Uncle Bill

Found a solution by myself....READ it in the correct section of the forum this can be closed, thx

Hello everybody! I've been investigating one of the most peculiar issues of XP (Vista is not affected): the Shell Media Handler extension preventing the user from moving/renaming/deleting a file ("cannot move/rename/delete FILENAME : file in use by another user/application" errors). This behavior occurs especially when dealing with .AVI/.MPEG video files encoded with divx or similar 3rd part codecs: the shmedia.dll library, responsible for thumbnail generation in WinXP, tries to read through the whole file to create the picture to be displayed in explorer, plus mixed file details. Since the library is not compiled to natively support compressed video files, it begins to scan said files from start to end to gather additional details, blocking their position in the meantime. This happens with both small and large video files, even if you are not using thumbnail view! The interesting thing is that thumbnail generation and metadata retrieval actually happens almost immediately, utilizing the first frame of each file, so there's no actual need to keep this scanning operation going on. A huge search finally detected the following solution, inspired by this page on the CCCP page, and developed by myself on my blog: 1 – Download Haali Media Splitter package from its official website. 2 – Deactivate Windows Integrated shmedia.dll thumbnail handler using start/run and then typing: regsvr32.exe /u shmedia.dll 3 – Install Haali Media Splitter, taking care to tick in its shell extension module when asked. 4 – Open notepad and paste in it the following lines: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.asf\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}] @=”{327669A0-59A7-4be9-B99E-1C9F3A57611A}” [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.avi\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}] @=”{327669A0-59A7-4be9-B99E-1C9F3A57611A}” [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.flv\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}] @=”{327669A0-59A7-4be9-B99E-1C9F3A57611A}” [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mpe\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}] @=”{327669A0-59A7-4be9-B99E-1C9F3A57611A}” [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mpeg\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}] @=”{327669A0-59A7-4be9-B99E-1C9F3A57611A}” [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mpg\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}] @=”{327669A0-59A7-4be9-B99E-1C9F3A57611A}” [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.wmv\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}] @=”{327669A0-59A7-4be9-B99E-1C9F3A57611A}” 5 – Save it as a .reg file, close notepad then doubleclick on your new regfile, to add its infos to your registry. 6 – Open up any folder full of videos, turn on the Thumbnail view….and enjoy thumbnails plus files free to rename/delete. NO MORE BLOCKS!! FootNote: meddling with the registry is not always a good idea, but it sure IS useful. You can try adding any video file extension you like Haali splitter to generate thumbnails for: just copy one of the above lines and edit the extension, but be warned not all might work correctly. Mp4 files won’t work, for instance, and, as for any unrecognized file type, Haali will start clogging your system trying to work on it anyway….so I’m warning you: take careful steps! Hope this is useful. Feel free to leave comments.

After a four-year search around the web, I finally found a definitive solution for the random missing icons in the system tray. According to WinHLP page, where a more detailed analysis is provided, this issue is caused by both uPNP services (which I didn’t want to deactivate, of course, being IMHO an important part of a working system) and a timing defect in the Windows function Shell_NotifyIcon in shell32.dll, which has a starting timeout of only 4 seconds, and gets clogged by tray requests, thus clogging the API itself. The final solution for shell32.dll version 6.0.2900.5622 (SP3 and later) is provided further more in the topic comments, and involves a slight modification of the starting timeout interval, through the following operations: (WARNING:the following procedure involves modification of a critical system library, so I take no responsibility for any misuse, mistyping and malfunctioning of your OS, after you followed them. Follow the instruction only if you know what you're doing. GOLDEN RULE: Always make a Backup!) 1. Make a system Restore Point. 2. Open C:\WINDOWS\System32\Shell32.dll with any hex editor, and change: 0xA00F to 0×60EA at offset 0×69AA4 and 0×03 to 0×01 at offset 0×69AA9 3. Save the dll file in another folder, keeping the same name and extension. 4. Download and run DLL Replacer. 5. Drag and drop into the cmd window first the original dll (C:\WINDOWS\System32\Shell32.dll), then hit enter and drag and drop your modified dll (Yourfolder\System32.dll). Hit enter again and answer Y to the question. 6. Reboot, and from then on never experience the isuue again!! (At least, until Microsoft updates the file….). I hope this is useful. Leave your comments, if that worked for you. A big Thank You! goes to WinHLP's original page. (237 visits....not a single thanks....)

Hello everybody! I'm investigating one of the most peculiar issues of XP (I'm not sure about Vista, but I strongly suspect it to be happening there too): the Shell Media Handler preventing the user from moving/deleting a file ("cannot move/delete #.# : file in use by another user/application" errors). AFAIK, this behavior seems to occur especially when dealing with .AVI files, presumably encoded with divx or similar 3rd part codecs: the shmedia.dll library, responsible for thumbnail generation in WinXP, tries to read through the whole file to create the picture to be displayed in explorer. Since the library is not compiled to natively support compressed video files, it begins to scan said files from start to end to gather additional details, blocking their position in the meantime. The interesting thing is that thumbnail generation actually happens almost immediately, utilizing the initial frame of each file, so there's no actual need to keep this scanning operation going on. Here comes my question: would that be possible to patch the dll (or its behavior) to shorten up/break the operation, thus freeing the avi files in a bunch of seconds? If so, can anyone please answer, providing some practical instructions, so I can test my theory? If not, are there any other solutions I should try? Footnote: I'm aware of registry tweaks provided around the forums regarding the avi handler. Tried them all, with no success. Right now, my temporary solution is using the good old Unlocker app, but I'd really like to realize a permanent solution to this. I'm also aware that "regsvr32 /u shmedia.dll" would get rid of both the issue and feature, but I would so much like to keep the thumbnail generation ON. Thanks in advance!