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jaclaz

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Posts posted by jaclaz

    Slipstreaming Tablet Edition, Installing, etc

    in Windows XP

    Posted

    Yep it's just XP with some ink/handwriting recognition software added:

    http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechn...y/tpcdploy.mspx

    My organization normally wipes the hard drive when we buy a new PC. How do I load a new image of Windows XP Tablet PC Edition on the machine?

    The Windows XP Tablet PC Edition operating system uses the same installation and deployment technologies as Windows XP. These technologies include the use of CD installations, unattended installations, Remote Installation Services (RIS), and Sysprep.

    from here:

    http://www.tabletquestions.com/faq.php?faq=tpc_os

    jaclaz

    0

    acrobat alternative: recommendation needed

    in Software Hangout

    Posted

    Should anyone need a plugin for Bart PE, here is a link to plugins (on 911CD forum):

    http://www.911cd.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=7761

    http://www.911cd.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=7764

    As said there to critics to this proggie:

    As of now I tried it with up to 30Mb .pdf files with no problems.(not from WinPe but from within standard 2k install)

    It is visibly faster than Acroread.

    It actually seems to have some glitches on bookmarks, though.

    However I think that it might be the files' fault.

    As a matter of fact PDF is somewhat a "closed format" and by the flourishing of "PDF creators" it is probable that some files, created with something that is not the original Adobe Acrobat somehow go astray from the right specification.

    For example I am experimenting with this nifty freeware:

    PDF Explorer

    http://rtt.planetaclix.pt/

    which works for me very well except for a couple of files.

    The same files minimally edited and re-saved work well.

    And what do you want from a free 1 Mb proggie, blood?

    jaclaz

    0

    Partition problem how to solve it?

    in Windows 2000/2003/NT4

    Posted

    Well, when talking about this matter it is VERY easy to get confused.

    CHS is the old way (but still simpler) to address sectors.

    I'll try to explain it as best as I can:

    1) Track 0 (zero) is the 1st sector in the hard disk (512 bytes long)

    2) It's address is CHS 0 0 1 or LBA 1

    3) In track 0 is stored the MBR (or Master Boot Record)

    4) The MBR is composed of two main parts, see here for reference:

    http://therdcom.com/asm/mbr/MBR_in_detail.htm

    the first part is the boot (more properly IPL Initial Program Loading) code, whilst the second (the last 66 bytes) are the 64 byte Partition table plus the 55AA "signature bytes".

    5) All FDISK tools will default the first partition entry to CHS 0 1 1

    6) supposing that the disk (like almost all of them) has 63 sectors per head, this leaves the 62 sectors gap you mention:

    Total of sectors on Cilynder 0 Head 0 Sector 1 = 63 - 1 sector (taken by MBR) leaves 62 of them.

    Track as used in point one above is actually not a proper term, unless it is used as Track0 , which it is the only one that we know about.

    No one, apart from disk manufacturers, actually know how many tracks are actually on the disk, to say it better, track is a name for a physical thing, let's call it a "magnetic groove", of which there is a certain number on the disk's surfaces.

    This unknown number of physical tracks are identified and numbered, by the disk on-board controller, in an unknown way, then this physical address is "translated" to the "outside" (the BIOS) as consecutive 512 bytes SECTORS.

    Finally this address can be interpreted either as CHS or LBA.

    Actually on a disk there are quite a few more "tracks" than the ones reported from the controller.

    This is because on ALL disks there is a certain number of defective tracks, that are marked as bad by the manufacturer "LOW-LEVEL" utilities.

    I hope that the above does help.

    jaclaz

    0

    FixMBR

    in Windows PE

    Posted

    Boot from a 98 boot disk or the windows 98 cd and run fdisk /mbr. Way easier than learning new utils.

    By the way, the Windows 98 fdisk /mbr command will write, guess what, a Win98 MBR, NOT a NT/Win2k/XP/2003 one.

    The only ways to write a new NT/Win2k/XP/2003 MBR I know of, apart the utility from Kaares here are:

    1) Microsoft's FixMBR (that will run in the Recovery Console only)

    2) Ranish partition manager (that will work from DOS only) which writes a standard IPL code, not the win2k one

    You can extract the MBR IPL code from files on your Win2k/XP and write it manually with an Hex/disk editor:

    http://therdcom.com/asm/mbr/Win2kmbr.htm

    The very good utility MBRwizard by Roger Layton can read (and store) MBR data, then can write it from the stored file, but it DOES NOT create it as the above two do.

    To edit/replace the BOOT RECORD (not the MBR) there is this fine Bootpart by Gilles Vollant (that will have direct disk access under DOS only), that works on FAT volumes.

    A further step could be to make an unified GUI for the three of them:

    Bootpart

    MBRfix

    MBRwizard

    and for some other related utility, so that you have a complete repair solution.

    Every suggestion is welcome.

    jaclaz

    0

    Office 2003 License question

    in Microsoft Office

    Posted

    Kind of "gray" I think...

    Yes, I think that the accent should be posed to the fact that in the setup mecnet exposed there is NO CONCURRENT use of the program (and license).

    So I would say that one license should be OK.

    (my two cents only, of course)

    To make sure, you could install it to a "common" partition, then use it by either of the double boot Operating Systems.

    jaclaz

    0

    Boot PE from USB Flash Drive

    in Windows PE

    Posted

    This might be good (or bad $$) news:

    http://www.prime-expert.com/flashboot/features.php

    FlashBoot is a tool that makes USB disks bootable. It was specially designed to work with USB Flash devices. It is used to reformat flash disk (that's optional) and transfer system files to it. You have many options for your choice:

    transfer DOS kernel only (you may get the files from installed Windows 9x, from Windows 9x setup folder, or use built-in FreeDOS)

    convert floppy disk to USB Flash disk (a diskette or an image file may be used)

    convert a bootable CD-ROM to USB Flash disk (again images are supported). There are some technical difficulties with supporting any type of CD-ROM here, see details below. But there should be no troubles with the most real file cases. You may convert Knoppix and EBCD, for instance.

    create Windows NT/2000/XP password recovery disk

    create disk with NT/2000/XP bootloader. It would be useful when you have mistakenly configured it, and boot.ini file was left on unreachable disk (NTFS).

    duplicate USB flash disk. Just creates a copy of existing disk USB flash disk, different sizes of source and destination medias are OK.

    Types of convertible CD-ROMs include so-called 1.44-floppy emulation bootable CD-ROMs and no-emulation CD-ROMs based on ISOLinux.

    FlashBoot is designed to be compatible with all types of bootable USB Flash disks, i.e. it is not binded to Transend, Kingston, HP, or to any other particular manufacturer of USB Flash disks.

    BUT:
    The price of full-featured version of FlashBoot is 50 euro, that's about 66 USD by current exchange rate.

    jaclaz

    0

    FixMBR

    in Windows PE

    Posted

    Nice idea to create a small GUI. Let us know when it's ready.
    Ok, I'll post it as soon as I make it.
    Have you sent a PM to kaares for hosting his tool ?

    I'm not sure he will read your proposition on this forum. Only 2 posts 'til he joined MSFN.

    Doh! Stupid of me, I'll PM him, you are right.

    jaclaz

    0

    Hare - What do you think?

    in Software Hangout

    Posted

    I tested it a little bit.

    The only thing that seems nice is the ability to give more "power" to foreground app, at the cost (quite obviously) to really slowdown background apps.

    Maybe there is a misunderstanding between "speed" and "responsiveness".

    I made some search on the matter, it seems to be quite popular between gamers, but cannot say that's just because it "looks" nifty.

    The built-in benchmark is a laugh, it just starts and in no time says that system has accelerated (in my case 65%), it does not say in WHAT!

    Real benchmarks are a different thing.

    Here is a related thread on another board:

    http://forum.misec.net/board/3PSoftware/1091705057

    that seems to me quite realistic.

    jaclaz

    0

    Stolen Computer Program?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    'm sure if the administrator account is password protected and the volume is ntfs they won't be able to access anything

    Actually that I know of there are at least 5 methods, a couple commercial and the other ones freeware to access an NTFS volume.

    And another 5 or 6 to discover/change/reset the Administrator password.

    The ONLY way to really protect a volume is NTFS encryption, quite safe, but VERY RISKY as in case of corruption can be a problem to recover data, (and by the way NOT unbreakable).

    They may be "commom burglars", but they surely have a "geek" friend that does this.

    jaclaz

    0

    Hare - What do you think?

    in Software Hangout

    Posted

    Haven't tested, yet, but I smell something fishy:

    From here:

    http://www.dachshundsoftware.com/hare/hfaq.html

    Q. Hare seems to be a low-level utility. Are you sure it can't damage my computer? [back]Hare cannot damage your computer, for 2 reasons:

    While it is a low-level utility, it is full of safeguards which will automatically stop Hare if any problem is encountered.

    Hare makes all necessary low-level hooks in RAM. This has two advantages: the hooks are applied immediately (RAM is very fast), and if there is any problem, RAM can be erased and restored without any problem, since it is volatile and doesn't survive through program launching or, even better, rebooting.

    Hare is on the market since 2001 and no one ever experienced crash or data loss because of it.

    It's quite strange it is not the best-selling app of years 2001/2002/2003 and 2004, expecially because :blink:

    Hare technology: the core of Hare is a re-written Kernel, working at up to 88-bit (instead of the standard 32-bit) and accelerating most basic system actions by acting as the Windows Kernel. This is done by triple-buffering all I/O data, in order to achieve an emulated 88-bit Kernel. This technology is fully safe and we have implemented safeguards in order to make it impossible to damage your computer.
    And it is
    System Requirements 

    Compatible with

    Windows 95/98/98SE/Me

    Windows NT/2000

    Windows XP

    :w00t:

    jaclaz

    0

    Install XP FROM a USB Hard Drive (Possible?)

    in Windows XP

    Posted

    Pardon me, but I think that here there is some incomprehension.

    It is not that difficult.

    You need:

    1) A USB memory stick with enough capacity to hold the /i386 folder of your original CP cd-rom

    2) The HP USB format utility, find LATEST here:

    sp27608 Windows-based Format Utility for HP Drive Key or DiskOnKey USB Device

    (substitutes 27213)

    http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hp...load/21284.html

    3) A copy of these DOS/Win9x files

    COMMAND.COM

    IO.SYS

    MSDOS.SYS

    You can get them almost everywhere, or you can make a floppy from within XP along this guidelines:

    http://www.theeldergeek.com/create_ms-dos_startup_disk.htm

    4) The original XP CD-ROM

    On a machine running either:

    a) Windows 98SE

    b) Windows 2000

    c) Windows XP/Server 2003

    Do the following:

    1) make sure the Operating System assigns a drive letter to the USB stick

    2) run the HP format utility making sure that you select:

    a) FAT filesystem

    b) CREATE a DOS startup disk (it will ask you for a location where the three files above mentioned are)

    c) copy the /i386 folder from the CD-rom to the USB stick

    d) got to the machine where you need to install XP, plug in the USB stick, make sure it is set to boot from USB in BIOS and reboot

    (please note that on some PC rebooting won't work, you need to switch it off and on again to let some BIOSes recognize the USB bootable device)

    e) once the machine has booted, at the C: prompt type:

    cd /i386 [ENTER]

    winnt.exe [ENTER]

    f) the XP setup will start, along the lines of this MS article:

    http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...;307848&sd=tech

    jaclaz

    0
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