Coupon printer software

[ldb]

I have 98SE and repeatedly find that I cannot print web based coupons because the coupon printing software does not work on 98. I believe this has something to do with being able to print the bar code and being enabled for bar code recognition. I think Windows ME has this ability. Can anyone with ME or 98SEtoME confirm this? What files would I need to install in order for this to work or is it just that the software developers are leaving out 98? This is really pi$$ing me off.

Thanks

[Multibooter]

.. the coupon printing software does not work on 98...

I'm not into coupons, when I went to http://print.coupons.com/CouponWeb/NoSuppo...iq37&nid=10 with Opera v9.64 and Firefox v2.0.0.20 under Win98SE, I got the msg: "Unsupported Browser We're sorry, your browser is not supported for coupon printing. Coupon printing is currently supported on the following systems: Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows 2000: Internet Explorer 6+ Firefox 1.5+ Netscape 9 Most MSN and AOL browsers"

After installing the User Agent Switcher 0.6.11 for Firefox (Tools -> Add-ons -> Get extensions -> in field search for add-ons enter "User Agent Switcher") and then faking to have IE7 & Vista, the following page was displayed instead: "Coupon Printer Installer You’re just a minute away from printing your free coupons!"

Opera apparently can only masquerade as a different browser (Tools -> Quick Preferences -> Edit Site Preferences -> Network tab -> Browser identification), not as running under a different opsys.

When I tried to install the downloaded Coupon Printer (CouponPrinter.exe v7.0.6.1 of 18-Jun-2008), I got the following err msg:

"The following minimum system requirements for this setup were not met:

Operating System: Windows ME/NT 3.0/NT 4.0/2000/XP/Server 2003/Vista. The setup will now abort."

The download location of the coupon printer program is:

http://download1.coupons.com/7/19/7125/145...uponPrinter.exe

Edited April 26, 2009 by Multibooter

[Drugwash]

Well, the setup was built using Indigo Rose's Setup Factory and can't extract the contents for analysis. However, KernelEx can be (temporarily) installed and coupon setup can be put in WinME+ compatibility mode to allow installation and then the installed files can be checked for dependencies and whatnot.

[Joseph_sw]

i'm interested in changing user agent for IE 6, just recently i found a website that said i'm using incompatible browser, but i able to open it with older version of Opera (obviously that was browser discrimination).

how do i do that?

[Drugwash]

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent

Add/modify the following STRING values accordingly:

Default -> Opera/9.x

Compatible -> compatible

Platform -> Windows NT 5.1

Version -> MSIE 7.0

Save a copy of the original values before modifying them (Registry > Export registry file)!

Later edit:

I've tried that myself and didn't work, they must be performing some dirty tricks. Interesting thing is, if I disable Flash through TurnFlash, the game page gets displayed but the actual game is an empty rectangle where the Flash window was supposed to be. My guess is that the tricky check is done from somewhere within the Flash application itself.

The only thing I haven't tried was to install KernelEx and put the browser in WinXP compatibility mode, but I'm not gonna do that, it's not worth the effort.

Edited April 29, 2009 by Drugwash

[Multibooter]

Well, the setup was built using Indigo Rose's Setup Factory and can't extract the contents for analysis.

I had tried Total Commander v7.04 + the plug-in InstallExplorer v0.9.1, but they couldn't look into CouponPrinter.exe . Kaspersky Anti-Virus however could, so there should be some tool.

Without having installed it under WinXP (again, I'm not into coupons), I would speculate that CouponPrinter.exe prints only to a USB printer port (i.e. not to LPT or to an IP/Ethernet port). Win98SE does not have a built-in driver to print to the USB port, that started with WinME. This might possibly be the reason why CouponPrinter.exe requires WinME or later.

If one could get CouponPrinter to install under Win98, there might be a chance to get it run under Win98. Maybe it's just a virtual printer driver, like Acrobat Distiller or FinePrint, with some added security features to prevent printing 100's of coupons.

BTW, in the link http://couponsinc.com/corp/source/u_uninstall.asp older versions (plural, before April 2008) are mentioned - maybe an older version works under Win98?

[dencorso]

Indigo Rose offers a 30-day trial version of Setup Factory... I guess it may unpack the installer, don't you all agree?

[Drugwash]

I've had my share of experience with that thing, few years ago. Tried to make it work as I needed and failed - the syntax was too... let's call it "odd". Wouldn't wanna go back there. And I definitely don't fancy installing demo software, especially when there's chance it won't work for the desired purpose; KernelEx would be a better solution considering it's free software.

[Multibooter]

Another possible way to get the coupon printer to work under Win98 might be to install it first under WinME/XP to extract the driver (if it's just a printer driver or a virtual printer port). After that, if this coupon printer installs a printer driver, the driver might be installed under Win98 via Printers folder -> Add Printer Wizard. Or, if this coupon printer installs a virtual printer port, the driver may possibly be saved with Driver Magician under WinME/XP and then re-installed with Driver Magician under Win98, circumventing the installation from a .exe which checks for the opsys. Driver Magician for example can back up under Win98 a "USB Printing Support" driver for a USB001 virtual printer port, created by installing an HP USB printer (Win98SE does not come with USB printing support). But I'm not into coupons, and don't want to restore my opsys after testing.

There might be something appealing to others, coupon printers apparently have a mechanism to prevent printing a coupon more than once or twice. Good Luck.

Edited April 29, 2009 by Multibooter

[eidenk]

Could not access the site with Opera either but have downloaded it through this direct link I and installed it for the sake of fun. It went fine (I have KernelEx installed.) It's just an IE toolbar and it seems to be working fine in IE 5.5. The toolbar gets populated by menus whose content is fetched from the coupon website and clicking on them sends you on the coupon website which can be visited fine with with Win ME's IE 5.5. That's all there is to it it seems.

As for the IndigoRose installer, you can't unpack them. That's actually why they have customers I believe.

Edit : No there is a little bit more than that. That's what it installs in windows initially

New : 3908 2007-03-27 23:43 CBBasis.xml

New : 7 2005-07-11 16:11 CBVersion.txt

New : 509272 2007-11-30 07:17 CouponBarIE.dll

New : 71008 2008-06-18 07:24 CouponPrinter.ocx

And that's what it dowloads to the system dir while on-line :

-------- system

New : 3908 2007-03-27 23:43 CBBasis.xml

New : 202072 2009-04-29 21:48 cpnprt2.cid

cpnprt2.cid is in fact a dll

Fishy...

It's all removed now I hope there was not a rootkit in there as well...

Edited April 29, 2009 by eidenk

[Multibooter]

cpnprt2.cid is in fact a dll ... Fishy... It's all removed now I hope there was not a rootkit in there as well...

Should be Ok, I had checked old couponprinter.exe, digitally signed June 2008, with Kaspersky. Kaspersky should catch old malware.

Did you check in Printer Properties -> Details tab -> Ports drop down list whether a new printer port was added? Unless you made an opsys restore, if a port was added it might be still there.

[eidenk]

No, I see no trace of a printer driver but I don't have a Printer Properties -> Details tab -> Ports to tell you the truth, just a virtual folder with icons for the printers I have installed.

And btw, it is not ok for a proggy to fetch a dll from the internet and drop it in the sys dir like that, regardless of what this dll may or may not be.

And btw as well it is not because you checked an old installer with kaspersky that it's ok either. It fetches a dll from the net and for what I know this one could well be a zero-day eventually.

[Multibooter]

No, I see no trace of a printer driver but I don't have a Printer Properties -> Details tab -> Ports to tell you the truth, just a virtual folder with icons for the printers I have installed.

How about -> right-clicking on any printer icon in the Printers folder, then -> select Properties?

And btw, it is not ok for a proggy to fetch a dll from the internet and drop it in the sys dir like that, regardless of what this dll may or may not be.

Yes, I definitely agree. I didn't want to delve into it because a clean restore afterwards, of 2 opsys (Win98+WinXP) does take a little while. But my gut feeling is that in the worst case you're getting a dose of advertising into your system. Edited April 30, 2009 by Multibooter

[eidenk]

No, I see no trace of a printer driver but I don't have a Printer Properties -> Details tab -> Ports to tell you the truth, just a virtual folder with icons for the printers I have installed.

How about -> right-clicking on any printer icon in the Printers folder, then -> select Properties?

Oh yeah right but there is nothing to be seen there from coupon printer, either port or driver.

[ldb]

I thought I would try Kernel Ex, but when I installed it and rebooted, all I got was a blank desktop. I heard my sound card load and could move the mouse, but nothing else worked. The version I tried was 4.0 RC2. Fortunately I was able to go to safe mode and do an uninstall and also had a backup ready to go just in case.