OK, it's a small problem in the scheme of things but since it's been there since v6 it's started to really annoy me.
If you install from scratch you can specify where in the Start menu the items will appear, eg. Utils\Directory Opus
All subsequent updates to DOpus resolutely ignore this and create GPSoftware\Directory Opus - as opposed to most normal programs which will honour where they were told to go.
Any chance this could finally be fixed?
And preferably not by removing the option to specify where you want it.
It's not a difference between update and fresh installs.
The installer has not had an option to move the start menu entries for as long as I can remember. Maybe it had it back in Opus 6 but that was a long time ago.
InstallShield & other installers has always been bad at managing start menu locations, which may be why the option was removed (if it was there previously). When I first started using Windows I used to try to organise my Start Menu as I wanted (by category rather than publisher) and I remember ending up with multiple entries for the same program and more of a mess than if I left it alone, so I gave up on that after a while.
Well, I gave up doing what I wanted using the Start Menu. I have a docked toolbar, with tools organised by category, for things I use often enough to want quick access, but not so often I want to pin them to the top level of the Start Menu or Taskbar (where they wouldn't fit anyway).
With modern versions of Windows, I don't think many people manually dig through the All Programs tree often, since it's so much more convenient to type a word and let the Start Menu find things for you.
The option is inferred because the installer allows you to edit where in the Start menu the entries can appear - GPSoftware\Directory Opus is editable. I've been able to edit where in the Start menu I've wanted DOpus to appear since v6.
Some installers don't give you that option by not allowing the entry to be edited.
Most installers that allow for user-specified placement in the Start menu also detect where it was placed when an update is run and use that location. Some detect that you may have re-ordered your Start menu and will use that location.
It can't be that hard, (famous last words), just a matter of checking the appropriate USERPROFILE or ALLUSERPROFILE for the menu entries.
The idea of the menu is so I don't have to bother remembering the name of some program, (not DOpus since it's set to Explorer replacement), I don't use that often - but I do know where in my menu it's going to appear.
Plus I'm not interested in a Start menu that's full of useless company names.
The installer lets you change the C:\Program Files... path, but not the Start Menu path.
If you're seeing an extra option/page in the installer, is it on a machine that has had Opus 6 installed in the past? Maybe there's an interaction between old & new installers where an option is hidden unless it was used in the past. That's the only thing I can think of that might explain why I'm not seeing it on 3 machines and you are seeing it. (I think the machines I've tried on only go back as far as Opus 8 or Opus 9.)
I've never worked on the Opus installer but, from experience, nothing is easy with InstallShield, and changes made to existing installers frequently end up causing problems for people updating. (If you really are seeing an extra option when installing Opus, then this could be the result of just such an issue. Sometimes the problems are far worse and preventing installs working. This is why we are reluctant to make minor changes to the installer.)
[quote]The idea of the menu is so I don't have to bother remembering the name of some program, (not DOpus since it's set to Explorer replacement), I don't use that often - but I do know where in my menu it's going to appear.
Plus I'm not interested in a Start menu that's full of useless company names. [/quote]
I feel the same, but Microsoft specified the standards for the Start Menu and I found that it is futile to fight against them. If it was just Opus making this hard then I'd be asking for the installer to change as well, but this is more of a systemic problem that can't be fixed by one application/installer. Personally, if I want things a particular way that go against the Windows standard, I make my own area and manage it by hand, away from anything that might try to apply someone else's rules/standards. So I made my own launcher toolbar.
Similarly, it's futile to attempt to use the My Documents folder for storing documents when so many programs dump settings files in there and leave the folder a complete mess at all times. The My Documents example is even worse because it's actually against Microsoft's guidelines for how the folder should be used, unlike the Start Menu example; but the end result is the same: Changing one or two apps won't make the folder any more useful for what I'd want to use it for, so I created another folder somewhere else and use that instead.
One thing you could do is make a startup script in Opus 11 that moves the start menu entries (if they're not where you want them) each time Opus starts. (Or something similar could be dropped in the Startup folder to do the same thing when Windows starts.)
You could make the same script or batch file handle all the other programs that you want to move around the Start Menu, solving the issue for more than just Opus.
This has always been a minor irritation of mine... most other programs that I use let me change the start menu path, and most of those also detect the changed location and re-use it when installing updates. And for those do both of these things... I've never seen it fail, or appear to cause a problem ever.
