Software Update: Directory Opus 12.28

GPSoftware has released version 12.28 of its Directory Opus file manager. This program is in a way comparable with Total Commander, but with more extensive options about exactly what information should be displayed and how. The program nestles deep in Windows and is therefore more intended as a replacement for Windows Explorer.

Directory Opus is versatile and extremely configurable, both in functionality and appearance. That is also the biggest problem, because the program can certainly appear complex to novice users. Although Directory Opus works on Windows XP and above, version 12.20 is the last where it installer still works under Windows XP† The program can 60 days being tested; after that, a license of 89 Australian dollars has to be purchased, which equates to about 55 euros. Since version 10.2, there is also a less extended version, for the equivalent of 30 euros. The changelog for this release shows the following list of changes and improvements:

The following changes were part of the 12.27.1 – 12.27.2 beta updates:

• Improved layout of button editor menus on low resolution (~720p) screens.
• The archives plugin now filters the file attributes it returns to Opus to avoid ones that can appear in archives but don’t make sense in them and cause problems (eg “offline” and “pinned”).
• Fix for situation where a credentials prompt wasn’t triggered for some network drives that needed one.
• Fixed problem which meant desktop double-click handling would stop working if Explorer was restarted.
• On Windows 11, the OneDrive commands to pin or free up space now work recursively on folders to match Explorer’s behavior.
• Fixed the Toolbar command ignoring its POS argument if the first coordinate was negative.
• If a Style is saved with the view mode option turned on, but a tab group selected, the view mode setting is now correctly ignored (since view modes in that instance are supposed to come from the tab group).
• Fixed Open With > Paint.Net opening the file twice with newer versions of PaintDotNet.
• Fixed a problem where the folder format could go wrong if a style that was set to turn the format lock on opened a tab group.
• Improved performance of context menus in some situations.
• Updated WebP plugin, which fixes some images not loading.
• Fixed context menu items registered under HKCR\* appearing for directories when they should only appear for files.
• Fix for OneDrive context menus not appearing when “Files On Demand” is turned off.
• Fixed @if not working on Viewer toolbar buttons if the only command being run after them was a Show VIEWERCMD=… variant.
• Show VIEWERCMD=fullscreen,on and …,off can now be used with the viewer to always get a particular state rather than toggle the current state.
• Fixed issue where nothing happened if some Control Panels were opened in particular ways (eg “Manage BitLocker” from the drive right-click menu).
• Fix for standalone image viewer opening on the wrong screen if it was previously moved and closed near the right (or bottom) of another screen.
• Fixed incorrect behavior when renaming files in FlatView when two files in different folders ended up with the same name.

The following changes are new for 12.28:

• Fixed problem with undoing a create folder.
• Fix for crash which could happen when undoing a rename.
• Fix for “New” context menu excluding items without descriptions in the registry.
• Fix for bogus Open With menu items due to uninstalled Microsoft Store apps.