the update shortly using the 7.11 install I'm using now, and let you know what happens (I suspect you're right about the beta being part of the problem).

Sorry about the snafu.

Don't worry about the 16,000 offset, that's not pixels, it's twips (nevermind, hehe, usually there are 15 twips in each pixel).

I think what happened might have something to do with the new Winstep user-data locations, which are now in the Public Documents folder to comply with Microsoft's security and access rights guidelines. In order to be backwards compatible with existing installations, Winstep Xtreme first checks to see if the Themes and Licenses folders already exist in c:\Program Files\Winstep\. If not, then it uses the new folder stucture.

My guess is that somehow, because of the beta, both folder structures existed on your system, Xtreme got confused, and tried to get the theme bitmaps from the wrong location. Easily solvable by deleting the unused folders. This is just a guess, though.



Mind if I have a look?



Don't forget to backup the settings of both NextSTART and WorkShelf. Just in case. Better safe than sorry. Yada yada.

That's interesting. Is the search hard coded? Because on x64, 32-bit apps get installed into \Program Files (x86)\, by default. You should have the zipped dock reg key in the next few minutes.

God, yeah, I remember doing twips back in the bad ol' days when twips and picas were universally ignored...

Hmm.

OK, I downloaded the full version of 8.2, uninstalled 7.11 completely (including booting into safe mode to remove additional files and links in the Winstep folder), and rebooted after installing.

The Winstep folder has one subdir, Help, and no others - no theme, no nothing.

Installing or trying out themes in the NS dialog, sometimes the themes are applied, and sometimes not. Either way, they don't exist as separate subfolders.

The Nextstart version is listed as 4.5, and Workshelf is 2.1

I tried saving all my settings (themes and dock registry key) and reinstalling those, and nothing happens.

I also tried to find my Nexus docks, but these have definitely both disappeared permanently.

I will try reinstalling 7.11 from scratch, and see if I can get my docks and settings back.

This is really frustrating - it's cost me over 5 hours trying to get the full 8.2 version installed, and I'm back to square one. If the import doesn't work, I also have to rebuild 130+ application shortcuts, try and hope to reimport my themes, apply all my transparency, location, and action settings, rediscover the way to remove/hide Workshelf so it goes out of the way and I can just use Nexus, and disable Nextstart so my systray doesn't keep disappearing and my quicklaunch comes back. That's a hell of a lot of work to be done. I'm not a happy camper right now.

Well, whaddaya know?

I reinstalled 7.11, and it couldn't find my docks either, even after shutting down Workshelf and "reimporting" the registry tree. So I rebuilt my application dock (113 applications, 52 of them needing hand-editing to get them to work because of the x64 permission thing), which took exactly one hour and fifty minutes.

When I finally shut down Workshelf to ensure that all the dock properties and so on were properly written in the registry, I started Workshelf again, and HEY PRESTO! There is my new dock, where the old dock used to be - but the old dock is now suddenly visible at the top left (left monitor, top edge) of the display! Intact!

So I don't have a clue as to why that dock was a) made inactive/invisible, b) moved to a different edge, and c) suddenly became visible all of a sudden, after at least 5 Workshelf shutdown/restarts.

What might be an appropriate item for the wish list, is a way for us to save and manage our docks (each dock individually) outside of Winstep. Human-readable would be good, but not critical - it can be in binary Swahili, as long as I can save it once I've got it working and use it when (preferably if, not when! ) an upgrade breaks.

Even after all this hassle, I'm still willing to try uninstalling and installing 8.11 to at least help figure out what 8.11 doesn't like about this OS... But with the amount of time and effort I need to put in to fixing so many parts, with no ability to be sure they will be "safe" if anything goes wrong, I'm going to have to wait until I understand how I can save and restore my settings without risk of losing them all over again. If anyone has any bright ideas, I'd love to hear them.

I'm thinking of writing a little standalone application that parses and stores the dock settings from the registry into a more human-readable format. That way, we should be able to edit and integrate docks outside of the Winstep interface (sorry, I don't mean that to sound so negative ). If anyone else is interested, say so, and I'll see what I can lash up. I'll probably need to dive into Workshelf to figure out how it builds and stores docks (I've seen the registry values, and they look like they should be parseable ok, but not about reinserting them). But the loss to me in time and effort, would be more than repaid if I can use and manage these hyper-important configurations, and if it saves anyone else from the same problem, that's a bigger bonus.

Note, it won't be pretty, I don't do a lot of drag/drop editing, but it will be configurable, and it should be able to be extensible too.

Back to picking up the bits...

Heyah! And where have you been for the past 30 days?



Which is correct. All data that might be user modifiable has been moved to the Shared Documents folder (also called Public Documents in Vista) - wherever that is on your system (which is why a shortcut to it was also placed on your 'My Documents' folder).



2.1?! Pffft! No wonder you are having problems. WorkShelf version should be 2.5! You're half running with Winstep Xtreme 8.2 and with Xtreme 7.1, released over an year ago!



Ouch!



Don't you just love computers?!



Yes, I was thinking about something related the other day, but more in terms of a 'Dock Manager' dialog that enables you to see all the docks you have defined on your system and access their properties (i.e.; Dock Properties dialog) in case one suddenly goes off the screen or something weird and unexpected like that.



8.2.

Thing is, as long as you make a backup of your settings, you should be safe, because a backup saves EVERYTHING. The problem is, if you make a backup of a pre-8.2 setup and then clean install 8.2, the saved theme bitmap pointers in the backup will be pointing to a folder that no longer exists. Until you re-apply a theme, you will get a visual mess.

G'day Jorge!
In no particular order....
1) In hospital, nice drugs, pretty nurses (even the girls )
2) Yeah, I figured after I read the help that the folder location had changed. I didn't even find the pointer until I actually looked..
3) Hate computers. Hate 'em, I say. Except when they work.
4) The version info explains a lot. I'm starting to suspect my fingers as working for someone else. But I took screenshots of the dialogs, and that's actually what the versions were displayed as. Now that I've installed 7.11 from a clean slate, that has gone away.
5) I'm going to schedule a full safe install - set a restore point, do a full backup of the whole Winstep folder structure, uninstall, verify manually, install 8.2, reimport the backed-up theme, see if that also does fix the "hiding" dock problem.
6) I do like the idea of a dock manager. That's the one thing I truly hate about sophisticated applications like WS - you configure the UI the way you like it, sometimes taking weeks or months to get it right, then you find you forgot to back something up, or your config folder gets garbage-collected, just before you have to do a reinstall. Even Windows has the ability to manage toolbars outside of the main UI (toolbar folder, maybe, with subfolders containing the app links?)

I can't schedule a reinstall for a couple of days now (got another job running in the background that I can't stop), but when I can afford a reboot, I will.

Thanks mate!

Ooops, sorry to hear about the hospital thing! Hope you're 100% recovered and back on your feet now!

Anyway, this is what I would do: make a backup of your WorkShelf and NextSTART settings (Backup button in the Global Preferences tab for both applications). This, as I said, will save everything, i.e.; menu, shelf and dock contents as well as current theme information.

Install the 8.2 upgrade package on TOP (i.e. do NOT uninstall anything first). This should keep your old (legacy) folder structure intact and will just 'move' a couple of folders to the new Shared Documents location (i.e.; Backup, Export and Versions folders).

Alternatively you can try uninstalling 7.11 before installing a full version of 8.2, but be forewarned that, when you then restore your NextSTART and Workshelf settings, current theme location will be invalid (easily fixed by re-applying the theme, though) but so will any icons pointing to the old c:\program files\winstep\icons\samples\ location (e.g. this would me most of the Internal Command icons). Other than that, it should work ok.

Watch out for the version numbers though: for Winstep Xtreme 8.2, WorkShelf should be version 2.5 and NextSTART version 4.5.

Well, THAT went well (not!)...
I backed up my NS and WS settings (as described), then installed the 8.2 update, which kept my WS-specific settings (layout of modules, etc) fine, but again the Nexus dock(s) disappeared completely.

When I restored the NS settings from the nbk file I just saved and previewed it, all of the WS modules were set to (what I think are the) Aero defaults (not my configured settings), and when I cancelled that, the settings did not revert.

Then I applied the WS backup (wbk file), and all the modules were reconfigured properly, but still no Nexus docks of any kind are available.

My workaround right now is to uninstall 8.2, but keep my preferences, then install 7.11 from scratch, import my (previously saved) WS theme, apply that, then all of a sudden I get my Nexus docks back.

I think I'm stretching the usage here a bit - I don't even load NS any more (too many problems with the system tray disappearing and not recovering, slow menu display (I have lots of submenus in my start menu), and the ongoing compatibility with x64 processes and so on). Most of this seems to be an issue with Windows XP x64, not with Workshelf or Next Start!

So I only really use WS so I can have the functionality of the Nexus docks - I just don't work the way the native WS shelves do, and I find the Nexus-style dock interface much more intuitive and "zippier" for what I need - a dozen or so subdocks on a single main dock with from 5 to 18 items on each subdock that are all visible in one go, they're easily accessible, fast, and they go away when I don't need them. The borders, endcaps, and all the other frills available with WS just get in my way, I'm afraid.

I've tried Rocket dock and most other dock-style managers, but none of them have the flexibility and speed of Nexus (and I know most of that flexibility comes from the Workshelf code!).

I know that's probably not what you want the Workshelf paradigm to be, and I'm really sorry about that! I can see how nearly all other users (except maybe TBeller! )just click really well with the whole WX system - and if I had the speed, I would probably too.

Right now, the Nexus bit fits me perfectly, the WS modules are great and really handy, as well as being lots of fun to use, but the rest of Workshelf/NextStart just doesn't seem to fit with my working model any more. I'm just as sure these are all issues with my very non-standard non-mainstream system, as it's designed for throughput, not speed - which is my system's fault, not NS/WS/WX! The graphics and process handling on this system is "wide" but not "fast", so no matter how much I try, I can't get "snappy" handling of menus in NS or shelves in WS - if I had better graphics, I'm pretty sure that would solve all my speed issues. But that's not an option at the moment.

If you can come up with any ideas for importing the Nexus docks back into 8.2 without manually rebuilding (the last time I did that it took nearly 5 hours of cutting and pasting from saved screenshots and memory), that would be great, but don't lose any sleep over it! This is definitely a corner case, and you have better things to do.

BTW, I just noticed that after a restore, the default bitmaps folder for Nexus is reset to the backup folder's path, not the usual path. I don't know if that relates to this issue (I seriously doubt it), but just FYI...

Hmm. Even more interesting, I tried to install 8.2 from scratch and import my theme, and WS went into eat-its-own-brain mode and refused to shut down. No dialogs or modal windows were visible, I had the WS preferences dialog visible, in Theme tab I imported my theme (developed in 7.11 format), and the WS dialog started to paint its own controls incorrectly and when I clicked exit, it just stayed in place. I can move it around, but I can't minimise it or do anything else. Killing the process doesn't work either, so there must be a thread deadlocked somewhere.

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to reboot I go...

I just realised, I've wasted more of everyone else's time with this stupid thread than if I'd just rebuilt my theme and docks from scratch using 8.2

Guess what I'm going to do now?

Older thread, I know, but



what exactly is slow? The opening menu animation (which can be turned off, by the way)? Or the time it takes for a menu to open when animations are turned off (in such a case, how slow is slow? Do you have menu content that points to networked drives? Is 8.2 better in this respect?)