Trouble with customized settings / bars and buttons

[Chris8]

Hi,
We've just purchased a country license of PDF XChange Viewer Pro. I'm setting up a customised install but am running into some unusual behaviour.

I've started with the v42.4 msi file and created a .mst with our registration info and the installation options we need - that's all working fine.
I'm also trying to customise the user interface (way too many buttons by default) - this is where it's getting weird.

I've narrowed my problem down to a specific action - could you please explain what's going on in this case:

1) Open PDF XChange Viewer and customise as required.
2) Close and re-open - everything is correct and customisation are saved.
3) Rename the "HKCU\Software\Tracker Software" registry key to "HKCU\Software\Tracker Software2"
4) Undo the previous action: Rename the "HKCU\Software\Tracker Software2" registry key to "HKCU\Software\Tracker Software"
5) OpenPDF XChanve Viewer - all my customisations are lost Why does this happen?

I'm attempting to apply the customisations after installing by loading in a .reg file. Is there a better way I can achieve this?

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

Hi,

The reason is because the viewer stores into registry some values (key clauses) which are missing when you edit items by regedit.

We will solve this into the next build.

For now you can export settings from the viewer where you made all required settings (using Edit -> Export Settings to Data File), and then import this settings on each comp. To do this run the viewer with command line option:
PDFXCView.exe /importp <your_settings_file>

[Chris8]

Thanks for the reply. I've tested the /importp option and found I can use it, but there is still one annoying behaviour:
We've purhcased PDFXCViewer for it's editing capabilities, we are not yet making it our default PDF viewer. When using /importp I get a popup asking if the program should be made the default, even though the settings being imported have this popup disabled. The second time the program is loaded the popup isn't shown.

This is a problem because I'm using an Active Setup entry to automatically setup the settings for this program the first time a user logs in. I don't want this prompt showing up as part of their login process. Could you change the startup processing order so that when using /importp that dialog is never shown. (Or alternatively the imported settings are applied before deciding if the prompt should be shown so that if the settings specify 'don't prompt' then that's what happens.)

In general I've found specifying users default settings rather clunky. As a longer term solution could you consider one of the following:

1) (Preferred) Allow default settings to be saved in the Registry to "HKLM\Tracker Software\PDFViewer". The first time a user runs the program it copies the defaults to the HKCU and uses them.

2) Allow default settings to be saved to a specific file (eg "C:\Program Files\Tracker Software\PDF Viewer\DefaultSettings.dat"). The first time a user runs the program PDFViewer checks if the file exists and if it does the defaults are automatically loaded into "HKCU\Tracker Software\PDFViewer"

[Vasyl - PDF-XChange]

When using /importp I get a popup asking if the program should be made the default, even though the settings being imported have this popup disabled. The second time the program is loaded the popup isn't shown.

Reproduced, will be fixed in the new build. Thanks.

I've narrowed my problem down to a specific action - could you please explain what's going on in this case:
1) (Preferred) Allow default settings to be saved in the Registry to "HKLM\Tracker Software\PDFViewer". The first time a user runs the program it copies the defaults to the HKCU and uses them.
2) Allow default settings to be saved to a specific file (eg "C:\Program Files\Tracker Software\PDF Viewer\DefaultSettings.dat"). The first time a user runs the program PDFViewer checks if the file exists and if it does the defaults are automatically loaded into "HKCU\Tracker Software\PDFViewer"

In the new build you will be able to export "HKCU\Tracker Software\PDFViewer" into a *.reg file and run it on any other computer.

Best
regards

[R.Janssen]

In the new build you will be able to export "HKCU\Tracker Software\PDFViewer" into a *.reg file and run it on any other computer.

I am in a similar situation. We are considering to install the Viewer instead of Adobe Reader in our company, but like the previous poster I think we need some method to load initial settings for new users.

I downloaded the latest version, 2.0 build 52. Does that offer any new method for loading initial config?
Can I import a .reg file with this build? Preferably automatically whenever the program detects that it is being run for the first time by a user.
(I know about /importp but the problem would be when to call it for a new user)

[R.Janssen]

In the meantime I have experimented a bit, and it seems to be possible to export the relevant keys under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Tracker Software and import them in another user, and this user gets the customized settings.
This is good. But is there also a method for this import to happen automatically for every new user?
Or some other way to set initial settings?

In fact we do not need to set all those thousands of settings, but we want to set the visible toolbars for new users, especially in the browser plugin. There are way to many toolbars when a pdf is viewed in the browser, this confuses the average user and it uses up too much screen space.

[R.Janssen]

Am I doing something wrong, as I don''t get any reply? Should I start a new thread with my topic?

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello R.Janssen,

Apologies for this.
There is no need to start a new thread.
I have requested that our developers pay attention to this topic and one of them would advise shortly.

Regards,
Stefan

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

It is enough for each new user (don't ask me how to do this -- I'm not administrator) to run the viewer with /importp command line or import .reg file.

[R.Janssen]

It is enough for each new user (don't ask me how to do this -- I'm not administrator) to run the viewer with /importp command line or import .reg file.

I understand that, but aside from running it in a logonscript I would not know about a way to run it for each new user.
It would be nice if it were possible to have some default config (e.g. saved in the installation directory under a predefined name) that is automatically loaded whenever the viewer detects that it has no config.

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

It would be nice if it were possible to have some default config (e.g. saved in the installation directory under a predefined name) that is automatically loaded whenever the viewer detects that it has no config.

For now there are no such way - if there are no config - default one is used.

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

There are a few different ways you could script this to run once.

Perhaps the simplest would be to add a profile or reg file on a network share and in a logon script you could check if there exists a reg key for the current user. If there is no key either inport the key directly in the script or call PDFXCView.exe with the /importp switch.

Of course this means you have to make sure all your users have the appropriate logon script but that can be automated in Active Directory. What kind of numbers are we talking, 10s or 1000s of users/profiles? Are these multi user desktops or terminal Server environments? Do you have a managed domain?

How you deply/push a script to 'run-once' will depend greatly on your network and is really beyond the scope of Tracker's support of the product. Needsless to say there are a tonne of resources out there on how to create a script that will run once http://www.google.ca/search?q=windows+l ... =firefox-a
and check registry settings etc: http://www.google.ca/search?client=fire ... gle+Search

[R.Janssen]

Thanks for the reply. We have a domain with about 500 users both on 350 workstations and some Citrix servers.
I know how to read the .reg file from a logon script and how to check for a key, but I was hoping to avoid importing 350KB of registry entries for everyone just to change a couple of toolbars for the users that actually start the application.
Even when the default toolbars for the browser plugin would be trimmed to the set of tools actually useful in the read-only environment that such a plugin is, I would be very happy

I know it is a generic problem that can be solved outside the application, and we do read some default registry contents for other apps (including Adobe Reader for now), but it has not been this kind of volume up to now.

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Hi again R.Janssen

good to know that you are all over the scripting/deployment side of things. I'm still not clear why you can't just use your tweaked tool bars ad the default that new users would take. My understanding of how this works and from what Ivan said I believe this following logic is sound:

• Create your Tool bars as wanted
• Export the reg key and save it
• Set up a new installation No HKCU keys are set but the defaults go into HKLM.
• Import the reg key into HKLM to act as the default
• When a new user runs the program they automatically take the settings from HKLM

Now I've never tested this - maybe I should - and it is possible I have misunderstood Ivan. Key to this would be the ability to write your reg key into the HKLM to act as a default.

Ivan - does this logic work?

[R.Janssen]

My understanding is that there is no way to configure the program's defaults in HKLM, but that there is only the current settings for each user in HKCU, and that the suggested way of setting the default is to export the current settings as wanted into a .reg file and import this (into HKCU) for every user on the system. Which means doing it in a logon script, for example.
It would be great if it would be possible to set a couple of keys in HKLM to change the default settings of the program it uses for new users, so that this could be included in the installation procedure of the program rather than in the logon procedure for every user. But from the earlier answers I get the impression that there is no such possibility.
(i.e. the default settings a new user gets are hardcoded in the program, not retrieved from HKLM)
Is this correct?

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

* Set up a new installation No HKCU keys are set but the defaults go into HKLM.
* Import the reg key into HKLM to act as the default
* When a new user runs the program they automatically take the settings from HKLM

No, it is wrong. The viewer uses only some items from HKLM (registration info mostly).