jaclaz

Why not Qemu? In my experience Qemu is a bit on the slowish side, but for DOS, Win9x/ME and NT 4.00 it is more than fast enough. jaclaz

Also, review this, where through experiment the minimal requirement for .ffu image capturing were found: http://reboot.pro/topic/22182-capture-and-apply-windows-full-flash-update-ffu-images/ In a nutshell needed files are: http://reboot.pro/topic/22182-capture-and-apply-windows-full-flash-update-ffu-images/?p=213318 Since the .ffu is a "whole" disk image, one could probably get away with a second tiny partition with only those files (and the search for the minimal requisites these file must gave is still open, very likely only a bunch of keys are needed in the two registry hives). jaclaz

Regedit (besides reg.exe) allows to merge a .reg file, i.e. REGEDIT [ /S ] addsome.REG Is that what you are asking? You can also have (alternatively) a ,cmd that embeds the .reg, see: https://www.robvanderwoude.com/regedit.php Conversely, if the .reg file extension is associated to regedit, "executing" the .reg file will merge its contents to Registry, but - since you don't have the /S parameter you will need to click on the confirmation popup. If the issue is with not showing the flashing CMD window when using a batch, you can use nircmd or any other among the various dediated toolsm or possibly also a .lnk file to run minimized. jaclaz

How do you estimate the tens or hundreds of GB? JFYI: https://win10.guru/windows-ffu-image-faster-capture-deployment/ The .ffu image is 30-40% bigger, but the capture took 1/6 of the time and 2/3 for the applying phase (not taking into account partitioning and format, needed for the .wim) jaclaz

I don't understand. The main page of winaddons (list of addons) is cached on Wayback Machine. The pages (that were once on winaddons) for each addon may (or may not) as well be cached on Wayback Machine. This latter pages (if available on the Wayback Machine) will contain a Mediafire link. The page on mediafire may (or may not) be still existing. You try to find the specific addon you are looking for and (if available) you download it. Rinse and repeat. Another "random" example, Wireshark: https://web.archive.org/web/20130622003551/http://www.winaddons.com/wireshark-186/ http://www.mediafire.com/file/5398odyph7pad7i/ProgramAddons_Wireshark_1.8.6.cab/file List of addons by Rado (which is another question) is here: you click on each link and you get the old winaddons url, example: http://www.winaddons.com/wireshark-162/ you input that url on wayback machine: https://archive.org/web/ and click on "browse history" but the result is not good a that list is older/out of date, the link is for version 1.6.2 of Wireshark that has not been cached, while the previous one (found) is for the later version 1.8.6 jaclaz

You can browse the WayBack Machine here: https://web.archive.org/web/20130512104954/http://www.winaddons.com/nlite-addons Example: https://web.archive.org/web/20130622004556/http://www.winaddons.com/abiword-294/ the related link on MediaFire still works: http://www.mediafire.com/file/dqlz8omr1w44bbj/ProgramAddons_AbiWord_2.9.4.cab not necessarily all add-ons will still be available though. jaclaz

Hmmm. Why not referencing to the three letter verb followed by a hyphen on the fifth line (not counting blank lines) and changing it in its antonym? Before: After: jaclaz

@RainyShadow I don't know. It works here, the only way I can get that error is by increasing the zoom level more than 200%. There are (besides PageUp/PageDown keys on the keyboard) arrow buttons in the toolbar and the page field is a drop down list, and if you select it you can use wheel mouse to go page up/page down. It is very possible that it is a SP2->SP3 issue, cannot really say. You cannot select text to copy, but you can extract the text (all the text from the whole .pdf), and this feature is actually useful in some cases. Would I use it as a "primary" PDF viewer? No (and this is why I use normally Foxit on my XP machine). IMHO Foxit is a good software, but depending on the version it can be nagging and also bloated, SumatraPDF is very good, but as well it may depend on the version. and it is growing, 2.5.2 around 5 MB, 3.1.2 (last with XP supported ) around 6.5 MB, current 3.2 around 14 MB ... On newer (windows 7-10) machines I also use SumatraPDF, though. jaclaz

How (exactly) are you going pageup/pagedown? Using the mouse wheel? jaclaz

That file works just fine here, though I made a few tests and can trigger it (it is seemingly not an error, but rather a warning, i.e. it doesn't crash the application) if I use a zoom level higher that 200%. If you open a file at 200% and use the central mouse wheel to scroll down, if the zoom level field gets focus you are not scrolling down, but increasing zoom level, maybe this is what is happening when you "browse" it? jaclaz

Cannot say, I have it usually working here on XP (SP2, and yes, I know). (but of course it depends on the .pdf). The one I normally use is Foxit PDF reader (version 2.3), that rarely fails, but sometimes it also has issues. Can you point me to a downloadable .pdf for which the Altairsoft one crashes, so that I can test it? jaclaz

A lesser known one, very small in size: http://www.altarsoft.com/altarsoft_pdf_reader.shtml the installer can be unpacked with Uniextract, and the result is a 2 MB executable + a few 10 KB language files, that can be used as "portable". jaclaz

Last time I needed something like that I used TightVNC: https://www.tightvnc.com/ jaclaz

The 0x0000007b error means "inaccessible boot device" which translates to "for some reasons the driver for the boot device did not hook it or didn't hook it fast enough". The needed driver is normally disabled/set in the wrong group. You need *something* that sets correctly some keys/values for the USB driver in the Registry: https://web.archive.org/web/20161130182451/http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=22473 https://github.com/vavrecan/usb-boot-watcher jaclaz

What difference there is (for imaging[1]) if VSS is enabled or not? Anyway: https://www.securesolutions.no/detecting-if-volume-shadow-copies-has-been-disabled/ OfflineReg should do: http://reboot.pro/topic/18527-offlinereg/ jaclaz [1] talking of "proper" imaging, i.e. dd-like or "forensic sound".

Why don't you check the original forum for the thingy? https://www.prxbx.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=48 https://www.prxbx.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=2191 https://www.prxbx.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=2172 jaclaz

Is that a "clone" or an "image" (they are not the same thing, the clone is directly on disk, the image is inside a file). Whenever a NT OS is booted with connected two hard disks with the same Disk Signature one of the two is changed silently to avoid collisions. Since it is a dual boot system, you can use the ubuntu to check for the Disk Signature. The disk signature is 4 bytes at offset 440 in the MBR. It is normally not possible to boot a NT system on a disk where the disk signature was changed without either correcting the disk signature on disk or correcting it in the Registry (or clearing the key and let the OS recreate it) in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices jaclaz

I don't know, both? The only difference between the midway and the midway "clean" seems to me (besides the set command for ocount, which I cannot believe can be relevant) the removal of the (unneeded) "cat --locate=\x22 --replace=\x00 (md)%mdmem%+1", so that it must take some time, but it is only run once, so? In a "direct comparison", the "tokenize" *needs* it and with it the cat in the subroutine is faster than dd (QED ), BUT as you correctly did, by removing it (as it is not needed in the dd version) the batch regains some speed, or maybe the difference is all in the insmod loading? Side note about the 255 chars limit, I don't see it as a real world limitation, though of course it is not "fully" universal. I like to see this kind of stuff (when talking with "real" programmers, which would obviously consider it a serious flaw[1]) like doors . The size of a door in an apartment is normally WxH 80 cm x 210 cm. It has been de facto standardized as it is "wide enough" and "tall enough" to let 99,9 % (say) of people go through "comfortably", beside having a "pleasing to the eye" ratio. If you are a basketball player or a seriously obese person they won't be good. Still, we cannot make all doors - still say - WxH 120 cm x 250 cm to take care of the exception and if we add a control of some kind to prevent large people to go through (nowadays that would be an IoT device, a 3D scanner that assesses the size of the person approaching the door, sending it to a central server where an AI would then - in case of need - return to a speaker either a "Duck!" or a "Stop right there, fatso!" [2] vocal warning) that would be inconvenient. Anyway the exercise confirmed the base assumption, to know which is faster/better/whatever you need to test. jaclaz [1] typical is "you cannot use Excel for that, you need a proper database such as SQL", and BTW by the time they setup their "proper" database and the forms and the connection, I usually already have the results, printed and faxed to destination [2] my imaginary IoT devices are not politically correct

This could be a "midway" version: !BAT setlocal set /A mdmem=0x3000 > nul set /A myskip=0x600000 > nul set myvar="something" with space and two spaces aND "" quotes" set myvarnq= set myoffets= echo -n > (md)%mdmem%+1 write (md)%mdmem%+1 %myvar%\0 cat --locate=\x22 (md)%mdmem%+1 | set myoffsets= cat --locate=\x22 --replace=\x00 (md)%mdmem%+1 cat (md)%mdmem%+1 | set myvarnq=%myvarnq% set ocount=0 if not ""=="%myoffsets%" call :noquotes2 %myoffsets% set myvar goto :eof :noquotes2 set seekbyt=%1 > nul if not exist seekbyt && cat (md)%mdmem%+1 | set myvarnq= && goto :eof set /A seekbyt=0x%seekbyt%-%ocount% > nul set /A "skipbyt=%seekbyt%+1" > nul dd if=(md)%mdmem%+1 of=(md)%mdmem%+1 bs=1 skip=%skipbyt% seek=%seekbyt% > nul shift set /a ocount=%ocount%+1 > nul goto :noquotes2 that should be good to compare the "pure" speed of cat vs. dd. jaclaz

Yes, you are right, it is the opposite of what I said , the more quotes there are, the more should be the difference, I was thinking of the "cat --locate=\x22 --number=1 (md)%mdmem%+1 | set seekbyt=", you get just the first occurrence at each loop, while the "cat --locate=\x22 (md)%mdmem%+1 | set myoffsets=" gets all the quotes in one read, then you re-write the whole part up to the quote, my guess is that the cat --locate is very fast, whilst the dd might be a "slow" command, particularly with bs=1. About insmod use, I don't know, I remember an issue with a grub4dos batch, some time ago, where insmod made a huge difference. I'll see if I can find a reference to it. EDIT: Found it, never mind, it was about insmoding WENV: http://reboot.pro/topic/17728-release-mbrviewg4b-a-bat-tool-for-grub4dos/ jaclaz

What you should compare would be the "dd" approach against the "tokenize" one with a myvar with long text and only one double quote, i.e. set myvar=something strupidly long and with a single double quote " placed around the middle of the string, this should choke the dd approach The difference in timing should increase, the more double quotes are in the string the more loops the tokenize will take while the dd approach with only one quote should loop anyaway all n chars times. I believe that the strings passed to the routine in real world will be (invented data): 1) 90% no quotes <- no difference between "dd" and "tokenize" 2) 9% 1 or two quotes <- advantage of "tokenize" over "dd" 3) 1% several quotes <- very slight advantage, if any at all, of "tokenize" over "dd" and anyway 3 seconds over 50000 loops is a very small difference, but the real test would be on a real system (not a VM) where "real" disk latency, let's say on a slowish device such as an USB stick might make dd much slower. jaclaz

Also make sure you have a suitable witty 404 page, that was a must have at the time. jaclaz

In case, you can get inspiration from the original, you need blinky GIFs AND moving text: https://www.theworldsworstwebsiteever.com/ jaclaz

Well, only for the record, it wouldn't be that much a limitation to need to enclose the variable in quotes before calling the subroutine, but you are right that we can do "better". This is more what I had in mind and needs not any exoteric function (and it is - I believe - actually readable/understandable). !BAT setlocal set /A mdmem=0x3000 > nul set /A myskip=0x600000 > nul set myvar="something" with space and two spaces aND "" quotes" set myvarnq= set myoffets= echo -n > (md)%mdmem%+1 write (md)%mdmem%+1 %myvar%\0 cat --locate=\x22 (md)%mdmem%+1 | set myoffsets= cat --locate=\x22 --replace=\x00 (md)%mdmem%+1 cat (md)%mdmem%+1 | set myvarnq=%myvarnq% if not ""=="%myoffsets%" call :tokenize %myoffsets% set myvar goto :eof :tokenize set /A start=0x%1+1 > nul cat --skip=%start% (md)%mdmem%+1 | set myvarnq=%myvarnq% if not ""=="%2" shift && goto :tokenize goto :eof About timing, it is like in batch, you need to put the routine in a loop (x100, x1000, x10000, whatever) and then the seconds are enough. I would bet on this latter code, as there is no call to subroutine if there are no quotes and only as many calls as there are quotes in the variable. Try it and see if it fits the bill. jaclaz

Yep, it needs to be timed, but it is likely that the write to (md) works faster, though (with all due respect ) you made it more complex (and slower) than needed with your dd loop (as it goes one char at the time). Likely (but again it should be timed) something more like this (as well really "ugly") should be faster (less loops, hopefully only the needed ones): !BAT set /A mdmem=0x3000 > nul set /A myskip=0x600000 > nul set myvar="something" with space and two spaces aND "" quotes" echo -n > (md)%mdmem%+1 write (md)%mdmem%+1 %myvar%\0 cat (md)%mdmem%+1 echo cat --locate=\x22 --replace=: (md)%mdmem%+1 set myvar= call :Function13 set myvarWq="%myvar%" set myvar goto :eof :Function13 call Fn.13 %myskip% ":" set /A myskip=%@retval% > nul cat --skip=%myskip% (md)0+0x3001 | set mytoken=: set /A myskip=%myskip%+%@retval% > nul set myvar=%myvar%%%mytoken:~1% call Fn.11 %myskip% ":" && goto :Function13 goto :eof jaclaz