Fix #112729: Update pinned blender shortcut #113859

Ray molenkamp · 2023-10-17T18:49:45+02:00

Ray molenkamp commented

2023-10-17 18:49:45 +02:00

Windows allows people to pin an application to their taskbar, when a
user pins blender, the data we set in
GHOST_WindowWin32::registerWindowAppUserModelProperties is used
which includes the path to the blender-launcher.exe. Now once that
shortcut is created on the taskbar, this will never be updated, if
people remove blender and install it again to a different path
(happens often when using nightly builds) this leads to the
situation where the shortcut on the taskbar points to a no longer
existing blender installation. Now you may think, just un-pin and
re-pin that should clear that right up! It doesn't, it'll keep using
the outdated path till the end of time and there's no window API call
we can do to update this information. However this shortcut is stored
in the user profile in a sub-foder we can easily query, from there, we
iterate over all files, look for the one that has our appid in it, and
when we find it, update the path to the blender launcher to the
current installation, bit of a hack, but Microsoft seemingly offers no
other way to deal with this problem.

Windows allows people to pin an application to their taskbar, when a user pins blender, the data we set in `GHOST_WindowWin32::registerWindowAppUserModelProperties` is used which includes the path to the `blender-launcher.exe`. Now once that shortcut is created on the taskbar, this will never be updated, if people remove blender and install it again to a different path (happens often when using nightly builds) this leads to the situation where the shortcut on the taskbar points to a no longer existing blender installation. Now you may think, just un-pin and re-pin that should clear that right up! It doesn't, it'll keep using the outdated path till the end of time and there's no window API call we can do to update this information. However this shortcut is stored in the user profile in a sub-foder we can easily query, from there, we iterate over all files, look for the one that has our appid in it, and when we find it, update the path to the blender launcher to the current installation, bit of a hack, but Microsoft seemingly offers no other way to deal with this problem.

Ray molenkamp added 3 commits 2023-10-17 18:49:58 +02:00

c002d44924 Fix #112729 : Update pinned blender shortcut

Windows allows people to pin an application to their taskbar, when a
user pins blender, the data we set in
`GHOST_WindowWin32::registerWindowAppUserModelProperties` is used
which includes the path to the `blender-launcher.exe`. Now once that
shortcut is created on the taskbar, this will never be updated, if
people remove blender and install it again to a different path
(happens often when using nightly builds) this leads to the
situation where the shortcut on the taskbar points to a no longer
existing blender installation. Now you may think, just un-pin and
re-pin that should clear that right up! It doesn't, it'll keep using
the outdated path till the end of time and there's no window API call
we can do to update this information. However this shortcut is stored
in the user profile in a sub-foder we can easily query, from there, we
iterate over all files, look for the one that has our appid in it, and
when we find it, update the path to the blender launcher to the
current installation, bit of a hack, but Microsoft seemingly offers no
other way to deal with this problem.

862b389ca7 make format

buildbot/vexp-code-patch-coordinator Build done. Details

2f5ffedb65 codestyle

Ray molenkamp commented

2023-10-17 18:50:10 +02:00

@blender-bot package

Blender Bot commented

2023-10-17 18:50:13 +02:00

Package build started. Download here when ready.

Package build started. [Download here](https://builder.blender.org/download/patch/PR113859) when ready.

Ray molenkamp requested review from Harley Acheson 2023-10-18 15:38:23 +02:00

Harley Acheson commented

2023-10-20 01:10:37 +02:00

For testing this, is this only when a Blender of the same version is installed to a different location? Or for all new installations?

For testing this, is this only when a Blender of the _same version_ is installed to a different location? Or for all new installations?

Ray molenkamp commented

2023-10-20 15:42:06 +02:00

The app id is used to register these properties, which contains both the major and minor version ie (Blender4.0, Blender4.1) so "normal" users that just get our major releases are unlikely to hit this bug, people that use nightly builds that have a new folder every day and delete the old one, are very likely to run into it.

The app id is used to register these properties, which contains both the major and minor version ie (`Blender4.0`, `Blender4.1`) so "normal" users that just get our major releases are unlikely to hit this bug, people that use nightly builds that have a new folder every day and delete the old one, are _very_ likely to run into it.

Harley Acheson commented

2023-10-20 17:42:11 +02:00

An interesting discovery is that Windows 11, unlike 10, seems to do a better job of link tracking changes to target path and executable. But can confirm that this PR does properly reset the pinned shortcut target correctly on its own.

The added function is small, works as advertised, and I can't find any issues with it.

An interesting discovery is that Windows 11, unlike 10, seems to do a better job of link tracking changes to target path and executable. But can confirm that this PR does properly reset the pinned shortcut target correctly on its own. The added function is small, works as advertised, and I can't find any issues with it.

Harley Acheson approved these changes 2023-10-20 17:42:35 +02:00

Ray molenkamp added 2 commits 2023-10-23 16:03:54 +02:00

c6364a81ea fix copyright header

8b752e905b Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/blender-v4.0-release' into tmp_pin_fix

Ray molenkamp changed title from ~~Fix #112729: Update pinned blender shortcut~~ to Fix #112729: Update pinned blender shortcut

2023-10-30 14:31:53 +01:00

LazyDodo changed target branch from main to blender-v4.0-release

2023-10-30 14:31:56 +01:00

Ray molenkamp added 1 commit 2023-10-30 14:32:35 +01:00

07218dac35 Merge branch 'blender-v4.0-release' into tmp_pin_fix

Ray molenkamp added 1 commit 2023-10-30 14:40:14 +01:00