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AbiWord: Messes with Documents folder?

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January 3, 2006 - 7:59pm

#1

justin

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AbiWord: Messes with Documents folder?

When I try to save something in PortableAbiWord, and I click on "My Documents" on the left of the open/save box, it brings me to the My Documents folder that you included with the AbiWord package. Then, after that, when I try to go to "Justin's Documents" in "Files Stored In This Computer" in My Computer, it defaults to this new directory that is included in the PortableAbiWord package. I have to System Restore to fix the problem. It does however, let me get to my real documents when I go to Start>My Documents. Maybe to fix this, one could rename the included folder to something Windows won't do anything special with, such as "Documents". Or, one could just eliminate that folder altogether and just have people save to their USB sticks.

-Justin

January 3, 2006 - 8:27pm

#2

John T. Haller

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Faked %USERPROFILE%

Portable AbiWord uses a faked USERPOFILE environment variable for the encapsulated version of AbiWord. As such, when in AbiWord, your Deskop directory within File Open or Save will actually map to PortableAbiWord\UserProfile\Desktop and your My Documents folder under old versions of Windows may map to PortableAbiWord\UserProfile\My Documents. When Portable AbiWord is closed, this remapping should no longer be in effect.

If you are seeing different behavior, please let me know the version of Portable AbiWord, the version of Windows you are using including Home/Pro for XP or OTM/SE for Win98, etc, as well as what is affected. If it is an older version of Windows and I can replicate the issue (and not easily correct it), I may simply drop support for that operating system from Portable AbiWord.

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January 3, 2006 - 8:55pm

(Reply to #2) #3

justin

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XP

I use Windows XP Pro, but is this faked environment necessary for use?

-Justin

January 3, 2006 - 9:01pm

(Reply to #3) #4

John T. Haller

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Yes

Otherwise AbiWord stores all its settings locally. Is this only occuring from within Portable AbiWord? Or does it occur when Portable AbiWord is closed and you then open My Computer on your desktop?

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January 3, 2006 - 9:36pm

(Reply to #4) #5

justin

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ok

It occurs after I've navigated to the faked My Documents directory, whether in Explorer or in the Save prompt. After I close AbiWord, this occurs, and I imagine during it as well. This could just be me, though I thank you for your help. You may want to take a look at my forum post on QJot. You could create a launcher for that, as it stores all settings in its application folder.

-Justin

January 3, 2006 - 10:10pm

(Reply to #5) #6

John T. Haller

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Anything else on your pc?

Can you think of anything else on your PC that may be interfering with this? I'm not able to reproduce the problem under XP at all. Or 2000 or 98 for that matter. I had gotten one other report of this quite a while ago on Windows XP Home, I think, but couldn't get anyone else to be able to reproduce it.

What other software was active at the time? Antivirus maybe?

As for QJot, it doesn't compare to AbiWord, really. It's more akin to Wordpad. AbiWord is somewhere between WordPad and Word.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

January 4, 2006 - 7:07am

(Reply to #6) #7

justin

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antivirus and QJot

I had Norton AntiVirus and Microsoft AniSpyware running at the time. As for QJot, I know it doesn't have as many features, but it would still be nice to see a good launcher for it. I consider it a "lite" word processor. I think that since the simulated My Documents directory takes on the name of the person who is logged on, XP just sticks with that name after you remove the drive. As I said, it appears to leave the actual "My Documents" button in the Start menu alone, it just seems to mess with the one in My Computer. This doesn't happen if I save to the USB stick or some other place unrelated to My Documents. QJot please!

-Justin

January 5, 2006 - 9:36pm

(Reply to #7) #8

gao0nline

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I have that problem too

I'm running XP home, and even after I close AbiWord, my documents is still set to AbiWord. I'm freaking out...
I have the latest version of AbiWord, and I wasn't running any programs except PStart...

January 5, 2006 - 10:20pm

(Reply to #8) #9

John T. Haller

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Rebooting

will clear the issue up. Had you saved anything to the Documents folder within AbiWord, perhaps?

I'm going to investigate this further. As of yet, I've been unable to reproduce it under Windows 2000 or XP.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

January 6, 2006 - 6:59am

(Reply to #9) #10

justin

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System Restore

You could just do that. Does XP Home have System Restore? I use XP Pro.

-Justin

January 6, 2006 - 11:43am

(Reply to #10) #11

Steve Lamerton

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Yes home does. I wouldn't

Yes home does. I wouldn't count on it fixing things though as I have had problems with it in the past.

January 6, 2006 - 11:57am

(Reply to #11) #12

John T. Haller

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Isn't necessary

Even if the actual Windows environment variable were to get messed up, a simple reboot will set it back.

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January 6, 2006 - 5:02pm

(Reply to #12) #13

gao0nline

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still

this is a really annoying thing to happen. Even though I now know how to fix it (temporarily), it is still a problem...

January 6, 2006 - 5:14pm

(Reply to #13) #14

John T. Haller

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Tryint To Figure It Out

I've had a grand total of 4 complaints on it. Portable AbiWord and Portable Gaim 1.5 B1 both do the same USERPROFILE trick. A total of over 35,000 downloads. If this happened all the time... or even just occasionally, there'd be a few more reports of it. There's got to be something specific to these few PCs that it's happened on. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Rgards,
John

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

January 6, 2006 - 5:47pm

(Reply to #14) #15

gao0nline

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Task Manager?

Has anyone tried to use Task Manager to kill AbiWord? I know I haven't and maybe that would cause My Documents to revert back...

January 6, 2006 - 6:14pm

(Reply to #15) #16

John T. Haller

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Wait

Was it still running when you noticed this issue?

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

January 7, 2006 - 1:21pm

(Reply to #16) #17

justin

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no

It was already closed out.

-Justin

January 13, 2006 - 1:41pm

#18

John T. Haller

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Issue Fixed

This issue has been completely fixed in the new Portable AbiWord 2.4.2. It no longer fakes a USERPROFILE environment variable. After some chats with the developers on the abiword-dev mailing list, another solution was found.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

January 13, 2006 - 3:16pm

(Reply to #18) #19

justin

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Thanks!

I downloaded it at once, and it works great!

-Justin

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