Recent Posts

7826

General Software Discussion / Re: Request for a good slipstreaming procedure

« Last post by f0dder on December 29, 2006, 05:36 PM »

Yup, nLite+RyanVM. There's been a few versions (or mix of different versions of the two) that have caused me problems, but I've caught those in vmware before testing on my real machine. Haven't had a single problem.

7827

Developer's Corner / Re: TinyXML Library for C++ (I Love It)

« Last post by f0dder on December 29, 2006, 05:03 PM »

It's nice enough and amount the better I've tried - but I still think it could be easier. I ran into a couple of weird quirks with it anyway, not that I can remember them off the top of my head.

7828

General Software Discussion / Re: Request for a good slipstreaming procedure

« Last post by f0dder on December 29, 2006, 05:01 PM »

Sounds like you've done something very wrong

If you're left with some files you can't remove, perhaps there's some filesystem corruption?

And slow install speed sounds wrong, the unattended setups I've done have been faster than normal windows install... but perhaps I'm just lucky? 

7829

General Software Discussion / Re: Request for a good slipstreaming procedure

« Last post by f0dder on December 29, 2006, 06:26 AM »

What comes up with a verification failure? The disk burning? If so, don't try to install from that disc...

7830

General Software Discussion / Re: Why piracy is the better choice

« Last post by f0dder on December 28, 2006, 04:14 PM »

Carol: XBOX360+Vista-only... that does sound plausible to me. MS even released at least one games (I think it was one of the Age-of-something) which refused to run on win2k - for no good reason, which was revealed when some pirate group removed the XP-only check.

They're willing to do a lot to push their new pile of manure. (also remember how HALO was delayed after MS-purchase because it had to be converted to run on xbox instead of it's original target platform, the PC... and then the PC version was delayed for even longer, to help drive the original XBOX sales. I know several persons that bought an XBOX just for halo.)

7831

General Software Discussion / Re: Why piracy is the better choice

« Last post by f0dder on December 28, 2006, 03:42 PM »

And neither will the hybrid flash/disk drives be... intel have shown disks running under XP though, so they might release some drivers... *hope*

7832

Living Room / Re: PC to MAC? coming soon? will i cry or jump for joy?

« Last post by f0dder on December 27, 2006, 06:18 PM »

Just don't expect to be able to run games or really demanding stuff in a VM...

Ask yourself if you're going to spend most of the time in parallels running windows apps - if so, don't bother with a mac.

7833

General Software Discussion / Re: Why piracy is the better choice

« Last post by f0dder on December 27, 2006, 06:16 PM »

Too bad how DRM punishes the regular users but doesn't stop the pirates, huh?

7834

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: Replacement Power Options applet

« Last post by f0dder on December 27, 2006, 06:11 PM »

You need to find a launcher - I wrote a little hacky tool with no error checking, but you're probably better off googling for "win2000launcher"

7835

General Software Discussion / Re: Request for a good slipstreaming procedure

« Last post by f0dder on December 26, 2006, 10:04 PM »

http://www.nliteos.com/ + http://www.ryanvm.net/msfn/

7836

Living Room / Re: Tower Defence: Flash Game of the Day

« Last post by f0dder on December 26, 2006, 06:07 PM »

My younger brother suggests Curator Defense - looks pretty silly to me

7837

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: Replacement Power Options applet

« Last post by f0dder on December 26, 2006, 05:44 PM »

Hmm...

dunno if this is at all related, but for AMD dualcore CPUs, each core has it's own "Time Stamp Counter", and they don't update in parallel for a various number of reasons.

So, if an application queries the TSC (with assembly instruction RDTSC), store the number, thread gets scheduled to other CPU, RDTSC is done again and old value is subtracted (ie, timing is being done) you can end up with negative values.

This is why all Unreal Engine games crash on AMD64x2 boxes, unless they're launched with "affinity restriction".

7838

Living Room / Re: Learn How to create No-CD Cracks.

« Last post by f0dder on December 26, 2006, 05:28 PM »

There's also www.daemon-tools.cc , newer versions come with toolbar stuff (but iirc you can opt not to install it). I still use 3.47 - newer versions seem primarily about 64bit support and playing the cat-and-mouse game of avoiding game protection blacklisting 

7839

General Software Discussion / Re: SHELLCITY'S BEST OF 2006

« Last post by f0dder on December 25, 2006, 01:26 PM »

Exactly.   

-Veign (December 25, 2006, 01:20 PM)

Good - then I'm just half-stupid, not retarded

7840

General Software Discussion / Re: SHELLCITY'S BEST OF 2006

« Last post by f0dder on December 25, 2006, 01:18 PM »

Ah, so it wasn't supposed to have the full list, but instead it will be blogged in parts over a week?

7841

General Software Discussion / Re: SHELLCITY'S BEST OF 2006

« Last post by f0dder on December 25, 2006, 12:50 PM »

Okay, perhaps I'm stupid, but how do I read that article?

7842

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Acronis True Image for FREE

« Last post by f0dder on December 25, 2006, 12:38 PM »

Hmmm, dunno really - can't remember what the age-old ghost.exe was branded as. It's been symantec since at least 2003, though. But change my statement to "since Symantec messed it up" then

7843

Living Room / Re: Merry x-mas 2006

« Last post by f0dder on December 25, 2006, 10:03 AM »

Funny, the other thread was first, but this one is the longest

7844

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: an indication that "start-up" is finished

« Last post by f0dder on December 25, 2006, 10:01 AM »

for example, registering a program that starts on startup and checks for 5 seconds of no new processes starting would probably do it just fine.  super easy, no muss no fuss, and likely very accurate.

-mouser (December 25, 2006, 09:53 AM)

Would certainly work some places - but I've seen computers where some service (sometimes) take a while to load, postponing the rest of the system. It's hard coding up something that works reliably everywhere

My own solution is to not boot more than necessary, and go fetch a cup of coffee - system's usually ready and kicking when I get back

7845

Living Room / Re: merry chrismis y'all

« Last post by f0dder on December 25, 2006, 09:44 AM »

Merry spendaritis

7846

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Acronis True Image for FREE

« Last post by f0dder on December 25, 2006, 09:43 AM »

tinjaw: volume shadow copy, innit?

A nifty thing with Acronis is that the (linux-based, but actually well-working  ) "recovery CD" or "safe zone" pre-boot environment can access SMB/CIFS (aka windows shares), so you can back up stuff to a server on the lan - and restore from it, even if the windows install is completely b0rk.

Ghost was nice, but I'm done with it since symantec took over. The king is dead, long live the king etc.

7847

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: an indication that "start-up" is finished

« Last post by f0dder on December 25, 2006, 09:37 AM »

This task is probably a bit more complex than it sounds...

there are multiple sources for run-at-start apps: HKLM run entries, HKCU run entries, services, per-user start menu startup folder, and iirc some ini files somewhere as well. Also, when are those "started"? Once the exe is run, or after they're actually done reading from disk, initializing, etc?

brotherS: I wouldn't call that "optimizing", since it's symptomatic treatment... not saying it doesn't give a perceived improvement though, but it does mean it takes even longer before windows is fully booted

7848

ProcessTamer / Re: Possible? New idea for taming

« Last post by f0dder on December 24, 2006, 07:47 PM »

You can set the process to a lower priority - it will still "use 100% CPU", but the system should run more smoothly. This is what process tamer already does, afaik.

7849

ProcessTamer / Re: Possible? New idea for taming

« Last post by f0dder on December 24, 2006, 02:13 PM »

What kind of cleanup does cleanup do? Sounds like bad programming for something with that name taking up 100% CPU for ages...

Anyway, it's "sorta possible" to do what you want. One could code an application that periodically "puts the program to sleep" for a short duration, that would limit the program's CPU usage. Won't work if the program is interactive, does sound or animation...

7850

General Software Discussion / Re: Introducing a New Project: Forever Flash Games

« Last post by f0dder on December 24, 2006, 02:10 PM »

Haha, 8 pages of it? Well, tilt the 8 by 90 degrees... what do you get? ^_^