Is There Some Way That ES: Protocol Became Disabled

[therube]

Is There Some Way That ES: Protocol Became Disabled?

(Other then deselecting the setting in Options?)

As in, somehow it wasn't there?

Matter of fact, I was trying some trickery (using a Sandboxed browser) & had been searching the Registry (for \ES\, for -url, for everything.exe...) & nothing turned up (relating to ES: protocol).
I looked & looked & nothing.
Thought maybe something changed. Looked through Everything.exe & it appeared all remained the same.
Yet not in the registry.

Tried ES in sandboxed browser & it didn't know what to do.
Opened another browser, regularly, ditto.
And another...

At that point, I realized it must not be there.

So I took one instance of Everything, & enabled URL Protocol, & like magic, it worked.


Uninstall/install the service would not have done it.
I don't install the program.

If I used a different instance, & the particular instance didn't have it enabled...
That might do it... ?
Cause in the Registry, things are set up at HKCR\ES\ & not differentiated by any instance.
But if URL Protocol had been enabled (I've had it set for ages) [so in the Registry], would running an instance that didn't mess with it one way or the other cause it to be removed?


(At some point, even if I had deseleted the option, by accident, & applied, there still would have been a UAC prompt, & that certainly would have alerted me...)

[void]

Was the URL Protocol option tick-checked or square-checked?


Square checked would indicate the URL protocol was partially installed. (eg: a different instance name)
The URL Protocol is not installed by default.

Everything creates the following registry keys:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ES]
@="URL:Everything Search Protocol"
"URL Protocol"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ES\shell\open\command]
@="\"c:\\Program Files\\Everything\\Everything.exe\" -url \"%1\"

Maybe a webbrowser or Windows is disabling/removing it?
Did the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ES key exist at all?

It does require administrative privileges to add/remove this key.

Sounds like the URL protocol was installed and just not running Everything when you clicked on an ES:// url.
Hard to say what the issue might be without seeing the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ES\shell\open\command value.
Maybe this instance of Everything was running and launching another Everything.exe -url ... from the clicking the ES url was unable to send this command to the existing instance?

[therube]

tick-checked or square-checked

Since I'm not sure what that means, I going to call it black or gray.

So...

In the instance that I "fixed" things (15), URL Protocol (& Everything Service) are black.
(At the same time, Quick Launch & EFU are gray.)

In my Sandboxed instance (15 sandbox), all are gray except Everything Service is black.

A different instance (SSS999), all are gray except Everything Service is black.

And in my default instance (actually have to open it...), all are gray - including Everything Service.

URL Protocol has been enabled, for years.
Haven't actually used it, of late on this particular machine.

HKCR\ES\ didn't exist - at all.
(At all when I was looking for it yesterday.
It had to exist previously, or else ES: wouldn't have worked at all.)

Nothing else (browser/Windows) would have affected HKCR\ES\.

Again, URL Protocol, HKCR\ES\ has always (for years) existed.
Simply have not used it - of late.
Looking for it, yesterday, it was not there - at all, so there was no \open\ to see.

(Once I realized this, what I did yesterday - in sandbox, was to copy existing (15) "profile" into sandbox, & add -read-only to the \open\ key in the sandboxed Registry.
Without it, without excluding certain parts of the Registry [which I didn't recall offhand], when running Sandboxed, Everything would go into a loop, never to finish...)


(I'll have to look at my XP machine & see what that shows...)

[therube]

XP.

Default, Service is black, URL is gray.
NAS, ditto.

15, Service & URL are both black.

And 15 is the "master", if you will.
Once I ran that (& I assume I enabled URL Protocol in it, but don't particularly remember, but I must have), it (open) "assumed" ownership of ES:

"C:\DEV\Locate\15-AAA\Everything.exe" -url "%1" -instance "15"

[therube]

So I guess gray says, I see URL Protocol is there, but I'm not connected to the currently running instance.

And that's fine & understandable.

Now I can see, on XP, inadvertently unchecking the URL Protocol box (& removing ES: from the Registry).
But on Win7, for that to happen, UAC would kick in. And that would certainly alert you. (I definitely did not see that.)

[void]

I should clarify too, there can only be one ES: url protocol installed.
If you uninstall the URL protocol in one instance, it will be removed from all other instances.

The following code paths uninstall the URL protocol:
Everything.exe -uninstall
Everything.exe -uninstall-url-protocol
The IPC call EVERYTHING_IPC_DELETE_URL_PROTOCOL eg: SendMessage(FindWindow("Everything",NULL),EVERYTHING_WM_IPC,105,0);
Unchecking URL protocol in the Everything General options page.
Installing the URL protocol will uninstall the existing ES URL protocol.


Square-checked:


For people who don't know, this means the option is partially installed. Usually for another Everything instance.


Tick-checked:

[therube]

And just so you know, what it looks like (colors & such) on my (XP-ish) end; black vs. gray:
.

Everything black vs gray checkmarks.png (51.92 KiB) Viewed 7611 times

[void]

They almost look like they are disabled.

Everything does not disable these controls, so I am assuming the grayed out visual means it is in the indeterminate state (square checked).

Sorry, I am not sure as to why the URL protocol was removed.
The Event Viewer logs might be useful to check for admin login or other system change?

[therube]

(Last Everything issue was a hang on 03/06/2018 .)