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Posts posted by nil

    [DestinationDirs] codes for *.inf installations

    in Windows 9x/ME

    Posted

    In case you're thinking I'm an evil little leech of a newb, I'd be willing to do this myself if no one already has
    Hi appathetic loser. Never judge a book by it's title right. :)

    I started to compile such a list once but it quickly got added it to my "latter" list. You'll find some relevant info, links, and a partial list on this thread, and a wealth of information via this one.

    I pulled the following snippets from one of the MS docs mentioned in the second thread (can't recall which right now) - it highlights just how complicated the job of setting up a complete (ie. not just DirID's) and definative list might be:

    Variable LDIDs (VarLDIDs) allow for INFs to reliably find the existing Program Files, Accessories, etc., locations.

    Directories that have long file names or that may have extended characters in their names may have multiple LDIDs. For example, 28700 and 28701 both point to "Program Files", but 28700 corresponds to the short file name "Progra~1" while 28701 corresponds to the long file name. Likewise, 28700 and 28702 both point to the short name "Progra~1", but 28700 renders this name in the OEM character set whereas 28702 renders it in ANSI characters. Different LDIDs are appropriate for different uses. In general, OEM/SFN LDIDs are uses for file copying, ANSI/LFN are used for strings written to the registry, and ANSI/SFN are used for Setup.ini entries that create start menu shortcuts.

    The flag values at the end of the VarLDID.LFN and VarLDID.SFN sections show how the directories are represented internally as strings. The flag values have the following meanings:

    0 = OEM/SFN (Default)1 = ANSI/SFN2 = OEM/LFN3 = ANSI/LFN

    Anyhow, good luck. And be sure to let us lazy leeches know when you're done. :)

    0

    Stripped down 98 DOS?

    in Windows 9x/ME

    Posted · Edited by nil

    Hi azagahl.

    Is there a particular reason why you want to run your DOS games via Win98? Seems to me like you're better off just creating a small FAT16 partition and using a third-party bootmanager to boot straight to DOS 6.22 or 7. Or am I missing something?

    By the way, that game you mention looks pretty neat. Reminds me of an Amiga game I played way back when (can't for the life of me remember what that one was called though...)

    Cheers

    0

    Is it possible to check win98 registry for key by a cmdline app?

    in Windows 9x/ME

    Posted · Edited by nil

    soporific wrote: actually, reg.com looks promising - but where do you get it?
    My mistake soporific, the example used reg.exe (v1.03) from 98 Resource kit. I'm baffled as to why it was never made a standard Win98 component - sure it has it's limitations (SAVE, for example, returns "This function is only valid in Win32 mode.") but it's well worth having around if only for the DELETE function.
    guys, guys (or gals, gals), you've missed the opportunity to add more gloss to that shiny halo that sits a few cm above your heads ...
    "How dare thee mortal!"

    But /W, the halo around hir neck crumbles...

    Sir Vix feels whole again.

    :w00t:

    0

    Is it possible to check win98 registry for key by a cmdline app?

    in Windows 9x/ME

    Posted

    Hi Soporific. If you're willing to use a third-party command for the job try Horst Schaffer's excellent 'nset' command.

    With regedit:

    regedit /e get.tmp "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\OLE"
    nset<get.tmp /L4 dcom=$2
    for %%! in (%dcom%) do set dcom=%%! :: <- strip the variable of quotes
    if %dcom%==n ...

    With reg.com (resource kit):

    reg query "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\OLE\EnableDCOM"|nset /P22 dcom=$1

    Cheers.

    0

    Windows 95

    in Windows 9x/ME

    Posted

    When you get an error message like, "can't create Log file" it's usually because there's already a log file on the hard drive and its locked.

    Either unlocking it or just deleting it would solve that problem....

    What do you mean by "locked", and how would you go about "unlocking" it? (Other than deleting it of course :))

    0

    Greeting from nil

    in Introduce Yourself!

    Posted

    Greetings people.

    I've started feeling a little uncomfortable posting to these forums without first introducing myself, and it's finally got the better of my shyness so here goes.

    I'm from Perth, Western Australia, 30 something, and currently casually employed in a non-IT industry. While I've had formal IT training (back in the days when the "user first" principles of coding were still being taught) I've got no real interest in playing that game for a living any longer and now use computers mainly as hobby tools to exercise (and abuse :)) my mind.

    There's little I currently do on my 1100MHz PC that I can't do just as well on my 7.16MHz A500 (bought in the days when talk of cross-assemblers, "Electric Dreams", and snickering at young Billy's pathetic efforts were all the rage), which helps explain why Linux vs. XP (and open source vs. corporate coding) arguments make me laugh.

    I think people, not possessions, are all that really matter, and believe that unrestrained capitalism is ultimately the greatest cause of misery on this earth. (I realise that may be considered way too political, especially for an "intro" post, but those comments more than anything else here best help define who I am.)

    My computer related interests include system building, commandline scripting, and beta testing/reviewing software, and other interests include game theory, writing and cycling. And I'll read anything I can lay my hands on (hell, I even read a Jackie Collins novel once).

    My best computer stuffup was when I tried to install an AGP card while the system was powered up (no, it didn't...), and my most embarrassing moment was when I stood on a rake (yes, it did!!!). [@idee - OK bro, "can you grab my but?" came a close second. :D]

    My favorite quote is from Fred Fish, one time compiler and maintainer of an Amiga freely distributable software library (20-Aug-92 - d720\DrawMap\ReadMe.fnf):

    It seemed better for me to spend a couple hours doing this merging once, instead of 10,000 people around the world spending 20,000 hours doing the same thing.

    Nicely sums up the purpose and general spirit of these forums.

    Well, that's a brief of me and my views. Hope to catch up with more of you in the future.

    Enjoy yourselves.

    Nick (nil)

    0

    Windows 95

    in Windows 9x/ME

    Posted

    Thanks for the detailed response, there's a lot there for me to study.
    Yeah, I've been known to prattle on. :) Glad to see you got your system's up and running.
    I'm happy and feel like Einstein that I was able to do this without having to take it into a shop.

    Scary as hell the first time round but an awesome rush all the same. You'll be treating it like lego before too long. Happy hacking.

    I'm wondering what to do about virus protection. I've never had it on this system before but think I need something.

    I'd certainly be wanting some form of protection running, if only while on-line.

    'AVG7' and 'Avast 4.6 Home Edition' (http://www.avast.com/) are two popular choices for free (for personal use) anti-virus that'll work with Win95. If you stick with AVG I strongly suggest you configure the anti-virus to your liking (and turn off auto-updates) then quit it's "control center" (via the tray icon menu) for an instant 10MB+ memory saving. Stopping the control center from loading at startup (which is what you're best doing) requires a registry change; the simplest way to do it is to run 'MSConfig' (System Configuration Utility) and untick the relevant box on the "Startup" tab. (Assumes 'MSConfig' is on your system; if not download and use Codestuff Starter instead - http://members.lycos.co.uk/codestuff/)

    Remember that your AV is only as good as it's last update, and is nothing but hard disk clutter if you don't switch it on *before* you (think you might) need it...

    Your best bet for a free software firewall is definately Kerio Personal Firewall v2.1.5 (not the latter versions) which you can get via http://download.kerio.com/archive/. ZoneAlarm (a popular "applications-based" firewall) is arguably easier to configure than Kerio (a "rules-based" firewall) but is absolutely bloated in comparison. Check the Kerio forum (http://forums.kerio.com/) or dslreport forum (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/kerio) for a "generic ruleset" to get you started.

    The two best choices in anti-spyware software are 'SpyBot-SD (Search and Destroy)' (http://security.kolla.de/) and Lavasoft's 'Adaware SE Personal Edition' (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/). If you have the disk space I suggest you install both and use them on a regular basis.

    All my opinions of course. For more check out the wilders.org forum (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/index.php).

    Cheers.

    0

    Windows 95

    in Windows 9x/ME

    Posted · Edited by nil

    Sorry about the delayed response - had computer (and life) troubles of my own. :( I did write the following while off-line and hope it helps.

    There's no tab to slide on the floppy, it came that way.
    I'm glad, coz I would've felt bad had you casually let your boot disk get plastered over on my poor advice. It's not a great idea to write to your original master boot disks - says me who still thinks tab-less floppy disks should be illegal. :)
    The floppy seems ok and the problem starts after I insert the CD. I re-installed the system a couple of times before in the past without problems. I bought the computer new in '97. What is an ERROR.LOG?

    I don't know what error.log is (or which program is trying to create it) or know enough about your HP/Win95 setup to offer any specific ideas. My earlier suggestions were typical DOS workarounds for "file creation" errors but in retrospect they probably won't be of much help, especially given neither disk has been altered and that you've successfully reinstalled in the same way in the past.

    I need help in these areas... It may also be that the program you're trying to run needs to create a file in a "temp" directory.
    Many DOS programs save temporary files to the directory recorded in a "variable" named 'tmp', and will fail if either the variable, or the directory it points to, doesn't exist (or can't be written to, eg. the variable references a full or write-protected disk).

    To check if a 'tmp' variable exists just enter the command 'set' (without the quotes) at the DOS prompt and look for a line beginning with "tmp=". If the variable doesn't exist you can create it by using the command line 'set tmp=a:\' for example, and if the directory it points to is invalid (as a:\ would be in your case if you use your original boot disk]) change it by entering something like 'set tmp=c:\'. (To "delete" the variable you'd use 'set tmp=', and to reference the text stored in a variable just surround the variable name with '%' symbols, eg. 'echo The temp directory is currently %tmp%'.)

    Try CD'ing to a writable disk first, like the RAM disk if one is created, then starting the cdrom program using its full pathname.

    A common "9x" way to do a standard floppy/cdrom install of Windows is to boot up with a floppy, put in the Windows setup disk, then at the DOS prompt enter either x:\setup ('x' being your cdrom drive letter), or something like this:

    x:\ (change the "current drive" to your cdrom drive)

    cd x:\ (change the "current directory" to the root directory of your cdrom disk)

    setup (run setup.exe)

    The second method is generally the better approach but problems can occur if a program attempts to create a file (eg. a report or errorlog) in the current directory on a full or write-protected disk (like a cdrom). One possible workaround is to first change the current drive/directory to a writable disk, then start the program using it's full pathname, eg:

    c:\

    cd c:\temp

    x:\dos\util\program

    Note though that some cdrom-based programs expect to both read from and write to the current directory, and to get them to work you may need to copy the entire directory of the program in question to a writable disk and start it from there, eg.

    xcopy /s x:\dos\util c:\util\

    c:\

    cd c:\util

    program

    Most Windows installers dump the required install files from cdrom to the 'c' drive (the intended boot partition) and eventually restart from that partition to complete the installation. The initial "current directory" is the root directory of the disk your system booted from (eg. "a:\" if you booted from a floppy disk) and it remains the "current directory" until explicitly changed from a batch file (eg. a:\autoexec.bat) or from the commandline, and while there's no default %tmp% assignment it's unusual for a boot disk not to create one via autoexec.bat. If issues are happening early in the boot process and you can't check the location of the temp or current directories via DOS try instead get that information by looking at 'a:\autoexec.bat' with notepad.

    ...like the RAM disk if one is created...
    A typical Win98 boot disk creates a "ram disk" (a portion of the computers memory is exclusively reserved for use as a high speed temporary disk) and uses it as the "temp" directory and to store other created files. Your OEM/Win95 boot disk may not create a ram disk and might instead use a directory on the hard disk to store temporary files. Ramdisks are mostly a luxury on hard-disk systems and in your case a waste of precious RAM so consider modifying any boot disks you create/use in future to either stop the ram disk from being created or to limit it's size (ie. ram usage).
    Would it be better or easier to just erase the whole hard drive and just start over with something new? If so I'm not sure how to do it.

    Maybe there's a simple fix for the issues you've describe but a "clean install" (ie. reformatting the boot partition and installing a fresh copy of Windows on it) is still likely to be the better long term solution. That said, there's no simple fix if you accidently wipe a hidden "support" partition (or format months worth of unsaved data, or scratch your cd, ...) so take care, and check out one of the many install guides available (on this site for example) before taking the plunge. (A complete reinstall would likely involve repartitioning and reformatting your hard drive, preferably with two partitions to make future reinstalls easier, and a search for "Ranish Partition Manager" would be a good start.)

    All I really need is the most current version of Windows that this computer will handle...

    If you do upgrade try Windows 98SE. It's generally easier to strip down than 'ME' and more likely to handle modern hardware and software than Windows '98'. In any case try using less resource hungry alternatives to programs you might find yourself needing (eg. Foxit PDF Reader instead of Adobe Acrobat Reader, or use registry hacks instead of installing context menu extensions), and consider turning off any installed realtime virus/trojan/scumware scanners until they're actually needed (eg. just before installing a new program). Regardless of which OS you use don't use compressed disks (your Win95 system has one?) because they sacrifice RAM and processing power (you've got little to waste of both) for extra disk storage (which is relatively cheap and easy to upgrade these days).

    If you instead decide to reinstall your HP/Win95 setup you might find this link helpful, though I only gave it a quick glance and didn't check if it helps answer your previous questions.

    Anyhow, I'm sure someone will chuck a spare P-200 your way if you keep flashing those specs around. :D Good Luck.

    Edit: I'm not sure if the version of command.com you're using includes it but you could type 'set' immediately after your floppy boot fails and see if a variable named 'cmdline' exists. If it does, it holds the name of the last external program run from that particular DOS shell, which may not tell you which commandline is causing you hassles (internal commands aren't recorded) but at least will help track down how far along the boot process you're getting. You may also find this link helpful.

    Cheers.

    0

    Windows 95

    in Windows 9x/ME

    Posted · Edited by nil

    Hi Robert. I'm just guessing here but maybe that floppy disk of yours need to be write enabled, eg. slide the the tab across till its covering the hole (personally I'd make a copy of the disk and use the copy instead). Assuming the floppy disk is booting up ok and that the the errors occur after you attempt to run something from the CDROM try CD'ing to a writable disk first, like the RAM disk if one is created, then starting the cdrom program using its full pathname. It may also be that the program you're trying to run need to create a file in a "temp" directory. Let us know if you need talking through any of the above.

    Cheers.

    0

    batch file (.bat's) exit command

    in Windows 9x/ME

    Posted · Edited by nil

    Off topic:

    Hi Sonic. It was meant as nothing more than friendly humour (I was essentially poking fun at myself for being a "hippy" in public :)) though I obviously need to work on my delivery style... :(

    The terms "warm fuzzy" and "cold prickly" were coined by the famed psychologist Claude Steiner (born in Paris coincidently) and can be found within his childrens fable "A Warm Fuzzy Tale". (A french translation of the complete story can be found at http://www.claudesteiner.com/fuzzyfr.htm; see http://www.claudesteiner.com/fuzzy.htm for the english version.)

    Some excerpts from the story:

    Chaque enfant, à sa naissance, recevait un sac plein de chaudouxdoux. Je ne peux pas dire combien il y en avait car on ne pouvait pas les compter. Ils étaient inépuisables. Lorsqu'une personne mettait la main dans son sac, elle trouvait toujours un chaudouxdoux. Les chaudouxdoux étaient très appréciés. Chaque fois que quelqu'un en recevait un, il se sentait chaud et doux de partout. Ceux qui n'en avaient pas régulièrement finissaient par attraper mal au dos, puis ils se ratatinaient, parfois même ils en mouraient.
    ...
    Elle distribua à chacun un sac qui ressemblait beaucoup à un sac de chaudouxdoux, sauf qu'il était froid, alors que celui qui contenait les chaudouxdoux était chaud. Dans ces sacs, Belzépha avait mis des froids-piquants. Ces froids-piquants ne rendaient pas ceux qui les recevaient chauds et doux, mais plutôt froids et hargneux. Cependant, c'était mieux que rien. Ils empêchaient les gens de se ratatiner.

    A partir de ce moment-là, lorsque quelqu'un disait: "Je voudrais un chaudouxdoux", ceux qui craignaient d'épuiser leur réserve répondaient: "Je ne peux pas vous donner un chaudouxdoux, mais voulez-vous un froid-piquant?"
    ...

    In writing "to stop us DOSbox users chucking cold pricklies at you" I simply meant that DOSbox users might not appreciate batch file coders using EXIT to kill a batch process (which is little different to writing an executable that shut down the Windows GUI when the program ended). Anyhow, while I imagined the meaning of what I wrote would be understood well enough I did wonder if only peacenik dinasaurs like myself knew what the term "cold pricky" refered to, and that's what was going through my mind when I replied to your "no post" post.

    Again, no offense meant. And warm fuzzies to you my friend. :hello:

    Edit: I hope the following isn't misconstrued but I found it way too funny to keep to myself. I just emailed a friend about the above and her deadpan reply was "Maybe he thought you were ragging him with hedgehog jokes :*|" (obviously refering to that very cool and definately prickly computer game character "Sonic the Hedgehog"). ROTFL! Cheers again.

    0

    Font display issues

    in Windows 9x/ME

    Posted

    Thanks for your replies. I'm happy to say the problem looks to be solved - in brief fixed by removing certain fonts as you (MDGx) describe.

    I had relatively few fonts installed (something I should've mentioned earlier) and my soundblaster software was installed using a modified inf stripped of references to non-english files so I'd already ruled those issues out (excellent suggestions nonetheless thanks). In fact, by the time I'd read your posts I'd wrongly convinced myself that the system file(s) responsible for the loading of fonts was the primary cause of my woes, and was thinking a reinstall would mess with my head less than trying to hunt down the problem.

    Fortunately your efforts sparked me into a rethink, and it dawned on me that the likely reason why (Sysinternals') FileMon wasn't showing the loading of fonts in recent checks (one of the reasons I suspected corrupted/mismatched system files) was because the fonts had already been loaded, so I gave it another go after a reboot (ran FileMon then the mixer) and found that smalle.fon and gautami.ttf were being used by the mixer. Smalle.fon appeared ok but the TTF Extension reported this about gautami.ttf:

    Gautami is an OpenType font for the Indic script-Telugu. It is based on Unicode, contains TrueType outlines and has been designed for use as a UI font.

    Obviously not appropriate for my system so I deleted it, rebooted, then rechecked the mixer, and repeated the process until I hit "Tomaha" which seems to work fine with all of the apps I'd had problems with. (Some of the UPXShell text is being clipped due to the size of the font but that's a minor problem I can certainly live with.)

    By the way, something I noted during the process was that the fonts used were in alphabetic order - estre.ttf, gautami.ttf, latha.ttf, mangal.ttf,... which, in conjunction with the TTF extension messages, leads me to suspect that certain types of ttf are designated as user interface fonts and that the first (alphabetically) of such fonts installed is what gets loaded when one is required. Might just be a coincidence though as it doesn't make much sense to handle things that way. I also noticed that when tomaha.ttf loaded smalle.fon no longer did, which might mean something to someone.

    Now stuff going to work, I'm off to play NetHack :)

    Again, you're feedback is much appreciated.

    Cheers.

    0

    batch file (.bat's) exit command

    in Windows 9x/ME

    Posted · Edited by nil

    Err... nil, CLS stands for clear screen. It has nothing to do with exiting the batch file.

    Pedantically, you're right. CLS has nothing to do with exiting a batch file. And neither does EXIT (which is designed to end a command-line shell, not batch processes). None of which helps explain why your presumptions are flawed. :)

    The issue being refered to was the closing of the console window which remains open, in some cases, after a batch process ends. That issue is caused by the use of any command which sends output to the console device and the solution to the problem does involve the use of CLS (and not EXIT - see below). Your disbelief is understandable (it certainly isn't a logical solution) but I can tell you it sure does work.

    You can test it for yourself by creating a batch file with the following lines on the desktop and double-clicking the file:

    @echo off
    pause

    When the batch process ends the console window remains open (on all Win9x systems that I've tested it on at least) and needs to be closed manually. Now edit the file to read as follows:

    @echo off
    pause>nul

    As no output is sent to the console (PAUSE's output is redirected to the "nul" device) you should find that the window will close automagically when the batch file ends (which won't happen in this case if you forget to press any key...).

    The how and why is beyond me but getting the window to auto-close after one or more commands have output to the console seems to require the use of CLS, eg:

    @echo off
    pause
    cls

    See, I told ya CLS stands for CLose Sceen! :P

    The CLS needn't be at the end of the file by the way, just ensure no command sends output to the console after the CLS is issued. The following example batch file will also auto-close:

    @echo off
    pause
    cls
    ::
    dir>nul
    ::

    Note that the use of EXIT in a batch file appears to be absolutely unnecessary for the purpose of auto-closing an orphan console window (and needn't be prepended with a '@' if it is used within a batch file as the command produces no output).

    Again, the intended purpose of EXIT is to close the commandline shell it is issued from, and while it can be used to "exit" a batch file it's a rather crude (and arrogant) way of handling it (on someone else's system). Batch file execution ends when the command line interpreter reaches the end of the file so for a far more user friendly approach (and to stop us DOSbox users chucking cold pricklies at you) try using GOTO instead:

    @echo off
    ...
    goto:end
    ...
    :end
    cls

    Anyhow I would be interested in hearing of any case where the CLS/EXIT combination (rather than CLS alone) is actually required.

    Cheers.

    0

    How do I post images

    in Site & Forum Issues

    Posted

    A question for a mod.

    I'd like to post some small image files (on a thread in the Win95/98/98SE/ME forum) but no "file attachments" option is presented when I tried to edit my existing post (or reply to it). How do I go about enabling this feature?

    Thanks.

    0
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