wheeler@bwdls58.UUCP (Cheryl Wheeler) (08/17/90)
Something strange just happened, and I'm mystified. After reading the answers to my previous post about transferring my Work menu from Word 3.02 to Word 4.0, I gave in and did it by hand. Up until this time, each version of Word and its attendent files lived in its own folder at the top level of my hard disk, and whenever I double-clicked any Word document, Word 4.0 would always be opened. Having finally customized Word 4.0 to my liking, I decided to discard all the 3.02 files except for the Word application, since that is the only one that I couldn't recover from the original floppies (because it was customized). Then I moved the Word 3.02 folder containing just Word 3.02 into the Word 4.0 folder (now called just "Word"). Then I double-clicked a Word document, and *arrgghh*! Word 3.02 was opened. Further experimentation revealed that if I move the Word 3.02 folder out of the Word folder and then back in again, everything's OK, and Word 4.0 starts up as expected. So the question is, how does the system decide which version of an application to open? What did I do to make it change its mind? I'm running System 6.0.2 on a Mac II, 5 Meg, 40 Meg. Cheryl
clarson@ux.acs.umn.edu (Chaz Larson) (08/17/90)
As I understand it, given two applications with identical creators, the
last-moved one will be launched by the Finder. This doesn't seem to
apply in your case, though, since you moved Word 3.02 and had the problem,
then moved it again and no longer had the problem. Hmmm.
I can suggest some ways to keep it from happening again, however:
1. Use Stuffit to archive Word 3.02, if you don't think you'll be using it
frequently.
2. Change the filetype of the Word 3.02 application to something other than
"APPL".
3. Give the Word 3.02 application a new name, one that follows the name of
your Word 4.0 application aphabetically. Word 4.0 and ZippyWord 3.02,
for example. Then rebuild the desktop.
4. This is just a guess, but perhaps you could perform major surgery on
Word 3.02 with ResEdit, changing the creator code and all relevant
resources [BNDL, FREF, etc.] to something other than "WDBN", so that
The Finder won't even be tempted to launch Word 3.02.
5. I would just archive Word 3.02 to a floppy.
<chaz>
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clarson@ux.acs.umn.edu AOL:Crowbonepbuck@finagle.tcs.com (Peter Buckner) (08/18/90)
>> {Cheryl is agravated by the fact that sometimes double clicking on an MSWORD >> document starts her Word 3.02, and sometimes it start Word 4.0... >> } As far as I can tell, the hidden desktop file contains that kind of magic: list of which application to actually run when a document is double-clicked. You'll note that Word documents have a creator of "MSWD". Both Word 3.02 and 4.0 say that they are the "correct" application to use to open an MSWD doc. So, If you have both on your disk, both will be registered in the Desktop file, and the finder will use the first one it finds in the file. By Moving one application in & out of folders, you are alerting the desktop to its existence. The result of this is that the finder will now know that some other program is responsible for opening MSWD docs. Other activities will also alert the finder (Get Info, for one). The result is that if you want to double-click to open docs, you really should have only Word 3 or Word 4, not both... = Peter Buckner pbuck@tcs.com = =Teknekron Communications Systems, Berkeley CA. (normal disclaimers apply..)=