The Windows 10 Anniversary update (and possibly other, earlier updates) introduced an issue with the Tournament Director application in which keystrokes and mouse clicks sometimes do not register, making the task of controlling the Tournament Director application and entering data into it difficult and frustrating. Because this issue is in the framework on which the TD application is built, and is a part of Windows, only Microsoft can truly fix it. Hopefully Microsoft will fix it soon, but as of yet it remains an issue.
A workaround for this issue was recently brought to my attention (thanks Peter!), and it involves replacing a single file with an older version of the file. Below are steps for manually performing this workaround. I hope to incorporate a better workaround into the next version of the software (version 3.4), and hopefully into version 3.4 beta 2 which is very near completion, so that no one has to perform these steps to workaround the issue in the future.
The steps below will walk you through the process. I know it looks long, but it's really not that long or difficult. I've given screenshots for every step to make it easy.
To workaround this issue, follow these steps:-
Create a System Restore Point, just to be safe.
- Download
mshta.exe and save it to a folder on your PC. Make a note of where the file is saved.
- Press Windows+E (press the E key while holding down the Windows key) to open a Windows Explorer window.
- In the location bar, enter:
C:\Windows\SysWOW64 and press
Enter.
Note if you are running a 32-bit copy of Windows, which is unlikely, the folder is
C:\Windows\system32.
- Scroll down and find the file
mshta.exe.
- Right-click mshta.exe and select
Properties.
- Select the
Security tab.
- Press the
Advanced button near the bottom.
- Click the
Change link near the top next to
Owner:.
- Enter your Windows login/user name in the box and press the
Check Names button.
- Windows should replace your name with your full user name, which includes your machine name (or domain name if on a domain). Press the
OK button.
- You are now the owner of the file and can make changes to it. Press the
OK button.
- Press the
Edit button.
- Press the
Add button.
- Enter your Windows login/user name in the box and press the
Check Names button. Windows should replace your name with your full user name, which includes your machine name (or domain name if on a domain). Press the
OK button.
- Your user name has now been added to the list of
Group or user names:. Make sure your name is selected.
- Click the box in the
Allow column next to
Full control.
- Press the
OK button.
- Press the
Yes button on the
Windows Security warning dialog.
- Press the
OK button to close the
mshta Properties dialog.
- Right-click
mshta.exe and select
Rename.
- Rename the file to
mshta_orig and press
Enter.
- Press the
Continue button if you get a security warning dialog.
- Copy or move the
mshta.exe file you downloaded from this post into the
C:\Windows\SysWOW64 folder.
- Press the
Continue button if you get a security warning dialog.
- Done!
Note: You may receive additional security warnings and/or be required to enter the login and/or password of an Administrator account when performing these steps. Or, you may need to be logged into Windows as an administrator. I have not tried this with a Standard User account.
Full disclosure and warnings: Technically this is modifying Windows. If you are not comfortable doing this, then you probably shouldn't. mshta.exe is a feature of Windows mostly used by System Administrators these days and has little use in home systems, as far as I am aware (aside from the TD of course!) These steps temporarily replace mshta.exe with the version of it that comes with Windows 10. You can reverse these steps at any time. If any side effects are found, you can easily replace mshta.exe with the original version or restore from your system restore point. Also, any future Windows updates that include changes to mshta.exe will wipe out this modification.