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TIMOTHY_MANGAN's avatar
TIMOTHY_MANGAN
MVP
Sep 15, 2023

Notepad++ 8.5.7 and "ExplorerCommandHandler" used to register the Context Menu

A company complained to me about Notepad++ version 8.5.7 and packaging it into MSIX.  It seems that the vendor changed how the native install registers their context menu.  Rather than registering un...
TIMOTHY_MANGAN's avatar
TIMOTHY_MANGAN
MVP
Oct 30, 2023
When repackaging for App-V, the only solution right now is as follows:
After installing/configuring the app, use the registry to modify the SHELL file association under "Classes\*" (there might be a ProgID involved, so if so look there -- I am going from memory here!)

Under the shell entry you'll find a value name of "ExplorerCommandHandler". You can remove everything under the "Shell" key, and then under that add a traditional Shell Integration (since the menu provided by the shell extension is the same every time), which is a key "Open" containing a key "Command" with a default value of the path to the Notepad++ exe file with "%1" as an argument.

See https://www.tmurgent.com/TmBlog/?p=3643 for more explanation.
Roger_Wernli's avatar
Roger_Wernli
Copper Contributor
Nov 20, 2023

TIMOTHY_MANGAN 

Hi Tim

Thanks and sorry for the late reply.

 

The "old" context menu does work but the icon is missing.

On the sequenzer the icon is shown and the parameter has has been added to the registry.

 

On a test client if i look outside of the Notepad++ virtual environment the icon parameter has not been published.

If i look inside of the Notepad++ virtual environment the icon parameter is available but the path has not been resolved.

 

I think the path should look like in the command key.

 

Any idea why this is happening?

 

kind regards

 

 

  • TIMOTHY_MANGAN's avatar
    TIMOTHY_MANGAN
    MVP
    Nov 21, 2023

    Roger_Wernli 

     

    The approach to fix the problem by turning the shell extension into a traditional shell entry is something done in the native registry while in monitoring mode, so paths should look "normal".

     

    But I did take a look this morning at the solutions that I added for this issues in my software.  The fixes are based on supporting the ignored registration as shell extensions by manipulating the AppXManifest file.  This support was added for MSIX in TMEditX 6.5, and has been coded in an unlreleased version of TMEdit for App-V at this time (it will be in v 3.7 of TMEdit when released).

     

    FOR MSIX:

    For MSIX Packaing, the solution for the problem that I added focuses on supporting the skipped shell extension context menu handler. This, of course, only works on Windows 11.

     

    Rather than turn the ignored shell extension into a Shell key, I modified the AppXManifest to support the shell extension.  The adjusted AppXManifest file is attached in the image.  It is the desktop4:Extension element near the bottom.  Both desktop4 and desktop5 schemas needed to be added at the top of the file as well.  Again, this is a solution for MSIX on Windows 11 as the extensions don't work on Windows 10.

     

    • Roger_Wernli's avatar
      Roger_Wernli
      Copper Contributor
      Nov 23, 2023

      TIMOTHY_MANGAN 

      With the traditional shell entry the icon still doesn't appear in the context menu when published with App-v. 

      So finally I solved it by disabling the context menu entry option during installation of the new Notepad++ version. Afterwards I copied the NppShell_06.dll from a previous version into the program directory of the new version and also used the shellex and CLSID entry of the previous version. 

      The "Edit with Notepad++" command and the icon appears now in the context menu when published with App-V.

       

      Not really a nice solution I know, but it works so far.

       

      kind regards

      • Daniel_Neuhaus's avatar
        Daniel_Neuhaus
        Copper Contributor
        Jan 09, 2024

        Hello Roger, TIMOTHY_MANGAN 
        This does the trick... - I tested it due to an update to Version 8.6.1

         

        The Registry Class has to be isolated in the AppV-package 

         

        In the AppxManifest.xml assure to not have that

         

        		<appv:Extension Category="AppV.COM">
			<appv:COM>
				<appv:x64>
					<appv:Class>
						<appv:ClassId>{B298D29A-A6ED-11DE-BA8C-A68E55D89593}</appv:ClassId>
						<appv:Name>notepad++</appv:Name>
						<appv:InprocServer>
							<appv:Library>[{ProgramFilesX64}]\Notepad++\contextMenu\NppShell.dll</appv:Library>
							<appv:ThreadingModel>Apartment</appv:ThreadingModel>
						</appv:InprocServer>
					</appv:Class>
				</appv:x64>
			</appv:COM>
		</appv:Extension>

         

         

        Then you register the component by deployment (machine) script

         

        $myPackAppVPackageDir - this is a variable inside my deployment Script that resolves to its current location


        regsvr32 /s "[$myPackAppVPackageDir]\Root\VFS\ProgramFilesX64\Notepad++\contextMenu\NppShell.dll"

        and
        for uninstall:
        regsvr32 /u /s "[$myPackAppVPackageDir]\Root\VFS\ProgramFilesX64\Notepad++\contextMenu\NppShell.dll"

         

        Kind Regards

        daniel

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