Mixcraft 6 commandeers old projects.

[mattumanu]

Hey, loving the software so far, but I ran into something disturbing. In the past new versions of Mixcraft did nothing to old projects during installation. Projects from older versions of Mixcraft were easily identifiable by the icon for the version they were created with and you had resave a project to make it into a project for the newer addition.

Mixcraft 6 has changed all my old projects over to be identified in Windows as Mixcraft 6 Project. Alll older projects, when clicked, now open in mixcraft 6. This is unacceptable.

How can I fix this problem? How can I undo this?

[Vibrant Audio]

1. Using Windows Explorer, locate any file created with a previous version of Mixcraft.
2. Right click on the file and from the dropdown list select Open with>Choose default program...
3. In the "Open with" dialog box that opens, select the version of Mixcraft you want to use.
4. Make sure to leave the "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" checkbox checked.
5. Click OK.
6. Repeat for other files from other Mixcraft versions.
7. Enjoy!

[mattumanu]

Yeah I tried that. But here's the problem. I use Mixcraft to do a radio show, that now has literally hundreds of projects in the archive. Until I installed Mixcraft 6, they were all clearly marked as to what program the belonged to. Now, they aren't. I undid my change and I'm hoping that when I uninstall Mixcraft 6 that all the projects will revert back to their original associations.

It's not at all as easy as just changing the associations manually. We're talking hundreds of projects, across 3 versions of software, with VSTi's that don't necessarily work with other programs.

[mattumanu]

After uninstalling mixcraft 6, all the projects are still marked as mixcraft 6, although they now open with the software they are supposed to. That's just strange behavior for any program. Why would an uninstalled program leave behind anything vestige of itself?

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

That's just the way that file associations work in Windows. If you're worried about it, you can just install Mixcraft 5 again.

Greg

[mattumanu]

No, it hasn't worked that way in the past. I have projects in mixcraft 3, 4 and 5, and all three versions installed. Each project remained associated with it's respective version and when double clicked would open with it's respective version. Installing mixcraft 6 changed all associations and left no way to know what projects went with what version. That's a problem when projects don't render properly in different versions of the software. VSTi's don't always work with all versions of the software and sometimes other issues arise.

As of now, although all projects are now left with the mixcraft 6 icon identifying them, with mixcraft 6 uninstalled it seems like all the projects are now opening with their respective programs. Mixcraft 6 might do a lot of cool new things, but if it's going to mix up associations across versions then that's going to be a problem.

Imagine you did a song a couple of years ago using mixcraft, and here it is 2 years later and you want to remaster it for a charity or new release. You know you used mixcraft, but the file now opens in mixcraft 6. The VSTi plugins you used originally do not work with Mixcraft 6, but they do work with the original software the project was mastered with. On top of that, some clips are not where they belong. A lot of work goes into these projects. You guys know that.

There can't be that much different in the way mixcraft 6 handles file associations on install than the previous versions. This can be fixed.

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

This is the way it has always worked. I just tried it on a computer that has never had Mixcraft 6 on it; I double-clicked on a Mixcraft 3 project file and it launched Mixcraft 5.

If you have any plugins that worked in earlier versions of Mixcraft, but don't work in Mixcraft 6, you should report them to the beta team.

Did you find that your projects changed a lot when you loaded them into Mixcraft 6?

If maintaining the version of the project is an issue for you, load the projects by dragging them and dropping them into the appropriate version of Mixcraft, or use the "Open Projects" option from that earlier version of Mixcraft.

Greg

[Vibrant Audio]

I forget, are the file extensions all the same for Mixcraft 4 and earlier? Mixcraft v5 uses a .mx5 extension, v6 uses a .mx6 extension.

If you change the default program that opens one file, it changes for all files with the same extension. Changing any default "Open with..." association for any Mixcraft v4 file will change the association for ALL FILES with the same extension.

I did it for .mx5 files. Now .mx5 files open with v5 and .mx6 files open with v6 automatically.

[mattumanu]

@Vibrant Audio, your end result is exactly how my work environment has been working, but I didn't have to do anything to make it work. I remember back in December of 2010 when I first installed 5 on this computer. The file associations didn't change, nor did the icons for the projects because I could look in the current file folder of projects I had to work on and be able to tell which were v4 projects and which were v5 projects. But now, even though I uninstalled mixcraft 6, I have every project now showing with v6 icons.

Acoustica Greg, I will try to answer some of your questions as soon as I can get this mess straightened out.

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

If you like, I could log a feature request for an installer option that would say something like this: "Don't associate older version project files."

Greg

[mattumanu]

Hi,

If you like, I could log a feature request for an installer option that would say something like this: "Don't associate older version project files."

Greg

Well, it's not really whether "I" would like it, it's whether long time users of mixcraft will find themselves stuck moving to version 6. Maybe other people uninstall their old versions, I don't know. I do know that if I've done a project in one version it's easier to start a remaster in the original environment than it is to try and rebuild a song or spot from scratch.

But while you're at it, yeah, I would like that feature. Maybe others would say MeH, but I would love it.

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

Okay, thanks for the suggestion!

Greg

[EL34]

Hmm,
It does not do that on my XP compter.
I have M5 and M6 installed.

I just doubled clicked on a few .mx5 project files and they all opened in M5
Clicking on a .mx6 project file opened in M6

Did you try changing the file association types for each file extention?
Make sure .mx5 files open with M5 and .mx6 opens with M6
Use the change button if you have to and browse to the M5 .exe file

You don't do this for every .mx5 file you have on your computer, you do it once for the .mx5 file extention.

I did not have to do this on my XP computer, M6 did not mess with my .mx5 program association

Screen shot showing Windows explorer

[botface]

I'm on XP and have MC5 and MC6 installed. MC6 has "taken ownership" of all of my .mx files too. In Windows Explorer .mx5 files show the Type as "Mixcraft 6 Project File" and open with MC6 if I open them from Explorer. MC6 also "took over" some MC4 projects that I had lying around.

It hasn't caused me any problems so I didn't consider it a problem but I'm mentioning it in case it indicates something amiss

[mattumanu]

Hmm,
It does not do that on my XP compter.

Yeah, it did actually. See in your screen grab? It's asking at the bottom of the pic if you want to restore your miscraft 5 file to the default "mixcraft 6" association. It would appear that even on your computer, mixcraft 6 hijacked mixcraft 5 files.

I might try 6 on my other computer. That one is not mission critical.