If you watched the Curiosity landing on your computer, perhaps you also checked out the simulator that NASA put up, to render the descent in real time. If that’s the case, you might’ve noticed that it created some directories on your computer, namely
%UserProfile%\.explorer.cache
%UserProfile%\.explorer.local
It’s only about 130MiB, but you can delete them, unless you have plans to relaunch the simulator for some reason.
I’ve issued a bugfix release for Winapp2.ini today. The changes only affect those who use Firefox, specifically (from limited testing responses) users who preformed a clean install of Firefox 14.
The changes themselves fix Firefox entries not presenting themselves under certain conditions. This is accomplished by changing the Detection method from searching for HKCU\Software\Mozilla\Firefox to using SpecialDetect=DET_MOZILLA (this is what CCleaner uses to detect Firefox).
With this change, Firefox entries will always present themselves as long as CCleaner detects that you have (a flavor of) Firefox installed on your system.
There are a few new firefox entries, that’ll definitely be in the future releases of Winapp2.ini. Either way, there’s no disadvantage to upgrading to the newest version even if you don’t use Firefox.
A while back I tried to focus more on converting entries from using DetectFiles to using Detects. There are a few advantages to this;
Using the registry to detect entries instead of files allows for more accurate detection, since non-default locations for the installed application wont affect it.
The slight drawback to using the registry to detect entries applies to people with custom install paths. In this instance, almost solely with entries that clean the %ProgramFiles%\ environment variable, the program will correctly detect and present the entry, however it will not clean.
With the next version of Winapp2.ini (as of the writing of this post), for example, I have changed Steam Games to be detected by the registry, while the FileKeys still point to the Program Files path of steam. Small blips like this can be corrected easily with reparse points. These are shortcuts, much like the ones on your desktop, that the system can follow.
If your Steam path was, for example, F:\Games\Steam, you can run the mklink command
mklink /d “C:\Program Files\Steam\” “F:\Games\Steam”
You can also run this from Command Prompt
The reparse point, located in Program Files, pointing to my steam directory on another drive.
Of course, you can replace F:\Games\Steam with wherever your Steam is installed. You can apply this to any program you have installed elsewhere, and will only have to do it once rather than re-write (or not use) certain winapp2.ini entries.
I have turned my focus for this version towards converting more entries to using Detect over DetectFile, and, as of the writing of this entry, have converted over eighty entries.
A great way to eliminate your dependency on both icons and the start menu (if you’re so inclined) is to run programs using their names from the run command (WIN+R). Many popular programs will add this capability when installed (eg. typing ‘firefox’ or ‘ccleaner’ will run those programs) but many will not (different flavors of firefox, for example) and you can actually do it with any file, not just programs!
The simplest way of going about this is simply creating a shortcut, giving it the same name you’d like to launch it with. This is simple even for people who aren’t so skilled with computers. Then, just drop the shortcut into your windows folder (usually C:\Windows\)
Right-click on the file you want to make a command for, and Create Shortcut
The shortcut, placed into the Windows Directory
Make sure you remove the ” – shortcut” from the shortcut if you’re keeping the filename the same. You needn’t keep the same name, but it may help to do so. Now you’re ready to launch the file as you please without having to keep a shortcut on the desktop or remember where it is.
To do this, launch the run command by pressing “WIN+R,” then type the name of the shortcut you just placed in the windows folder
It’s not case sensitive so don’t worry
And your file or program should open!
The ‘Winapp2′ shortcut I just created opens the winapp2 file, as expected
There is another way of setting this up that does not involve shortcuts, however, it does involve the Windows Registry. The method above is more than sufficient for what most people should need. 
Woohoo, I added a blog! Neat, huh?
Still working out kinks in the design to bring it in line with the main website, but that’ll come with time.