unexpected AHK bahaviour

[Sebastian42]

What would cause running an AHK to open in a text editor instead of performing its function ?

[SALZKARTOFFEEEL]

Not having AHK installed, or the Registry being messed up (possibly because of an anti-virus being stupid).

When you right-click the file, what is the very first option that should also be bold?

[Sebastian42]

I have other AHKs (for entering text) which work, so Autohotkeys is installed, launched and running.
The first entry of the AHK's context menu (in BOLD) is 'Edit'.

[SALZKARTOFFEEEL]

Well, the bold entry is what gets launched when you double-click the file.
Try reinstalling (or repairing) AutoHotkey through the installer.

[Sebastian42]

I can do that, but would rather not, unless it is really necessary. So I'll reveal an anomaly. That one and the same AHK is part of many batch files, which differ only in the 'object' of the AHK. One of those works the right way reliably - DESPITE Context menu's 'edit' being in BOLD. Others might work or might open the AHK in a text editor.

So it seems to me that the engine behind the AHK - i.e. autohotkey.exe must be in good shape, and we should look elsewhere for a remedy.

The AHK had the desired result for years of daily use. The change in behaviour has only occurred since I have trialed a new AHK to do something altogether different. That new
AHK would be launched/run/enabled very rarely. It does achieve its aim.

[SALZKARTOFFEEEL]

I know that AHK itself is fine, the registry is messed up. A reinstall would surely fix this in no time.

I'm guessing you are running the scripts through shortcuts? If so, the problem is that the scripts that don't work correctly are just being launched as a program in the shortcut, whereas the one that works correctly is just passed as a parameter to the correct AutoHotkey.exe.

Again, just run the installer and repair your install or reinstall – only takes a minute, no data is lost, everything continues to work afterwards.

[Sebastian42]

I am running the scripts in batchfiles - shortcuts to which, are what I click.
I have experimented with increasing the delay between the troublesome AHK and the next element - to no avail.
I have also tried clicking the batch file instead of its shortcut - NO improvement.

I did a REPAIR - and there was no improvement.
So I used Revo to uninstall it. Then re-installed it. No improvement.

The good one is still works well; the intermittent one still launched AHK in the text editor.

[Sebastian42]

Since the responses to this thread seem to have petered out, I exploited the fact that I make a clone of my system every week - tested that latest clone and discovered that AHK behaved as required. So I have reverted to that as my continuing system. Updating the changes since the clone was made was arduous, but now all is functional.