Hello folks,

Journal's way of intermittently starting with no toolbars at all has
always bothered me. It happens for no traceable reason. Since I use
Journal quite frequently I have invested some time in a work-around.

The idea is to write the toolbar settings into the Windows registry
before starting Journal. A simple batch file will take care of this.

Unfortunately this work-around is not quite a fix for the problem. For
I have had toolbars vanishing after screen rotation while the program
was running. In that case my work-around does nothing because the
registry is read only when a program is run.

I have been waiting for MS to come up with a fix (which should be a no-
brainer for a programmer with access to the source code). Though the
development of Journal seems to be long dead. Stuck with a half-way
finished piece of software is like having a dead fish as pet: very
sad.

If anybody can come up with a better solution, go ahead! Until then,
below is my work-around.

Cheers!
Stefan Müller
========

A) Create folder 'C:\journal_toolbars' (change location if you prefer)

B) With tablet in Landscape View

1. Open Journal, set the toolbars they way you like them.
2. Close Journal.
3. START | RUN... : regedit.exe
4. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Journal\Lands cape
5. Select File | Export... : Make sure the export range (bottom of
dialogue window is set to "Selected branch".
6. Save the file with name 'Landscape' of type 'Registration files
(*.reg)' in 'C:\journal_toolbars'

C) Repeat the procedure with Portrait View, creating file
'Portrait.reg'

D) Write a batch file that writes the settings of the two Registration
files to the registry before starting Journal:

1. START | RUN... : notepad.exe
2. Type these three lines:
regedit.exe /S Landscape.reg
regedit.exe /S Portrait.reg
start "Journal" "%programfiles%\Windows Journal\Journal.exe"
3. Save the file as 'Reset.bat' in 'C:\journal_toolbars'

E) Do the make-up

1. In Windows-Explorer, right-click on the file 'C:\journal_toolbars
\Reset.bat'
2. Choose Send To... | Desktop (create shortcut)
3. On your desktop, right-click on the newly created shortcut file
3a. Under 'General': rename it to 'Journal_std' or anything you like
3b. Under 'Shortcut' | Change Icon... | <OK> for notification pop-up
|
Look for icons in this file: '%programfiles%\Windows Journal
\Journal.exe'
3c. Accept with OK (twice).

Et voilà! Hope it saves some time and nerves to some of you out there!

I forgot to add:

In case you are using Full Screen mode then you should configure the
settings in step B1) and C1) as well.

Of course, if you ever change the toolbar settings in Journal you need
to export the registry settings anew (steps B4-6), otherwise they get
over-written by the batch process.

All of the toolbars appearance is affected, not only visibility but
also size etc. To correct that, one could manually delete the
unnecessary lines (different from value 'Flags' in key 'Band#') in the
registration file. (Open the file from Notepad.)