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Where's The Window?
Where's The Systray Icon?
How do I resume from a renamed (different-named) file?
Where's The Window?
Occasionally, after I've had my W95 box and WinMX up and running for many days, WinMX tends to get rather sluggish (just the user interface, not the file transfers!). Of course, I can always restart WinMX and even Windoze to get rid of this condition, and sometimes that's what's necessary, but I hold off doing that because over such a long period, I tend to accumulate a list of incomplete xfers in the Transfer Window, and I like to be able to refer back to this list.
The problem is that sometimes I'll click on, say, the Bandwidth button, and although the Transfer Window loses the focus right away, I'll be left waiting 'forever' for the Bandwidth Window to pop up. I've also been left waiting for extended periods of time for the Queuing Window, Remove From Hotlist dialog box, the Server Add and Config windows, and the Resume Incomplete Transfer window.
In the past, I'd either give it 5 or 10 minutes (sometimes it would actually finally appear within such an extended interval!), or give up and do a 3-finger salute (CTL-ALT-DEL) to kill the WinMX program. But I've recently discovered a more benign way to clear this impasse:
ALT-F4
Where's the WinMX Systray Icon?
Sometimes my WinMX systray (near clock on taskbar) icon disappears!
This seems to result from a failed attempt to display a different icon that's supposed to let me know that someone's sent me a message.
So if your systray icon becomes invisible, check your (temporary) hotlist and right-click and choose either Receive Message or Chat for the hotlist entry corresponding to the sharer who's sent you a message, and the systray icon will reappear.
How do I resume from a renamed file?
Sometimes you may find it necessary to resume an incoming file transfer from someone who has the same file, but under a different name. In such cases, WinMX will often refuse to recognize it as a desire to resume a discontinued transfer, and start all over, even though the files' names are similar and the files' sizes are identical.
There is a fairly easy way get around this problem, if you are familiar with doing simple file manipulation in Windoze Explorer. (If you are not familiar with Windoze Explorer, go find a good web page and learn it and report back here in 15 minutes!)
Rather than trying to edit the "incomplete downloads.txt" file (which can be done, but is way too much trouble, and riskier), it's easier to do a simple file rename so that we have the right file for winmx to want to resume transferring to it from this sharer. Here's the procedure:
- Start the incoming xfer (yes, from the start) from the sharer who has the right file with the 'wrong' name.
- After 15 seconds or so, cancel the xfer.
- Explore your incoming transfers directory, where your incoming files get placed. If you don't already have an Explorer window open, the easiest way to get there is to click on the upper right-most unlabeled button in WinMX's Transfers window:
Once there, choose View, Details. This will give you more information in columns, and you can click the column headings to easily view the list in filename order or chronological order, and also you can see the files' sizes and dates. If you choose the right chrono view (just click on the "Modified" column heading, again if necessary), the most recent file(s) will be on the top of the list, including the file whose transfer you just cancelled... - Click on the name of this small file whose transfer you just cancelled, to select it.
- Click again on the name of this small file you just selected, to invoke the rename mode.
- Do a CNTL-C to copy (to the clipboard) the now-selected name of the small file. Then rename it to something else (say, put a 2 at the end of its name, but before the ".mp3" if present). Press <ENTER> or click elsewhere within the window to complete the renaming.
- Find, among the other files in this directory, the larger file with the different name you wish to resume transferring to. Select it, put it in rename mode, and with its name selected, do a CNTL-V to paste (from the clipboard) the new file's name onto the larger older file. Press <ENTER> or click elsewhere within the window to complete the renaming.
- Now, in the transfer window, you can simply right-click on the file whose transfer you just cancelled, and tell WinMX to resume the transfer. WinMX will offer you the choice of resuming from the older larger file on your HD -- it has the same name as the file you just stopped transferring from this sharer, but is suddenly much larger. Be warned that WinMX will probably not compare for identicalness before resuming the transfer to the same file (or so WinMX thinks) from the same file from the same sharer on the same server at nearly the same time...
