Instructions for using the "Irfanview launcher" script file 1. The script is supplied as a text file "Irfanview launcher.txt". First locate the folder that holds the copy of the Irfanview executable file "i_view32.exe" that you want to use. This can be on your hard drive inside a protected area like the "program files" folder or outside of it, or it can be on a removable drive such as a USB stick. The folder that you put it in can be an existing one, like "Plugins", but it is probably better to create a new one named "Scripts" or something similar. Open the script file in Notepad or a similar text editor and then save in the folder that you have just created with the suffix .vbs instead of .txt . To do that use "Save As" from the File menu, click the drop down arrow at the right end of the "Save as Type" box and select "All files". You can then edit the suffix to .vbs in the "File name" box before saving in your folder with a file name of your choice. It is then ready to run. 2. To run the script for the first time just double click on it in the location where you saved it. An empty Irfanview window should appear. Close the window and you should find that a Shortcut has been created on your desktop with the name that you gave to the script file below it. The icon is one of the alternative Irfanview designs to distinguish it from a normal (direct) Irfanview icon. 3. You can use this new shortcut in the normal way by double clicking and selecting a file using File >Open, or by dragging a single image file or a folder from Windows Explorer (or elsewhere) and dropping it onto the icon. Note that with all of these methods, in addition to displaying the single image, Irfanview prepares a browse list of every image file that exists in the same folder. You can then move through the list using the arrow keys or toolbar icons and display all the images in turn. The list is filtered and sorted as it is prepared and if there are a very large number of files in the folder, preparation of this list can introduce a significant delay before the first image is displayed. The browse list can be sorted again after preparation but it cannot be extended or reduced in size. 4. It is recommended that in each new session, before you try to use the additional features described in the paragraphs that follow, you should double click the icon to check that an Irfanview window opens and then close it. This confirms that the link has not been broken and that any unusual states that might have been left from a previous use have been cleared. 5. In addition to the standard methods of using the icon described in paragraph 3 you can also in Windows Explorer (or any other drag-and-drop enabled window) select multiple image files and drag them to the icon. When you do that only the files that you selected are included in the browse list. You can use any of the multiple ways of sorting that Windows Explorer provides and then make a selection by holding down the Shift or Ctrl keys as you select, or all the files in the folder can be selected by pressing Ctrl+A and then perhaps deselect some while holding down the Ctrl key. Click down on the first file in the selection to drag and drop the multiple files to the icon. The order of the files in the browse list is as they were shown in Windows Explorer. In case you inadvertently select files of a type that you did not want or are not compatible with Irfanview, a filter can be applied. The file types that are accepted can be chosen by editing the first line of the script code. 6. Having opened a multiple file selection this way you will find that a temporary file has been created on the desktop called listfile.txt. You can open that file with Notepad to view or save under another name if you want to use it again at a later date. While listfile.txt remains on the desktop, you can add to the browse list by dragging more files from the same or a different folder to the icon. The existing Irfanview window will close and a new one open with the extended browse list. Listfile.txt will also now contain the extended list. This operation can be repeated as many times as you wish. When the final window is subsequently closed, listfile.txt is deleted from the desktop automatically. 7. A list of files with a .txt extension, either saved as above or from the Irfanview Slideshow dialogue, can also be dropped onto the icon. A new Irfanview window will be opened with the files in the browse list. A browse list opened this way cannot be extended. Should it be desired to extend an existing saved list it can be copied or moved to the desktop and renamed as listfile.txt. The list can then be extended by dragging additional files onto the icon as in paragraph 6. 8. If you are removing the USB stick with a portable copy of Irfanview on it, you can delete the shortcut from the desktop and leave no trace on the host computer. It is very easy to create the shortcut again by simply double clicking on the script file as in paragraph 2. 9. If you need to edit the script file, open it in Notepad or similar text editor. It is recommended that you uncheck Word wrap from the Format menu and make the window wide enough so that full lines of code (including the comments) can be seen. This also allows the Status bar to be turned on from the View menu should you wish to investigate any errors reported by the script software while it is running. 10 The filter string in Line 1 specifies the extensions of all the file types that are to be included in the browse list. You can add more extensions or delete some to modify what file types are included. The delimiter between each extension type is the Pipe character | (Shift + \). It has been deliberately written so that the string between the quote marks is in the same form as is used in the "Load custom file types" box in the Extensions tab of Properties/Options. That allows you to replace the list between the quote marks in line 1 with that in Properties/Options should you want to allow all those file types. If you want to disable the filter and allow any file type to enter the browse list you can delete everything between the quote marks and leave it empty. 11. Any problems let me know by private message on the forum or as an open post in this thread if you think your findings might also interest other users.