soporific

Yeah they have changed -- its now 100 MB max upload. I am now 5 days into my Odyssey ...

Hi there, I am 5 days into my Odyssey of trying to get a large file onto a server somewhere. One of my options is to set up an FTP server on my home computer so someone can grab the file off me so they can host it. I failed miserably. It doesn't seem very hard from the "how-to" articles on the net ... these are the ones i've looked at: http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1491 http://www.ftpplanet.com/tutorial/ http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/webm...cle.php/3077081 http://www.practicallynetworked.com/qa/qa20030918.shtml I may as well outline my steps so far: 1) check that IIS is configured properly. - Yes it is. I have confirmed this part - in IIS, when I highlight FTP servers, i can see the one i've setup under this, and in the right hand pane, it says the server is running. 2) In the Properties tab for my FTP server, the port is set to 21. In the 'security accounts' tab, i've tried all the possible variations of allowing anonymous connections. In the 'Home directory' tab i have made sure the local path is correct and that 'Read' is selected. 3) I have configured Windows Firewall to allow an FTP service by going into Advanced Settings, the services tab, and selecting FTP server. 4) I have configured my router to forward port 21 to the internal IP address of the host computer running the FTP server. I file share with emule so i already knew how to do forward ports. That should be it, as far as the online guides say. I should be able to connect to my server ... So what am i doing wrong? Thanks in advance for any help ...

Just letting you know that having to click the timedate.cpl dialog box when installing KB931836 forced me to create an AutoIT version ... so, if you can always highlight if a hotfix is PERFECTLY unattended or not -- that would be very useful for me. Thanks!

This sort of problem requires more info about your system me thinks ... 1) what file systems have you got installed? We could assume you have FAT32 for Win98 and NTFS for WinXP but that could be wrong and won't be helpful in diagnosis ... 2) IF WinXP has NTFS then i'm already out of ideas because Win98 shouldn't even recognise the drive partition and therefore have absolutely NO relationship with the WinXP installation. 3) but if you have FAT32 or FAT for WinXP then at least its possible that something could be interfering ... 4) also, what are your drives configured as? I'm not sure how this could be the problem, but hey - we'll see when you tell us!

Just out of interest, what would you define as the dividing line between putting WinXP as opposed to Win98se onto a machine? For me, its either the CPU is under 350Mhz or the RAM is only 128Mb or below. Your guide of age and/or price is not very precise at all ... the famous "old hardware" reason is famous for a reason ... it's old hardware!! (as defined above). The day i stop coming across useable computers that are on the Win98 side of the above specs is the day i stop installing Win98. I'm not trying to be narky, i was genuinely interested in what other people consider to be the dividing line ...

OK, weekend's over --- recovering slightly so please, no loud talking or bright lights ... Billygoat, you're seeing the results of the big improvements between 1.92 and 1.95 ... 1) AP won't work as intended if there are any 'breaks' in the unattendedness of the entire process. There's no way i want this program to hang waiting for input from the user. Defeats the purpose of the program. So, when you try to install q314941 without UPNP already installed, most of the time you get a prompt saying that "This update was not designed for your version of Windows" (or something similar). Rather than rip the hotfix apart and re-package it (which is what i do these days), i added code to AP to work around this. In fact, the entire DIALOG3 section of MainCode.bat was created to serve this purpose. So, in v1.92 and all versions prior, anytime you saw a message "You can't install X Hotfix, Reason was: Y" meant that the HOTFIX in question would break the unattended status and we couldn't allow that to happen. Most of the re-packaged hotfixes in the hotfixes folder fall into this category. There are probably exceptions to this so don't go jumping to conclusions! 2) and the reporting text has been fully tweaked, those 'Set to by-pass' messages that occur when the previous boot they were saying they were installed was one of the problems that I discovered when testing the Tweaks module (which also had other problems) -- so hopefully the new code will have eliminated all these little bugs. Submix8c, i'm reading all your stuff don't worry (although you do get a bit cryptic at times!) --- and let me say a big thank you in advance for any suggested code --- it's all good! EDIT: Please excuse my greediness, but i haven't got any feedback on the debug function -- all good, waste of space, not correct, --- any or all of the above or you could come up with your own words !! EDIT2: - I've posted the new code in the first post --- hopefully this is the code for the release -- so the good news is -- if you have downloaded the TEST version, all you need to do is overwrite your installation with the attachment. Yay.

sLanguage=ita Thanks again ... please bear with me on this ... all the help you guys give me with this will help ALL my other projects ... yay!

ah ha! I was using Memoria totale for the italian local --- which is what you told me!! Maybe that was when we were using MEM ... so when you use FREEMEM, the string is "Total memory" --- correct? That's why ... Another string: SET Tey35=It seems you haven't yet made an undo file. EDIT: OK, we need to start collecting the settings for languages from WIN.INI ... Please open WIN.INI and look in the [intl] section and tell me what your sLanguage= setting is. Is there a list somewhere I can use?

This is because i am trying to use the text from the DOS window when you type FREEMEM at the command line. If i get it wrong, then we don't get a number. Can you type the following at the command line (after navigating to where FREEMEM lives, ie <your path>\AutoSYSTEMini\bin ) FREEMEM > C:\MyMEM.txt and send me the text inside the MyMEM.txt file. Thanks for the new text ... EDIT: I think i can see the problem!! (imagine me smacking my head with my hand) -- D'OH!! New version out soon ... but please still send me that info, Max_04, just in case ...

Submix8c, quick, please suggest an alternative method for confirming that the user is indeed trying to update a Win98se OS --- what exactly does 4DOS say when you type VER? --- i will download 4DOS and check for myself, but you might reply quicker ... (and i might get it wrong) some feedback from your earlier post: that method you posted for getting the 'Where-Am-I" value for the PATH ... did you test it with long filenames? I initially thought it worked, but when i was testing out AP when installed in Program Files, it didn't work. Maybe I was too hasty in testing, but ... that's what I found ... this is the code you suggested: CD | ".\BIN\NSET" LOCATE=$1 TO ALL: The other thing is I am now confident that I can upload the release version of v1.95 when I want to (I have found a very good hoster) -- so i'm just waiting to see if there are any more bugs ... i'll be uploading any second now, so get your FEEDBACK IN while there is still time ... I know it shouldn't be too hard to upload a fix (the bugs will most likely be in the BAT files which are negligible in size) --- but i'd prefer the release to be as perfect as possible... EDIT: I'm trying to turn off the brief messages that occur with 4DOS --- i normally would use the CTTY NUL ... [insert code you want to hide]... CTTY CON method but it doesn't work because the messages come from 4DOS loading up ... its not a biggie but if there was a way to easily turn it off, i would do it ... EDIT2: stuff the messages problem, we have bigger fish to fry ... i'm not sure how easy it is going to be to convert the code to be 4DOS compatible ... i'm already getting ASET errors and I don't know why ... also, some of the commands behave differently eg: using the DEL command doesn't produce any screen message in MSDOS, but it does in 4DOS. I can add a switch, but my question is: how many changes will i have to make? Is there a handy list of what's different between 4DOS and MSDOS ?? Is there a way to ask a 4DOS user to temporarily use MSDOS while using AutoPatcher? This is our best option rather than making wholesale changes that will then need testing, testing and more testing... EDIT3: Well, my analysis is that ... unfortunately, 4DOS support will NOT be added to v1.95 because it appears that too many changes will need to be made to the code to be able to release it without rigorous testing ... i have added code to trap the 4DOS user and tell them all about this rather than let them see the "This will only work in Windows 98se, sorry to get your hopes up" message. At least they will know what's going on ... I have suggested that they un-install 4DOS first so they can use Autopatcher --- they can always re-install it afterwards ... so unless anyone has further info that i don't know about, this is what's happening ...

I am going to try to upload again in a few hours ... if you have downloaded the test version or the code, and have any comments or suggestions, get them in quick! I have already made a change -- the Time Zones update was put into the manual installs folder because it's not a completely unattended hotfix, but I forgot that i know how to use AutoIT, and so i have re-packaged the hotfix and its back inside the Recommended Updates module. I tried to also do the Web folders update, but that is much trickier and so i'm not going to keep at it. FEEDBACK PLEASE !!! NEWS UPDATE for v1.95: I am updating the first post more regularly than this one, so please check that ... Bugs found in the TEST version: * When you are in the 2nd modules menu page, if you try to start the "Make Report" function, nothing happens. You can work around this by navigating to the 1st modules menu page and start the report from there. This will be fixed in the release. * When using the report function, all the "Set to by-pass" updates are logged in the installation log, when they aren't supposed to be logged at all. This will be fixed in the release ...

Why is it so hard to find a free large file hoster? Oh that's right, we live in a world where if you aren't making money for someone, they don't want to know you. Anyway, i thought i'd start a thread dedicated to knowledge about free file hosting ... i have 2 lists at the moment - the good and the bad ... The good: [empty] The bad: www.zupload.com Why: these people are a waste of space. No reliability, no support, no nothing. www.1010mb.com www.sharebigfile.com Why: does small files fine, anything big ...forget it www.fileden.com www.filefactory.com www.Rapidshare.com www.MediaMax.com why: misleading site -- very good at 'inviting' you to upgrade to a pay service. How? By neglecting to mention that users can't download anything bigger than 10 MB unless you upgrade. They tell you this AFTER you upload a 250 MB file. Well, they picked the wrong fella --- it only took about 10 minutes but they have this COPY files function where you can move your files around in your file manager. So these guys are now hosting 96 gb worth of copies of my 241 MB file. I hope they never catch on ... Here's a good site that allows people to share their experiences: http://www.prospector.cz/Free-Internet-ser...-storage-space/ Another site (yet there's no way at all to give your input to the site creators, ie to tell them that their submit review function doesn't work properly) http://www.filehostingreview.com

15th March, 2007: Added to main list: kb931836 Updated in main list: NUSB31 (was NUSB30) New versions of files: OLEUP, Rootsup

Re: more info on all the updates and unofficial hotfixes --- I think this is the only weakness of AP, you are right in saying that for the curious, there's little info at hand on what all these updates are for. How we go about correcting this is another thing. Even though i've already started uploading the execuatable that I want to release, i'm also still doing last minute checks and so if there is any reason to re-upload the file, I will add more information about how to find out more about the updates. I think a link to the complete list, and also a link to MDGx's site is the way to go. Thanks for all your feedback. I'm sorry we didn't get to the bottom of why Win98 to ME doesn't work for you but as you are the only one to have ever reported problems, i'm going to go ahead with the code as it is. It seems you are able to manually install it so that's good at least. Just wanted to repeat for all and sundry ... if you were around when I first released v1.0 or v1.5 then you would have noticed the extreme improvement as the program went up in version --- 1.0 to 1.5 was big, 1.5 to 1.8 was very big, 1.8 to 1.92 was quite big, and 1.92 to 1.95 is out of this world !!!! Really, i should indicate this by calling the next release version 3 or something. Anyway, v1.95 it is ... if you haven't checked out Auto-Patcher since v1.80 you are missing out !!! EDIT: here's the text of the updates.txt file that can be found in the root directory of the project: *********************** Updates & Hotfixes Info *********************** Hi there! Auto-Patcher for Windows 98se (english) contains many, many more updates and hotfixes than Microsoft ever released, due to a community out there in the real world that doesn't want to upgrade their operating system for whatever reason. Many of the updates were released AFTER Microsoft officially ended support on July 11, 2006 which patch the vulnerabilities discovered since JUly 2006. The main forum where all these updates come from is -- www.msfn.org -- which stands for the Microsoft Software Forum Network. I discovered the site about two years ago when I was trying to create an unattended boot CD for my Windows 98 machine in order to be able to re-install the operating system quickly and easily. I was successful and the project you are trying out now (or about to try out) is the end result after many months of development of part 2 of the original project. So now I have a CD that will re-install Windows 98se completely hands free (it also does customizations of all setting BEFORE setup starts), and also a program that will fully auto-patch my machine so its completely up-to-date. How cool is that? To get more information on the following, copy and paste the URL into your web browser and hit ENTER: The complete list of hotfixes & updates for Windows 98se -- with d/l links!! - last update 10th March, 2007 [url="http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=84886"]http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=84886[/url] Auto-Patcher for Windows 98se (english) (ie this project's homepage): [url="http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=80800"]http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=80800[/url] Windows 9x Power Pack v4.1 [url="http://www.msfn.org/board/?showtopic=78666"]http://www.msfn.org/board/?showtopic=78666[/url] The power pack includes: - All Unofficial Service Packs for 98 Gold, SE, And Windows Me. - MDGx's 98SE2Me - Tihiy's (re-release) RPLite v5, and instructions/zip for lameskin v6 preview. - 7-Zip - Windows Media Player 9.0 + Codecs - MDGx's Windows Media Player 10.0 for Win98SE - Xeno86's Kernel Update Project v0.2.7 - Maximus Decim's NUSB, NUSB Decorator patches - Maximus Decim's MDAC update package - Maximus Decim's IE6.0 components update for Win98SE - Microsoft XML Update Unattended Boot CD for Windows 98se -- v4.4 [url="http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=88008"]http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=88008[/url] Tweaks Pack for Windows 98se -- v1.20 out now ... 8 new tweaks added [url="http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=90202"]http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=90202[/url] The web site of the guru of Windows OSes (MDGx): [url="http://www.mdgx.com"]http://www.mdgx.com[/url] his MSFN page (extremely useful!): [url="http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=46581"]http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=46581[/url] The Windows 98 + ME *still* alive campaign [url="http://www.mdgx.com/spx/"]http://www.mdgx.com/spx/[/url] The Windows 95/98/98SE/ME section of MSFN: [url="http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=8"]http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=8[/url] The Unofficial Win98 SE Service Pack subforum section of MSFN: [url="http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=91"]http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=91[/url] If i've missed any URLs just say so ... the idea is to give the user of Auto-Patcher awareness of EVERY other unofficial upgrade pack in existence. I thought that the Power Pack would suffice for the unofficial service packs and Maximus Decim's stuff.

Some of us started seeing the following message: If you can acces Windows Update properly, then there's no need to install this. This has been discussed quite a bit here at MSFN so if you haven't heard about it, you should visit more often!

Thanks man. v0.55 - 15th March, 2007 - improved RAM value code - removed invalid setting from information file (thanks MDGx)

I am actually, and i did notice the mixer --- I've still got my old TASCAM 8 track that looks a bit like that .... incidentally, i was supposed to be putting my music hat on this year and taking off my propellerhead cap but someone loaded Auto-Patcher up onto Softpedia and now everyone's interested in this project ... i may disappear for a bit when v1.95 finally gets out ... i want to start playing with my LYNX Aurora16 !! it hardly has a scratch !! You should post a link to some of your stuff if you have any. I'll do the same ... you first! AP news: testing in the real world has thrown up a possible problem with DirectX ... i'm just testing out an old hack ... until 9.0c came out, you couldn't use the installer that came with 9.0a or 9.0b to install DirectX unattendedly ... but if you nicked the installer from v8.1 it would work. So i'm just checking out if its still good ... And also it is possible to totally screw up your computer using the SYSTEM.INI tweaks --- you would have to be trying very very hard and ignoring all my messages and notices, but it is possible and so i have added code and so have to check again ... its coming, promise ... If anyone's interested, my test machine (real world) is: AMD-K6 500, 256 mb RAM, 10Gb hard disk, SiS 530 chipset. And for coding and testing in a VM, i have a PentiumD 940 at my disposal. Yay!

Wow, that's quite a bit of info for me to wade thru ... it's definitely better if I release v1.95 as it is (working of course) -- with a note for 4DOS users that they will be looked after finally in the next version. But it looks like we're gonna be making lots of improvements ... i definitely will benefit from all these DOS tips ... i'm really bad in some areas eg. directory navigation, paths, and also if i find a method that works, i usually go with that rather than find the "best" method. But keep on keeping on with this stream of info ... lots to wade thru ...

Thanks, as always. The program is faster to use now ... since i have to use it often, this is good ... 1.04 contains the new 'program files' detection code, link from the 1st post. EDIT: can people check how i went with Babel Fish Translation: :English SET Tex01=Welcome to the Windows Update Fix SET Tex01a=Version SET Tex01b=by :Italian SET Tex01=Benvenuto al Windows Update Fix SET Tex01a=Versione SET Tex01b=da :French SET Tex01=Bienvenue sur le correctif pour Windows Update SET Tex01a=Version SET Tex01b=par Thanks to reno7 for the French text strings v1.05 now available -- French strings added, display tweaked a bit

To stop reboot and/or reboot prompt from INF:[Version] Signature=$CHICAGO$ AdvancedINF=2.5 [DefaultInstall] SmartReboot=N Reboot=0 [DefaultUninstall] SmartReboot=N Reboot=0 To stop reboot and/or reboot prompt from SED: [Options] RebootMode=N To force automatic reboot [without prompt most of the time] from INF: [Version] Signature=$CHICAGO$ AdvancedINF=2.5 [DefaultInstall] UpdateInis=WX SmartReboot=AS Reboot=1 [DefaultUninstall] UpdateInis=WX SmartReboot=AS Reboot=1 [WX] WININIT.INI,Rename,,"NUL=%10%\WININIT.LOG" WININIT.INI,Rename,,"DIRNUL=%31%\_RESTORE\TEMP" To force automatic reboot [without prompt most of the time] from SED: [Options] RebootMode=IS Thanks !!!! Fantastic information .. its like getting the keys to the city (the city of MS hotfixes)

these are already fixed ... 323172, 256015, Q273991, kb981711, kb837009, 260067, these are already included: IE Navigation Sound Update, Euro Conversion Tool I HAVE to get v1.95 released !! ... I will comment on the rest soon ... (and thanks for the sticky !!!) EDIT: OK, below is the list of REG entries that are run to restore missing hotfix info and make WU happy. If the hotfix that superceeded the "missing" update was installed at some point during an AP session, then the REG file with the same name is run. eg the reg info for q259728 which was superceeded by q269388 is installed via the q269388.reg file (see below) - there are only 2 at this point, i was able to fix q323172 and q260067 properly. REGEDIT4 [q269388.reg] ; this restores the hotfix info for q259728. We use q269388 because this is what superceeded it. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{9664fac0-26c5-11d4-a58a-00902766e933}] @="Windows 98 Second Edition Q259728 Update" "IsInstalled"=dword:00000001 "Locale"="EN" "Version"="4.10.0.2222" [q273017.reg] ; this re-installs the hotfix info for q256015 ; we use q273017 because this is what superceeded it. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{4ed033a1-6334-4415-9089-bcabcc0b32f5}] @="Windows 98 Second Edition Q256015 Update" "IsInstalled"=dword:00000001 "Locale"="EN" "Version"="4.10.0.2222" Yes, i think its best to wait for 1.95 otherwise you are re-doing all my work from 1.92 to 1.95. What you can do is help me get from "Preview Release 2" to "Final". EDIT2: and in other news, i have cracked the DUN14 hotfix ... well, cracked it with AutoIT anyways ... so, it's finally going into AP proper, and we can avoid that false start when you first choose to AutoPatch. IF you would like to have a switchless and unattended installer for DUN 1.4 - grab it from here.

the bit about solving the false alarms refers to the 7 updates that WU reckons you haven't got installed after fully auto-patching. The list is now only 2: the kb891711 update (which i tell people that the unoffical update is better), and also the last official cumulative update for IE6 (kb916281), which is just not going to play well, ever it seems. Regarding the Windows Update problem, that discussion is better had in the proper thread (there's a few, i'm referring to the one i started). I'll post more info there. type this at the command line for me can you: ECHO Y> "%windir%\wininit.ini" and tell me if you get any error messages ... That's a known bug related to the fact that one of my variables is %LOCATE% which clashes with the LOCATE.COM utility which clears a variable called LOCATE at some stage. This was recently discovered by Submix8c and is now fixed in the next version. This is where the debug mode comes in. Maybe I should change the name from Debug mode, to Verbose mode. Actually, i will. i've posted a version of the log that is produced. Please comment about whether that has enough info! This is good, you are picking me up on everything that i've improved for the next version. There is no more "Tweaks for Fast Computers" - i have included a version of AutoSYSTEMini instead that tells you EVERYTHING about the settings you can configure. Talk about overkill. Have you checked out AutoSYSTEMini? its up to v0.54!! Most of these unofficial updates have threads that contain all the discussion about testing, bugs, etc. 48BitLBA has been around for a while and is considered pretty stable these days. The thread can be found here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=78592 MS says that for EVERY update! We live in a world where a company like MS provides information so they don't get sued, as opposed to providing information that is precise and correct. Makes me rather angry and uptight is what it does ... anyway, my philosophy is that an update becomes OPTIONAL if it is possible that installing it could cause problems. Yeah, this one has been known to cause funny things to happen. I hadn't noticed that this is the cause of the 10 second delay --- maybe its a good reason to turn it into an optional install so you can by-pass it. Don't forget, this program is SO easy to edit for your own purposes. If you don't want anything in any modules, you can just cut it out ... (i can provide more info about how to do this if you need) -- the installs aren't linked together so you won't break anything by taking the odd hotfix out. You can definitely take out q323455. I'm always adding to the information, but i've been staring at this project for so long now that its hard for me to get a fresh perspective -- i will eventually get around to updating the list of Auto-Patcher contents, but apart from that, what more could we do? Maybe point people to the complete updates list that i maintain --- that one page has all the download links and info links for all the updates currently available. I should add a link to the main page ... good idea 99.

Change log for v 1.03 * improved the Italian localization - uses the default Program Files folder. * included WAIT.com in the package - shorter delays, quicker program ... i can't seem to *permanently* fix the problem with accessing WU ... i'm doing lots of testing with AP and WU and there doesn't seem to be any pattern to why I can sometimes connect and sometimes not. Then when I apply the fix, there is no pattern again! Sometimes Fix 1 works, sometimes Fix 2, sometimes I need to reboot before it works, sometimes i wish bill gates would [insert favourite scenario about what you would like to do to him] ... at least the fix hasn't failed me yet, i can always choose some combination that works ... anyway, v1.03 is out now ... (see 1st post)

Thanks for that Drugwash, and thanks for your code tips.

Hey there MD, been using NUSB for a while now and its great! Thanks ... However, it would be excellent to have the installer package behave like other MS hotfixes, ie if you use the /Q:A /R:N switch, the installer shouldn't prompt to reboot. When i first tried 3.0 out it seemed to work as expected. But when i use it inside Auto-Patcher within the batch script, the reboot prompt appears (i'm assuming 3.1 does the same). I've made my own installer to get around this, but just letting you know that this is happening and that at the moment i'm packaging my own version of NUSB31 for inclusion in AP. Hope that's OK ... sop. EDIT: actually i'm still having problems, my installer is doing the same thing --- i can't seem to be able to create an unattended installer -- is this by design? I understand that the reboot has to occur at some point, and i am coding the update to install by itself and immediately reboot but it seems its not enough ... is there something in the INF file i can change to stop the reboot prompt?