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what is DIRECTORY OPUS
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Directory Opus is an alternative windows explorer. if you find windows explorer not as customisable as you would like it, or found windows explorer crashes too often, or whatever other reason you want to dump windows explorer, first alternative you should consider is Directory Opus. trust me this is a very good piece of app. it totally replace windows explorer. it even remap the hot key Win+E!
below is the the features that i like about directory opus
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Designed for Windows: Directory Opus 9 has been designed and written from the ground up especially for Windows. Full support for the latest Windows Operating Systems from 2000, XP and 2003 and Windows Vista.
Familiar Interface: Unlike many other file managers, Directory Opus defaults to an Explorer-compatible user interface. You can immediately begin using Directory Opus, with no learning curve, because it will feel extremely familiar and comfortable to you. But, you will find that you can easily configure the interface to fully personalize your system including the use of dual file displays or multiple displays for special folders.
Fully Configurable Menus, Toolbars and Hotkeys: Directory Opus supports unlimited menus and toolbars. Toolbars can be attached to any side of a Lister display or can be independent free-floating windows. Directory Opus supports user-configurable hotkeys, both for use within Opus, and globally throughout the system. The Windows key is also fully supported!
True Multitasking: The object-orientated multi-threaded design gives you unheralded power to perform multiple operations at the same time. Why should you have to wait for your computer to finish? Now you can begin one task and immediately move on the the next. Zip one folder whilst unzipping into another, at the same time as you are downloading files from a remote FTP site and copying yet more files between your local folders, independently and reliably.
Built-in Viewer Pane: Quickly view pictures, text files and other types of files in the Opus Viewer pane directly in the Lister window. Opus supports a viewer plug-in system so you can add new drivers for the specific file formats you wish to view as they become available. Directory Opus comes with plug-ins for many popular image and document file formats. Third party libraries can extend the viewing capabilities to include Word and Excel documents, Acrobat files and many other types of files. A free SDK is available for developers to write their own viewer plug-ins.
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the built in viewer is exceptionally good. it is fast and, most importantly, it opens files with unicode filename! yeah i have found no other program that opens image with unicode filename except directory opus (well, windows picture and fax viewer doesn't really count as it lacks zero customisation capability)
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directory open BLACKLIST issue
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if you installed Directory Opus and by mistake updated or allowed it to auto update, and subsequently have Directory Opus blacklisted, this is how to get it working again without reinstalling windows
below is direct copy from the above link. many thanks to weicker for sharing this method with us
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The following text was written by jjkarrington working with some stuff that I initially found out. It's applicable for an older version of Dopus but the same "theme" holds true here - the same hidden registry key and file concept. Work with this and see if you can unblacklist yourself.
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PRELIMINARY DRAFT:
Caution: You are advised to backup your registry (and perhaps even your computer) before proceeding. In other words, proceed at your own risk.
Directory Opus 9.1.0.2893 YAG (dopus aka dopus 9.1) uses a licensing scheme based on certificates. YAG provided the "thomalla" certificate that unlocks dopus. The problem is that eventually the thomalla certificate is blacklisted by dopus. Dopus stores the blacklist certificates in multiple registry branches and in multiple file locations. You can uninstall dopus and reinstall but the certificate will still be blacklisted because the blacklist information is not deleted.
What follows is not a minimal set of instructions but rather the steps we used to get dopus working again with the thomalla certificate. Simply put, its just happened to be the way that worked for us.
Although we did this by installing dopus 9.0.0.4, applying the thomalla certificate, and then upgrading to dopus 9.1.0.2893 (YAG), we don't see why these instructions won't work with 9.1.0.2893 directly. The 9.0.0.4 release was just a convenient starting point for troubleshooting the issue.
Step 1: prevent dopus from contacting home to obtain the blacklist. Step 1 is a must even if you have a working certificate or have never installed dopus before.
1a. Either create your own firewall rules or do what we did and add the following to your windows host file:
file: %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
127.0.0.1 gpsoftware.com.au
127.0.0.1 www.gpsoftware.com.au
1b. reboot
1c. test - ping both gpsoftware.com.au and www.gpsoftware.com.au and make sure the reply is from 127.0.0.1.
Step 2. Uninstall Dopus, reboot. Step 2 and what follows are for those whose thomalla certificate has been blacklisted.
Step 3: Optional: clean the registry of all non-trivial references to "gpsoftware" and "dopus". Personally, I don't think this step is necessary but I did it anyway.
Step 4. Remove the black list from the registry
4a. For each of the registry keys below, delete any values and subkeys but do not delete the keys themselves:
The registry keys are:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\International\Time
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Clock
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\File Manager\Settings
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\BitBucket\TrashInfo\
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ComDlg32\DlgInfo\
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Management\AppDataBucket\
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\DesktopInterfaceMethod\
Example:
For this branch
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ComDlg32\DlgInfo
you will see subkeys like this
{93E77B44-276F-4A71-B9AA-F2CF4E99B7B3}
{5E2948B7-58F8-426D-B0CF-8221822BC084}
...
Blow the subkeys away but leave the branch intact (it will be empty when you are done). If the branch is already empty, then fine, go to the next.
4b. Search for the following value: {CBE4B0D2-C4FC-45E3-976C-7D2E951DD34B} and delete the key. If you have followed the steps above, you should not find this but just in case.
Step 5. Remove blacklist files:
5a. Delete the contents of C:\windows\system32\inf32 but leave the inf32 directory (it will
be empty when you are done).
5b. delete the following files. If the file is not found, go to the next one.
del /Q /A "%programfiles%\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\dopus.dat"
del /Q /A "%appdata%\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\dopus.dat"
del /Q /A %windir%\xpcc37.log
del /Q /A %windir%\system32\argtmp39.dll
del /Q /A %windir%\system32\inf32\*
attrib "%Systemroot%\..\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\dopus.cert" -s -h -r
del /Q /A "%Systemroot%\..\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\dopus.cert"
NOTE: don't make my mistake - I went to the dos prompt and looked for the files and did not find them. Some are hidden at the dos prompt. The thomalla certificate was not accepted until the files were deleted.
6. Install dopus 9.1 YAG and see if the thomalla certificate is accepted.
NOTE: as stated we installed 9.0.0.4 first and then upgraded to 9.1. However, installing 9.1 and bypassing 9.0.0.4 in step 6 should work.
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Saturday, July 4, 2009
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