UXL Launcher Version 3.2 Status Update

Aug 7, 2018

Update 4-30-2019: UXL Launcher Version 3.2 Stable is now available for download, and the changelog and downloads are listed on the UXL Launcher GitHub Releases page. GitHub does not endorse UXL Launcher or Drew Naylor.

Update 10-14-2018: There's now official support for Office 2019 in UXL Launcher, and the "PotentialOffice2019Support" branch has been updated with the new code. You can download the new build from AppVeyor. (UXL Launcher is not endorsed by AppVeyor.) The original blog post is below, and an archive of the commit messages for this branch has been added after the original post.

Original post

It's been a little while since the last commit to the UXL Launcher repository, so I figured that I'd post an update on the status of the next version.

Right now, most of the work is done and all I'm doing is waiting for Microsoft to release either a consumer/release preview of Office 2019, or for the final version of Office 2019 to be released. Once that's available, I'll be able to test out Office 2019 and see where it installs its files to. After testing it, if necessary, changes will be made to the "Office Locater" code (and other related code) to support Office 2019. Otherwise, I'll just add "Microsoft Office 2019" to the list of Office versions in the Options window and add its version number (currently assumed to be "17" if Microsoft keeps using their current pattern starting with Office 2010 being "14") to the list of officially-supported Office versions located in the application resources.

If you want to test out Office 2019 support and Microsoft does have Office 2019 install to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office17\" (there might not be an ("x86") after "Program Files" on 32-bit computers or computers with 64-bit Office), you can actually use a precompiled version of UXL Launcher built from a different branch rather than the main one that has a customized config file for things specific to Office 2019. Be sure to read the text near the top of the page as it has important information regarding saving your settings. To download this build, on the Appveyor page, click the filename ("UXL-Launcher\buildzip-uxl_launcher-appveyor.zip") and save it somewhere you can easily access, then extract the entire archive to a folder that you can easily remember.

Please be aware that using the build linked above might overwrite your current settings if you save them while having the Office version set to "Office17" and saving your settings.

Lastly, if you want to see the things that have been worked on during the development of version 3.2, you can refer to the closed issues in the Version 3.2 milestone and the code comparison between v3.1 and master. If you would like to download a stable version of UXL Launcher, UXL Launcher Version 3.1 Stable was released on July 10, 2018.

Commit message archive

Modify config file for possible Office 2019 support cdf4d189 August 1, 2018

This branch exists in case Microsoft suddenly releases Office 2019 and
people want to test out Office 2019 support with UXL Launcher. The only
changes in this branch exist in the config file. This branch will be
deleted after Version 3.2 Stable is released.

This may or may not work, depending on if Microsoft changes where Office
is installed to for Office 2019.

List of changes in this branch:
- Office 365 compatibility has been enabled
- The Office version has been set to Office17, since that's what the
Office 2019 version number is assumed to be (unless Microsoft does
something different from what they've been doing)
- Debug labels have been turned off.

For the most part, there shouldn't be any major bugs at this point and
the rest of Version 3.2's development, as of right now, will mostly be
making Office 2019 show up in the Options window and have it be
officially supported.

Because Office 2019 isn't officially supported yet, it'll show up in the
Options window as "Office17" in the version dropdown box.

If you change your version to something else (or click the "Defaults"
button) and save your changes, you'll have to delete your personal
settings folder for UXL Launcher under
"C:\Users\(username)\AppData\Local\UXL_Launcher\UXL-Launcher.exe_Url_(characters)",
where "(username)" is your own computer username and "(characters)" is a
long string of alphanumeric characters.

Merge branch 'master' into PotentialOffice2019Support 9bdb98e7 October 14, 2018

This updates the "PotentialOffice2019Support" branch with actual support for
Office 2019 rather than assumed support.

What's changed in this one is:

- All changes from Master are here.
- The Office version is "16nomsi".
  - Office 2019 installs to the same folder as 2016 to increase (technically not
    decrease) support for apps that check compatibility using version numbers.
    That's what the "16" is for.
  - "nomsi" forces support for Click-to-Run, and the "Click-to-Run compatibility"
    checkbox is ignored.

UXL Launcher Version 3.2 is almost done, so the code here should work.
The previous commit assumed that 2019 was going to be version 17, but
it's not. Office 2019 can be selected from the version dropdown box,
so there's not as much to worry about with messing up the config files
and having to delete them to get 2019 support back.

This branch probably won't get any additional updates going forward
since Office 2019 support is here now, and that's what this branch
is for. Mostly a way to allow people to try out Office 2019 support
from a branch that rarely changes. This branch will be deleted after
3.2 Stable is out.

I'll update my blog post as well.