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Fixes & enhancements for WLL.COM


Drugwash

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compiler work, for most people it will be unusable - just because they dont know how to compile, or not willing to download any assembler.
That's why there's an already compiled SVGACOM.COM in the package: for people that can't/won't spend time compiling. The ASM file is there just for those who wouldn't trust a precompiled file.
1. standard wll does not work for me now. i dont know why.
That's what I need to find out and fix. You'll have to offer me details about your hardware and software environment you've been testing it with.
2. svgacom does not work at all. i get some unreadable message and later "press a key to start windows".
The message should be very clear, in English and read either File C:\LOGO.SYS is not present or File C:\LOGO.SYS size mismatch, followed by Press a key to start Windows... a few lines below.

(In the version posted below I have changed the error messages to reflect the real name of the required file for this testing version of the code)

That would be the standard message that should display with a WLL standard installation. However, in case of SVGACOM, the name of the file that it's looking for is not LOGO.SYS, but startup.bmp. I intentionally shipped the last 2 versions of SVGACOM with a renamed bitmap file, so a distracted user would get the error message at first run and attempt to fix the problem. My bad is that I forgot to mention the real name that the bitmap should bear. :blushing:

If you got anything else but one of the above 2 messages, please describe what you saw and/or post a screenshot if possible.

I am not sure if i did things correctly. first of all i compiled svgacom, then i put it in c: with your logo. then i executed svgacom in dos mode, but i get no image - only the message. than i tried replace logo sys with your logo but still no effect and same err message.
OK, so first of all you can run SVGACOM in Windows too, there should be no problem. Then, as I mentioned above, the name of the test logo file should be startup.bmp. Just place SVGACOM.COM and startup.bmp together in the same folder and run SVGACOM.COM - the logo should be displayed. If it does, please tell me if you notice anything unusual in the animation shaft or at the bitmap itself. If there's any error, please describe as accurate as possible.
later i tried to replace wll by svgacom files but with same effect :(
SVGACOM cannot replace WLL. It is intended solely as a test for the animation itself and does not contain the necessary routines to start up Windows, so replacing WLL with SVGACOM will only result in Windows being unable to boot.

One last consideration: LogoTool will ask to save the file as LOGO.SYS, for maximum convenience for when WLL.COM will be released. However, as mentioned above, the SVGACOM code requires the file to be named as startup.bmp, so please make sure you save your file as startup.bmp, for now. For the time being, do not overwrite your current LOGO.SYS in the C:\ folder with the one saved by LogoTool.

I hope the information above will be helpful. Thank you for testing, so far! :hello:

Here is the latest version of SVGACOM, with fixed error messages and improved readme. I have packed LogoTool together with it and also added a readme for it. Enjoy! :)

[EDIT] Link removed. File is available for download further on in this thread. [/EDIT]

Edited by Drugwash
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the actual trouble with svgacom was that i didnt know that the file must be named startup.bmp, because in the pack i downloaded was startupOK.bmp.

also the error message was not written in english. it was an amount of random symbols with no sense to me.

right now i was able to execute svgacom with your bitmap (very ugly :) ).

with this i can test these things:

- when or where to execute svgacom while bootup

(wll had one error. in some versions of io and command it executed as last thing when dos boot was complete, so user has seen all the dos text underlying, in the italian version of these files i was able to see logo as first thing during boot and user was not bothered by the text)

- what about scandisk

- what about dos

- what about my graphics driver which has currently broken logo graphics during boot

edit:

a) when svgacom was executed standalone from autoexec it prevented execution of other programs in line.

B) when svgacom was execcuted as wll.com i had similar error as before. logo apeared but windows was not starting. this also occurs with normal wll... maybe the problem is in my windows but i dont know where search.

Edited by Offler
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Please reread the edited post above. SVGACOM cannot be run instead of WLL, as it lacks the code that calls the startup of Windows. So Windows will never start with it, because it can't. SVGACOM is only part of WLL, intended for animation tests only. I only intend to post the whole WLL code when I would have rendered it as foulproof as possible. Got a working version here for personal use but it still has the same quirks that SVGACOM has.

Regarding the garbled error messages, there's not much info you offered me so I'm not sure where to start searching for faults. I'll investigate the issue though. One thing you could do is open SVGACOM.ASM, scroll to the end of file until you find the string definitions, and replace the text with something shorter and/or use some special characters (please don't remove the dollar sign ($) at the end of the string), compile the code and test it, both in DOS mode and under Windows (make sure the logo bitmap is not there, so you can actually get the error message). Tell me how it went.

a) when svgacom was executed standalone from autoexec it prevented execution of other programs in line.
Obviously, since the code contains a wait for a keypress to exit. WLL instead contains a timer that allows execution of other modules during the animation.
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Thank you for reporting! Issue fixed. :thumbup Please download this version: SVGACOM with LogoTool

Changelog:

- added automatic string centering for 'Press a key to exit...'

- rearranged centering routine into a procedure

- removed superfluous file close

Please tell me if there's any more problems.

P.S: If you find my test bootscreen ugly, I'll be waiting to see one created by you. :whistle: After all, that's why I put all this work into this code: to allow everyone unleash their creativity. :)

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i like Tihyis black windows 98 bootlogo, but i want to replace XP window logo by embossed win9x logo if i found one suitable (with black frames :) )

edit:

i executed svgacom in windows mode. when startup.bmp was present i get very bad error - system was frozen. after reboot i get bsod about VWin32.vxd. at next reboot scanreg automatically restored backup and later system worked fine...

Edited by Offler
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WLL updated <--??

Yeah, after 2 years of inactivity, i've updated it. If it will work okay with video cards it can work with, i'll include it into RP8. Otherwise, it dies.

- Fixed behavior when \logo.sys is not found or not appropriate;

- Improved timer hook to fix problems with reentrability, race conditons and unhooking.

WLL.zip

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i executed svgacom in windows mode. when startup.bmp was present i get very bad error - system was frozen. after reboot i get bsod about VWin32.vxd. at next reboot scanreg automatically restored backup and later system worked fine...

This is strange, because I've tested it 1 minute ago under Windows98SE English, with 18% free System/GDI resources, SlimBrowser, Miranda IM, Metapad, XVI32 all running and it worked just fine, without a glitch. I'll perform some more testing tomorrow on the other machine.

Still you haven't offered any information on your hardware that could help diagnosing the issues.

WLL updated <--??Yeah,

after 2 years of inactivity, i've updated it.

Perfect timing... should I keep wasting my time on what I've developed so far so should I just scrap it?

[EDIT] Links removed. File is available for download further on in this thread. [/EDIT]

I'm very tired any probably not thinking very clear at the moment.

Edited by Drugwash
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to Tihiy:

1. green stripes after initialization of graphic card are fixed. No stripes, but the screen remains black. its not bad while it does not bother so much. i dont know if possible but i would appreciate if the logo appear again - but this problem may be in my graphics driver.

2. I have fixed the problem when wll was not loading image and it dropped to dos instead of executing win. the problem is in "Buffers" parameter in config sys. as you know i was using value 99,8. with this value wll does not load

i changed the value to 33, but with it the system has frozen during winboot at usb hub device. i set it to 20 and system was able to boot.

without wll was system able to boot even with maximum value, now i had to slow down because it was causing trouble.

to drugwash:

tommorow i will look at your product :)

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1. green stripes after initialization of graphic card are fixed. No stripes, but the screen remains black. its not bad while it does not bother so much. i dont know if possible but i would appreciate if the logo appear again - but this problem may be in my graphics driver.
What do you want to say? It was working some time ago for you, but now is not? Was working with other version? Other DOS settings? Other logo? Does svgacom work? Old wll?
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well.. wll, old or new is very unpredictable. i was unable to find any constant behaviour until today.

previously i had Ati Radeon9800. with it worked wll almost perfectly. some months ago i bought ati x850xt. very powerful chip indeed, but the driver has never been released as full version. it was only in beta phase...

this caused green stripes with original wll (from rp7) when system has initiated graphics driver on background during boot process. new wll does not have this bug.

the trouble when wll drops to dos is a mystery for me. previously i thought it was caused with BIOS settings, and maybe i was partially right... but now i have fixed the trouble just by lowering BUFFERS in config sys...

also the freezing during boot is quite obvious... i was creating a boot logo for velvet98... i put there incorrect color format (RGB instead of Indexed color). logo was black and white and the system has frozen. Only wrong bmp format of logo sys may cause freezing during booting...

until i dont find the constant behaviour for this program i cannot give full report :(

svgacom has more constant behaviour, but still testing...

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Aha, got it now. In newest version, wll won't load non-256 color bitmaps, just FYI.

Looking forward for your logo! When/if you finish it, post full color version too, please!

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Would USB load ok if you don't use wll? Are you sure it is freezing on usb loading? Does animation stop when it happens?

Your logo is marvellous, however, i think progress bar should be changed to look more elegant for this logo. Or logo should be enlarged.

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i did not found larger logo and upscaling is not the quality way... the image was too choppy then. Velvet maybe will change in near future - including the progress bar (dark red or silver maybe). I just want to have theme which is fully Win98 and looks as created for one system...

When Wll is not used the usb will load correctly, but... i bought the USB2.0/Firewire combo just two weeks ago. it worked without trouble. Since Immolator is still some kind of experiment i cant hardly say that the driver was not the reason of this...

In recent days i did some crash tests. First of them was keeping machine running without forced reboot. this worked. also i reinstalled some drivers - especially sound card to see if it affect stability. Also SVGACOM crash and fact that all values in my config sys are really mad :)

right now i am sure that Buffers=99,8 cause that wll will drop to dos without loading logo and later windows and maybe freezing is caused by wll. it happened only today when i sucessfully used wll on my system, and never before...

(logo updated a bit :) )

Edited by Offler
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