[norman]

I am a long-time user of WinFax Pro (10.0.2) under Windows XP-SP3 Pro and earlier. Everything I have tried so far (sending, receiving, backing-up, phone books, and so on) worked just fine, until now when I had occasion to use Drag and Drop Depot.
When I drop a file (tif, pdf, txt, jpeg) on its icon, the Send Fax screen opens with my cover page displayed, but no file. In the case of the tif file, an error window opens from the Message Manager: ‘Unable to attach “c:…FAXMES~1.TIF” WinFax cannot automatically print all document types. … .’; in the case of the other file types, no messages are generated.
Both WinFax printer drivers are installed and work as they should.

[Administrator]

Have you tried “WinFax No Pages Fix” in WinFax Tools yet? If not, try that first. Let me know if that solves the problem.

[norman]

Thank you for your quick response. No, that did not help.

[Administrator]

in WinFax Tools, click Start Controller.
click Show Printers.
Select the WinFax PRO printer, right-click Properties. Click Print Test Page. Does WinFax PRO send screen display with the test page?

repeat the steps for the WinFax PRO Photo Quality driver.

Did the test page appear in the Winfax Send dialog screen?

[norman]

Both test pages appear in turn in the Send screen display.

[Administrator]

if both test pages appear, this indicates the WinFax PRO printer drivers are working correctly.

Is the problem only with the drag and drop depot wth TIFF images? If you right-click on the TIFF image file, and click Print. Does it open a printer dialog box to allow you to select a printer?

[norman]

I tested 4 file types: tif, jpg, txt, pdf.
tif: right-clicking file opens printer dialog box, dropping on Drag and Drop Depot icon generates error message described in first post
jpg: right-clicking file opens printer dialog box, dropping on Drag and Drop Depot icon generates error message described in first post
txt: right-clicking file sends it directly to printer, dropping on Drag and Drop Depot icon generates error message described in first post
pdf: right-clicking file sends it directly to printer, dropping on Drag and Drop Depot icon DOES NOT generate error message
IN EACH CASE, when the file is dropped on the icon, the Send FAX window opens but only my cover page appears, not the file itself

[norman]

This may be relevant: when I drop an fxr file onto the Drag and Drop Depot icon, the Send Fax screen opens as it should, displaying both my cover page and the fxr file; there are no error messages.

[Administrator]

Has the drag and drop depot worked before using .tiff, txt type files?

Right-click the WinFax drag & drop icon on the desktop. Click Properties.
What is listed under the Shortcut tab , under Target and Start In areas?

you should have a link pointing to wfxctl32.exe with -fd flags.
example:

TARGET: “C:Program FilesWinFaxWFXCTL32.EXE” -fd

and start in should look like:

“C:Program FilesWinFax”

also, is the WinFax Controller open before you attempt to use the drag & drop depot?

[norman]

1. I do not know whether the Drag and Drop Depot worked before using tif or txt files, as I didn’t try.
2. The TARGET field of the shortcut tab points to WFXCTL32.EXE with -fd flags, as it should, and the ‘Start In’ entry is correct as well.
3. The WinFax Controller icon is in the notification area (system tray) of my taskbar, ready to receive.

[Administrator]

It seems your setup is OK, so it may be related to the file type associations defined in Windows. The .txt, .pdf and .tiff file types can be associated (linked) to different types of applications that are capable of opening these file types, for example, .txt can be associated to third party software Text Editor instead of the default notepad.exe. What programs open by default when you double-click a .txt file, .tiff file and .pdf file?

[norman]

Bingo! Well, one for three, anyway.
tif: current association, IrfanView; when changed to Windows default (Windows Picture and Fax Viewer), Send Fax screen DOES display the tif file when it is dropped on Drag and Drop Depot icon. No error messages.
txt: current association, UltraEdit32; when changed to Windows default (Notepad), Send Fax screen DOES NOT display the txt file when it is dropped on Drag and Drop Depot icon. No error messages.
pdf: current association, Foxit Reader; when changed to Adobe Reader 9.0, Send Fax screen DOES NOT display the pdf file when it is dropped on Drag and Drop Depot icon. No error messages.

[Administrator]

I checked on a stock Windows XP SP3 PC and the notepad.exe associated .txt files would not drag and drop into the depot properly. Its possible that due to Windows security updates and software security updates, these features have been disabled. Many of these applications now no longer allow automatic printing, thus this causes the drag & drop depot feature to fail.

[norman]

What about pdf?

[Administrator]

@norman wrote:

What about pdf?

I did not try pdf only because the stock Windows XP does not have any PDF application installed . I will install the latest Adobe Acrobat Reader and report back the results.

[Author]

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