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Properly open Logfiles in RMS Express on Linux

·340 words·2 mins
Amateur-Radio Linux Winlink Windows Emulation Wine
Table of Contents

Do you use Winlink regularly? Did you ever looked into the logfiles directory?

Most users won’t need to look into the logfiles. Usually. But someone may be interested in them just out of curiosity or someone may have to look something up, maybe an abnormal behaviour of the program or why the recent update failed.

The Error #

Anyhow, you may end up opening this screen here and might not get what you wanted. At least when you use RMS Express with wine on a linux computer.

winlink program with logwindow opened

Per default you may get this error message.

error message “invalid hadnle”

The solution #

You may have to register .log files to a program that opens up as default application. We do that with the Windows-Registry-Editor regedit.exe.

There are two solutions that I have thought of.

First, we declare .log files as text documents and handle them as normal .txt documents. We open these files with the built-in editor notepad.exe.

As second solution, we create a new entry for .log files and declare them as logfile. We open these files with our native text-editor built into Gnome.

textfile approach (notepad.exe) #

Create a textfile with the ending .reg like openlogs.reg.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.log]
@="txtfile"
"Content Type"="text/plain"

After saving the file, import it into the windows registry like this:

$ wine regedit openlogs.reg

This should work instantly.

Download this file.

logfile approach (native text-editor) #

Also create a textfile with the ending .reg, but fill it with these contents:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.log]
@="logfile"
"Content Type"="text/plain"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\logfile]
@="Logfile Document"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\logfile\shell]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\logfile\shell\open]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\logfile\shell\open\command]
@="\"winebrowser\" \"%1\""

Load this into the registry:

$ wine regedit openlogs_native.reg

Also this should work instantly. Opening the logs should open your application on your linux computer that usually opens .log files. That is gnome-text-editor on my computer.

Download this file.

The end #

Have you ever clicked on the Log menu in VARA or VARA FM? Well, that works without those registry tweaks… I’m just saying 😄

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