fdv

This post will no doubt get moved, but saw it and wanted to chime in. No, there is no other software like it for XP, but one problem a lot of new users get caught up in is removing too much. Be sure to read the "What not to remove" thread before diving in. Rip out Outlook Express, for example, and regular Outlook from MS Office won't install (as one example). There is a way to fix this -- I wrote the file -- but there are lots and lots of other little traps that you need to read up on.

You have two issues here. #2. free software for mass mailing. I see lots of hits when I google for "free mass email software." So, I'll leave that to you. The one I use cost $400. More importantly ... #1. your ISP's mass mailing policy or limitations. Only Godaddy's terms of service are going to tell you what you need to know. I will say that I am fairly confident that you'll have to contract with an ISP local to you and pay a fee to use their mail services. Here's why I say this: it's 2009, man. Everyone's so clamped down on spam that legit mass mailings are impossible to carry out with the bigger ISP's. My company uses a small, local ISP and I'm friends with the guy -- he knows my mail isn't spam. His mail server is set up for only my IP address and I blast 2,000 mails once a month. I pay a little extra on top of my web hosting fee to him, and everyone's happy. You're going to have to do the same, or find a "spam friendly" ISP (no offense meant, but that's what they're called), because the major players aren't going to let you do this.

Anyway, i see Tommy and FDV as friends of mine, and i hope that this litle argument here, will not make you guys feel bad about me... Not at all. Let's switch gears a little bit and open with a case from Tom's and my legal system here. In Chapman v. U.S. (500 U.S. 453 (1991), a man was sentenced for possessing a huge amount of LSD because the authorities weighed the paper that it was on instead of the drug. Pretty stupid, right? He appealed to the Supreme Court. His conviction was upheld. The Court found evidence that "that's not what Congress meant" and even spelled it out in the dissent. That didn't matter, though, because even though that was not what Congress meant, that's how they wrote it. More generally, everyone here knows of stories of leprechauns or genies who grant wishes to someone who keeps saying "but that's not what I -MEANT-!" Sorry, that's how it's written. I can plainly see that the creators of the GPL2 did not INTEND authors to add Terms of Use. But that's not how they wrote the GPL2. They disclaim coverage of use, yet they address use in their FAQs and explanation documents. Which is fine! I can see that, so can Tom. But the license was chosen because it explicitly covers modification and distribution of source code. I don't care if the FAQ requires me to like pistachio ice cream -- if the GPL2 itself says ice cream isn't covered, then it's not covered -- and can be dealt with via terms of use. I have written to the FSF's licensing section Yeah, as I note, because they say that this is a copyright document, not a Terms of Use document, they're probably not going to address it. The reality is that in a foreign venue, we are powerless to enforce the terms of use in another country. Saladin doesn't have a US flag icon; that means that we would lack standing to bring any kind of legal action. Heck, some jurisdictions don't even allow click-through-licensing! But as far as ending up in court, we're not that naive, and that's really not what this is about. It boils down to the courtesy of observing the agreement in the HFSLIP terms of use -- personal use only. Neither one of us is going to get on a plane to go serve someone papers and compel an appearance in an international court. The point is now moot, since the license has been changed, of course.

The act of running the Program is not restricted Correct! The act of running the Program is not restricted BY THE GPL2. It is however by the HFSLIP author's terms. And again, that's why the GPL FAQ states: I'd like to license my code under the GPL, but I'd also like to make it clear that it can't be used for ... commercial uses. The FAQ isn't part of the GPL. It might be an interesting academic legal interpretation, and that's very interesting, and very nice! But ultimately, the language of the GPL2, on it's very face, does not cover use. It even says so, calling it out of "scope." The act of running is, indeed, not restricted by the GPL2. ... The GNU GPL is designed specifically to prevent the addition of further restrictions. Ah-ha! Let's read Section 6: "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein." What rights are granted? "the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program." "We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software." "Thus, it is not the intent of this section [2] to claim rights or contest your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program." 4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. Those of us who have kids know the whole "but you never said that I COULDN'T!" argument. The GPL2 is telling you what affirmative rights you have with respect to what it covers (copying, distribution, etc). And indeed, the GPL2 does not restrict "the act of running the Program." Unfortunately for the Wishful Thinking Crowd, the GPL2 does NOT say that "any added terms or conditions are totally invalid, because using the GPL2 means that you can only use this one, single software license. Also, the GPL2 constitutes the sole terms of use." Sorry, gentlemen. It covers what it covers, and it doesn't cover what it states is outside of it's scope. The act of running the program is simply not restricted by the GPL2. But using HFSLIP doesn't end there. You might wish it did, but it doesn't. The GPLv2 license wasen't fitting Tommy's copyright wishes No, no disrespect meant, but the GPL2 doesn't seem to be fitting the fantasies of people who want to use it for commercial purposes. It was working just fine for TommyP until someone wanted to rely on a clause from the FAQ rather than on the very text of the license (while ignoring the terms of use). We covered this some time back when someone wanted to modify and redistribute the code (and hinted at selling it). I agreed that they could do all of these things, because these actions are within the scope of the GPL2. From http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-violation.html: "Note that the GPL, and other copyleft licenses, are copyright licenses. This means that only the copyright holders are empowered to act against violations. The FSF acts on all GPL violations reported on FSF copyrighted code, and we offer assistance to any other copyright holder who wishes to do the same." Do you REALLY think a COPYRIGHT license that TommyP included to cover the source code is going to cover use of the software when it specifically disclaims that usage is covered? Send off an e-mail to the FSF, and ask them about this -- and see if they don't come back with "uh, use ain't covered by the license... Because the GPL is a copyright license. It's not all-inclusive terms of use." I love all you guys, but you're taking something you found in the FAQ and trying to run it against the grain of the very words in the license while ignoring additional terms that Tom added. (And the GPL2 didn't forbid him from adding those terms of use. Just from limiting distribution, modification, etc.)

Gosh. And I thought we'd buried this issue many moons ago. Guess not. The archive had the following file in it: GNU.txt This file has the following text: GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION The license covers: • Copying • Distribution • Modification There is no mention WHATSOEVER in that line of: • Use Further, the GPL license also contains this text: Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. Without being rude about it, I honestly am at a total and complete loss as to how it could be simpler than this. The license covers what it covers. You can WANT it to cover use, but just wanting it doesn't make it so. That is "outside its scope." And that's why we added "Use of HFSLIP for anything other than personal non-commercial purposes is strictly not allowed." The FAQ, which apparently covers version 1 (??) can prattle on all it wants. On the very face of the GPL2 language, USE. IS. NOT. COVERED. "Use of HFSLIP for anything other than personal non-commercial purposes is strictly not allowed." We stand by that. If this requires the creation of an HFSLIP license to make that specifically more clear, then we will go down that road. 2. We do intend however, to continue to use the last previous version published under the GPL, and modify it as allowed under that license. Use any version in good health under the GPL2, which covers "copying, distribution and modification." If you're insisting on using it for commercial purposes, that isn't covered under the GPL2. It is, however, covered under the HFSLIP user agreement, and it's prohibited. Can we get past this now? Can we get past the whole "The GPL2 lets me do whatever I want as if no license or TERMS OF USE existed at all?"

In txtsetup.sif then 'uniata' and 'iteatapi' should be commented out under [sCSI.Load]. Okay Btw, is the commenting-out of 'msoe50.inf,Uninstall' in syssetup.inf under [infs.Always] an error or intentional ? Intentional. I didn't mean to leave it saying "Uninstall" -- it should've said Install, it's for my own testing and use. But the commenting out is intentional. Would it be possible for me to change NONENG.INF, so that only the danish language is installed, and not the rest ? Can you give me the filenames of the Dutch language? Give me those and I'll swap some things around Why do you by default also keep Cyrillic and Hebrew ? Because I have some long, long-time users who are Russian and Israeli I can add Dutch permanently no prob. Why msiexec changed to autostart ? Honestly, I thought that it is supposed to be? Can anyone clarify on this?

Odd, but for now until I can get it fixed, put the UNIATA.SYS driver file into i386. I'll look into it a bit later.

IE7 is apparently done

Thanks guys Yee, sorry about that; comment UNIATA out in TXTSETUP also. I meant to and made an oops. I will fix before replacing set 8 permanently.

http://www.vorck.com/data/sp5files-set9.zip This fileset should give you a roughly ~720mb install, which is over 100mb more in saved space than Set 8. Known incompatibilities: AVG Antivirus 8 seems to rely on IE. Works with Driverpacks.

This was so long ago and I stopped messing around with Server so I don't have a log. This all works fine on Win2k Pro.

Which makes sense, because sp5files-srv.zip is for Win2k Server. I linked to the wrong set. SORRY!! Anyway, I finally tried and it works now in Set 9. Sorry for all the trouble guys. Download set 9 at http://vorck.com/data/sp5files-set9.zip

The OS version change only happens for the DriverPacks. The OS will under all other circumstances show up correctly as Workstation (i.e. "Professional"). It's his detection routine that I tricked, nothing else. He writes: PS It would be considered polite to tell us (Anyone who trips over this thread) if there will be (or is) an update to the offending patch. Or a thread / post where the "fix" can be found if the update is not yet posted... The problem is, if I explain on his board the details I'll be revealing how his OS detection routine works which is something he probably doesn't want me to reveal.

Actually, pointertovoid is not wrong, but is slightly confused... as others seem to be as well. jamdev12: "does that mean this version of Windows 2003 Server only supports 4 cores or does it only support up to 4 socket systems." I see the word "support." pointertovoid: "Sorry guys, but Xp-2k3 count cores" ... and he's correct. Xp and 2003 recognize cores... pointertovoid: ", not sockets." ... and he's confused, XP and 2003 see both. pointertovoid: "W2k counts one hyperthreaded core as two processors" Indeed 2k sees a processor with HT as two processors. Of course, this is limited to older processors with HT. pointertovoid might be assuming that hyperthreading is present in processors after the P4, which of course it is not. pointertovoid: "So for heavy core counts, you better switch to Vista, or buy an Nt4 Luxurious Server dirt cheap" He's quite right again. I'm spotting NT4 on ebay for $22. That's $5.50 USD per core for NT4. Vista's cheaper? Someone want to show me where? Perhaps if we have dual processors with 4 cores, Vista will be cheaper? Let's see. I can get Windows NT 4 Server Enterprise Edition for $99 on Amazon, or $89 used. That's eight processors/cores, that's roughly $12.50 USD per core. Vista Business (dual quad core support) is $125 or $15.60 USD per core. pointertovoid: "I understand 2 cores may cost more than 1 but I don't see why 1000 cores should cost more than 2," I read this as differences in Vista pricing. Does every version of Vista support multiple cores? Yep. Does every edition of Vista support multiple sockets? Apparently, no... There is an edition that supports only one processor. Cheap Vista = 4 cores max (because that's all that exists on the market). If I want more, say 8 cores, I have to buy a version of Vista that support two physical quad core processors. pointertovoid asserts that that would cost more, and in fact, the reality is that it does, because it's a different and more expensive version of Vista. How on Earth did this become a "licensing" question? Anyway, anyone want to tackle making a product comparison matrix showing core support, physical processor support, etc etc etc etc etc etc?

He doesn't want to reveal how the OS detection routine works to prevent "cheating" ??!? What on God's green Earth is he talking about?! [semilong rant deleted by me] He doesn't want to tell anyone, fine. That's his right on his board. Here on MSFN, i can give away his secret recipe. The answer's not in TXTSETUP, it's in that and LAYOUT as well. Important: if you post and tell him -how- I fixed the issue, he might create an incompatibility on purpose, so let's keep mum on this on -his- board. He doesn't need to know what we know here.

Since no answer, I'll give some thoughts. Create a PE disk. Load reg hives and look "in the usual places" for any keys calling safeboot at startup. I recommend UBCD4WIN. It comes with some nice tools. Is this a system you inherited (it seems)? I.E. you're the new IT guy? If you're on friendly terms with the last guy, I'd ask (obvious, I know, but I had to say it). I just checked -- this is a file related to some McAffee s$i+ware product, so the last IT guy deserved to be let go As it turns out from what I see, my solution is ideal -- nuke the key entries from the machine's registry with a PE disk.

TP and I regularly correspond anyway but I wanted to post this publicly... I am extremely grateful for something as stupid simple as HFSLIP creating a new directory, SOURCESS. This has save my bacon too many times to count since I can experiment on what's there instead of my original files. When I fiddle with XP, it's also nice to be able to run nLite on a separate directory and not have to point it to my original files. Nothing more, just accolades

I just got some reliable info about this matter, and the one key thing that I want to relate is that trying to extract the contents of WinFLP.WIM, making changes, and re-imaging it is apparently something most mortals aren't going to have the patience for, because due to limitations of the image creation software, you have to concatenate 12 volumes. You cannot make changes and create a single image. (Trivia: for those asking "what happens if you try?" Well, I did. All I did was put everything in one image instead of 12 concatenated volumes, I didn't even change any files, and the installation got to the title screen and just kept rebooting again and again and again...) Bottom line: this is interesting from an academic standpoint but I understand why my friend Gary told me "dude, don't even bother." Verdict: nLite and XP are a better combination than XP for Legacy PC's and your valuable time!

I have a friend who had no need for XP for Legacy PCs, but had Software Assurance, so he got it and showed it to me. I don't have much use for it as I use Win2k pretty extensively, but I did notice some odd things about it. Can anyone tell me the why's and how's? 1. The files in \I386\system32 all appear to be Windows 2003 Server, not XP. Yet when fully installed, the OS is XP for Legacy. Obviously what's happening is a PE environment is deploying an image (see below) but the basis for the PE is 2003 Server. Why? The PE deploys \Setup\WIM\WinFLP.wim. Questions: 2. it uses an obsolete version of imaging software called XIMAGE.EXE. Vista uses IMAGEX.EXE. Why not use the same imaging software as Vista? To see the contents of the WinFLP.wim we must first run XIMAGE /INFO on it. It returns XML results with 12 "volumes". Knowing we have 12 volumes we must create 12 directories, one for each volume. The contents of WinFLP.wim can now be extracted (here's the one that's probably going to get some Googlers to this board). Here is how to extract the contents of this WIM. Save the following as a BAT file: ximage /apply d:\WinFLP.wim d:\1 1 ximage /apply d:\WinFLP.wim d:\2 2 ximage /apply d:\WinFLP.wim d:\3 3 ximage /apply d:\WinFLP.wim d:\4 4 ximage /apply d:\WinFLP.wim d:\5 5 ximage /apply d:\WinFLP.wim d:\6 6 ximage /apply d:\WinFLP.wim d:\7 7 ximage /apply d:\WinFLP.wim d:\8 8 ximage /apply d:\WinFLP.wim d:\9 9 ximage /apply d:\WinFLP.wim d:\10 10 ximage /apply d:\WinFLP.wim d:\11 11 ximage /apply d:\WinFLP.wim d:\12 12 First of course you have to make directories 1 through 12. I leave the MD part of the batch file to the user. Anyway, when running, three directories are created: Program Files Documents and Settings WINDOWS In each of the 12 directories. If you open them you will see that the creators of WinFLP.wim have split the files that go into these three directories into 12 "volumes," although it's actually not necessary. You could, if you wanted, execute the BAT file above into just ONE directory, and all 12 volumes would fill the three directories. 3. Why break the files that go into the three directories into 12 separate volumes? What's the sense, when we're working with only one WIM file anyway? My next theory is that to edit the contents, you have to make your changes such as manually adding SP3 for Legacy PC's, and use XIMAGE /CAPTURE on each directory, replicating their XML volume tags exactly, and then XIMAGE /APPEND to slap all 12 together into the one. I don't know if the install will still work if you simply run XIMAGE on one single directory with all 12 "volumes" inside. 4. Why the obfuscation? 5. Why, at all? The primary volume uses over one gig. nLite or Windows 2000 pruned somewhat could easily rival this OS in functionality.

look under 'strings' you will see: ; this is for compatibility with driverpacks wks_id = "Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" wks_id_vga = "Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional [VGA mode]" these strings are what the pack searches for to find OS and version etc, and why it gave "OS: WHY-DOESNT-THIS-HAVE-A-VALUE"

Are you asking if the files are cross-compatible? If so, yes; your emergency is solved. But if you discover that you're getting an NTLDR missing error and the file -is- there, that's a whole different can of worms... edit: oops, did not see submix's reply, my reply window had been open before his reply.

I have a P3 I could try this on but a P4 I tried goes too fast. Interesting find.

Yeah, Tommy's got the answer -- my fileset is the culprit. I made a compatability change so try it now after RE downloading my fileset sorry about that

I'm wondering if I can't find a defrag tool that will move my files to the beginning of the disk Perfect Disk, which jaclaz linked will do this. There is also a free one that will too, called jkdefrag, (GUI add-on here) which uses windows' built-in defrag engine but will actually move ALL files up front like you want (don't let the fact that it uses the MS engine throw you off). Down both of these and see if it doesn't fix your dilemma. I don't know how much of a budget you have but building on jaclaz's response I suggest you see if you can buy a copy of Partition Magic for $70. It will eliminate about 5 or 6 steps you're thinking of with all of the imaging

2k will have no problem. HOWEVER. If you buy a new machine with some fancy new controller built in 2009, Win2k is not going to support it "out of the box." That means you have to get a driverpack for controllers (hard drive controllers, sorry I didn't say that) and... 1. boot the new computer, and if it is a homebrew with no OS, boot with a PE CD 2. use Unknown Device Finder to get the CLSID / hardware ID string of the controller 3. download the XP/2k version of the driver for the controller from the motherboard manufacturer or OEM maker 4. locate the CLSID in the driver INF file, and copy it into notepad or somesuch 5. edit TXTSETUP.SIF and add the CLSID into the [hardware ID] section, and give the driver a name and description (in the same file) 6. add an entry in the file list for the driver... in other words, add yourdriver.sys = 1,,,,,,,4,1,0 under [sourceDisksFiles] 7. add an entry in LAYOUT.INF as well (it can look exactly the same... most people don't realize it but TXTSETUP and LAYOUT are the same exact file, but layout has file sizes added which can be removed 8. globally replace ,_x, with ,, (two commas, no underscore X) in both layout and txtsetup (this step sounds trivial, but if you don't do it, installation will fail, end of story) 9. put the actual driver SYS file into i386 10. create a new iso, maybe using HFSLIP This might sound difficult but I assure you that it is a CAKEWALK. Download my fileset and have a look at my TXTSETUP for an example, and search on "iteatapi" which is my driver that I need for my Dual Core pentium motherboard. You will see exactly what I did to integrate the driver. It's easy -- honest. edit: oh, and bookmark this thread, because maybe you don't need it now but you might later!