PuTTY semi-bug needs-removeable-media

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We've had several reports of trouble where PuTTY will not start (a session, it sounds like, rather than at all) unless there is a disc in a drive with removeable media: "There is no disk in the drive. Please insert a disk into drive D:" (In all reports that have specified, it has been D: rather than another drive, but of course that's the most common removeable drive letter.) There's no obvious reason for this, such as a path set in the configuration or shortcut that refers to the removeable drive.

We've not run into this ourselves, or been able to reproduce it.

This is vaguely reminiscent of pageant-dirhandle, but probably not the same thing.

The earliest version this has been reported with is 0.61. It appears that it was the addition of support for Windows 7 jump lists. that triggered this. (All reports that have specified an OS have been with Windows 7.)

A correspondent says

It appears to be hung / frozen at this function call.

Winjump.c/update_jumplist_from_registry/if (!SUCCEEDED(pCDL->lpVtbl->BeginList

The Windows documentation about ICustomDestinationList mentions calling the SetAppID function beforehand, and I figured out that you need to call SetCurrentProcessExplicitAppUserModelID before using SetAppID.

So, I added this to WinMain in window.c

       SetCurrentProcessExplicitAppUserModelID(L"PuTTY");

And tried again. Voila! No error. I did not have to add a SetAppID before BeginList.

The call stack when it hangs seems to indicate that it's trying to invent an App ID from things like filenames.

This seems like a harmless and useful change to make, so we've done so (using a different string for UserModelID).

Reports:

• 76179E18B340E04CA376B95E510416FEAB8719@nasanexd01d.na.qualcomm.com (Jan 2012, 0.61 on Windows 7)
  Error message "when trying to open a session"
  "still happens on a profile that I've asked not to use the GSSAPI"
  Workaround: "From the device manager, I disabled the cd drive and then putty ran fine. I re-enabled the cd drive and putty ran fine. So that must have cleared some setting or data somewhere in windows."
• 9a3ca081-3c9d-4ff1-b109-30bb6edb20db@h6g2000yqk.googlegroups.com (Jan 2012)
  Reboot made issue apparently go away
• 50EB2A5D03FF4848A90AC0217EE38965029B132F@corpatsmail4.corp.sensis.com (Feb 2013, 0.62/2013-02-25 on Windows 7
  "How to cause issue:
  Insert ANY cd into computer run it and eject CD
  Open PuTTY
  Load a Profile
  Get No Disk Error
  Rebooting or inserting ANY cd will fix the issue
  We are experiencing this issue on all of our computers."
• 536278DB.7070801@klpd-uli.nl (May 2014, Windows 7 Ultimate)
  "When I am starting putty"
  Drive itself is removeable; no problem if it is absent
• 54DBE295.2060903@shopsite.com (Feb 2015, 0.63 on Win 7 Professional)
  "if I ever launch putty with a CD or DVD in the drive, putty then requires a CD or DVD to be present in the drive to make a connection until I reboot without a CD or DVD in." Have to reboot to clear the condition.
• 009a01d0e6e7$1e3db9e0$5ab92da0$@gmx.de (Sep 2015, Windows 7)
• 253A8A19C1E94042A83B87F2A12D015E52A7DCF3@HDXDSP51.us.lmco.com (Aug 2016, with patch). Steps to repeat:
  Insert CD
  Start Putty / Load Profile / Connect
  Stop Putty
  Eject CD