jaclaz

No. http://wingeek.com/news/40507/windows-7-god-mode-mythbusting/ http://www.askvg.com/truth-behind-hidden-secret-god-mode-found-in-windows-7/ Seemingly yes. jaclaz

Just for the record, neutral.cab is a biggish file, around 500 Mb, maybe you can try to download only it using httpdisk: http://reboot.pro/13049/ IF the issue is some kind of "timeout" due to a slow connection, you may get away with it since your screenshot shows an issue at around 580 Mb. jaclaz

I meant the main point about proper ways to deal with the issue you were having. And rest assured, you missed it. You are evidently trying to extend your past experience to modern technology. It simply won't work, because whilst some things actually remained the same, and thus for these past experience is very useful, for some other things, that have changed, past experience is not only unuseful, but - to a certain degree - counterproductive, in the sense that it may make you believe things that were correct, but that are not correct anymore. In other words, though it is perfectly possible that you are right when you say that some specific manufacturer tools suck (and a few actually do suck big ) you cannot state - given the limited experience that you seem to have with modern hard disks and with modern programs for them - that "since this used to be done like this then it must be done in the same way", as said some things have changed very little, and some have greatly changed. Think about cars, 10, 15 or 20 years ago, with a medium sized toolbox you could fix *any* car, nowadays on many cars you need a specific interface, a specific connector, a speciifc program (besides a computer) even to change a light bulb. Or maybe more simply out of the paradigm of the specific programs you used, among others the suggested Victoria will give you this kind of information. Better (in the sense of faster/larger) may not be the same as better (in the sense of more reliable/failproof). Modern hard disks are way more complex than older ones and - as said - there are some factors that may make them more likely to fail. Just as an example, perpendicular recording: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpendicular_recording creates a number of engineering problems in manufacturing, precision and ultimately in reliability/life of the disk. I also expect that in a few years HAMR: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat-assisted_magnetic_recording will pose more and new challenges to the engineers. You are welcome. jaclaz

Strangely enough "OEM installation & Recovery " discs. What you failed to take notice of was that most common are EITHER "Oem installation" (ONLY) OR "Recovery" (ONLY) discs. The former are usually an "*almost* standard" (where the degree of *almost* is inversely proportional on how big the OEM is, meaning that "small OEM" make installation disks that are 80% to 99.99% alike the MS OEM discs, whilst "big" OEM's like - to name one - DELL, tend to make less standard OEM installation discs). Big OEM's like SONY and HP ship with ONLY recovery disc, or, even worse, ONLY recovery partition on HD and a tool to make ONLY Recovery discs. So, you are in a "special" case. As said, given the peculiar way the "Recovery" part of your "OEM installation & Recovery " disc was created, there are very little (please read NO) chances currently to fiddle in any way with the "Recovery" part, whilst it should be relatively easy to deal with the "OEM installation" part. And this brings you back EXACTLY on the path that was suggested to you threee months ago : jaclaz

It seems like firefox only adds a trailng space in CODEBOX on second line. Go figure.... jaclaz

Yep, it is in a "developers" only test/report section, sorry for not noticing it. However nothing that cannot be re-posted publicly: Following are several tests, but not yet a definite solution (also because of the board software change). This is strange. I will post the following text but without double quotes : "This text has NO trailing spaces" normally, inside a QUOTE, inside a CODE and inside a CODEBOX: This text has NO trailing spaces This text has NO trailing spaces This text has NO trailing spaces In Opera, plain, QUOTE and CODE have NO trailing spaces, but the CODEBOX has it. If I try with two lines: "This text has NO trailing spaces and is on 2 lines" This text has NO trailing spaces and is on 2 lines This text has NO trailing spaces and is on 2 lines This text has NO trailing spaces and is on 2 lines plain and QUOTE are OK, in CODE first line has an added trailing space, and in CODEBOX last line has a trailng space. With Ie, the results are similar. What happens in Firefox? jaclaz I am attaching opera.txt and ie.txt made by copying from "This is strange" (included) up to (excluded) pasted in Notepad. Run a binary comparison of the two and you will see the differences. Can you do the same and upload firefox.txt? opera.txt ie.txt

Well, I did change the name in the batch from disks.txt to unbound.txt, obviously. Now that I can do a binary compare of the copy/paste with your original attachment, it is clear that the issue is "trailing spaces", replacing 200D0A with 0D0A solves the issue. Opera browser, copy -> Paste in notepad, Win XP 32 bit. On my machine it runs in a x10 loop in around 80/100th Cross posting on: jaclaz

And, at the ONLY scope of showing what the idea behind Occam's Razor is, I tried the various batches timing them on the sample file posted, which I saved as "unbound.txt". Results (in a x10 loop): the second one posted by me (with "unbound.txt" hardcoded) takes around 30/100th in a x10 loop. the one by 5eraph is not working ( it just shows the total number of unbound disks, than hangs) @5eraph, can you check it? (maybe is one of those pesky copy/paste from board) updated, see below, it runs in around 80/100 the one posted by Yzöwl takes around 1 seconds and 80/100 the following one (in which I took the liberty of inverting the order of the output in order to remove a FOR loop) takes around 16/100th @ECHO OFF SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION FOR /F "tokens=1,2 delims=:" %%A IN (unbound.txt) DO ( IF "%%A"=="Capacity" SET /A Current=%%B IF "%%B"==" Unbound" SET /A Unbound_!Current!+=1 ) FOR /F "tokens=1,2,3 delims=_=" %%A IN ('SET Unbound_') DO ( ECHO Count of Unbound disks with size %%B = !Unbound_%%B! SET /A Unbound_=!Unbound_!+%%C ) ECHO No. of Unbound disks: %Unbound_% jaclaz

If I get it right , since you can't afford it, then you use WAREZ? Maybe you could use a Trial version until you get the money to buy a license for it. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/cc442495.aspx An OS, is not like bread (which in some cases you may be morally justified if you steal some since you can't afford it). Be VERY aware of Rule #1.a: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?app=forums&module=extras&section=boardrules jaclaz

And - again - you are confusing things. Those CD/DVD's are seemingly at the same time Install and Recovery media, they are made of TWO parts, "Recovery" and "Install". Recovery is NOT Install and Install is NOT Recovery. You managed to make verbatim copies of the original disks "as-they-are". Then you -again seemingly - tested the "install" part of them AND NOT the Recovery part. What you have been told till now is that most probably there is NO problem whatsoever to modify the "install" part (even if it runs from a non-standard folder such as I386DIST\ ), adding to it new drivers and what not, BUT that we have NO way to modify the Recovery part. This because seemingly Advent used for the Recovery part a specific software we are not familiar with and that normally is not available to the "final user". jaclaz

No, that is parameter %1 to the batch, normally the filename you wish to process. Example: You have saved the batch as countunbound.cmd and you have the list in a file that is called mylist.txt, this latter in C:\mylists\ You then invoke the batch like: countunbound.cmd mylist.txt provided that you open a command prompt in the same directory where BOTH files are (C:\mylists\). Or: C:\mybatches\countunbound.cmd mylist.txt if the prompt is in the same directory where mylist.txt and it is not the same as the one countunbound.cmd is (C:\mybatches\) Or: countunbound.cmd C:\mylists\mylist.txt if the prompt is in the directory where countunbound.cmd is and mylist.txt is in directory C:\mylists\. "%~dpnx1" will expand in all cases to "C:\mylists\mylist.txt" see here also: With this approach you should also be able to use drag 'n drop, just add a PAUSE at the end of the batch. jaclaz

Yep that was supposed to be the clever part . Yes, and definitely your snippet is a much better solution for "generic" arrays, but within the limits of OP needs, I find that the fun in the game is to find the simplest possible answer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor jaclaz

Neither am I. The posted example was the simplest possible covering OP requests as they were explicited (or at least as I understood them). If you have n different disk sizes, the example can be easily made "self-learning". New example: @ECHO OFF SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION FOR /F "tokens=1,2 delims=:" %%A IN ('TYPE "%~dpnx1"') DO ( IF "%%A"=="Capacity" SET /A Current=%%B IF "%%B"==" Unbound" SET /A Unbound_!Current!+=1 ) FOR /F "tokens=2 delims==" %%A IN ('SET Unbound_') DO SET /A Unbound_=!Unbound_!+%%A ECHO No. of Unbound disks: %Unbound_% FOR /F "Skip=1 tokens=1,2,3 delims=_=" %%A IN ('SET Unbound_') DO ECHO Count of Unbound disks with size %%B = !Unbound_%%B! The batch does not check existance of any previous "Unbound_*" variable in the environment, but this can be added as a "safety/sanity" check. SET Unbound_= FOR /F "tokens=2 delims=_=" %%A IN ('SET Unbound_') DO SET Unbound_%%A= jaclaz

Do not underestimate the effects of intimidating hardware too (though routers - generally speaking - are a bit tough) : jaclaz

This should do: @ECHO OFF SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION SET Unbound_274845=0 SET Unbound_1878379=0 FOR /F "tokens=1,2 delims=:" %%A IN ('TYPE "%~dpnx1"') DO ( IF "%%A"=="Capacity" SET /A Current=%%B IF "%%B"==" Unbound" SET /A Unbound_!Current!+=1 ) SET /A Unbound=%Unbound_274845%+%Unbound_1878379% ECHO No. of Unbound disks: %Unbound% ECHO Count of Unbound disks with size 274845 = %Unbound_274845% ECHO Count of Unbound disks with size 1878379 = %Unbound_1878379% jaclaz

Not enough room for compromise, at the most you can have a (lousy) animated assistant, since the Office Assistants, and particularly Clippy were bashed for years : http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/c/clippy.htm you can now only choose between Chaos and Scuzz (the other all retired in the meantime) http://toastytech.com/guis/bob4.html jaclaz

Maybe a tadbit "too" classic : http://www.datamancer.net/keyboards/keyboards.htm REknown for the "blank" (actually all black) keyboard they also make a less clicky one now (with actual symbols): http://www.daskeyboard.com/products/ Reviews: http://www.livingdigitally.net/2011/08/mechanical-keyboard-roundup-review-of-the-das-keyboard-model-s-professional-filco-majestouch-2-dsi-m.html Keyboard surgery : http://mykeyboard.co.uk/ http://mykeyboard.co.uk/surgery/ @dencorso I am sure you will appreciate how these guys put it down rather bluntly : http://www.clickykeyboards.com/index.cfm jaclaz

You use one of these: jaclaz

It seems like the *whatever* is also used on some COMPAQ/HP and Gateway: http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/topic/109988-having-trouble-installing-windows-xp/ http://forums.world-informatique.com/printview.php?t=33605&start=0 My (educated ) guess, is that it is the SoftThinks thingie PCAngel: http://www.adventsupport.com/viewtopic.php?t=532 In more plain terms, it's a problem to deal with those. Only seemingly OT: Just for the record it seems like the old site pcangelle.com is now connected to Dell , and the actual PC Angel LE site is here: https://www.org-infor.fr/ https://www.org-infor.fr/WW70AWP/WW70AWP.EXE/CONNECT/PCALE (or maybe it's a mirror ) I think the only viable approach is - as cdob suggested - to rebuild a "plain" install CD/DVD, just for the record, not entirely unlike what jaclaz originally suggested : @JedClampett The idea behind verifying after a burn is to actually believe when it says that the verify failed, and, consequently, try again, NOT to pretend that it's b***§hit and ignore the error. The screenshot says that that disk has problem accessing sector 213520, it implies that anything before sector 213520 is OK, and that anything after it is "a suffusion of yellow". OF COURSE it will boot (since normally only first few sectors are used in booting) it may also initiate the install/recovery correctly, but it is LIKELY it will throw an error when it will need to read sector 213520, possibly leaving you with a half-finished, partial install. jaclaz

First thing the folder names are EITHER dates or random. If the folder names are "random" then you will have to use date attributes. If you have something like: What happens if you open a command prompt and enter (you can copy and paste): DIR C:\temp\ /A:D And what happens if you enter: DIR C:\temp\ /A:D /O:-D You will see how the most recently modified folder is the FIRST "normal" folder, either right after the "." and ".." entries or right before them. Now, issue: DIR C:\temp\ /A:D /O:-D /B You will see how the most recently modified folder is first one. Now issue: @ECHO OFF&FOR /F "tokens=* delims=" %A IN ('DIR C:\temp\ /A:D /O:-D /B') DO ECHO rmdir "c:\temp\%A" /s /q What do you get? Now issue: @ECHO OFF&FOR /F "skip=1 tokens=* delims=" %A IN ('DIR C:\temp\ /A:D /O:-D /B') DO ECHO rmdir "c:\temp\%A" /s /q What do you get? You have your batch: @ECHO OFF SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS FOR /F "skip=1 tokens=* delims=" %%A IN ('DIR C:\temp\ /A:D /O:-D /B') DO ( ECHO rmdir "c:\temp\%%A" /s /q ) Of course in order to have it actually working you need to remove the ECHO. Also mind you that depending on the filesystem used, and on the users who created contents, you may have access permissions issue. jaclaz

I don't think you really want to know that. http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=16534&st=23 the explanation given there does not apply to Q10, this may: http://texteditors.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?EditorIndex And the good Mac guys are not as dumb as you might think , actually the origin is likely to come from them: http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom Ideas/inspirations are exchanged between the Windows and the Mac (and the Linux) guys, some more examples: http://they.misled.us/dark-room http://www.codealchemists.com/jdarkroom/ http://writer.bighugelabs.com/ But again, someone here may be old enough to remember Qedit (q.exe): http://texteditors.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?QEDIT possibly the best DOS text editor EVER jaclaz

DOS in this case is only a "short-name", DOS-like (in the sense of no graphical nonsense for non-graphical use) is a more correct definition, the test I was talking about was running on NT or 2K machines, the app was running in a window, with a DOS-like interface. For NO apparent reason: http://www.baara.com/q10/ jaclaz

Guess why the questions asked have a given order? And why before #3 there is #2? (and before it #1?) jaclaz

No, there is a boot catalog and a boot sector. No. jaclaz

I think that the basic mistake is to attempt to find a on-size-fits-all-solution (actually making a single product and then convince everyone that it is the "rigth product" for them). I mean, you know how dinosaurish I am, but the usage paradigm in a business office has not changed much in the last 20 (twenty years) or more, a typical employee will have before him/her a screen, and he/she has to input in it some data, little matters if the object is a business letter, an e-mail or some data in a "vertical" dedicated program, and most of the time what they have before them is nothing but a "thin client" or a terminal to a server. They won't *need* anything more than a plain video card and display and a keyboard, even the mouse is something mostly unneeded. (just for your interest a few years ago I tested in the same office side by side a good ol' "DOS like" accounting program with it's Windows counterpart and almost everyone that used them was happier about the easyness of the workflow with just the keyboard and a few F keys) Same goes for another vast category of non-graphical professionals, writers, solicitors, technicians, programmers (of non-graphical apps), etc., etc. Then there will be the professionals, architects, designers, graphical artists, programmers that need each and every CPU cycle, byte of RAM, pixel number and colour shade, and responsiveness they can get (and even more), AND need a stable OS, a very secure filesystem and backup/redundancy reliable solutions. Then there are the gamers that need if possible even more juice than the above, but couldn't care the least about secure filesystems, permissions, quotas, etc. On the other hand, if you are on the move you might actually want to have a portable solution, touch and what not, notwthstanding my dinosaurish approach I bought in 1993 or 1994 a Compaq Concerto, tablet with pen (and keyboard) and found it at the time a perfect business solution on the move. Then there are the "grandmothers", they have three main uses: read/write e-mails to/from their relatives and friends watch photos and (lousy videos) of their nephews search on the internet something (textual) they may be interested in And finally there are the kids (the few that are not in the gamers group ), they want multimedia (and very little more), and as long as they can get a lousy video from Youtube in low resolution they are OK. To name a known competitor, the Ipad is IMHO the perfect thing, though overpowered, for grannies, the perfect thing, though underpowered, for kids, and completely UNLIKE useful to any of the other "profiles". jaclaz