Unwanted shortcuts

[julianbury]

Hi Guys :-)

I exist in a Windows XP Pro environment.

I am new to Paint.NET and am very impressed with it.

Now I don't have to buy Adobe Photoshop :-)

There is, however, one little irritation:

Each time I start Paint.NET, it places shortcuts on the desktop and in the Start Menu\Programs folder.

I do not want them.

I keep my very busy desktop just the way I want it.

I cannot find an option to stop this interference.

Can anybody advise me how to stop them being replaced and screwing with my very full desktop and Programs folder?

[Rick Brewster]

Hmm. I can't reproduce this behavior. If I delete the desktop icon it stays that way.

How are you launching Paint.NET since you've deleted the desktop and Programs links?

[Crazy Man Dan]

I know each time I install a new version of PDN, it puts a new shortcut icon on my Desktop. Perhaps that's what you were meaning to say?

I would prefer there to be a checkbox in the installation wizard labeled "Create Desktop Shortcut" that I can un-check, because, like the topic creator, I also like my Desktop just so. I have all my program launchers pinned to my Start menu, with none on my Desktop. So, each time I install a new version, I delete the shortcut on my Desktop.

Now, the way you have it, it may be easier for some users as they don't have to worry about where to go to start this program they just installed. It just appears there on the Desktop, and away they click. So I'm not sure if, for usability’s sake, this checkbox will ever be added, as it is just one more option that may or may not be necessary.

As it is, it's a very minor nuisance re-deleting the shortcut each time. If it helps the general user, I can more than handle it being there.

[Rick Brewster]

Our installer is built from the Visual Studio Setup project type. It's extremely limited. For instance, I'd love to have it remember the values of the auto-updates checkboxes so that you don't have to manually opt-out every time you install (assuming you want to opt-out of course).

The other problem is that we currently can't localize the installer.

The plan is to have a front-end for our installer that figures out the various options ("properties", in MSI-speak) and then launches the regular msi in silent/unattended mode. Then we can use whatever code we want to determine the options.

Having the desktop icon be optional would be considered as part of this, but honestly it's a lower priority.

But if it's creating the icon every time you launch Paint.NET, then that's just weird (and makes me even more grumpy towards the Visual Studio Setup project constraints).

[julianbury]

Thank you for your responses :-)

I had [stupidly] assumed that making the shortcuts was part of Paint.NET's normal behavior :oops:

What had happened is that the shortcut was pointed at the wrong item and it was re-installing every time it started up.

My primary applications have shortcuts in the first Start Menu list. When I replaced that one with the one deposited on the desktop, the problem went away.

Unfortunately, so did the information of what it WAS point at [dang] :-/