Messages

7501

General Software Discussion / Re: Xenon Portable File Manager - Portable Associations!

« on: April 19, 2009, 05:03 PM »

I've been messing around with a Rescue USB key drive for my Vista64 machine.  So now I realize that SysWOW64 won't be there on the USB. So all the apps I put on, assuming I'm only going to be able to boot off the USB key, need to be native 64 bit.  That and "portable" really cuts down on your choices.

-MilesAhead (April 19, 2009, 12:08 PM)

I'm not sure I follow - if you're booting from the USB then the apps need to be whatever will run in the USB's OS, right?  If the USB OS is 32-bit, then you don't even have the option of 64-bit apps.  If the USB's OS is 64-bit then it'll have a SysWOW64 directory so 32-bit apps will be able to load the 32-bit Windows DLLs.

Unless I'm missing something, your rescue USB drive should be fine with 32-bit apps.

-mwb1100 (April 19, 2009, 01:45 PM)

You're right.  It does have SysWow64 folder after all.

7502

Living Room / Re: OS Re-install Tips?

« on: April 19, 2009, 12:16 PM »

I noticed on the vLite site there was some discussion of an application install automation.  After the OS is on, it runs this script driven engine. Part of the strategy is setting up the installs so as to minimize reboots for apps that require setup to continue after a reboot etc..  Don't recall the name offhand but a search of vLite site should find it easily.

7503

General Software Discussion / Re: Xenon Portable File Manager - Portable Associations!

« on: April 19, 2009, 12:08 PM »

So is Xenon truly portable or not?

Aren't the installers with Portable Apps sometimes just so you can choose where they go?

-CleverCat (April 19, 2009, 03:13 AM)

To me, "portable" means self-contained.  Doesn't use the Registry.  Settings, if any in an .ini file in the same folder as the exe.  Usually you get a zip file with instructions to "unpack in any folder and make a shortcut" and that's it.  Or the exe itself will unpack some files in that folder on the first run but it won't use Registry or AppData.  At least the ones I've seen.

I've been messing around with a Rescue USB key drive for my Vista64 machine.  So now I realize that SysWOW64 won't be there on the USB. So all the apps I put on, assuming I'm only going to be able to boot off the USB key, need to be native 64 bit.  That and "portable" really cuts down on your choices.

7504

General Software Discussion / Re: Xenon Portable File Manager - Portable Associations!

« on: April 18, 2009, 08:44 PM »

Yeah, kind of like the word "free" in shareware sites that have no freeware.  The download is "free" because you are not charged for downloading trialware.  Makes it tougher to find "freeware" which I guess is the idea.

7505

General Software Discussion / Re: Xenon Portable File Manager - Portable Associations!

« on: April 18, 2009, 06:28 PM »

Conflicting concepts, perhaps? 

-Shades (April 18, 2009, 06:22 PM)

Yeah, kind of like those software splash pages where it lists all the features and then says and MORE!!!!! when there ain't no more.  If they could think of another specific feature to claim they woulda' done it.

7506

General Software Discussion / Re: Xenon Portable File Manager - Portable Associations!

« on: April 18, 2009, 06:26 PM »

All of the apps from portableapps.com come with installers....I see nothing weird about it.

-Josh (April 18, 2009, 05:06 PM)

I guess it has an option to hook them all in some framework or something.  Anyway, looks like a cool thing to have on USB.

7507

General Software Discussion / Re: Xenon Portable File Manager - Portable Associations!

« on: April 18, 2009, 04:22 PM »

Does anyone else think it weird that a "portable" app comes with an installer?
I'm making a restore point before I push the button

7508

Living Room / Re: for the past 50 years, American students were taught bullshit

« on: April 18, 2009, 04:04 PM »

I thought they called it "grammar school" because they taught you that elementary crap there

-MilesAhead (April 18, 2009, 12:20 PM)

No, they are so called because of the courses designed to teach young ladies how to be come old ones.

-cranioscopical (April 18, 2009, 12:59 PM)

Oh that clears it up. I thought it was an award for creating the most insipid music available for purchase.

7509

Living Room / Re: for the past 50 years, American students were taught bullshit

« on: April 18, 2009, 12:20 PM »

The one saving grace of language is that it changes with usage. If your grammar is horrid, get as many people as you can to copy your style.  If enough of you are "wrong" together, then you'll be "right."

I thought they called it "grammar school" because they taught you that elementary crap there.  Not in university. Anyway, I don't correct other people's grammar because I'm too busy trying to convince them that Cable TV and Cell Phones weren't always "just there" like the sun, moon, oceans and air.

They know I'm trying to snow them though.  They're not falling for it!

7510

Developer's Corner / Re: Microsoft releases SmallBasic for Newbie Programmers

« on: April 17, 2009, 11:34 PM »

.NET 3.5 also installs 2.0

I very seriously doubt that.  The .NET Framework 3.5 is incredibly extensive.  I don't envision a slew of further versions beyond 3.5; but we'll see.

-kyrathaba (March 11, 2009, 06:50 PM)

.NET 4.0 was announced in the last PDC so...

-Lashiec (March 11, 2009, 07:17 PM)

Don't forget the minor updates.  Like 3.51a SP3. 

7511

Post New Requests Here / Re: A stand-alone exe to save and restore the MBR

« on: April 17, 2009, 11:11 PM »

Thanks for the reply. 
I have my USB MBR rescue key all set up now.
btw in case it would be helpful to anyone else, I found a nice
line by line how to set up a bootable USB key drive if you have
WinPE(probably also works for VistaPE I would guess).  It shows
all the commands to clean, format, and mark active the USB key
and copy the WinPE file structure on with xcopy:

Create bootable WinPE USB key

7512

Post New Requests Here / A stand-alone exe to save and restore the MBR

« on: April 17, 2009, 06:25 PM »

As floppy disks are a thing of the past, a simple utility to save and restore the MBR seems tougher to find.  It should be able to run in a Dos box so when you boot a WinPE based CD you can run the exe straight from a USB key or whatever.  I found one called HDHacker, but it's implemented in VB.  I can't figure out how to add my disk drivers to WinPE so I don't really want to add the hassle of adding VB run-time on top of it. (I can, however, load my RAID disk drivers manually once the WinPE is loaded using Drvload.)

If anyone knows of an already existing one that isn't stuck away in a Dos boot image I'd appreciate it.

Right now as a stop gap I'm using the trick of a single file in a "dummy partition" and backing that up with Macrium Reflect.  At the end of the restore I have the option to write the MBR from the backup to the HD.  It does the job, but it's kind of a silly way to do something so basic.

7513

Coding Snack Guidelines / Re: IDEA: mod to Windows FileOpen and FileSave dialogs to select folder(s)

« on: April 17, 2009, 12:14 PM »

Thanks for the reply.  I'm really looking for a programming component that presents the user with a dialog that looks like FileOpen or FileSave but allows folder selection.  For some reason a decision was made to prevent the Windows dialogs from being subclassed.  Otherwise you could just start with that and add enhancements using any number of programming languages.

The only one I saw that actually looked like what I'm talking about was a commercial control and they wanted like $300 for it. Kind of a lot to pay when you're likely to be giving away the application that uses it.

Hard to believe but even with all the Aero exploding windows and effects the old ShBrowseForFolder() is still all we have.

7514

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR quits without error msg in Windows7 7077

« on: April 15, 2009, 05:39 PM »

I backed it off to v. 2.45.01 with no DcUpdater or Everything plugin.  Just running default FARR installation with autoupdate check disabled and it seems stable.. if that helps any.

7515

Developer's Corner / Re: Windows help file argument passing

« on: April 15, 2009, 12:14 PM »

You may find this program helpful(pun intended) 

http://www.keyworks.net/keyhh.htm

7516

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Paragon Drive Backup 9 Special Edition For Free!

« on: April 15, 2009, 11:02 AM »

Just FYI, I tried the Macrium Reflect paid version.  It accessed my HD no problem.  I did a full C: partition image and restore. The Rescue CD is a newer version than the Macrium free.  Just thought I'd pass it on in case somebody is running an HP m9515y with Raid Ready.

7517

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Paragon Drive Backup 9 Special Edition For Free!

« on: April 14, 2009, 06:35 PM »

@marlau in the last week I found out a few more things.

1) If you have a large tree of files to exclude, Paragon lists them individually.  As example, I tried out W7 beta and did a "Custom" install.  This gives me a Windows.old folder with a lot of the Vista junk in it.  Well, I tried excluding it from the backup.  The recitation of the exclusion list was going to take days I think!! Way longer than just backing up.  I copied the stuff off with RichCopy utility.  Turns out I had 206,000 files/folders in that tree!!  What happened to the days of an OS on a disc you could lift?

2)If you have a RAID setup that needs a Windows driver, the Linux based Rescue CD isn't going to help much.  I did a restore and it took overnight for it to lay the image back on.  On my older system it would have taken 45 minutes to an hour.  There may be a BIOS setting that might help but I wasn't it the mood to mess with it because I think everything on this machine is set up in a SCSI emulation and I have no idea why they set up RAID on a machine with One HD. Anyway, some of the backup programs are coming with WinPE that lets you load Windows drivers.  If you have 32 bit OS you may be able to make your own BartPE based rescue, but 64 bit you are kind of stuck.

So my advice before even doing a backup is see what kind of HD configuration you have.  Burn the Rescue CD and boot it.  Go into the restore program.  If when you select Normal Mode(the top menu choice) if the screen goes funky and it hangs, then you probably want to find a different program.

On my Dual Core PC running 32 bit Vista the Rescue CD works great.  It's all a matter of hardware compatibility.  It's better to find out before you're really stuck though.  If it doesn't work out for you then you might try one of the others.  I'm looking at Macrium Reflect that has a WinPE on the paid version but I'm trying to find out if there's a hardware list of tested disk controllers so I don't get stuck again.

If you have plain Vanilla Sata drive though, it should work for you.

7518

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR quits without error msg in Windows7 7077

« on: April 14, 2009, 11:56 AM »

Sorry I haven't been able to follow up on this yet. I found out that my 64 bit Vista machine as it stands now, requires an all night operation to restore a disk image, due to Raid Windows driver issue(Linux rescue CD doesn't work so well.)  So I'm working on getting an acceptable backup solution on that machine.  I'll mess with W7 and FARR when I can.

7519

General Software Discussion / Update Environment shell refresh freebie

« on: April 13, 2009, 04:38 PM »

This is just a little freebie called UpdateEnv

All it does is refresh the Windows shell.  Sometimes you can use it to
avoid a log off/log back on cycle.  Comes in handy now and then.

7520

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR quits without error msg in Windows7 7077

« on: April 11, 2009, 05:19 PM »

Looks like i need to set up a windows7 virtual machine and do somet tests.. thanks for the reports and if you figure out any other clues please do let me know. 

-mouser (April 11, 2009, 04:53 PM)

Sure thing. I've been setting up a lot of apps but when I things plateau I'll mess with it for a bit. If I notice anything I'll post.

7521

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR quits without error msg in Windows7 7077

« on: April 11, 2009, 01:57 PM »

So far the only error msg has been DcUpdater crashing, apparently during an automatic check.  What makes it tough is when task tray apps go away the icon still sits there until you happen to mouse over.  With no error msg I can't get any idea why it's going south.

7522

General Software Discussion / Re: Make Linux magically disappear

« on: April 11, 2009, 01:53 PM »

Like if the guy in the other cubicle left to get a coffee or something.

-MilesAhead (April 10, 2009, 10:24 PM)

That was you? You swine! Ruined practically every coffee break...

-cranioscopical (April 10, 2009, 10:40 PM)

Hey!! You coulda' brought me back a coffee now and then ya' know!!

7523

General Software Discussion / Re: Make Linux magically disappear

« on: April 10, 2009, 10:24 PM »

Reminds me of the old 2 instruction Dos program:
cli
jmp $

Turn off interrupts and jump here. If you ran it in an OS/2 Dos box it would hard lock the machine unless it had a built-in break out alarm handler. All the machines had debug.com so you could bring up a Dos window and in a few seconds type those lines in, assemble the program and run it.  Like if the guy in the other cubicle left to get a coffee or something.

7524

Find And Run Robot / FARR quits without error msg in Windows7 7077

« on: April 10, 2009, 10:48 AM »

Sorry I can't provide more information. I'll use FARR, with no extra plugins, just DcUpdater. I don't notice any error. Then after awhile, I'll hit the break key and nothing.  Look in the tray and it's gone!!  No error msg.  This is in 32 bit W7 that recently came on the scene.

It's gonna' be tough to break(pun accidental) the habit of hitting that key when I want to open something.  I'll have the shakes soon I know!!! 

If I see anything that may provide any clues to what's going on I'll post.

(FARR v. 2.5302)

7525

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: MouseLocater - automatic highlight cursor when mouse is moved again

« on: April 08, 2009, 04:34 PM »

This is "Coding Snacks": Someone requests a program, another one codes it. It's not "Programming School".  The thread starter can learn from the source code and make it better.

I don't see how doing it all for the person gets them there.

-MilesAhead (April 08, 2009, 12:32 PM)

That's where we disagree. I got interested in Autohotkey because years ago I requested a coding snack and Skrommel coded it for me. This was very helpful. I studied the source code, got interested in Autohotkey, started writing my own simple scripts and now do own tiny script applications with GUIs doing a lot of things. Telling me "Hey, use Autoit. It has For While and Do loops and Select Case like basic" back then would've been not helpful at all.

IMHO, if you want people to get interested in AutoIt, praising its benefits is nice, but posting applications ("See how easy it is done?") would be more effective.

-wr975 (April 08, 2009, 03:54 PM)

I don't see how your approach of telling the OP to use a utility that doesn't fulfill the requirements is more helpful than mine.  If  you insist
on posting working code then please do so, instead of seeking to control others.