(SOLVED) Accidently Deleted Amiga Explorer Desktop Icon

[Super TWiT]

I was creating a work account on my computer and removed all icons except the web browser. The only way to remove the amiga explorer icon was to uncheck a box in the prefrences that said "show desktop icon". I didn't realize that unchecking it on one account would disable it for the whole computer. My question is how do I get it back? I have been looking through the registry, application data, everything I can think of. Why would they let you disable it anyway?:angry:

[Trev]

I was creating a work account on my computer and removed all icons except the web browser. The only way to remove the amiga explorer icon was to uncheck a box in the prefrences that said "show desktop icon". I didn't realize that unchecking it on one account would disable it for the whole computer. My question is how do I get it back? I have been looking through the registry, application data, everything I can think of. Why would they let you disable it anyway?:angry:

Shell extension folders have names like Foo.{guid}, where {guid} is the GUID of the COM component representing the extension. Explorer hides the {guid} portion of the name when displaying the folder. You can create such a folder anywhere on a file system that supports long filenames.

I'm not at in front of my main system right now, but I'll look up the 32-bit and 64-bit (if they're different) GUIDs later today. You could send a short support request to Cloanto or check their site for an easy solution. Personally, I'd like to be able to hide the annoying connection warnings that pop up when my Amiga is turned off.

Trev

[Super TWiT]

I reinstalled it, and the icon was still gone, but it had an option to run amiga explorer at the end of the install, so I ran it and found the options menu to re enable it. What a pain!

[Trev]

Yes, and leave it to time to rob me of knowledge. I haven't written in a shell extension in around 10 years, and I'd forgotten that the desktop doubles as both a directory and a shell  folder.

The class ID for Amiga Explorer is {1E0F3F10-3036-11D1-A4CF-00A0C94203AE}, and it's hook into the desktop namespace is triggered by the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{1E0F3F10-3036-11D1-A4CF-00A0C94203AE}.

When you tell Amiga Explorer to hide the desktop icon, it sets the following values, and then informs the shell its settings have changed:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\ClassicStartMenu]
"{1E0F3F10-3036-11D1-A4CF-00A0C94203AE}"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel]
"{1E0F3F10-3036-11D1-A4CF-00A0C94203AE}"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\ClassicStartMenu]
"{1E0F3F10-3036-11D1-A4CF-00A0C94203AE}"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel]
"{1E0F3F10-3036-11D1-A4CF-00A0C94203AE}"=dword:00000001

(EDIT: I don't know why the forum is adding spaces to the key names. At least, that's what it's doing in Chrome.)

When you tell Amiga Explorer to show the desktop icon, it sets the values to 0, and then informs the shell its settings have changed.

Even when hidden on the desktop, however, Amiga Explorer is always visible in a tree view of the desktop in Explorer.

With the class ID in hand, you can also create Amiga Explorer folders wherever you want using either the folder name "trick," e.g. Foo.{1E0F3F10-3036-11D1-A4CF-00A0C94203AE}, which isn't as pretty under Windows 7 as used to be in earlier versions of Windows, or a Desktop.ini file:

[.ShellClassInfo]
CLSID={1E0F3F10-3036-11D1-A4CF-00A0C94203AE}

The parent directory, which you can call anything you want, and the child Dekstop.ini should have the system attribute set.

Trev