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Messages - ConstanceJill [ switch to compact view ]

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26
Alright then, I'm still using it every day at work so I'm available if you have a version you want tested :D

27
DC Gamer Club / Re: Latest GOG Giveaway
« on: September 26, 2019, 01:57 AM »
Nice :)
I remember the first Freespace game had cool music, so while I am terrible at those 3D space games, I'll still get it so I can extract the soundtrack xD


28
Screenshot Captor / Re: Tint is appearing over the whole window
« on: September 13, 2019, 06:40 AM »
So it seems the problem is actually related to the Lenovo Vantage software, as someone mentioned in the first link that mouser gave.

Softpedia made a new article on that topic: https://news.softped...enshots-527370.shtml

29
Screenshot Captor / Re: Tint is appearing over the whole window
« on: September 09, 2019, 03:21 PM »
Hi.

It seems it's an issued related to Windows 10 itself (and maybe some graphics drivers), at least according to this article: https://news.softped...int-bug-527311.shtml

30
Hello again to the 3 or so people who are following this thread :D

I've made an updated version again, which should (hopefully) prevent the issue of updating Adobe Reader, at least for the next update. Unfortunately I can not tell for sure that it won't crop up again for the second update after running the script :/

If a previous version of the script has already been ran on a system and Adobe Reader can't be updated or uninstalled any more because of it, running the new version should also fix it, as it will change the 'Uninstallable' value for the current patch(es) even if it doesn't clear any superseded one.

That new version shall be attached to the first post within a few seconds after the posting of this message.

31
OK, so it seems that there can indeed be issues after using my script when you try to update or uninstall Adobe Acrobat Reader (and possibly Adobe Acrobat "not Reader" too).

I had to use the Adobe Reader and Acrobat Cleaner Tool on one computer (running Windows 10, not sure if that makes a difference or not) because update 19.012.20040 wouldn't install and the program wouldn't uninstall either using Programs and Features :/ … I guess that's why PatchCleaner has it in its exclusion filter.

Edit: I updated Adobe Reader without issue on several computers where I had previously ran my script, all of them running Windows 7.
But on another one that runs Windows 10, I had the issue too.
So I guess the problem is somehow related to how msiexec works on Windows 10 (and perhaps 8, but I don't have access to any computer running this version).

I'll try to figure out a way to fix that. According to the error code (1646), seems likely to be related to the "Uninstallable" value for the last remaining patch, which is usually set to 0 instead of 1 for Adobe Reader patches.

Edited again: seems like it can also happen on machines running 7 after all, as it did on one of my home ones. Changing the data of the "Uninstallable" value of the latest successfully installed patch from "0" to "1" did allow the newest patch to install at the next attempt.

32
Alright, I have news: I made a new version, which is significantly faster than the previous one.

The speed change is mostly due to a major change in the algorithm: instead of starting from the list of files in %windir%\Installer and, for each and every one of them, searching for a match through potentially hundreds of registry keys, we start by looking at the registry and creating lists of known files, and patches with their current state. Then we work with those lists' contents.

The new version is attached to this post. I'm not sure if I should (or even can) change the attachment to the initial post (?)

33
Nice, thanks! I hate spammers with a passion…

34
Hmm perhaps I should replace the message with something like "it's advised to make a backup or your system before you use this script", and maybe remove the red background, then? ^^'

35
OK, thank you for letting me know the results :)

Hmm I don't know if it's an effect of the summer vacation or if I should have tried to scare people a bit less, but only 2 answers in 2 days seems a bit low. I also didn't expect the testers to have such clean systems already xD

36
Hmm while re-reading my own code, I noticed a bug in one of the functions (regread): while attempting to optimize it after debugging it, I went a bit overzealous and removed the line that set the "Value" variable, which would have been used if we tried to read the data from any registry value with 1 or more spaces in its name.

However none of the registry values we need to read has any, which is why it has no effect on the outcome of the script, so that alone is not worth publishing an updated version for. Still, it will be fixed in the "final" version.

Edit: found another minor bug: if the script was called by double clicking it instead of from an already opened command prompt, the script's window closes at the end, while it should stay open and pause to let the user read the statistics.
Again, it doesn't seem worth publishing an update yet, but will be fixed.

37
That's not much. Was your system installed recently? Do you perhaps not have MS Office on it? Or maybe you used another cleaning tool already which may have removed most of the unneeded updates?

38
Hello there :)

As some of you may be aware, Windows' "C:\Windows\Installer" folder tends to grow increasingly larger as time passes and more updates get applied to programs which rely on Windows Installer — especially if you've had the same version of Microsoft Office for a few years and let Windows Update do its thing automatically.
There are various solutions to this problem such as:

  • reinstalling the system from scratch: huh, overkill much?
  • completely uninstalling the big programs/software suites that had multiple updates in the past, and reinstalling them (if still needed) with only the latest, current patches: while less overkill than a complete system reinstall, it's still not a very practical solution
  • moving the folder to a different drive and making a hard link to it: may not always be feasible, especially if you have a laptop with no room to add another internal storage drive… also, while that's kind of clever, it's only a workaround that doesn't really address the main problem
  • using a dedicated cleaning tool such as PatchCleaner: IMHO, that appears to be the best option

However, some people may have trust issues with PatchCleaner because it is closed source.

So, since I was curious about how that worked, I tried to figure out how to identify superseded patches and started to script my own, open source (it's a .bat file, not obfuscated) solution that should give similar results — albeit with a much less sexy interface and less options, but the more suspicious people can actually inspect the code!

A few words of caution, though:
  • I've only tested it on a few computers so far, all running the same version of Windows (7)
  • while I've not noticed any issue after using my script to "clean up" those (again very few) computers I did test it on, and had no problem applying the august 2019 security updates for MS Office 2010/2013 on them, I cannot tell for sure if there won't be issues later on
  • I'm not even a programmer, which I guess increases the probability for this script to not be extremely reliable ^^'

This is why I need testers, preferably technically inclined ones for now, so that if my script causes an issue, they're more likely to be able to clearly explain it and maybe even solve it by themselves.

With that being said, the script is in the attachment.

Feel free to reply with any constructive criticism!

39
That could work, especially with Windows' "mouse keys" feature to help with moving the cursor a single pixel at a time. Thanks for the suggestion! :Thmbsup:

40
General Software Discussion / Image editor with a zoom reticle?
« on: July 25, 2019, 05:46 AM »
Hey there,

I've been wondering if there is any image editor out there (or maybe a plug-in for an existing image editor), preferably freeware, where the user can press or hold a key to activate a zoom reticle over a very localized area.

The point being: while helping my users via remote control, I often want to take screenshots of a specific window to document the issues they're having, however I can't exactly do that with Alt+Printscreen due to the active window on my end being the remote control software's.
So what I do is take screenshots of my whole monitor, which I then have to crop as I want to show only the relevant window(s).

However, I'm a bit of a maniac when it comes to cropping, and as much as possible, I want to avoid having a few lines of pixels that aren't part of the window showing on the edges, or the window's picture to have missing pixels — yeah, I should probably take some kind of medication for that ^^'.

So I use the zoom feature from whichever picture editor I have at hand, so I can see the individual pixels while making my rectangular selection, but then the whole picture is zoomed in and unless it's actually quite small, I can't see both the top left and bottom right corner at the same time, which is annoying.

Thus the idea of a zoom reticle which could be activated and deactivated with a keypress (or by holding a key).

I did try using Windows' magnifying glass, but its zoom is blurry and not "pixel perfect" — I guess they wanted it to have some kind of antialiasing.

Does anyone know of an image editor which includes that feature, or has/could have a plug-in which does that?

Failing that, maybe an alternate magnifying glass software which could be enabled and disabled from the keyboard (so I don't need to move the mouse to disable it), and if possible would even allow slowing the mouse movement when it's active? Obviously, it should allow to see exactly where the mouse cursor is.

If not, then I guess that could be a coding snack…

41
Alright then, if French language isn't an issue, there's http://gratilog.net

42
Do sites in languages other than english qualify?

43
It's only concerning if you play files from untrusted sources, though.

44
Which laptop model is it?

Are the BIOS and Intel Management Engine Firmware (if applicable) up to date?

45
N.A.N.Y. 2014 / Re: NANY 2014 Release - Spews
« on: July 03, 2019, 10:49 AM »
Hey there .o/

I just added a second monitor to my work PC and noticed something which I'd call a minor aesthetic issue.

My main monitor  has a resolution of 1920x1200 while the second one is 1600x1200.

The issue is, it seems that (and looking at "<Spews' folder here>\~images\wallpaper.bmp" pretty much confirms it), the wallpaper is generated only according to the definition of the main monitor.
Thus when it is applied to the secondary monitor, it isn't scaled or centred properly.

Would it be possible to make it so that Spews generates a bigger picture to be displayed on both monitors at once, kind of like Wallpaper Welder does ? :)

46
Not sure about cows, but pigs, probably, at least if this source is reliable.

47
Hi. How about good old FTP?

You could just start ftpdmin on the Windows machine, and connect to it using your command line ftp client from the headless Linux.

49
Screenshot Captor / Re: Imageshack upload no longer working
« on: March 19, 2019, 11:15 AM »
Any alternate service suggestions?
From what I've seen so far, imgur seems to work alright most of the time and doesn't ask for money.

50
General Software Discussion / Re: youtube downloader?
« on: March 18, 2019, 07:23 AM »
I've recently discovered 4K Video Downloader, which isn't a browser add-on, but it seems a decent and simple downloader app:

https://www.4kdownload.com/
I've used it for a while but got annoyed by the ads trying to get me to buy the full version.

Then I discovered Free Download Manager which has no ads and mostly does the job (though it seems to be limited to 1080p even when a 1440p version of the video is available).

It also allows you to change the bandwidth it uses for downloading on the fly, which may be useful if you have somewhat slow Internet access and decide you'd want to watch some streaming while you've already started a download.

Now since then I got fibre optics internet access at home, and don't need to limit my bandwidth usage any more, I've mostly switched to Youtube-DLG (a minimalistic GUI for youtube-dl), which doesn't seem to allow changing the bandwidth on the fly, but does download 1440p videos when available.

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