jaclaz

It opens just fine in XP Wordpad, just for the record. And - for example - this online converter seemingly wotks just fine with that RTF file: https://convertio.co/document-converter/ Attached result from above. jaclaz Hardware.pdf

Yes, it was only to show a possible issue in "inserting a batch tested on cmd,exe", if you (IMHO wrongly) implement the "autodetect policies" there would be no certainties about which command processor is used, and thus a same batch file may work fine in a machine and not work on another one because two different command processors are run depending on the autodetection. As said, no matter which small quirks this or that command processor .exe, they don't really matter, as long as the batch has been tested on that specific command processor. In this the "embedded" command processor is a very good idea. Putting it in a subdirectory of the 7-zip is (still IMHO) not only unneeded, but also an unneeded complication, however. What would be useful would be to be able to change the command processor, so that we are not limited to ROSCMD.EXE, as an example one might want to use 4NT/TCCLE: https://jpsoft.com/tccle-cmd-replacement.html http://www.portablefreeware.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3392 or Greg's Shell: https://www.gammadyne.com/cmdline.htm#gs or whatever other alternative command line processor, including (of course not for redistribution) a copy of a Windows CMD.EXE. Again, a simple .INI file with a number of simple choices possible would add greater flexibility without making anyway the thing too complex. Here is another quirk, this one serious, it seems like ROSCMD does not exits loops : @ECHO OFF SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS FOR /L %%A IN (0,1,5) DO ( SET Number=%%A IF %%A==2 GOTO :out_of_loop IF %%A==2 ECHO %%A IS equal to 2 ECHO %%A IS NOT equal to 2 ) GOTO :EOF ECHO. ECHO You won't see this :out_of_loop ECHO Here is out of loop, number is %number% C:\>looptest.cmd 0 IS NOT equal to 2 1 IS NOT equal to 2 Here is out of loop, number is 2 C:\>roscmd ReactOS Operating System [Version 0.4.5 20170801-rUNKNOWN] (C) Copyright 1998-2017 ReactOS Team. C:\>looptest.cmd 0 IS NOT equal to 2 1 IS NOT equal to 2 2 IS equal to 2 2 IS NOT equal to 2 3 IS NOT equal to 2 4 IS NOT equal to 2 5 IS NOT equal to 2 Here is out of loop, number is 5 C:\>exit jaclaz

Sure , as often happens, cannons, flies .... jaclaz

No hurry whatever . Another test (when/if you have time) is to artificially fragment a few files and then try on them wincontig and contig (besides running defrag on the whole volume). To fragment, you can use myfragmenter, get it from mydefrag: https://web.archive.org/web/20150811002116/http://www.mydefrag.com/Downloads/Download.php?File=MyDefrag-v4.3.1.exe use UNIextract. jaclaz

The point is just that to write a batch file you (actually I) normally test the command in the exact same environment where the batch will be run, not really an issue (for me) but a potential user will (in this order): 1) add his/her batch file AND remove the roscmd.exe from the archive (FAIL) 2) add his/her batch file AND NOT remove the roscmd.exe BUT have no PAUSE in the batch (FAIL) 3) add his/her batch file AND NOT remove the roscmd.exe AND have PAUSE in the batch BUT the batch only works in CMD.EXE (FAIL) Personally I hate programs that "decide" what is better for me, where a simple file with a few settings would allow me to decide myself what is better on a case by case basis. Actually when/if the little ROSCMD.EXE incompatibilities will be "leveled out" it is actually "better" (IMHO) to use that command processor (and also "guaranteed" executables inside the 7-zip sfx), so that the batch (tested on that command processor and with that exact version of the other .exe's) surely works, avoiding possible incompatibilities between different CMD.EXE's on different OS's, including a few related to localization. A teeny-tiny issue with Roscmd.exe is the different behaviour of PUSHD. On Windows CMD.EXE once you have PUSHD a directory, running PUSHD without arguments will show the pushed directory, on ROSCMD, it doesn't, this may "break" some particular batches, this is a workaround for tilde assigning the variable %sfxextpath% so that it can be typed and the variable tilde: myhello.cmd: @echo off title %SFXPATH%%SFX% SET SFXEXTPATH=%~dp0 SET SFX SET TILDE=~ SET TILDE %~dp0\roscmd.exe then (output and commands): SFX=mytest.exe SFXEXTPATH=C:\DOCUME~1\jaclaz\IMPOST~1\temp\7z14024E48\ SFXPATH=C:\batches\Portabat\ ReactOS Operating System [Version 0.4.5 20170801-rUNKNOWN] (C) Copyright 1998-2017 ReactOS Team. C:\batches\Portabat>pushd %sfxextpath% C:\Documents and Settings\jaclaz\Impostazioni locali\temp\7z14024E48>pushd C:\Documents and Settings\jaclaz\Impostazioni locali\temp\7z14024E48>popd C:\Documents and Settings\jaclaz\Impostazioni locali\temp\7z14024E48>popd C:\batches\Portabat>cmd.exe Microsoft Windows XP [Versione 5.1.2600] (C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp. C:\batches\Portabat>set sfx SFX=mytest.exe SFXEXTPATH=C:\DOCUME~1\jaclaz\IMPOST~1\temp\7z14024E48\ SFXPATH=C:\batches\Portabat\ C:\batches\Portabat>pushd %sfxextpath% C:\DOCUME~1\jaclaz\IMPOST~1\temp\7z14024E48>pushd C:\batches\Portabat C:\DOCUME~1\jaclaz\IMPOST~1\temp\7z14024E48>popd C:\batches\Portabat> Another side-side note (very minor) is that traditionally .bat should be compatible with DOS/9x, while .cmd is the extension for batches to be executed by CMD.EXE (or ROSCMD.EXE). jaclaz

I will try again. What is the output on your setup of running this command: devcon listclass ports is it different from the one you obtain with devcon.exe /Find =Ports ? (actually "devcon find =Ports" should work just the same, no need for the slash) And what is the output of this one?: devcon listclass USB |FIND "(COM" The snippet Wireless posted is NOT to be issued on command line, but rather copied to a batch file that later is executed, *like*: @ECHO OFF SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS (set s=) for /f "tokens=2 delims=()" %%A in ('findstr /i /r "^USB..*(COM[0-9][0-9]*)$" input.txt') do (call set "s=%%s%%,%%A" & call set "s=%%s:COM=%%") REM if defined s (echo "%s:~1%") > output.txt if defined s (echo "%s:~1%") If you want (why?) run it on command line you need to "unescape" the %%A variable, but most probably some more tricks will be needed for the expansion of the variables. Generally speaking it is not a good idea to save the output of console to a text file that then needs to be re-parsed, it makes a lot more sense to run the command in a batch and directly parse its output, without writing temporary files. jaclaz

That is the output of devcon listclass ports , right? Maybe you could do instead: devcon listclass USB |FIND "(COM" This way it is already a list of USB COM devices only. jaclaz

Maybe a link to the homepage of XHDD would be useful: http://optimizr.dyndns.org/dos/drivers.html jaclaz

echo ^G (that is CTRL+G). jaclaz

What format command do you run? What happens when you run it? Are you sure that the drive is 360 Kb? (and not 1.2 Mb)? Usually the /4 switch to format.com is needed to format 360Kb floppies, I believe that most BIOSes don't really support "real" 360 Kb floppy drives. If the motherboard supports 1 Gb it would be unusual that its BIOS has a actually a 360 Kb floppy setting. There are however several third party tools usually capable of dealing with those ancient floppy drives. A number of them have been cited here: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/136856-how-to-archive-old-floppies-for-access-under-win98/ namely dcopy can also format with various formats: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/136856-how-to-archive-old-floppies-for-access-under-win98/?do=findComment&comment=880320 but it has to be seen if the issue is with the way the BIOS (or the OS actually "sees" the device). jaclaz

It has been I believe an on-and-off situation, there are a number of "clean" downloads around, but anyway, I believe it has always been "opt-in" (of course assuming that people read before clicking on OK, which doesn' t happen very often). Anyway get a portable version: http://www.softpedia.com/get/PORTABLE-SOFTWARE/CD-DVD-Tools/Windows-Portable-Applications-Portable-ImgBurn.shtml and just extract contents in a suitable folder with 7-zip, that one is "clean". jaclaz

Sure they use the .iso format, which is not really-really a file format, BTW, it is just a normal "raw" 1:1 copy of the CD, if you prefer, it is the simplest format possible, an image, unlike the (mostly senseless) proprietary formats of the old days. As a side note, IMGBURN is compatible with Win9x/Me, so it is the "natural companion" to any of those virtual cd drivers: http://www.imgburn.com/ jaclaz

See if this old thingy fits the bill: http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/cpu_stability_test.html jaclaz

Just to give you some benchmark references/scale: 1) compiled AND tested AND working=good [1] 2) compiled NOT tested=meaningless 3) compiled AND tested AND NOT working=bad jaclaz [1] at an improbability level of two to the power of two hundred and seventy-six thousand to one against

I was asking if your compiled VKrnlEx.sys actually worked on XP like the VKrnlEx.vxd does on 9x. jaclaz

Doesn't Virtual Clone Drive work just fine? http://www.oldapps.com/virtual_clone_drive.php?system=Windows_98 And (less known) WinArchiver Virtual Drive: http://www.winarchiver.com/virtual-drive.htm which can also mount archives. jaclaz

Very good , and what does the output VKrnEx,sys do? Apart taking a little bit of disk space, that is... jaclaz

Which is fine , since you actually didn't make it , it was split from another thread where you started your off topic (there) quest ... jaclaz

And of course you are not going to tell us WHERE you found it or HOW you found it ... jaclaz

But here again Copyright is another thing from a license. The Copyright is a protection intended to protect from unauthorized redistribution and/or misrepresentation of the Author(s) of original work. It doesn't actually allow MS to do anything but protect their Intellectual Property. The Windows XP OS has actually been distributed (legally) by MS in a number of ways and - starting with SP3 I believe - a fresh install allows to run it without entering a product key for a limited time. It is the EULA (End User License Agreement) that allows them - in theory - to do something. A PE (build from legally obtained sources or not) has no validation mechanism, but - again - to be used legally it should not be used without a valid license (for the same particular PC) and NOT simultaneously with the original licensed install. As an example, if you build a PE from an original CD/DVD tied to a license on computer A, you cannot in theory use it to boot (say for an emergency repair) computer B, unless the computer B has also a valid license, and - still in theory - you cannot test the just built PE in a VM running on the original license PC because that constitute simultaneous use. Of course, it's not like anybody expects a kind of Spanish Inquisition ... jaclaz

Interesting. You could really spend a few words (on the site) explaining how it works (not really how it works, but how one can create a self extracting archive with that). Is the roscmd "needed" or it is only in the case one want to workaround command execution policies? Or if you prefer, which of the zillion files in the example are actually *needed*? Maybe - besides the example - you could provide an "empty", "bare minimum" template? Any way to ONLY open a command prompt? Or, if you prefer, to drop to command line once the batch has been executed OR interrupted and then need to type EXIT to close the command window? I mean without directly invoking %~dp0\roscmd.exe? (like an internal .ini file with a setting *like* DropToDos=1) Also there is an issue. In the roscmd.exe window the ALT+code seemingly does not work , which plainly means that on an Italian keyboard (but I suspect on many other ones) I cannot input the tilde ~ on command line (that is ALT+0126), Yes, I know I can run %comspec% /? and that I can do SET Mydir=%comspec:\roscmd.exe=% and cd /d %mydir%, but it is a big limitation, as I see it. By the same token of the "DropToDos", it would be nice to have in the (hypothetical) .ini settings file the option to choose whether to run in the directory where the .exe is (i.e. %SFXPATH%) or in the directory where the sfx is temporarily extracted (i.e. %~dp0), In any case pushd %mydir% and popd work just fine . jaclaz

Very possibly, but I don't know of any software that offers that. Still, if the actual problem is to change a few keys/values the REGEDIT command line use is all that is needed, if one can "bear" the use of (temporary) .reg files. jaclaz

Interesting approach, easy and practical. jaclaz

Still you want the 3.89, not the beta 2.0: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://paullee.ru/download/regv389.zip OR the 4.2 version: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://paullee.ru/download/regv.zip OR the 4.1 version: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://paullee.ru/download/regv41.zip jaclaz

It worked a few days ago, it happens. You managed to link to a very old version of the site, here is a recent one; http://web.archive.org/web/20170101220931/http://paullee.ru:80/regstry.html the latest real mode one is 3.89, not the 2.0b in the link you provided. Good for you that you never needed to "regedit in DOS", now - should it be needed - you know that REGEDIT can run in "pure DOS" command line also. jaclaz