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Shortcut stops working after 4NT to TCC Upgrade

May
22
0
I upgraded my 4NT v7 to TCC v12 and my desktop shortcuts stopped working.
Specifically, I have a shortcut that supplies the command line "Archive J" to my
Archive.BTM batch file. Archive.BTM expects to see a drive letter, as the destination
for an archival backup. Worked fine with 4NT on Win XP Pro SP3, but when I
upgraded to TCC v12, Archive.BTM stopped "seeing" the argument "J". That is,
Archive.BTM no longer sees any %1 argument at all. I've tried various shotgun
approaches involving quotes around the argument in the shortcut, to no avail, so
I am here looking for ideas. Thanx.
 
From: NickCupery
| I upgraded my 4NT v7 to TCC v12 and my desktop shortcuts stopped
| working.
| Specifically, I have a shortcut that supplies the command line
| "Archive J" to my
| Archive.BTM batch file. Archive.BTM expects to see a drive letter, as
| the destination
| for an archival backup. Worked fine with 4NT on Win XP Pro SP3, but
| when I
| upgraded to TCC v12, Archive.BTM stopped "seeing" the argument "J".
| That is,
| Archive.BTM no longer sees any %1 argument at all.

Suggest you use the SHORTCUT command to display contents of the shortcut that's supposed to invoke Archive.BTM, and use the command "WHICH /A ARCHIVE" to verify what's happening. If you have trouble interpreting the information, report it here. BTW, none of my desktop shortcuts seem to have such problems.
--
Steve
 
Thanks for the prompt reply, Steve. I still haven't solved
my problem yet, but I do have a bit of new information
to report. If I go to the directory where Archive.BTM lives,
and just type "Archive J" by hand, then it works just fine.
Thus, the problem is associated somehow with the shortcut,
not with the batch processing by TCC. I have yet to find
ANY way for me to affect the integration of TCC with the
shell, so I am still puzzled. -- Nick
 
From: NickCupery
| Thanks for the prompt reply, Steve. I still haven't solved
| my problem yet, but I do have a bit of new information
| to report. If I go to the directory where Archive.BTM lives,
| and just type "Archive J" by hand, then it works just fine.
| Thus, the problem is associated somehow with the shortcut,
| not with the batch processing by TCC. I have yet to find
| ANY way for me to affect the integration of TCC with the
| shell, so I am still puzzled. -- Nick

I suspect that Archive.BTM's directory is not on your PATH. In your alias make the directory explicit, OR in the associated shortcut specify that TCC is to start in that directory.
--
HTH, Steve
 
This is getting interesting! Yes, TCC is in my Path. Yes, I have
associated TCC with .BTM files (by right-clicking on one of them
and saying to always open .BTMs with TCC).

I never even heard of TCCBatch.BTM until now. So I ran it
just now, said "yes" to all three questions, and my .BTM
shortcut still does not work with the following entries:

Target: F:\Backup\Archive.BTM J
Start In: F:\Backup

HOWEVER, I am now able to make the shortcut work, by
changing it to:

Target: E:\TCMD\TCC F:\Backup\Archive.BTM J

Obviously, this is not a satisfactory general solution,
because I really don't want to spend the rest of my
miserable life hand-modifying every shortcut I drag
onto the desktop. :-) Seems to me there should be
a better solution.

I must admit I cannot figure out why the above
solution works. How is it different from simply having
TCC in my PATH, and associated with .BTM files?
Maybe I have made a mistake somewhere here, so I'll
go back and retry some of these things.
 
I must admit I cannot figure out why the above solution works. How is it different from simply having
TCC in my PATH, and associated with .BTM files?
Maybe I have made a mistake somewhere here, so I'll
go back and retry some of these things.

I need to see the complete contents of your shortcut (use the SHORTCUT command), as well as the exact output of "assoc .btm" (should be ".BTM=TCC.Batch"), and of "ftype tcc.batch".
 
>I need to see the complete contents of your shortcut (use the SHORTCUT >command), as well as the exact output of "assoc .btm" (should be >".BTM=TCC.Batch"), and of "ftype tcc.batch".

The SHORTCUT command does not work at all. No how, no way.
No matter what I type, it does not find the file.

"ASSOC .btm" produces: .btm=TCC.Batch

"FTYPE tcc.batch" produces: tcc.batch="E:\TCMD\TCC.EXE" /c "%1" %*
(yes, I did this last one with cut and paste)


One thing I haven't explicitly noted before, is that the particular batch file
I'm trying to invoke is rather plain, and should satisfy ANY batch processor,
including CMD.EXE. The batch file gets run alright, with the TCC icon at
the left-side of the command window's title bar, but the %1 argument
shows up blank.
 
On 05/21/2011 07:02, NickCupery wrote:

>> I need to see the complete contents of your shortcut (use the SHORTCUT>command), as well as the exact output of "assoc .btm" (should be>".BTM=TCC.Batch"), and of "ftype tcc.batch".
> The SHORTCUT command does not work at all. No how, no way.
> No matter what I type, it does not find the file.
>
> "ASSOC .btm" produces: .btm=TCC.Batch
>
> "FTYPE tcc.batch" produces: tcc.batch="E:\TCMD\TCC.EXE" /c "%1" %*
> (yes, I did this last one with cut and paste)
>
>
> One thing I haven't explicitly noted before, is that the particular batch file
> I'm trying to invoke is rather plain, and should satisfy ANY batch processor,
> including CMD.EXE. The batch file gets run alright, with the TCC icon at
> the left-side of the command window's title bar, but the %1 argument
> shows up blank.
>
>
>
>
>
I don't mean to belabor the obvious but in using the shortcut command
are you passing the fully qualified file name? On my system I type as
an example

shortcut "\Users\GBowes\Desktop\Bicycle Texas Hold `Em Poker.lnk"

And this is the output:

Command=C:\Program Files (x86)\Bicycle\Texas Hold `Em Poker\BicyclePoker.exe
ArgumentsDirectory=C:\Program Files (x86)\Bicycle\Texas Hold `Em Poker
Description=Bicycle Texas Hold `Em Poker
Link=\Users\GBowes\Desktop\Bicycle Texas Hold `Em Poker.lnk
Icon=C:\Program Files (x86)\Bicycle\Texas Hold `Em Poker\data\bilder\ui.ico
Offset=0
Mode=1
Hotkey
 
>I don't mean to belabor the obvious but

No danger there, since it SURE ain't obvious to me! HAHA!
Anyway, hiya Glenn, and thanks for trying to help me out.
On my Win XP Pro SP3 system, my Desktop is at:

C:\Documents and Settings\ENCupery\Desktop\

So, I type:

SHORTCUT "C:\Documents and Settings\Desktop\Archive.lnk"

and TCC says:

TCC: (Sys) The name of the file cannot be resolved by the system.

So, I then change the .lnk to .btm in the command, and it still doesn't work.
(I tried that because the actual name of the file displayed by Windows Explorer
is Archive.btm, not Archive.lnk , although it is also identified as a "shortcut"
by Windows Explorer.)

This is all driving me crazy. I think I will remove and reinstall TCMD, and if
that doesn't work I'll just reinstall 4NT v7 which always worked fine.

As an aside, the reason I "upgraded" to TCMD was to get the /F switch on
Copy (which 4NT lacks), but /F doesn't seem to work anyway. Hmmm,
what if the batch file is actually getting run by CMD instead of TCC, and
CMD is simply ignoring switches it doesn't understand? That would be
poor programming IMO, but nothing from Microsoft would surprise me
anymore.

-- Nick
 
NickCupery;15265So said:
Please email me the shortcut file to [email protected]. (I suspect it's either damaged or not really a shortcut.)

As an aside, the reason I "upgraded" to TCMD was to get the /F switch on
Copy (which 4NT lacks), but /F doesn't seem to work anyway.

Do you have an example?

Hmmm, what if the batch file is actually getting run by CMD instead of TCC, and CMD is simply ignoring switches it doesn't understand? That would be poor programming IMO, but nothing from Microsoft would surprise me anymore.

You could add a "VER" to your batch file to see who's actually executing it. (But CMD doesn't know how to run a .BTM.)
 
*** TCC: (Sys) The name of the file cannot be resolved by the system.

That 's the text for Windows error 0x80070781, not a common one.

Google it. The results suggest file system corruption.
 
On my Win XP Pro SP3 system, my Desktop is at:

C:\Documents and Settings\ENCupery\Desktop\

So, I type:

SHORTCUT "C:\Documents and Settings\Desktop\Archive.lnk"

and TCC says:

TCC: (Sys) The name of the file cannot be resolved by the system.

Might the shortcut be in the "all users" profile?

SHORTCUT "%allusersprofile\desktop\archive.lnk"
 
*** TCC: (Sys) The name of the file cannot be resolved by the system.

That 's the text for Windows error 0x80070781, not a common one.

Google it. The results suggest file system corruption.

I get the same message if the file doesn't exist:

HTML:
C:\Junk>dir

 Volume in drive C is OS             Serial number is 1ce5:1203
 Directory of  C:\Junk\*

 5/22/2011  10:09a        <DIR>    .
 5/22/2011  10:09a        <DIR>    ..
                 0 bytes in 0 files and 2 dirs
   159,188,606,976 bytes free

C:\Junk>shortcut foo.lnk
TCC: (Sys) The name of the file cannot be resolved by the system.
 "foo.lnk"

C:\Junk>
 
On Sun, 22 May 2011 11:01:35 -0400, David Marcus <> wrote:

|Google it. The results suggest file system corruption.
|---End Quote---
|I get the same message if the file doesn't exist:

It must be an artifact of the shortcut API. It's not the usual ...

Code:
v:\> type foo.lnk
TCC: (Sys) The system cannot find the file specified.
 "V:\foo.lnk"

I hadn't seem it before.
 
>I don't mean to belabor the obvious but

No danger there, since it SURE ain't obvious to me! HAHA!
Anyway, hiya Glenn, and thanks for trying to help me out.
On my Win XP Pro SP3 system, my Desktop is at:

C:\Documents and Settings\ENCupery\Desktop\

So, I type:

SHORTCUT "C:\Documents and Settings\Desktop\Archive.lnk"

and TCC says:

TCC: (Sys) The name of the file cannot be resolved by the system.

The user name is missing from the above command; should be
Code:
SHORTCUT  "C:\Documents and Settings\ENCupery\Desktop\Archive.lnk"

You can generalize it like this:

Code:
SHORTCUT "%shfolder[16]\Archive.lnk"
 
From: NickCupery
| C:\Documents and Settings\ENCupery\Desktop\
|
| So, I type:
|
| SHORTCUT "C:\Documents and Settings\Desktop\Archive.lnk"

I presume this is a misquote and the \ENCupery segment is in the actual command. Did you create the command with tab-completion?

|
| and TCC says:
|
| TCC: (Sys) The name of the file cannot be resolved by the system.
|
| So, I then change the .lnk to .btm in the command, and it still
| doesn't work.
| (I tried that because the actual name of the file displayed by
| Windows Explorer
| is Archive.btm, not Archive.lnk , although it is also identified as a
| "shortcut"
| by Windows Explorer.)


I wonder if the actual file name is Archive.btm.lnk! That would explain most of your observations!
--
HTH, Steve
 
Rex, I emailed the suspect shortcut to you a minute ago.

I added "VER" to the .btm batch file, and it says TCC v12.10.61

I have no example of COPY /F not working. All I know is that when
I added /F to the COPY in my .BTM file, I still got a bazillion empty
directories on the destination drive (which started out empty).
I am NOT claiming that /F is busted. I learned about 30 years ago
to never bet against you! If I ever straighten out this main problem,
I would not be the least surprised to see /F start to work fine.
 
>SHORTCUT "C:\Documents and Settings\Desktop\Archive.lnk"
>
>I presume this is a misquote and the \ENCupery segment is in the actual >command. Did you create the command with tab-completion?

Guilty. Thanks to you and the others for catching that one. Thanks to
all of you for helping me! (I never even heard of tab completion.)
 
I have no example of COPY /F not working. All I know is that when I added /F to the COPY in my .BTM file, I still got a bazillion empty directories on the destination drive (which started out empty).

So, that's your "example". Show us the command and the source and the target both before and after running the command.
 
The plot thickens. I emailed my lousy shortcut to Rex (I thought), but that didn't work. What he really received was the .BTM file itself, not the shortcut to it. At first I figured this was just a case of my Mozilla Thunderbird being too smart for its own good. However, after running a few additional experiments this morning, I conclude that there is much more to it than that. Here's what I tried:

I made a copy of another of my .BTM batch files (that expects a drive letter as the %1 argument), naming it aardvark.btm (I am allergic to scrolling).

Then I right-dragged aardvark.btm onto my Desktop, and selected "Create Shortcuts Here" from the popup context menu.

Then I looked at my Desktop folder with Windows Explorer and it showed aardvark.btm while a DIR of the same Desktop folder showed aardvark.btm.lnk
(which I thought a strange discrepancy but not real serious).

Then I tried creating a copy of the shortcut with a different file-type, so I could
examine and email it. So I typed:

COPY aardvark.btm.lnk aardvark.dat

and the response I got was:

TCC: (Sys) The system cannot copy the file specified

So, I'm then thinking "the system sure is real proud and protective of these
stupid shortcuts" so I ran a couple more renaming experiments:

I used Windows Explorer to rename (what it claimed was) aardvark.btm to
aardvark2.btm after which I again used DIR to verify that it saw aardvark2.btm.lnk WHICH IT DID NOT. Dir still saw aardvark.btm.lnk which I really didn't expect! However, I had rerun DIR from the same TCC console
session as before (up-arrow, Enter), so I became suspicious of some sort of caching, so:

I then closed the TCC console, and then opened another one, and then did another DIR and viola! Now DIR saw aardvark2.btm.lnk as expected.
(Rex, is TCC really caching directory information? I don't think it should do that.)

BOTTOM LINE: I'm still confused and maybe even slightly dizzy from all this.

HOWEVER, I just now thought of something that may be relevant. I have been
running with "CmdHere Powertoy for Windows XP" for so long that I had forgotten
about it. Do any of you guys have any negative experiences with that? When I invoke it (right-click on a folder and select it), I get a CMD console window, not a TCC console. Hmmm, now I'm wondering why TCC doesn't offer such shell integration, because 4NT did. Maybe that option is burried in the trillion other capabilities of TCC?

I badly need to get back to work for a while, but please be assured that I am
very grateful to all of you who have shown some interest in this problem!

-- Nick
 
HOWEVER, I just now thought of something that may be relevant. I have been running with "CmdHere Powertoy for Windows XP" for so long that I had forgotten about it. Do any of you guys have any negative experiences with that? When I invoke it (right-click on a folder and select it), I get a CMD console window, not a TCC console. Hmmm, now I'm wondering why TCC doesn't offer such shell integration, because 4NT did. Maybe that option is burried in the trillion other capabilities of TCC?

Try the file TCCHERE.BTM in your install directory.
 
From: NickCupery
| The plot thickens. I emailed my lousy shortcut to Rex (I thought),
| but that didn't work. What he really received was the .BTM file
| itself, not the shortcut to it. At first I figured this was just a
| case of my Mozilla Thunderbird being too smart for its own good.
| However, after running a few additional experiments this morning, I
| conclude that there is much more to it than that. Here's what I
| tried:
|
| I made a copy of another of my .BTM batch files (that expects a drive
| letter as the %1 argument), naming it aardvark.btm (I am allergic to
| scrolling).
|
| Then I right-dragged aardvark.btm onto my Desktop, and selected
| "Create Shortcuts Here" from the popup context menu.
|
| Then I looked at my Desktop folder with Windows Explorer and it
| showed aardvark.btm while a DIR of the same Desktop folder showed
| aardvark.btm.lnk
| (which I thought a strange discrepancy but not real serious).
|
| Then I tried creating a copy of the shortcut with a different
| file-type, so I could
| examine and email it. So I typed:
|
| COPY aardvark.btm.lnk aardvark.dat
|
| and the response I got was:
|
| TCC: (Sys) The system cannot copy the file specified
|
| So, I'm then thinking "the system sure is real proud and protective
| of these
| stupid shortcuts" so I ran a couple more renaming experiments:
|
| I used Windows Explorer to rename (what it claimed was) aardvark.btm
| to
| aardvark2.btm after which I again used DIR to verify that it saw
| aardvark2.btm.lnk WHICH IT DID NOT. Dir still saw aardvark.btm.lnk
| which I really didn't expect! However, I had rerun DIR from the same
| TCC console
| session as before (up-arrow, Enter), so I became suspicious of some
| sort of caching, so:
|
| I then closed the TCC console, and then opened another one, and then
| did another DIR and viola! Now DIR saw aardvark2.btm.lnk as expected.
| (Rex, is TCC really caching directory information? I don't think it
| should do that.)
|
| BOTTOM LINE: I'm still confused and maybe even slightly dizzy from
| all this.
|
| HOWEVER, I just now thought of something that may be relevant. I have
| been
| running with "CmdHere Powertoy for Windows XP" for so long that I had
| forgotten
| about it. Do any of you guys have any negative experiences with that?
| When I invoke it (right-click on a folder and select it), I get a CMD
| console window, not a TCC console. Hmmm, now I'm wondering why TCC
| doesn't offer such shell integration, because 4NT did. Maybe that
| option is burried in the trillion other capabilities of TCC?
|
| I badly need to get back to work for a while, but please be assured
| that I am
| very grateful to all of you who have shown some interest in this
| problem!

Undoubtedly you selected "hide known extensions" in how Windows Explorer displays filenames (BTW, so do I). That's why the filename of a desktop icon showed "XX.BTM" instead of "XX.BTM.LNK" - the actual filename. When you renamed using WE, the same continued.

Remember also, by default DIR will not display HIDDEN files. Conversely, you probably selected to display hidden and system files in WE (same here), thus DIR will not show your XX.BTM.LNK, but WE will.

You can force TCC.EXE to be your default command processor by changing the system variable ComSpec to point to it, instead of pointing to CMD.EXE, but beware! Some programs call CMD.EXE directly, without using the ComSpec variable - the only way to fool them is to replace CMD.EXE with TCC.EXE. Furthermore, some programs may need undocumented "features" of CMD.EXE which are not duplicated in TCC.EXE - they may not perform correctly.
--
HTH, Steve
 
Then I looked at my Desktop folder with Windows Explorer and it showed aardvark.btm while a DIR of the same Desktop folder showed aardvark.btm.lnk

Have you unchecked "Hide extensions for known file types" in Windows Explorer > Tools > Folder Options > View?

Then I tried creating a copy of the shortcut with a different file-type, so I could examine and email it. So I typed:

COPY aardvark.btm.lnk aardvark.dat

and the response I got was:

TCC: (Sys) The system cannot copy the file specified

Instead of telling us what you did, copy and paste all the commands and replies from the console. Show the DIR and the COPY. I just tried (on Vista) and I had no trouble copying a lnk file and no trouble when I dragged a btm file to the desktop and selected "Create Shortcuts Here". However, the shortcut just has the btm file as the command, so won't work unless btm files are associated with TCC.
 
On Mon, 23 May 2011 09:46:00 -0400, Steve Fabian <> wrote:

|Undoubtedly you selected "hide known extensions" in how Windows Explorer displays filenames (BTW, so do I). That's why the filename of a desktop icon showed "XX.BTM" instead of "XX.BTM.LNK" - the actual filename. When you renamed using WE, the same continued.

Windows does not show the .LNK and .URL extensions regardless of the "hide known
extansions" setting.
 
From: vefatica
| Steve Fabian wrote:
|
|| Undoubtedly you selected "hide known extensions" in how Windows
|| Explorer displays filenames (BTW, so do I). That's why the filename
|| of a desktop icon showed "XX.BTM" instead of "XX.BTM.LNK" - the
|| actual filename. When you renamed using WE, the same continued.
|
| Windows does not show the .LNK and .URL extensions regardless of the
| "hide known
| extansions" setting.

You are correct - the WinXP version of Explorer does not display the full filename for .LNK types. I suspect they had too many complaints that the DESKTOP displayed the extensions under icons, so in their infinite wisdom they suppressed them everywhere in Windows Explorer, even when explicitly requested by the user. The user's report earlier in the thread than my above post (but actually posted long after I wrote mine, but had been unable to send it due to COMCAST slowdown) indicated that indeed the "double extension" is part of the problem.
--
Steve
 

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