Path entry control ignores english chars

********
18th June 2008 09:54 UTC

Path entry control ignores english chars
On my Win2000 there is a consistent problem with NSIS installers in that they do not accept english chars in destination path dialog.

At first I thought that it is a feature, because delete, select and copy/paste keys work ok and when you delete a part of a path - a list of suggestions from existing paths appears in a drop-down box. It was a little annoying to create new folders using "Browse..." button dialog, but not impossible. But now I've got a GUI written with NSIS for a console tool and the GUI doesn't allow to enter english text in dialog controls at all. Keys pressed are just ignored. Backspace doesn't work also. If I switch keyboard locale then localized text is correctly entered and displayed, backspace works ok.

I can't find another program with same symptoms, so the problem must be with NSIS itself. This happens with installers compiled with 2.29 to 2.37 - do not know about older versions.

kichik
18th June 2008 15:15 UTC

There is no such feature in the code. Nothing blocks users from entering anything in that input control. Does it happen with all installers including the installer for the NSIS package itself?

********
18th June 2008 15:29 UTC

Yes.

kichik
18th June 2008 15:39 UTC

Does it happen in the address bar of Explorer as well?

********
18th June 2008 15:47 UTC

No. It is ok both in explorer bar and in run dialog.

kichik
18th June 2008 16:09 UTC

And this one?

********
19th June 2008 07:06 UTC

This dialog is also buggy. I've checked with another win2000 - it seems ok there.

kichik
19th June 2008 18:30 UTC

That dialog does nothing but call SHAutoComplete. That plus the fact it happens only on one specific computer makes me want to pull the "not me" card. Have you tried re-registering shlwapi.dll? That move has magical abilities to fix stuff on Windows.

********
23rd June 2008 09:24 UTC

Thanks for the hint! It was a wrong version of shlwapi.dll from WinXP that slipped into my installation. After replacing the wrong version everything works ok now.