Why wincmd .ini ''firstmnu''-item change everytime?

[RandomMarius]

I also use my own personal cloud (my own computers over the internet) to sync my files between my various VMs and PCs.

This is causing endless sync popups and spam as well as occasional conflicts.

1) Don't do it. Really, why do you need to know if the file is writable... especially using such a heavy-handed method? Just write to it when needed and fail at that time...
2) Rather use other checks? Or keep the content the same at least? Open, Change, Save, Read+Confirm, Revert, Close. This will prevent this kind of spam and still cause the file to change to verify the write.

This problem will happen more and more often in today's cloud-focused world. It's only becoming more and more of a bug.

[ghisler(Author)]

Yes, it's a write check. And it should only happen once when TC starts. Do you constantly close and re-open TC?

[RandomMarius]

I must be opening and closing it a few times, I have a few machines (a few vms), and I use my own file synch system to keep config files aligned. I notice these popups, and fortunately perhaps because the writes happens so quickly, I've not had any file conflicts yet.

However, I also notice the file updating at other weird times (have not found what changed yet), and would really like the file never to change unless I actually do a explicit save. That would be nice.

I would prefer a catastrophic fail at the time it needs to write, than doing this unasked-for and heavy-handed write.

This write:

1) Is doing things without my knowledge. This is bad. I don't want it to do anything ever unless I ask for it.
2) It causes my backups to have many many revisions of this file even though I did not change anything.
3) It makes Dropbox/SynCloud/OneDrive/Wuala/etc. sync these files unnecessarily, opening up conflict possibilities and generating notifications.
4) Writing files is bad for flash drives and SSDs (better with modern tech, but still ... this is easily avoidable so why not do it?)

Just add a single config menu item that prevents this to make your users happy? Even if you think we are just complainers? (Or re-use the same one and make it -1 or NaN to disable?

[Horst.Epp]

I must be opening and closing it a few times, I have a few machines (a few vms), and I use my own file synch system to keep config files aligned. I notice these popups, and fortunately perhaps because the writes happens so quickly, I've not had any file conflicts yet.

However, I also notice the file updating at other weird times (have not found what changed yet), and would really like the file never to change unless I actually do a explicit save. That would be nice.

I would prefer a catastrophic fail at the time it needs to write, than doing this unasked-for and heavy-handed write.

This write:

1) Is doing things without my knowledge. This is bad. I don't want it to do anything ever unless I ask for it.
2) It causes my backups to have many many revisions of this file even though I did not change anything.
3) It makes Dropbox/SynCloud/OneDrive/Wuala/etc. sync these files unnecessarily, opening up conflict possibilities and generating notifications.
4) Writing files is bad for flash drives and SSDs (better with modern tech, but still ... this is easily avoidable so why not do it?)

Just add a single config menu item that prevents this to make your users happy? Even if you think we are just complainers? (Or re-use the same one and make it -1 or NaN to disable?

You are kidding
Should a program ask you every time it writes into its own config file ?
Using an SSD is also your problem and not every tools job to avoid writes.

[Dalai]

To answer the thread title's question: TC does this to determine whether or not wincmd.ini is writable. If you happen to know a better way, go for it and let us (and especially Ghisler) know.

Regards
Dalai

[ghisler(Author)]

Writing files is bad for flash drives and SSDs

This isn't true for such seldom writing - I would agree if TC would be writing to it every second or so, but not when writing when closed. SSDs use wear leveling, which means that the same file is written to different cells on each write.

Therefore writing small files many times is absolutely no problem at all. With a cluster size of e.g. 8kByte (the default on NTFS), you need to write the same file one million times to have the same effect as copying just one 8GB video file. Even if you open and close TC 10 times each day, it would take 270 years for one million writes...