You probably noticed that my website went offline from 25 November 2009 until 1 December 2009.

Attribute Changer got such an enormous success that the assigned traffic limit was reached or passed in the last few months. But in November, the traffic exploded in such a way that the limit already got passed on 23 November 2009 and I needed to limit the access to the website.

Attribute Changer development and hosting cost me lot of money and I would be very thankful if you consider donating to the project to keep it alive.

Attribute Changer 6.20 Turkish translation has been updated and included in the installer.

Many thanks to Kadir Demirel for the updates.

Almost a year passed since the last major update of Attribute Changer and I received many requests for a 64-support of Attribute Changer ... 64-bit support is now available in version 6.20.

This version builts on the latest 6.10c release and focuses mainly on providing 64-bit support for Windows XP, Vista and 7. It features a complete rewrite of the shell extension in C++, a new installer based on Innosetup and updated help files.

Support for Windows 95, 98, Me and NT4 has been dropped due to the usage of never API calls. Attribute Changer 6.20 requires Windows 2000, XP, Vista and 7.

Please take a look at the version history for changes and enhancements made into this release.

Version 6.20 is available in English, Brazilian-Portuguese, Dutch, German, Hungarian, Italian, Romanian and Spanish.

Some information on the 64-bit support : The shell extension (COM In-process server) is now written in C++ and compiled in 32 and 64-bit and handles the 'Change attributes...' context menu entry in Windows Explorer. The main application (acmain.exe) remains a 32-bit application.

A minor issue was reported for Attribute Changer 6.10b and this one is fixed in this maintenance release.

Bug fix

Wrong EXIF date/time read from header if picture was touched with some photo software

Important : DO NOT INSTALL this release if you are running Attribute Changer 6.20 BETA !

After some months of hard work, a new public BETA version is available for testing.

New features

COM In-Process server (shell extension) redeveloped in C++
64-bit shell extension now available for 64-bit Windows XP, Vista and 7
Inter-process communication now based on WM_CopyData and Windows Events
Folder Redirection mechanism implemented on x64
Dropped NSIS installer in favor of Innosetup
32-bit installer handles installation of 32-bit and 64-bit shell extension

Updates

Updated help files (not yet available in BETA)
Updated messages.ini file (please verify)
Dropped support for Windows 95/98/Me and NT 4.0

Important information

This version is available as a multi-language enabled installer and does not yet include an updated help file. The BETA release should be stable and usable in a production environment.

This version is only supported on Windows 2000/XP/Vista and 7.

Only Attribute Changer 6.x can be upgraded to 6.20. Any version prior v6.0 must be manually uninstalled from your system before installing the latest build.

Please test the new installer and the shell extension integration with 32-bit and 64-bit Windows. Don't forget to report any issue.

Attribute Changer goes 64-bit...

A 64-bit compatible version (ZIP archive) is available for experienced Windows users and there is currently no installer/uninstaller available. You need to download the ZIP archive, copy the contents to a location of choice and manually register the 64-bit shell extension (regsvr32 acshell.dll using 64-bit regsvr32.exe comamnd line tool. Please take a look at the Readme.txt file inside the archive !

IMPORTANT: I tested this on a 64-bit Windows XP / Windows 7 RC1 and it worked well, but I'm unable to test it on Windows Vista .... thus I need some experienced Windows users willing to test this stuff.

Please note that this is a BETA version and it may contain bugs and it's only available in English.

Over the last few months, I worked hard to get Attribute Changer running on 64-bit Windows :

• I redeveloped the COM In-Process server (shell extension) in C++ and compiled the source code in 32 and 64-bit.
• Inter-Process communication between the shell extension and the main application is now based on WM_CopyData messages and Windows Events.
• Attribute Changer main application remains a 32-bit executable (Delphi is not yet available in 64-bit)
• Attribute Changer main application handles Folder Redirection mechanism on x64
• Dropped support for Windows 9x/Me and NT 4.0
• The installer will remain 32-bit, but automatically registers the 32/64-bit shell extension based on the detected platform.

The new 32/64-bit shell extension already works fine and inter-process communication is up and running. I need to fix an issue with 32-bit file and folder redirections (VirtualStore) on 64-bit Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Once this is done, a ZIP archive (no installer currently) will be made available for testing.

Some customers asked me if Attribute Changer will be supported on Windows 7.

As Microsoft recently published a first public Release Candidate of Windows 7, I grabbed a 32-bit copy and installed the latest Attribute Changer release.

Everything worked fine without any glitches and Attribute Changer 6.10b is supported on 32-bit Windows 7. Please be aware that a Release Candidate is not yet the final product, but there won't be big changes, except bug fixing.

If you are using a non English user interface of Attribute Changer 6.10b and downloaded it before 16 May 2009 at 22:30, then please re-download the setup and install this version on top of the old one.

There were some inconsistencies in the translated language files ... Sorry !

A minor issue was reported for Attribute Changer 6.10a and this one is fixed in this maintenance release. This version brings no new features but makes using the Simulation/Preview mode much more user friendly.

Updates

Simulation (Preview) mode now available on main page
Simulation mode now automatically triggers detailed logging
Added Donation link to the About tab

Bug fixes

Clicking Help button in About tab doesn't work on Windows XP SP3 for restricted users

Info: There seems to be a rare problem with Attribute Changer's shell extension after SP1 is applied on Windows Vista. I'm currently unable to reproduce this error on my Vista test system. In fact, the shell extension's menu entry doesn't appear in the context menu and there is currently no solution.

Since 10 years, Attribute Changer's popularity is growing constantly and the program is still free and will remain free in the future.

To be able to offer Attribute Changer, I spent lot of my free time in the last years. Beside this, I have to pay the webhosting including the download traffic that isn't very low due to the success of the program. Microsoft Windows licenses aren't free either, nor are new Delphi licences for the development environment.

If you like Attribute Changer or find it useful, I would be very happy if you consider donating to the project.

You can find the Donation button on the Download page.

Attribute Changer celebrates its 10 year birthday in 2009.

I still remember the development history of Attribute Changer. In fact, I needed a basic tool to change attributes on files and folders and I couldn’t find anything on the net, at least nothing suited for my problem.

I decided therefore to develop a tool myself and as soon it got finished, my friends told me it was worth to put on the Internet back in 1999. Not being developed in mind to be published, a help file was added, a minor bug fixed and a one-page website uploaded to a free web hosting company.

At the beginning, about 30 visitors per month were counted on my website and I was really proud. Over the years, more and more features were added to Attribute Changer and the tool was localized to other languages, making it more and more popular.

Currently, an average of 7000 visitors per month hit the website and I want to thank all the contributors and users worldwide for the ongoing success of Attribute Changer.

The Mac OS X section is finally filled up with content. At the beginning, it covers VMware Fusion and Windows XP, such as creating a bootable installation image disk, discussing Windows partitioning, adding a secondary disk and other stuff.

The discussed subjects are also valuable for other virtualization products, such as Parallels Desktop.

Hope, it’s useful for you !

Attribute Changer 6.10a is now available in Portuguese (Brazilian) and Turkish.

Many thanks to Daniel Henrique Tsuha for the Portuguese (Brazilian) and Kadir Demirel for the Turkish updates.

More and more customers are asking for a 64-bit version of Attribute Changer. There are some points that I would like to share with the community :

The current build of Attribute Changer is based on Delphi 5 Professional, a commercial 32-bit development environment from Borland, now owned by Embarcadero Technologies. A 64-bit cross-compiler is on the road for mid 2009, but the latest Delphi versions are way too expensive, especially as the product is only used for Attribute Changer development.

I checked the market for alternatives and there is Lazarus, a free Delphi clone. After an extensive evaluation, it’s not yet ready for Attribute Changer development as large parts of the COM API are not yet implemented and their focus is cross-platform development for Windows, Linux and Mac. While this is great, I don’t have access to all the necessary Win32 controls needed for Attribute Changer, such as a native DateTimePicker control.

As Attribute Changer is and should stay free, I am unable to invest +-400 EUR in a Delphi upgrade license (without support). Add to this a 64-bit Windows license for Vista x64 Professional, because the cheaper Home editions cannot be virtualized.

Another solution is to completely rewrite Attribute Changer in a free development environment based on the .Net framework, as many of them are free (Visual Studio Express or SharpDevelop). This would cost me lot of time to recode everything in VB.NET or C#, but anything else is free. All of above development environments have powerful GUI builders.

As managed code cannot be used to develop shell extensions, they have to be rewritten in C and recompiled in 32 and 64-bit versions. This is possible with the free Visual Studio C++ Express edition. Rewriting everything, the shell extension and Attribute Changer GUI in C/C++ is out of scope for me.

A possibility would be to add a “PayPal Donate” button to the website, but +-600 EUR is a big deal.

Feel free to contact me if you have some ideas or suggestions !