Fix: separator isn't created + update installer for VS2026 - #19
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Replace the legacy Visual Studio setup project (Installer/Installer.vdproj) with a WiX Toolset v7 MSI in Installer-Wix/. - Reuse the old UpgradeCode so the WiX MSI upgrades existing installs - Harvest the app build output via <Files> (pdbs excluded); install to Program Files\SiCo\Task Separator 11 - Desktop + Start Menu shortcuts (per-user, ICE57-clean) - Require the .NET 6 Desktop Runtime via a netfx launch condition - Remove the old vdproj; add Installer-Wix to the solution Build with Visual Studio / MSBuild.exe (the app's COM reference is not supported by "dotnet build"). Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- Retarget TaskSplitter11 and Splitter from EOL net6.0-windows to net10.0-windows (LTS) - Remove the unused IWshRuntimeLibrary COM reference (shortcuts use WindowsShortcutFactory); the whole solution, including the WiX MSI, now builds with plain "dotnet build" - Update the installer's .NET Desktop Runtime launch condition from 6.0 to 10.0 Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
… Unicode The "Create Separator" button silently did nothing: files and the shortcut were created correctly, but no separator window ever appeared. Root cause: the ShellExecute P/Invoke had no CharSet, so it defaulted to CharSet.Ansi and bound to ShellExecuteA. The generated .lnk filenames use a non-ANSI character, which cannot be represented in the ANSI code page and degrades to '?'. ShellExecuteA was therefore handed a non-existent path and returned HINSTANCE=2 (ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND), launching nothing -- with no exception or error dialog. Declaring CharSet=CharSet.Unicode binds to ShellExecuteW, which receives the filename intact. Verified end-to-end: the separator window now launches on every "Create Separator" click.
The shortcut-name character in GetNewLinkName was U+FFFD (the Unicode replacement character) -- mojibake left over from an encoding round-trip. The upstream original used '●' (U+25CF BLACK CIRCLE), an unobtrusive dot used as the separator shortcut's label. Restore the intended character but write it as a ● escape so the source stays ASCII-safe and cannot be corrupted again by an editor saving with the wrong encoding.
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Dev Notes
tl;dr - I fixed most of the issues, I think. It's working on the latest build of Windows 11 on my local, tested a Release candidate locally, looks good to me.
I went ahead and fixed both main issues: the app didn't work when attempting to create separators AND the installer was out of date (latest Visual Studio supported version was 2015). I went ahead and updated the project and the installer to use Visual Studio 2026, replaced the older installer with Wix, and fixed the bug that prevented the separators from working.
If you want me to split this into separate PRs I can.
Summary
Clicking Create Separator appeared to do nothing — no separator showed up on the taskbar. The files and shortcut were being created correctly, but the separator window never launched. This PR fixes the root cause and cleans up a related corrupted character.
Root cause
The
ShellExecuteP/Invoke inMainFormwas declared without aCharSet:The generated shortcut filenames use a non-ANSI character (a
●). Under the default ANSI marshalling, that character can't be represented in the system code page and degrades to?, soShellExecuteAwas handed a path that doesn't exist on disk. It returnedHINSTANCE = 2(ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND) and launched nothing — with no exception and no error dialog, so the failure was completely silent.This has been present since the first commit; it was not introduced by the recent .NET 10 retarget.
Changes
ShellExecutemarshals as Unicode — declaringCharSet = CharSet.Unicodebinds toShellExecuteW, which receives the shortcut path intact.ShellExecutenow returns 42 (success) and the separator window launches.GetNewLinkNamehad becomeU+FFFD(the Unicode replacement character) via an encoding round-trip. Restored it to the intended●(U+25CFBLACK CIRCLE) and wrote it as a\u25CFescape so the source stays ASCII-safe and can't re-corrupt.Testing
ShellExecutereturned2(file-not-found) before the fix and42(success) after.●.lnk(U+25CF) instead of the replacement character.Building
You will have to accept the license terms when building, which you can easily do on the command line with this:
If you need to update Github Actions, I'm pretty sure this is all you need:
Related Issues
Pretty sure it resolves all these: