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XP 10 questions


Dogway

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Hello this is my first post. I have many questions but I don't want to flood the forum with threads. I'm making a good although not super professional SP4 installation for XP for personal use. I like XP and want to keep using it for many years but felt it needed a bit of an upgrade internally (with hotfixes, configuration, thirds apps...) and externally with some visual enhacements.

I already made a nLite ISO with tweaked configuration and embedded hotfixes, and a startup bat auto-installation for some third applications like ccleaner, unlock, turnofflcd, etc and post installation windows configuration but I have some questions left:

1.How do I delete the annoying program files folders without popping up again like: (solved)

microsoft frontpage

movie maker

msn gaming zone

netmeeting

windows nt

xerox

2.How do I disable folder thumbnails in thumbnail view mode?

3.How can I set a hotkey for view modes? I just found this, but it needs AutoHotkey, isn't there a native way of doing this? (solved)

4.Do I need to download internet explorer and windows media player hotfixes even when I won't use them? Could just blocking them in my firewall be enough ? This is thinking on the idea of installing things you won't need just slows down your OS. (solved)

5.With that in mind is it worth downloading the "important" hotfixes rather than only the Critical? (solved)

6.I tested the updates downloader from http://xdot.tk/updates.html, but how can I change it to download the spanish hotfixes? Up til now I manually DL'ed one by one, but this app is better because it saves time and also downloads the ones that require validation. (solved)

7.I was said that I don't need the latest version of a Visual C++ Redistributable, just the one that a certain application needs. While this is true, how do I know and where can I download the latest hotfixes for the different redistributables versions? (solved)

8.I made a bootscreen for XP in 4 bits for replace it with the original using resource hacker. Does my image need to use the same local palette than the original, or it doesn't matter? And how do I change the vertical position of the progress bar animation? In this thread they link to an external page where it seems to be explained, but I understand nothing.

9.How do I stop photoshop from creating an entry in the "new file" context menu everytime I delete it in the registry? I found a workaround here, but I don't like it much, it's like an automatic fix everytime the OS is booted. Maybe there could be a way by blocking a certain module in the firewall?

10.And at last, any good Visual Style for XP SP3? When I say good I mean still functional but a bit more "indated" with 2012. I only find beautiful but rather unpractical, and akward for a working environment and mostly for Win7 or LiteStep.

These are some that catched my eye, although I'm looking for something where the menu bar, and the window body are dimmed, a bit like my current theme. (solved)

+1

Crono (I like this much)

appows: work/peek

Metro (Win8/WinPhone)

Stylo

Slave

Minimal Taste Reloaded

Thanks a lot and sorry for the big text chunk, these are one year collected questions.

Edited by Dogway
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Hi and welcome to the forum. :hello:

Since there are many questions, and to help the discussion a little, let me answer those I know the answer to.

1. By disabling SFC, either in nLite or afterwards (by patching DLLs), but you will also lose the "protection" SFC offers. Search this forum for SFC.

4. You don't have to, but it would be good if you do. Many programs rely on IE engine for various things, less so on WMP (maybe codecs), but it wouldn't hurt to have the latest bugfixes. Especially IE files are used system-wide (shared with Explorer in certain circumstances), so I'd say install the latest you can (IE8+updates), but don't use it if you don't want to.

5. It's up to you to decide. I personally love them all :ph34r: and view them as a method to deliver higher version files (mostly DLLs) to my computer.

9. That's Photoshop's problem. Maybe reshack Photoshop, but I think it has self-protection.

GL

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6. Sorry its for ENU only. You need to do as you're doing and download one by one by clicking the links in the listing. You can use the Windows Media Player (they have a .cab extension) ones that the UDC tool downloads as the binaries are the same for different languages..

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Thanks a bunch, this helps a lot.

1. Disabling SFC is permanent right? If there's no other way I'd rather not mess with it.

2. Thanks you! : D must be in a sub-entry, I will check again when I update my installation disc.

3. ok, nice to know so I don't lose more time googleing for it

4. 5. I think I made up my mind, I will then follow -X- guide strictly and download everything manually, except those I can't.

6. If you say I'll believe : P Thanks for the webpage, I never asked but I guess it's not recommended/possible to use hotfixes from other languages?

btw I recently downloaded some December hotfixes, are them ok? will you add them to the list?

7. Yes that's what I have read in the forum, but it's strange hotfixes can be downloaded and VC++ patches not. The VC++ Redestributable packages are a bit like a mistery, clear information is never given.

9. Yes, it's a photoshop do but it's actually an interaction with XP (windows in general?) All I can do is ask the photoshop guys to remove it for the february CS6, but big companies love intrusive software. I tried blocking photoshop.exe in comodo, but it must be another module what is causing this.

You guys rock, thanks again!

Edited by Dogway
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Thanks Kelsenellenelvian, but it doesn't say what is being installed, the pack is just a bunch of dll, I only want updates/fixes of what I have I might not need windows search or the new windows antivirus thing for example.

7. I had a brainf***. I meant the visual c++ redsitributable. .net frameworks are all OK. I asked some time ago in this thread about it too with no success.

edit:

6. I just discovered WUD, it has a Spanish list so I can download hotfixes from there. It's a bit outdated (somewhere around 2010) but it can save me half the job.

Edited by Dogway
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Ok, I think I now know what you thought I was asking.

No, that option is called "Files and Folders"-> don't cache thumbnails.

And I already have this enabled since long ago. This is not what I mean. I want to disable specificaly the folder icon thumbnails, when I swicth to thumbnail mode. I just want to see a clean yellow folder, it's not aesthetics but everytime I change to thumbnail mode every single folder asks the hard drive to read whatever images it has inside, thus the consequent HDD wear. I have only seen one, two at most, persons asking about this in my few dozens search on this issue, and no solutions of course.

8. I've been making tests on a VM. I changed the bmp 1 and 4 of ntoskrnl.exe and the bootscreen shows correct for a fraction of time, then I guess when the progress bar comes in the colors switch very ugly. For testing purposes I changed all the bitmaps to the same color table but it behave the same, so I guess the problem is the internal color table that must be changed in some way to comply to my image color table or just use the limited default color table for my images. Here is my progress bar bmp

Edited by Dogway
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  • 1 month later...

UPDATE:

7. While the Visual C++ Redistributable version depends on the demanding program, hotfixes seems to be attached to the generation of the redistributable. For curiosity I runned Belarc Advisory tool to test my system integrity and it reported only one missing hotfix for the redistributables (I have installed 2005, 2 versions of 2008, and 2010), it was KB2518864 for 2008 SP1 version. So I assume that is the only hotfix that exists for all the Visual C++ redistributables. EDIT: After I installed it it created another entry for Visual C++ 2008 with version 9.0.30729.6161 so I guess there are not hotfixes, but updated (sub) versions. I might try to uninstall my other 2 entries 30729.17 and 30729.4148.

3. I got hooked into AutoHotkey because I wanted to do other things as well, like excluding extension highlight when F2 over a filename. What I discovered is that it doesn't need to have AutoHotkey installed. You can compile the scripts to self executable .exe, and run them in another computer. I compiled 2 useful scripts with the help of the people over the AutoHotkey forums.

BetterRename.exe-> Highlights only the filename (excluding extension) for fast renaming when F2.

View Modes.exe -> For Spanish OS only. Converts View Modes to shortcuts as Alt+Letter. Letter is depicted in the menu Ver when you press Alt+V. That is Alt+d for details, Alt+v for vista en miniatura, Alt+m for mosaico, Alt+t for Lista, etc.

They take each around 5mb per process, so consider if they are worth or not.

edit: Now I also added VolumeOSD by Rajat, which makes possible to adjust Windows Volume using the Win Key + arrows. The good thing is that now I have 3 useful scripts in one .exe and only taking 5Mb of process (instead 15Mb before). Grab this new one, but mind you that View Modes works only in OS in Spanish:

ExplorerEnhacePack.exe

2. I'm still very interested on this one. Actually is the one I'm more interested in because it deals with performance. So I make a recall if someone can help me on this one.

10. I discovered 3dcc!! Exactly what I wanted. More pleasing look with no affected performance hit. I used this 3dcc file from introduktion user as a template. And modified it a bit for more useability, (easier to read) Grab it if you want:

darkdog.png

DarkDog.3dc

Thanks!

Edited by Dogway
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I set all folders to "Details" (Tweaks/Explorer/Change Windows Explorer folder view) and even if I switch one to "Thumbnails" when running, it never changes the folder icon to the one you linked. So I'm not sure what problem you describe.

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Yes, by default I use details too, except occasionally when I need to organize images, etc and set to thumbnail view.

I'm not sure why it happens. Maybe something is enabled in the background when I was setting up options in nlite. Although I didn't add or remove any setting without having at least a second look to each. Or probably by enabling,/disabling the folder task panel on left of the windows.

Basically what happens is that when I put some images to a folder, the folder automatically sets itself as a "Photo Album" type of folder. When I think "Documents" type of folder is the preferred option for simply blank folder icon. I think msfn is the best place to ask about Windows issues that's why if I don't get any answer here I probably wouldn't get it anywhere else. The problem is the thread was moved to the nlite section so I'm not sure now if my questions would get well noticed as before.

I have this registries:


[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell]
"WFlags"=dword:00000000
"Status"=dword:00000001
"Mode"=dword:00000004
"vid"="{137E7700-3573-11CF-AE69-08002B2E1262}"
"FolderType"="NotSpecified"
"Col"=dword:ffffffff
"ColInfo"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,fd,df,df,fd,0f,\
00,04,00,20,00,10,00,28,00,3c,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,03,00,\
00,00,5e,01,60,00,90,00,78,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,03,00,00,\
00,ff,ff,ff,ff,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\Bags\AllFolders\Shell]
"WFlags"=dword:00000000
"Status"=dword:00000001
"Mode"=dword:00000004
"vid"="{137E7700-3573-11CF-AE69-08002B2E1262}"
"FolderType"="NotSpecified"
"Col"=dword:ffffffff
"ColInfo"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,fd,df,df,fd,0f,\
00,04,00,20,00,10,00,28,00,3c,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,03,00,\
00,00,5e,01,60,00,90,00,78,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,03,00,00,\
00,ff,ff,ff,ff,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

But still every folder setting is being stored inside "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\Bags" with its FolderType=PhotoAlbum

It seems XP doesn't have the NotSpecified type of argument, anyhow I tested with Documents instead but it changes nothing.

This is the knowledge base from microsoft, but it doesn't say much either:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=812003

I think this one talks a bit more about it:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/176882

And this is an annoying workaround:

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/1091585947

Another good thing to look would be how to force the Save As dialog to be always in details view...

Edited by Dogway
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