jaclaz

OT I find that the word that better describes the thesis by Oracle is ridiculous, but I find outrageous that they needed to create the fictional character of Ann Droid to explain the (supposed) similarities between an API and literature (and with reference to Harry Potter ): http://www.informationweek.com/development/open-source/oracle-appeals-google-verdict-fights-sof/240148512 I mean, besides MS thinking that all their users are (at the most) 5 years old, Oracle seems to imply that a US Appeal Curt is populated by 9 years kids instead of judges. jaclaz

Of course there is no issue with making an Xdelta between two files even if they have different sizes . But you don't have available at the same time the original and the patched file. (unless you keep the original ). I mean OP now has 2 Gb of files (originals) AND (almost) 2 Gb of files (stripped) = total (almost) 4 Gb. By making delta files for all the originals he will end up with (almost) 2 Gb (stripped) and (say) 50 Mb of xdelta files = total (roughly) 2 Gb. He needs to have the (almost) 2 Gb of stripped files "available/accessible", but everytime he needs one of the "originals" he will have to recreate it on-the-fly applying to the stripped file the xdelta patch. What I got from the original request was *something* that allowed to have AT THE SAME TIME available the "original" and the "stripped" versions of all files BUT saving the space. This cannot be done with "ordinary" means. What the OP asked for (again IF I got it right) is *something* similar to these: http://khenriks.github.com/mp3fs/ http://blog.einval.com/software/fuse-music which I don't think actually exists or exists for Windows (though possibly it can be ported through Dokan ) or will do specifically . jaclaz

Maybe NOT banned but surely get a stern look of disapproval jaclaz

Yes/no. The "patch" route is not really feasible/useful/smart. The "patch" is "smart" when you have a binary file and you have to replace a given set of bytes with another one (SAME number of bytes). Size of the file before and after patch is the same. In the case of .iso you can "simulate" the patch by replacing a whole file with an empty file (or a modified one) of the same length. (as an example, Winimage can do this) This allows to NOT alter in any way the filesystem indexing tables. Otherwise you need a .iso editor (let's say MagicIso or PowerIso or the like), i.e. a tool that rebuilds the indexing. (and that from experience works - say - 95% of the times BUT it is not totally error free). The case of any file which includes metadata is very similar to the .iso one, you can do the same by replacing the "filled" metadata fields with empty ones, BUT you cannot remove or add a metadata field without re-indexing/re-creating the whole file (otherwise a tool like metaflac would have NO reason to exist). Touche! I'm an id10t. Cheers and Regards Naaaah, let's fake that you were thinking of music albums covers only jaclaz

What was asked "evolved" and on post #16 and later again on post #21 the OP declared his issue as "solved". jaclaz

@bphlpt Are music albums recorded to JPEG's or PNG's? @selyb More seriously, which format are those "music albums" stored in? .flac. right? http://flac.sourceforge.net/format.html then: http://xiph.org/flac/documentation_tools_metaflac.html The issue is really about possible bugs in metaflac (or similar tools), in theory it is possible to strip (saving them to files) the metadata and later re-build the original re-adding the metadata. Remember : jaclaz

The most logical (though not necessarily the one that causes the issue) would be some update that "interrogates" the system (either software or hardware) and "spawns" one or more "child process(es)" that are not terminated soon enough, i.e. before the "next" update starts. The matter must be a question of fractions of seconds (or seconds). I would try inserting a 5 or 10 seconds "sleep" between each update and see what happens, it will add the most 2 minutes to the update time, which I presume is much more "bearable" than doing several reboots. Of course actions like removing the java updater should be totally irrelevant. jaclaz

Well, I know it's confusing. The best approach (easier) will be that of integrating the drivers in your XP, #2 below. There are FOUR ways: use a "F6" floppy <- this used to be the easiest when floppy were common in PC's, nowadays the issue is that you need to have an USB floppy or create a "special" USB stick integrate the drivers <- manually or through nlite I would rate this the simplest integrate the drivers pack <- relatively easy as above but the size of the CD will grow install in IDE emulation mode and later add the AHCI drivers There is not actuall differences between "IDE" (which is actually ATA) and SATA, SATA means Serial Ata, whilst older models with parallel interface are sometimes called PATA, but both "PATA" and SATA are the same thing, SATA may additionally support AHCI, i.e. you may have SATA without AHCI but not AHCI without SATA. In practice the terms SATA and AHCI became synonims. From what I can see from the support page of the motherboard you mention: http://www.asus.com/Motherboard/P5QL_PRO/#support_Download_17 The file provided is this one: http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/misc/sata/Marvell/Marvell_SATA_V12057_XPVista.zip You may also want to integrate the chipset driver: http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/misc/utils/Intel_ChipsetInf_V9111014.zip I am not sure to understand the reference allen2 is making to Intel ICH10 the motherboard is supported for XP and the drivers are on the manufacturer support page, after having installed with them, you may want to ipdate them, but if they are there they should be the right ones. The use of nlite to add these drivers is illustrated in several guides, besides on the homepage of the tool: http://www.nliteos.com/guide/part2.html examples: http://www.komku.org/2007/11/integrate-driver-into-windows.html http://www.waynezim.com/2009/07/how-to-slipstream-drivers-into-a-windows-installation-using-nlite/ jaclaz

Not really-really, with hard disk drives, NCQ does make a very noticeable difference (of course IF the hard disk drives have NCQ): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Command_Queuing For the record, though tricky, it is possible to install AHCI drivers later: jaclaz

Well that would confirm the guess about a strange timing issue (whatever it might cause it) on the specific system only when running the AutoIT. IF this timing issue is connected to "software", if you restore to the "queer machine" a sysprepped image coming from another one BEFORE the update, maybe you can re-run the autoit successfully, if it's a hardware originated issue, you should not (unless it was a one-time glitch in the matrix). jaclaz

Why not simply introduce some error control? This assumes that username has no spaces (and that an user name "MickeyMouse" does not exist on that system ) jaclaz

Actually it's NO deal at all. jaclaz

No, the text won't "blink" THE WHOLE page will disappear (CLS) and then re-appear (ECHO) (and thus ALL the text on the page will appear to blink). If you had actually READ the OP question it is about "managing" SINGLE lines and NOT the whole screen and he actually excluded in his post the use of CLS. So you posted TWICE the same thing, BOTH times answering *another thing* from what was originally asked. Check this page: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/ansi.php (already provided) if you scroll a bit down it you will see an example of ANSI <Esc>[5m under DOS. jaclaz

Well I believe he did the best he could do to make the question visible, and he added also a "Please attention" that is very useful and needed, in case you were not paying enough attention , a typo can happen to everyone . Ideas: http://www.scrabble-word-finder.com/words-with-atotr.html Or maybe he is playing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riddler jaclaz

Windows 98's do not provide the key "locationinformation", but does Me behave like that as well? I am asking because Windows 2000 does show it, and Me - when it comes to drivers/devices - tends to be similar to 2K. jaclaz

UNfortunately, NO. You seem like having done everything to troubleshoot the issue, the only thing would be (long, and boring, and with no guarantee whatsoever of success) to run the update script after having removed a few updates from it, then restore, remove a few others until you don' t have the effect.. If you already installed all the updates one by one and you did not have that result, it must mean that is the combination of the updates and the script that causes the issue (maybe a timing problem of some kind ). What you could further do (which I don't seem to see as listed in the attempts) is to uninstall the TCP/IP stack and related other services/protocols/whatever listed in the NIC interface, then uninstall the actual NIC card from device management and reboot. But it is just a "semi-random" thought/attempt. jaclaz

Yzöwl , the OP already tested the proposed solution, modified it a little according to his needs and is using it successfully (for his needs): This thread (actualy the issue that originated it) was "closed" until DataCracker7899 revived it by re-posting (incompletely) the SAME info already posted in it. jaclaz

Stick with those topics. Let me doubt about the "Batch" : jaclaz

Interesting you managed to worsen your own code, posted only a couple posts before: by removing the ping loop. And AGAIN that has NOTHING to do with "blinking" text, it is all about endless looping the CLS and ECHO commands. jaclaz

For NO apparent reason : jaclaz

Please take into consideration that a number of people may not like to be treated as demented by kids (please read as Geniuses) in an Apple Store and resolve to buying their Mac on Amazon.... jaclaz

14? 13 years as the sole alumnus of "MySQL , JavaScript , HTML5 and Batch Security Development School" must have been tough. jaclaz

A bit outdated, but just in case : http://www.oooninja.com/2008/05/openofficeorg-microsoft-office-moores.html And some more info on how I personally see the matter: jaclaz

That's "strange" normally the Fn keys are mapped "in BIOS" and work "before and outside" the OS. :jaclaz

Sometimes I wonder If the good MS guys have not looked at the calendar recently and realized it is 2013. There are NO meaningful "added features" to MS Office since Office 2000 (yes, you read that right office-two-thousand), The stupid change of the format of the file has evidently made easier for the competitors to reach even better compatibility that before (and anyway the compatibility had reached something like 99,95% even with the old proprietary .doc and .xls). As a matter of fact, besides the total aberration which is the "ribbon", when you dig deeper, some functions were MISSING in later versions, example: There are so many valid replacements for Office, some completely Free/Open Source, some Commercial, but priced correctly, that the actual costs for a company will be the time spent to test them to choose the one that they will use INSTEAD of the new-license-formula-Office or Office 364. jaclaz