• Hints and Tips
• Installation Problems (and other compatability issues)
• Bugs and Fixes

Hints and Tips:

The following are hints to using PGPClick.  They address features not yet available, or describe ways to do useful, but not necessarily intuitive, things with PGPClick.

• Encrypting to more than 2 or 3 Recipients

  When specifying more than 2 or 3 recipients, an error is sometimes produced by PGP. This will happen because the DOS line length is exceeded by the list of User IDs.  To help prevent this, select the "Use Key ID instead of User ID" option on the PGPClick tab of the Properties dialog.  This will allow a larger list of recipients.  If you are using a version of PGP (e.g. 2.6.3a or 2.6.3ia) that supports the use of an external file for passing the list of IDs, then make sure you enable PGPClick to use this feature by checking the "Use a separate file for multiple recipients" option on the PGPClick tab of the Properties dialog.

  
  
• Pass Phrase shows when running under Windows NT

  Under Windows NT, the entire command line used to run PGP is visible in the DOS box.  PGPClick normally passes your pass phrase to PGP via the command line.  There are two ways to prevent this.  First, you can pre-set the PGPPASS environment variable in the Global DOS Environment, and then set the "Use PGPPASS, if available" option in PGPClick.  This method is NOT recommended as it presents significant potential for compromise to your pass phrase. The second method is to set the "Set PGPPASS before running PGP" option on the PGP tab in the Properties dialog.  This option only works under Windows NT.

  
  
• What does "Commands to Mark DOS Text" mean?

  (32-bit version only) This entry is part of the "Close PGP Window" option.  Normally, this box should be kept empty.  If PGPClick is not properly copying text from the PGP window before closing it, then try entering the keyboard commands needed to mark text in a DOS window.  Do not include the "alt-space" command needed to display the system menu.  In the English version of Windows, the commands are "ek" (do not include the quotes).  If you are using Windows NT, you will probably need to do this.

  
  
• Useful Auto Copy & Paste Keystrokes

  Click here to see a list of sample Auto Copy & Paste Profile settings.

Installation Problems (and other conflicts):

The following are items describe common problems people have installing or using PGPClick.  Included are ways to prevent the problem. Finally, this section describes known conflicts between PGPClick and other applications.

• An error occurs when running SETUP.EXE

  This error can take several forms. The most common one is when the SETUP.EXE program aborts with an error stating that it can not find ST4UNST.nnn, when in fact the file does exist. These problems are almost always due to not having the complete Visual Basic 4.0 runtime installed prior to running the PGPClick setup program. The needed Visual Basic 4.0 runtime files are:

  • 16-bit: COMPOBJ.DLL; CTL2DV2.DLL; OC25.DLL; OLE2.DLL; OLE2.REG; OLE2CONV.DLL; OLE2DISP.DLL; OLE2NLS.DLL; OLE2PROX.DLL; STORAGE.DLL; TYPELIB.DLL; VAEN21.OLB; and VB40016.DLL
  • 32-bit: MFC40.DLL; MSVCRT20.DLL; MSVCRT40.DLL; OLEPRO32.DLL; VB40032.DLL; and VEN2232.OLB
  
  
• Run-Time Error 31037: "Error Loading From File"

  This error can occur after upgrading the 32-bit edition of PGPClick. It is caused by one of the necessary OCX files not being properly registered. To date, all reported cases have involved the file MGSHOO32.OCX. To fix this, you need to re-register the file by running REGSVR32.EXE from a DOS prompt. To do so, start a MS-DOS session. Next change the working directory to your Windows\System directory. Then type the command (without the quotes): "regsvr32 msghoo32.ocx". If this does not fix the problem, repeat, using tabctl32.ocx in place of msghoo32.ocx.

  
  
• PGP window does not stay open

  Please read the section "Setting up PGPClick" in the PGPClick help file first. This describes the necessary settings for the PGP.EXE properties (32-bit edition) or PGP.PIF file settings (16-bit edition). Also, make sure the "Close PGP Window" box on the "PGP" tab of the PGPClick Properties (under Help menu) is not checked. This will result in the PGP window remaining open when PGP finishes for the 16-bit edition. It may not work for the 32-bit edition.

  Under the 32-bit edition, the above will not work if you are using a 32-bit compile of PGP.EXE. You will know you are using the 32-bit compile of PGP.EXE if the properties for PGP.EXE do not include a "Close on Exit" item. There are two ways to get around this problem. First, you can install a 16-bit compile of PGP for use with PGPClick. I have not noticed any significant speed difference between the 16-bit and 32-bit compiles of PGP--especially for the typical uses of PGPClick. You can have both versions of PGP on your system by installing them in separate directories. Place your keyrings in one of the directories and edit the CONFIG.TXT (or PGP.INI) files in both directories to specify the keyrings in the one directory. Finally, tell PGPClick to use the 16-bit compile of PGP.

  The second method is to use a special "PGP wrapper" program. I have made one available called PGPWrap. To use, download the file and read the instructions included in the archive.

  
  
• Invalid Signatures on Messages

  Word-wrapping is the process of taking long lines of text and splitting them into shorter lines.  Soft word-wrapping involves placing line breaks (carriage-return/line-feed) in the line on the display screen only.  Most email editors do this.  Hard word-wrapping involves placing the line breaks permanently in the text.  Many email programs can also do this.  If a message that is not hard word-wrapped is signed, and then transmitted by a program that performs hard word-wrapping, the line-breaks are added after the text is signed--invalidating the signature.  There are two ways to avoid this problem.

  The first is to disable hard word-wrapping in your email application.  This is not always possible, and does not always work as the text may get word-wrapped by the receiving program anyway.  The second method is to hard word-wrap the message before it is signed.  PGPClick can be instructed to do this.  Select the PGPClick tab in the Properties dialog and select the Word-wrap text before signing or encrypting option.  Specify the column to word-wrap at, making sure this column is less than the column your email program would wrap at.  The default of 64 is almost always safe, though values as high as 72 usually work.

  
  

Bugs and Fixes:

The first item below is not really a bug, but an incompatibility with at least some installations of Windows NT.

• PGPClick does not report PGP errors (Windows NT)

  When the "Close PGP Window" option is set, PGPClick will automatically close the PGP DOS window.  If PGP  returned an error, then PGPClick will display the error.  Under Windows NT, the error is not passed on to PGPClick from PGP .  Therefore, PGPClick does not know when an error has occurred.  You can still select the "View Last Result" menu item (Clip menu) to see if an error occurred.

• PGP is unable to locate an alternative secret key

  PGPClick does not properly pass an alternate secret key to PGP via the key's UserID. If PGPClick has been told to use Key IDs instead of User IDs, then the key is passed correctly.

  Work-around: Tell PGPClick to "Use Key ID instead of User ID". Alternatively, tell PGPClick to use the "default" secret key for all functions.

  Status: This will be fixed in the next release.

• PGPClick is unable to run PGP if the temporary directory name contains long pathnames

  PGPClick does not convert long pathnames to their short equivalent when building the PGP command line. This confuses PGP because PGP does not recognize long filenames. An example of a long pathname is: "C:\Temporary Files".

  Work-around: Change the Temporary Path name to one using only short pathnames (8 characters or less for each part of the path--eg. "C:\Tempor~1").

  Status: This will be fixed in the next release.