no bug Browse with Irfanview (Windows Explorer context menu) broken

[lister]

Hi, just tried the new version(s, x86 & x64) and the 'Browse with Irfanview' in the Windows Explorer context menu is broken.

Attached is a screenshot.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Did you install the updated plugins for 4.40?

Did you activate the Unicode Plugin?

[lister]

Did you install the updated plugins for 4.40?

Did you activate the Unicode Plugin?

Yes, using new plugins and unicode plugin activated. Running Irfanview 4.40 on Windows 7.

Does anyone know of a reliable download link to the older stable version (3.80)?

[RottenImp]

Try oldapps.com

[lister]

Try oldapps.com

Meant to write 4.38. Oldapps.com is having a few issues at present but I found old installers on a hard drive.

[kolacl]

unknown file format empty/damaged file or file not found

Hi, I also observe that bug in v4.40 (Vista Ultimate 32 bit, CZ locale). It has nothing to do with Unicode names, it also shows on purely ASCII named folders such as c:\temp\aaa\. See the picture. Then, after I click OK, it shows thumbnails in one folder up. In this example, c:\temp\.

Seems that something changed in IrfanView cmdline recently but was not reflected in the shell command.

You can fix that manually: open Regedit, go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\shel l\Browse with &IrfanView\command

there is a text:
"C:\Program Files\IrfanView\i_view32.exe" "%1 /thumbs"

change it to: (see the quotes)
"C:\Program Files\IrfanView\i_view32.exe" "%1" /thumbs

[bugblatter]

I am also seeing this v4.40 bug on XP SP3 32-bit. Tried a variety of folders (short paths with no spaces, containing only a few valid image files) to no avail.

Thank you very much kolacl. This registry hack worked for me.

[andrea palazzi]

hello, thanks for the key name.
i solved the same issue with this string

"C:\Programmi\IrfanView\i_view64.exe" %1 /thumbs

a.p.

[Mij]

Yes there has definitely been a change. After all these years Irfan appears to have made the Thumbnails shortcut work. Now you can drop a folder onto that shortcut and the Thumbnails viewer opens with that folder displayed (instead of the root menu). You can also drop a file onto the Thumbnails shortcut and the file opens in the normal Browser window with the Thumbnails window on top and displaying the folder.

How is that relevant to this thread? Well to do it he must have changed the /Thumbs command line option from the order it has always been up to now i.e. "IV Program name" "File or Folder name" /Thumbs to "IV Program name" /Thumbs "File or Folder name". He presumably forgot that in doing so he would upset that Shell command.

I see that he has not updated the Help file or "Options.txt" so it was probably one of those good ideas that did not get fully implemented before issuing v4.40

[strawbeard]

i solved the same issue with this string

"C:\Programmi\IrfanView\i_view64.exe" %1 /thumbs

Please, do enclose the directory name %1 in quotes ("%1"), as shown by kolacl. If the name contains spaces, the command would fail.

[strawbeard]

Version 4.41 (32-bit) still contains this bug. After upgrading to this version I had to re-apply the fix proposed by kolacl (see above).

Luckily I had stored the fix last time as file "Fix - Browse with Irfanview.REG":

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\shell\Browse with &IrfanView\command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\IrfanView\\i_view32.exe\" \"%1\"  /thumbs"

Is there a reliable way to tell the author?

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Anyone can submit bug reports directly to the author. His email is given in Help, About.

[Mij]

I see that the help file has now been updated in v4.41 and, as I suspected, you can now use either i_view32.exe c:\test\ /thumbs
or i_view32.exe /thumbs c:\test\ as a Command Line to open the thumbnails browser at directory c:\test\
That is why the Thumbnails shortcut now works when you drop a folder/directory onto the icon. The name dropped on to the shortcut is always put at the end, so the new second alternative is needed for it to work.
I normally update Irfanview from the Zip file download and have not used the exe installer for the last few versions, so it was no surprise to me that I got an error message when I tried the "Browse with Irfanview" option in the Windows Explorer context menu.

I used Regedit and modified the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\shel l\Browse with &IrfanView\command key to the new alternative format too;

"C:\Program Files\IrfanView\i_view32.exe" " /thumbs" %1

and that works fine.
You do not need to put quotes around the %1 if it is after /thumbs because the folder name is passed straight to Irfanview which can handle any spaces.
You may of course have to correct \Program Files\ in the Command line above to wherever Irfanview actually is.

[strawbeard]

Anyone can submit bug reports directly to the author. His email is given in Help, About.

Surprise! So I wrote an e-mail (pointing to this thread here) and already got this answer from Irfan:

No bug

This is already fixed in 4.41 ... BUT as the dialog text (Properties->Extensions) says: you MUST start IrfanView in admin mode in order to change some options

=> right mouse click on IrfanView, see the menu .... run as admin ... Properties->Extensions.

Just tested again, the Registry text is correct again.

"No bug"? Really? After some testing I come to the conclusion: YES and NO.

• YES: The action proposed above does write the correct command string to the registry and fixes the problem discussed here. (Note that double-quotes are coded as \" in .REG files.)
  

  [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\shell\Browse with &IrfanView\command]
  @="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\IrfanView\\i_view32.exe\" \"%1\" /thumbs"

• NO: After a re-install or fresh install of version 4.41 the registry contains a command string with a misplaced double-quote (" shown here as \")
  

  [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\shell\Browse with &IrfanView\command]
  @="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\IrfanView\\i_view32.exe\" \"%1 /thumbs\""

  If the installer (setup program) inserted the correct string in the first place (it already has admin rights) then no manual property change would be necessary. Looks like a trivial change to me.

Anyway, many thanks to Irfan for writing such a useful piece of software!

[kevinp]

If the installer (setup program) inserted the correct string in the first place (it already has admin rights) then no manual property change would be necessary. Looks like a trivial change to me.

I agree 100%. Today I did a fresh installs of version 4.44 32-bit on a laptop and 4.44 64-bit on a desktop using the .exe installer each time. It's still writing the registry value incorrectly with the missing quotation mark, such that "Browse with IrfanView" doesn't work without going through the extra steps outlined above. IMHO, it would be a good idea to go ahead and fix it in the installer.