Author: Emmanuel KARTMANN <emmanuel@kartmann.org>.
Date: December 15, 1999
Environment: Windows NT4 SP4, Windows 95/98
For those among us who develop ActiveX/COM objects, here's a little trick to help you with registering/unregistering your components easily. With a simple modification to the registry, you will have additional register/unregister menu options (accessible with the right-mouse button) integrated in your Windows Shell, as shown in the above screen shot.
You can also register a component by double-clicking on it!
Note that if you're paranoid with .reg files (like me ;-), you can manually create the register/unregister menu for your components (see section "Manual Installation" below).
I also shipped in the kit a new version of regsvr32.exe (called regsvr33...) which print a clear-text error message if registration fails (instead of an error code).
To install the additional menu options in your shell:
 | Open a Windows Explorer
| Browse to the directory where the .reg files are located: | DLL_Register_Unregister.reg OCX_Register_Unregister.reg Double-click on file DLL_Register_Unregister.reg
| A dialog box pops-up, saying: | "Information in DLL_Register_Unregister.reg has been successfully entered into the registry." Click on the "OK" button"
| Double-click on file OCX_Register_Unregister.reg
| A dialog box pops-up, saying: | "Information in OCX_Register_Unregister.reg has been successfully entered into the registry." Click on the "OK" button"
| |
The program regsvr32.exe must be in your PATH. Put the program (if you don't already have it, it's in .zip file for this article) in your system directory (e.g. "C:\winnt\system32" on Windows NT).
To install the additional menu options in your shell:
| Start a Windows Explorer
| Select menu option "View" / "Options..."
| Click on tab "File Types"
| Click on button "New Type..."
| Type description of type: ActiveX COMponent
| Type Content Type (MIME): application/ocx
| Type Default Extension for Content Type: .OCX
| Click on checkbox "Enable Quick View"
| Click on button "New..." below (Action)
| Type Action name: Register
| Type Application used to perform action: regsvr32.exe "%1"
| CAUTION: do not forget the double-quotes before and after %1
| Click on button OK
| Select action "Register", click on button "Set Default"
| Click on button "New..." below (Action)
| Type Action name: Unregister
| Type Application used to perform action: regsvr32.exe /u "%1"
| CAUTION: do not forget the double-quotes before and after %1
| Click on OK
| Click on button "Change Icon..."
| Pick up an cool icon in shell32.dll, like: |
Click on OK
| |
Note that there is a difference with automatic registration: you can't add the menu option for DLLs (there's no associated file type in the Windows Explorer...). Only automatic registration can do that.
| Start a Windows Explorer
| Browse to the directory containing your component
| Double-click on your component | OR Select the OCX or DLL file, click on right mouse button, select option "Register COMponent"
A dialog box pops-up, saying that registration is successfull: |
|
| Start a Windows Explorer
| Browse to the directory containing your component
| Select the OCX or DLL file, click on right mouse button, select option "Unregister COMponent" |
A dialog box pops-up, saying that unregistration is successfull.
| |
