How to stop OpenWebStart/JOSM from prompting to make shortcuts on every launch?

Help and support
1

So I’ve just started to use JOSM in the past couple weeks, and there’s a behavior that’s just mildly annoying enough for me to ask about. I’ve installed it on several Windows computers (a few Windows 10, one Windows 11, which should all be generally up-to-date) by installing OpenWebStart 64-bit, and running the josm.jnlp download. This works pretty well, actually, but every single time I launch it (whether from the jnlp file, or from the shortcut created in my Start Menu) it asks me again whether I want to create shortcuts to it. On the first launch it makes perfect sense to ask me and I found rather convenient, but once I already have the shortcut in my Start Menu and that’s how I launched it, it seems rather weird to be asking again.

JOSM OpenWebStart asking to add shortcuts
JOSM OpenWebStart asking to add shortcuts1602×432 40.6 KB

So I need to uncheck those boxes and click the “Ok” each time I want to run it. It’s certainly just a mild annoyance, but it seems like it shouldn’t be needed, so I thought I might have something set up wrong or misconfigured. (It’s even more annoying on my slower computers where I want to do other things while it’s starting up, and I need to go find the dialog buried under other windows.)

1 Like
2

Have those shortcuts actually been created? What happens if you uncheck those boxes and say OK?

Using OWS, not encountered this but do vaguely remember another application that kept prompting and it turned out some initial install flag file had not been deleted after completion i.e. something in the install directory was kicking this. You might want to parse the …\Programs\OpenWebStart directory and it’s subs for something name obvious.

1 Like
3

Yes, if the boxes are checked then it’ll create the shortcuts just fine. Often it’s the Start Menu shortcut that I’m using to launch it in the first place, but it will still ask every time if I want to create the shortcuts again.

Then JOSM launches. Everything’s working just fine, it’s just one of those mild annoyances that I need to uncheck those boxes and click Ok every single time I run the program.

I’ll poke around, but I’m not quite sure what I’m looking for. (I’m actually a Java developer by trade, but I haven’t done anything with desktop, only web & back-end services.)

Thanks for the suggestions and input!