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Designed for Windows 95/98/NT.

Download 12Ghosts, 900 KB, 12-Aug-98.

Save Layout Homepage
Save Layout Online Manual
FAQ Frequently Asked Questions

Contents

Introduction

Welcome to Save Layout!
Setup and Uninstall
How do I save my layout?
Adding a Shortcut
Command Line Options
Sound and Jump Options
Credits

FAQ Frequently Asked Questions
Why is it so Difficult for Windows to Save the Layout?
Can Microsoft do it Better?
Where is the good old AutoSL?
Can SL copy the desktop items?
Why does SL use a File instead of the Registry?
I get an error message "Error: Layout NOT Saved".

Introduction

When to use SL

Save your icon layout before you install any new software, a new version of Windows, or a shell extension, and before you move the task bar or any application bar, or change the screen resolution. Include your SL file into your backup! You can restore the layout on another version of Windows 95/98, NT 4.0/5.0, or on a different PC!

Usage

To save your layout, double-click the SL file on your desktop.

To restore, right-click the SL file and select 'Restore Layout'.

Command Line Options

Tip: Restore at Startup

Create a shortcut in your Startup folder that consistently restores your layout each time you start Windows. The Target line of the shortcut should be similar to this:

"C:\Program Files\PACT Save Layout\sl.exe" /r "C:\Windows\Desktop\Layout1.sl"

License

This program is a test version for evaluation only. You can use the software for evaluation purposes without charge for a maximum of 30 days. If you use this software after the 30 day evaluation period a registration fee for a full version is required.

How to Order a License
License Agreement

Support

Should you have technical questions please contact support@12Ghosts.com. We are known to solve issues within hours.

We appreciate your suggestions and any feedback!

Welcome to Save Layout!

Welcome to PACT Save Layout 98! This tool will help you to get more confidence to your desktop. You intuitively know the layout of your desktop icons, where an icon is located, the color of the icon. This way you can locate an icon much faster than by searching through an alphabetic list! PACT Save Layout 98 makes sure you can save your favorite icon layout with one click, or even automatically with a timer or scheduler, and reliably restore different layouts exactly when you want it. Now you can really use the full functionality of your desktop!

Setup and Uninstall

Just start SL98.EXE to setup SL. Click OK to accept the default installation options.

SL can be completely uninstalled like every Windows compatible program by selecting Start - Settings - Control Panel - Add/Remove Programs. Or double click uninstall.exe in the installation path.

How do I save my layout?

When you start SL.EXE for the first time after the installation, you will recognize a new file on your desktop, named 'layout1.sl'. This file contains your saved desktop icon layout. You can rename, move, or copy this file wherever you want. However, when renaming the file you should keep '.sl' as the extension.

When you right-click, i.e. when you click with the secondary mouse button on this icon, you'll notice three entries at the top of the context menu: Save Layout, Restore Layout, and SL Help.

Save Layout

To save the layout at any time after the first start, you can select Save Layout in this context menu. Please note, that the file you clicked on, gets overwritten without notice. You should backup this file regularly to save yourself from loosing data.

As you can see in the context menu, the first command, Save Layout, is bold and the default. In other words, to save your layout at any time you can simply double-click the SL file.

Now, when you have changed the layout, added new shortcuts to the desktop, or renamed or deleted a file, you just double-click on the SL file again.

Restore Layout

To restore the saved layout simply click with the right mouse button on the Save Layout '.sl' file and select 'Restore Layout'. All saved icon positions will get restored without further notice. However, icons without a saved position will stay where they were before.

Again, there will be no confirmation to prevent you from restoring a layout you didn't really wanted. You should verify that you have already saved the current layout in another file.

Make a copy!

Don't leave yet without making a copy of your SL Save Layout file at a secure place, for example another folder named d:\backup\important, as you should do with all your important files. Why?? Everybody once in a while selects the wrong command inadvertently. It happens to me regularly and to everybody I've asked. Imagine your icon layout is just completely dearranged and you select Save Layout... well, your previously saved layout is gone forever. By the way, I don't think a confirmation box would help because you tend to confirm them automatically after a while... Better you make another copy every day or set a timer to do this for you.

Multiple Layouts

If you wish to save several different layouts, for example for different screen resolutions, you may wish to copy the Save Layout file and rename it to something like 'My layout 800x600.sl'. To do this, right-click on the icon and select Copy, then right-click on the desktop and select Paste. Now change the resolution, arrange your icons accordingly and save the layout into this copied file by double-clicking it.

Important  Save your icon layout before you change your desktop resolution or move the task bar. And use it before you install any new software, install a new Windows version or any other shell extension!

Adding a Shortcut

You might ask for a key combination to invoke SL. You may already know that you can add a key combination to start any program or document through the use of a shortcut. For example, to implement Ctrl+Alt+S as a key combination to save your layout, you just need to

• right-click on the SL file
• select Create Shortcut
• right-click on the new icon named 'Shortcut to Layout1.sl'
• select Properties
• select the Shortcut tab
• click into the Shortcut Key box
• and press Ctrl+Alt+S

Note, that you can only press Ctrl+Alt or Ctrl+Shift in combination with another key. You need to keep the shortcut on the desktop or somewhere in or below the Start Menu for the key to work. Also, it might be confusing when you have two shortcuts with the same key...

To invoke the program, you can simply press Ctrl+Alt+S from wherever you are, i.e. you do not have to select the desktop first.

Command Line Options

Instead of a right-click, you can also use the following options in a shortcut or batch file. Please remember, using the switch /s, an existing file in PATH always gets overwritten without confirmation.

You might want to implement a scheduled batch routine or save the layout at another place, like a network homepath, but still start SL from the desktop. Add /s to specify the path to save to, or /r to specify the path to restore from.

Tip  Restore your layout at Startup. Create a shortcut in your Startup folder that consistently restores your layout each time you start Windows. The Target line of the shortcut should be similar to this:

"C:\Program Files\PACT Save Layout\sl.exe" /r "C:\Windows\Desktop\Layout1.sl"

Sound and Jump Options

You can change the associated sounds for Save Layout and Restore Layout by selecting Start - Settings - Control Panel - Sounds.

In the rare case you should hate the jumping icons or the confirmation sound, you can also turn it off. However, you need to add the following keys to the registry:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\PACT Software\SaveLayout]
"JumpEnabled"=dword:00000000
"SoundEnabled"=dword:00000000

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it so Difficult for Windows to Save the Layout?

You might wonder why the layout is not saved automatically by Windows itself. Usually this is the case! Windows 95/98 as well as Windows NT 4.0/5.0 do save the layout when the user logs off or shuts down Windows. Actually, for any other folder it is done as soon as the folder is closed, so you don't have so much trouble here. However, the desktop cannot be closed short of logging out and leaving Windows.

Let's think about it: there are some cases in which this method cannot work! A power failure before the save, when you inadvertently select Arrange Icons, when the desktop (Explorer) has to restart for whatever reason, or when another program initiates a refresh to the desktop because a file type has been changed, and for other reasons. Beyond that, there is one inherent problem: when you change the display resolution from, let's say, 1024 down to 640, or size the task bar to over half of the screen, half of your icons will be hidden and inaccessible. What now?

You would need a tool to save and restore the appropriate layout, and not mechanically but at your decision only. PACT Save Layout 98 enables you to handle all the situations described above. You will have the relaxed feeling to have a saved layout, in a file, on a second disk, in your backup. Or several different layouts, you can switch between. Layout files, you can restore exactly when you wish, and that you can transfer between different PCs and Windows installations as you need.

Can Microsoft do it Better?

What comes first to mind to prevent a layout from not being saved is to control each change, movement, and renaming of icons on the desktop. In that case you'd never have an unsaved layout.

The desktop itself is simply a control, a COM or ActiveX control, and this control could best handle the saving of any changes in the icon view. But if it would, this would produce a lot of overhead, to watch and save every change, and not only for the desktop but for every use of this control. Actually, it's a rather widespread and absolutely handy control and if it were any bigger and slower it wouldn't do any good to anybody. Well, that's not that good of an idea.

Also possible to implement this watch dog function would be in the parent application of the desktop control, the Explorer, or to enter a "hook" in the command message exchange of the operating system to filter out the related messages. Well, Microsoft did not do that, and to be honest, I wouldn't like to do this work either. I do not know a tool that implements such a hook.

If you think about it more closely, even if we had this functionality, it would only handle one half of the problem, the power supply failure, but not the problems when another program initiates a restart to the Desktop or when you unwontedly select Arrange Icons from the desktop's context menu. The automatism would jump in and save the changes. Your 'good' layout would be lost. OK, you might ask to confirm the saving after each and every change but do you really want to do this?

There is no other solution, really: when you want to save your layout, click on Save Layout. Keep a copy of your saved layout. If it happens that you need to restore it, click on Restore Layout. That is how SL works. Could it be done any better?

Well, yes, it can. Forget about all the intrigues. Just save a new version of your layout every couple of minutes and relax. You can do this automatically with some of the PACT 12Ghosts 98 suit of applets, Timer and 2ndBackup, please read on:

Where is the good old AutoSL?

Yes, I know what you mean: multi-copies of your layout, automatically stored every couple of minutes... AutoSL (formerly delivered with v3.02) was a pretty smooth piece of work. And I thought, hey, if this is good for SL, why not make the functionallity available for other documents, too?

So this idea made it to initiate several new applets, now all delivered with PACT 12Ghosts 98. First of, there is PACT 2ndBackup 98. This handy tool usually is just sitting there and doing nothing until a change occures in one of the watched files. Then an additional copy is backed up, and you get a history of all changes. This is very relaxing.

To save the layout every couple of minutes or hours, you might want to use PACT Timer 98, also included with the 12Ghosts.

Can SL copy the desktop items?

SL does only save and restore the layout. To have the desktop items copied, please use PACT ProfileCopy 98 which also leverages the features of SL to backup and transfer the icon arrangement.

Why does SL use a File instead of the Registry?

The difference is important especially for users of remote profiles saved on a server. As long as you keep the SL file on the desktop, the whole desktop folder should be transferred to your profile path automatically. The idea of using a file is to give everyone the opportunity to move, copy, and backup the settings as easily as possible and as often as everyone wishes. I think, this is easier with a file than with a bunch of registry keys.

Besides, Microsoft recommends to not save more than 2 KB of data into the registry but instead to refer to a file. With 50 icons on your desktop, each SL file is about 2 KB.

Also, it is possible to transfer your layout between Windows 95/98, Windows NT 4.0/5.0, or another PC by merely copying the file. If you have both, 95/98 and NT installed on one machine you can keep your one and only Save Layout file at one location.

I get an error message "Error: Layout NOT Saved".

This is reportedly caused by an older version of Microsoft's comctl32.dll, which has also caused various other problems. The new one is version 4.72 which is delivered with IE 4.01 and also as Update 40comupd.exe. Here is the Knoledge Base URL by Microsoft: http://support.microsoft.com/ support/ kb/ articles/ q186/1/76.asp

Credits

My thanks go to all people I've ever met, particularly the hundreds of people I had the honor to explain how to use software. You helped me to understand...

Special thanks to my beta testers! Without the help and support of the bug-hunters I would never have released this program. Especially I'd like to thank Kai, Jui, Alex, and the rest of ClubIE Team 10 for helpful ideas and usability hints. To my fellow members of ClubWin www.clubwin.com and ClubIE www.clubie.com, and to everybody sharing critics and ideas!

Save Layout Homepage
Save Layout Online Manual
FAQ Frequently Asked Questions