Customization persistence

[StephenUK]

I have recently reinstalled URP because of problems with the product, removing also customizations.

I am now finding that when I re-make customizations with the reinstalled version, they disappear each time I re-load the program. How can I make sure there is persistence?

[armsys]

Hi StephenUK,
Do you have multiple instances of URPs?
Armstrong

[StephenUK]

No, I just have a standard single instance, but with a few databases. But I may have installed to a different location the second time. However, I assume the uninstall process (in which I also chose to delete customizations) will have removed the previous install details (save for the databases themselves of course), so I would not expect that to be a problem.

[armsys]

All options/settings are stored in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Kinook Software\Ultra Recall.
After uninstalling your aborted URP, you may sterilize it by removing the key. Don't do it without backing up your Windows registry.
Armstrong

[StephenUK]

Armsys, that worked, and all is now well. Very many thanks. Stephen

[armsys]

Stephen,
Glad to hear your success story. You're welcome.
Armstrong

[J-Mac]

Sorry to post so late to this thread, but I just saw it.

I have UR installed on my desktop computer running Windows XP Pro, and also on my notebook computer running Vista Ultimate. I'm seeing this same behavior on the Vista Ultimate notebook, but not on the XP Pro desktop.

I first noticed it with the Full vs. shortened menus. Man, I hate those shortened menus! Detest them! Arrgghh!

(Why are they used so often as the default behavior, BTW? I may be way off but I would think that most users would prefer the full menus since no one I have ever met likes having to either wait while hovering their mouse over the little graphic at the bottom of shortened menus or clicking on it. You'd think that Full Menus would be the default and the shortened, "wussy" menus would be optional!)

Anyway, could it be a Vista issue, since my XP machine handles this fine?

Jim

[J-Mac]

One more quick tip:

As armsys mentioned, always save your entire registry before editing it.

To go one step further, export the specific key you are deleting to a folder in My Documents (In XP; Documents in Vista) that is created and named just for registry edits. Export it with a descriptive name you will remember and make sure it is a ® extension.

That way before restoring your entire registry if you don't like the result of the key deletion, you can just double-click on that exported key and it will be restored back into your registry.

Jim

[StephenUK]

Jim

I couldn't agree more about shortened menus! The first thing I do in any program is to turn them off. At least it's easily accomplished.

In fact I'm on XP. (Given the problems I hear about Vista I can't see any reason to change, at least for a couple of years....)

Maybe I live dangerously, but in fact I didn't backup before deleting the Kinook entry using Regedit. It seemed to me that if that was all I deleted, the risk was fairly minimal. Can I really effect other aspects of my "computer life" by making that one change?

I do find, in general, some difficulty in knowing where customization changes in UR are stored. It seems that Favorites are stored in the database itself (which I like). Other changes seem to be global, but I am unsure if they are made in the registry or in a file stored in the program. It would be good to know for when backing up, reinstalling, etc.

The one default I think particularly needs changing is the "store contents when importing..." option. After reainstalling I forgot to set that option and lost some data because of it, until I realised my mistake.

Now I have a list of things I do when I reinstall, and that is head of the list...

Stephen

[$bill]

Originally posted by StephenUK
Jim


I do find, in general, some difficulty in knowing where customization changes in UR are stored. It seems that Favorites are stored in the database itself (which I like). Other changes seem to be global, but I am unsure if they are made in the registry or in a file stored in the program. It would be good to know for when backing up, reinstalling, etc.

Stephen

Toolbar, menu, and keyboard customizations are stored in the user's application data folder (%APPDATA%\Kinook Software\Ultra Recall or C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Kinook Software\Ultra Recall). To reset all user customizations to their defaults, exit Ultra Recall and delete all Layout*.dat and UltraRecall.dat files in the above folder.

[kinook]

http://www.kinook.com/Forum/showthre...?threadid=2935

I switch off shortened menus too (and just to be clear, this is done by checking 'Tools | Customize | Options | Always show full menus'), but some new users reported being overwhelmed by the number of menu and toolbar items, so we default to not showing all of them.

[StephenUK]

$Bill - very helpful, thanks.

I understand Kinook's view on menus. There's no "right" way on that one and I suppose you can sensibly argue that defaults should indeed be set to best suit beginners.