Notepad++ 7 - 64-bit Available

Eric Winn

Installing 64-bit on 64-bit Windows with 32-bit Notepad++ already installed ends up with two installations because the 64-bit installer doesn’t check to see if there is already a 32-bit version installed.

The 32-bit install ends up in C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++ and the 64-bit install ends up in C:\Program Files\Notepad++ as you would expect.

Not necessarily a problem but when you then uninstall the 32-bit version it also removes the various configuration files like config.xml, session.xml, etc. located in C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++.

I would have preferred to keep my history and session data.

In other words, both 32-bit and 64-installs point to the same C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++ path so running either uninstall will remove all of these files.

On another machine I copied the existing 32-bit NPP config.xml and session.xml files to a temporary location and then removed 32-bit NPP before installing 64-bit NPP. Then I opened the old config.xml and session.xml and copied in the session data and history data into the new 64-bit installed ones which worked fine and didn’t seem to trouble NPP. Note I was careful with what I copied and where I pasted.

It would be nice if the 64-bit installer handled an existing config.xml and/or session.xml file differently. Maybe ask if you want to preserve you current session and history data?

donho

@jNizM Thank you for making Notepad++ crash !
it’ll be fixed in the next release.

Salimsg Ibrahim

In addition to the issues brought up by Eric Winn, the file association is unable to switched to the 64-bit version, even if I rename the 32-bit version folder to something else. Not sure if this is a Windows 7 64 bit problem or Notepad++ problem.

donho

@Salimsg-Ibrahim Could you povide the step-by-step instuctions so I can repoduce it?

donho

@dail Thank you for infos. I cannot reproduce it either.
I’ll stay tightly on this issue.

Rickard Jonsson

Hi i’m try to install notepad++ 7 x64 from command line with this switches but it will not install in this folder why? npp.7.Installer.x64.exe /S /D=C:\Program Files\Plus!\Notepad++

Salimsg Ibrahim

Thank you for the response. I am using Windows 7 64-bit and Notepad++ 6.9.2, which is located at C:\notepad++\notepad++.exe. After installing Notepad++ 7 64-bit, it is now located at C:\Program Files\notepad++\notepad++.exe. Right-click a .txt file to open with> choose a default program> open notepad++.exe in C:\Program Files\notepad++.
However it is the 6.9.2 version that is called up. What I did was to rename C:\notepad++ folder to something else. Try right-click again to open with> choose a default program> goes to C:\Program Files\notepad++ folder. Problem is notepad++.exe does not appear in windows 7 open with windows anymore.

Salimsg Ibrahim

Hi Don, I solved my problem. This is the solution:

The program that you’re pointing to isn’t registered correctly.

In regedit: Navigate to Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications and find your .exe name.
Navigate under its name to shell>open>command. In the Default change its location to the actual location of the executable, hit okay and then try and reassociate the file type as you normally would.

donho

@Eric-Winn
You are pointing out an issue where there may be some incoherence.

Indeed there are 2 scenarios :
if user download installer for 64-bit and install it without remove old 32-bit one, both 32-bit and 64-bit binaries will stay in C:\Program Files (x86)\ and C:\Program Files\ respectively.

OTOH, if user uninstalls 32-bit version before installing 64-bit version, all the settings will be gone. But user is aware of what they do so it’s a normal behaviour to me.

I have no yet idea to solve this issue. If anyone in here has a thought, please let me know.

dail

@donho

I’ve seen some uninstallers ask the user whether they’d like to keep their configuration files. Not sure how easy this would be.

donho

@dail How about remove automatically the 32-bit version while installing 64-bit version and vice versa?

dail

I’m curious how other applications work that have both 32bit and 64bit installations.

How about remove automatically the 32-bit version while installing 64-bit version and vice versa?

That might be a good solution (possibly ask/warn the user?). Either way, I think a couple of things have to be considered:

If 32bit and 64bit are allowed to be installed simultaneously:

Users might get confused. Using the windows shell to edit a file with Notepad++ might not always use the one they want.
At least all the config files should be compatible between 32bit and 64bit which is good.
Plugins will be different between the two. Also, if plugins are allowed to be loaded from %APPDATA% do 32 and 64bit try to load the same plugins? This could be a problem.

If only one of either 32bit or 64bit is allowed to be install:

I’m sure someone will complain, but you can’t please all users :)
I’ve found it useful so that I can test 32bit and 64bit plugins…but there are several other ways to do this so not a big deal.

Tibi Dezse

Macro recording, hang the whole

donho

@Tibi-Dezse it should be fixed in the latest snapshot:
https://ci.appveyor.com/project/donho/notepad-plus-plus/build/job/tv72aehq0plqabdn/artifacts

Paul Slater

Crashes when recording a macro. Usually when you type a \ for a special character.

I’ve reverted to 6.9.2

donho

@Paul-Slater It has been fixed in:
https://ci.appveyor.com/project/donho/notepad-plus-plus/build/job/tv72aehq0plqabdn/artifacts

Could you check it and confirm us the fix?

Sean McPoland

No PlugIn Manager?

I assume it’s been left out until PlugIns are available…but shouldn’t it just list those available for 64 bit…meaning it should be there.

Many thanks by the way,

donho

@dail Good point!
What’s your suggestion then?

dail

@donho Under normal circumstances I don’t think users will need both. However, forcing a user to use just one might not be a good idea since there may be good reason to have both installed.

So this is my suggestion (feel free to use it, or do something completely different :))

During installation (e.g. of 64bit Notepad++ version)
- Check to see if 32bit version is currently installed.
- If so, warn the user that installing both may cause problems.
- Ask the user if they want to uninstall the 32bit version.
- During uninstall of 32bit version, give the user the option to keep their current settings. This would probably be easy if they are using %APPDATA% but if they are using a local conf mode then the xml files won’t be in the right place, they would be under C:\Program Files (x86)\...

Again this is just my suggestion so feel free to do whatever you feel is appropriate, and others may have better ideas. I am not familiar with NSIS so I don’t know the details of how hard or easy all this would be.

kawinga

@Salimsg-Ibrahim i just wanted to point out the same solution, i found it on myself

In regedit: Navigate to Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\notepad++ and find your .exe name.
Navigate under its name to shell>open>command. In the Default change its location to the actual location of the executable, hit okay and then try and reassociate the file type as you normally would.

@donho i fear there will be a lot of users experiencing this problem, maybe you should try to get a fix before the automatic update causes a lot of troubles

i like @dail solution

@dail said:

During installation (e.g. of 64bit Notepad++ version)

Check to see if 32bit version is currently installed.

If so, warn the user that installing both may cause problems.

Ask the user if they want to uninstall the 32bit version.

During uninstall of 32bit version, give the user the option to keep their current settings. This would probably be easy if they are using %APPDATA% but if they are using a local conf mode then the xml files won’t be in the right place, they would be under C:\Program Files (x86)\...