Log file doesn't show any Line Returns in Notepad

[Kelemvor]

Howdy,

Prior to the latest version or two, Notepad worked just fine to open the Log file.  As of yesterday, the log file just shows up as one giant block of text that is horrible to read.  If I use somethign more advanced like notepad++ works, but not everyone has that.

Any chance the log file could be encoded differently?

While we're on that topic, could you maybe put in a line of ****************'s or something to divide each time the program is run?  Currently there's no line break between when one run ends and another one starts which also makes it harder to read.

Thanks!

[Justin Chalfant (Patch My PC)]

It looks ok for us in notepad.exe

[Kelemvor]

Everyone in my office who has opened it up has it look like the attached file.  No line returns are showing up at all.  This only started within the last week.

On a side not, it would be great if a line could be added about what version of each program was detected and what version is the latest so we can tell how far behind people were when they ran it.

[Justin Chalfant (Patch My PC)]

What version is this where are you opening in from?

[Kelemvor]

Looks like 4.0.0.5 and opening the log file from %localappdata%\temp\patchmypc.log.

Since the .settings file isn't used for us to redirect where the log file goes, that's the only place we could find that stores it local to each PC.  When I open the file on our network share, that one opens normally but contains a jumble of info from multiple computers and I have no way of knowing which section goes with which machine.

[Justin Chalfant (Patch My PC)]

The new log file should be located in the same folder as PatchMyPC.exe by default.

[Kelemvor]

Yeah, i know that already.  But when we have multiple people running the same EXE file from a network share, the log file is useless since we have no idea what goes with who.  That's why we need it to store locally on each machine.

But it appears that the .settings file still does work so we put in a local path in that file and it now has all machines recording the log file to their C drive and it's openable.  However, please don't make the .settings file stop working even if it's not officially supported any more. 

[Justin Chalfant (Patch My PC)]

Yeah, i know that already.  But when we have multiple people running the same EXE file from a network share, the log file is useless since we have no idea what goes with who.  That's why we need it to store locally on each machine.

But it appears that the .settings file still does work so we put in a local path in that file and it now has all machines recording the log file to their C drive and it's openable.  However, please don't make the .settings file stop working even if it's not officially supported any more. 

FYI, looks like we forgot to disable the legacy logging that logs out to the %temp% folder this is the log you are seeing with no line breaks. This will be disabled in the next update. We will have the importing of the .settings registry file disabled in the next update as well. What about an option to append the computer name to the log file. That may be helpful to differentiate between the machines running PatchMyPC.exe from a network share?

[Justin Chalfant (Patch My PC)]

We just released an update (Patch My PC 4.0.0.6). We added the ability to append the computer name to the log file name. This should be a setting that can be exported to PatchMyPC.ini.

[Kelemvor]

Why do you not want the log file to be able to be stored on the PC that's actually running the program?  I'd rather configure it to just store it in C:\Temp or something like that than to have 100+ log files on a network share.  The .settings files works great the way it is.  Why remove functionality that works?

[Justin Chalfant (Patch My PC)]

It's not that we don't want you not to store the log locally. Most customers will actually be running PatchMyPC.exe locally anyway. We did give you the ability to change the log location in V4. We are looking to make the log save location an exportable setting into the PatchMyPC.ini, but it's not there today. We wanted to consolidate all settings into a single location that's why we removed it and have settings going into the INI file (Options settings and any default apps to install).

[Kelemvor]

I understand the desire to have all the settings in one file and that's great.  However, you shouldn't make the .settings file stop working until you have the .ini file setup so that it can replicate all the same settings.