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Tue, Mar 09, 2010 10:36 pm

Transferring Winamp 5.572 Info to Another PC

I needed to copy the Winamp settings from my wife's laptop to her desktop system. Both systems are running Windows 7. I found the bookmarks in C:\Users\acctname\AppData\Roaming\Winamp . I also needed to copy her list of online serves, since I had added the Live365 Internet Radio to the list of services - see Adding Live365 to WinAmp's Online Services List, so I copied the contents of the C:\Users\acctname\AppData\Roaming\Winamp\Plugins\ml directory, including subdirectories from one system to the other. Acctname represents the account name under which she logs on.

Note: you need to display hidden files and folders to see the directory - see Show hidden files for instructions on how to do this under Windows 7, if you don't know how to do so.

[/os/windows/software/audio/winamp] permanent link

Tue, Mar 09, 2010 9:47 pm

Winamp Media Player Silent Installation

I wanted to do a silent install on Winamp. When I went to the Winamp website, I found that the latest version available for download was 5.572. The file available for download was winamp5572_full_emusic-7plus_en-us.exe. Winamp, which was developed by Nullsoft, was acquired by AOL, which is bundling eMusic, which I didn't want. At WinampWithoutEMusic, I learned that you can download versions of Winamp without the eMusic add-on by removing the emusic-7plus_ portion of the file name. By using winamp5572_full_en-us.exe, I was able to get the same version without the eMusic add-on. There's similar information at Super Bowl XL, Download Winamp without Emusic.

After downloading it, I examined it with FileAlyzer . I saw "Nullsoft Install System v2.45.1" within the file. Winamp is installed with the Nullsoft Scriptable Install System (NSIS), which is to be expected given that Winamp was developed by Nullsoft.

For a default installation, Winamp will be installed in C:\Program Files\Winamp and Winamp Toolbar will be installed in C:\Program Files\Winamp Toolbar.

A "silent" install can be peformed by using a /S option. Note: it has to be a capital "S", e.g. winamp5572_full_en-us.exe /S. If you use the silent install option, the Winamp Toolbar will be installed by default within Internet Explorer and Firefox. During the installation any open instances of the browsers will be closed automatically. When you reopen the browsers you will see the Winamp toolbar within the browsers.

The Winamp and Winamp Toolbar uninstall strings in the Windows registry for a default installation are at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall are shown below:

NameUninstallString
Winamp"C:\Program Files\Winamp\UninstWA.exe"
Winamp Toolbar"C:\Program Files\Winamp Toolbar\uninstall.exe"

A silent uninstall can be performed for Winamp with "C:\Program Files\Winamp\UninstWA.exe". A silent uninstall can be performed for the toolbar with "C:\Program Files\Winamp Toolbar\uninstall.exe" /S. Use a capital "S" for the silent option. Note: a silent uninstall of the Winamp toolbar will close any open browser windows.

One can specify the installation directory with /D=installdirectory I could specify winamp5572_full_en-us.exe /D=C:\Program Files\Audio and Video\Winamp at the command line and the GUI installation method would show the directory I picked. I had to put the C: there for that to occur, though. For a silent install, I could use the following to specify the location:

winamp5572_full_en-us.exe /S /D=C:\Program Files\Audio and Video\Winamp\

Again, I needed to have the C:\ at the beginning of the directory location. Also, don't use quotes even if the directory path has spaces in it and the /D option has to be the last option on the line.

Unfortunately, the toolbar is still installed and goes into its default location of C:\Program Files\Winamp Toolbar. But I remove it with "C:\Program Files\Winamp Toolbar\uninstall.exe" /S. Unfortunately, that only removes the toolbar from Internet Explorer and I have to manually remove it from Firefox.

References:

  1. WinampWithoutEMusic
    Last modified: February 13, 2010
    Jurand Nogiec
  2. Super Bowl XL, Download Winamp without Emusic
    Date: February 6, 2006
    INeedAttention.com
  3. Nullsoft Scriptable Install System
    Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  4. Winamp Media Player 5.56 Installation
    Date: November 24, 2009
    MoonPoint Support

[/os/windows/software/audio/winamp] permanent link

Sat, Mar 06, 2010 6:40 pm

Windows Help Under Windows 7

When I opened MUSHclient on a Windows 7 system, I saw the message "Failed to launch help." A Windows Help and Support window opened stating the following:

The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows. However, you can download a program that will allow you to view Help created in the Windows Help format.

At I cannot open Help files that require the Windows Help (WinHlp32.exe) program, Microsoft provides the following information:

On computers that are running Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, or Windows Server 2008 R2, you may be unable to open Help files that require the Windows Help (WinHlp32.exe) program. This article contains information about a download that helps you fix this problem.

Microsoft stopped including the 32-bit Help file viewer in Windows releases beginning with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. To support customers who still rely on legacy .hlp files, the Microsoft Download Center provides WinHlp32.exe downloads for Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2.

The version of the program for Windows 7 can be downloaded from Windows Help program (WinHlp32.exe) for Windows 7. That page provides the following overview statement:

Windows Help (WinHlp32.exe) is a Help program that has been included with Microsoft Windows versions starting with the Microsoft Windows 3.1 operating system. However, the Windows Help program has not had a major update for many releases and no longer meets Microsoft's standards. Therefore, starting with the release of Windows Vista and continuing in Windows 7, the Windows Help program will not ship as a feature of Windows. If you want to view 32-bit .hlp files, you must download and install the program (WinHlp32.exe) from the Microsoft Download Center.

There are two versions of the software available, one for 64-bit systems and one for 32-bit systems. The download files are .msu files. You can install the software by just double-clicking on the downloaded file from the Windows Explorer, which will open a Windows Update Standalone Installer window, where you would see the propmpt "Do you want to install the following Windows software update? Update for WIndows (KB917607)". During the installation, winhlp32.exe is placed in %systemroot, e.g. C:\Windows.

For a silent installation, you can use the Windows Update Standalone Installer, wusa.exe, with the /quiet option (quiet mode, no user interaction, reboot as needed). It isn't necessary to reboot after installing Windows Help. You can specify /norestart (when combined with /quiet, installer will NOT initiate reboot. You can see other options by using wusa /?.

The following command performs a silent install for the 32-bit version:

wusa /quiet /norestart Windows6.1-KB917607-x86.msu

To silently uninstall the software, you can use the command below.

wusa Windows6.1-KB917607-x86.msu /uninstall /quiet /norestart

A package file that can be used with WPKG to silently install Windows Help for Windows 7 is shown below. Note: though Windows Help will no longer work after the uninstall, c:\windows\winhlp32.exe isn't actually removed, though other files installed with it, such as c:\windows\system32\ftlx0411.dll are removed. You may have to take ownership of winhlp32.exe to remove it - see Add "Take Ownership" to Explorer Right-Click Menu in Win 7 or Vista, since otherwise only TrustedInstaller has full rights to the file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<packages>

<package
  id="WinHelp"
  name="Windows Help"
  revision="1"
  reboot="false"
  priority="10">

  <check type='logical' condition='and'> 
     <!-- The uninstall process doesn't remove winhlp32.exe, but does remove
     ftlx0411.dll -->  
     <check type="file" condition="exists" 
      path="%SystemRoot%\system32\ftlx0411.dll" />
     <check type="file" condition="exists" 
      path="%SystemRoot%\winhlp32.exe" />
  </check>
  <install cmd='wusa %SOFTWARE%\utilities\miscellaneous\Windows6.1-KB917607-x86.msu /quiet /norestart ' />
  <remove cmd='wusa %SOFTWARE%\utilities\miscellaneous\Windows6.1-KB917607-x86.msu /uninstall /quiet /norestart' />
  <upgrade cmd='' />

</package>

</packages>

References:

  1. I cannot open Help files that require the Windows Help (WinHlp32.exe) program
    Article ID: 917607
    Last Review: October 27, 2009
    Revision: 20.3
    Microsoft Support
  2. Windows Help program (WinHlp32.exe) for Windows 7
    Version: 1.0
    Date Published: 10/14/2009
    Microsoft Corporation
  3. Is it possible to silently run the Vista installation package for MSI 4.5?
    Windows Installer Team Blog
  4. silent installation paramters for Windows6.1-KB958559-x64.msu
    Date: July 7, 2009
    Microsoft TechNet: Resources for IT Professionals
  5. Permission from Trusted installer!
    Date: May 18, 2009
    Mcirsoft TechNet: Resources for IT Professionals
  6. Add "Take Ownership" to Explorer Right-Click Menu in Win 7 or Vista
    How-To Geek

[/os/windows/software/wpkg] permanent link

Sat, Mar 06, 2010 5:57 pm

Using Multiple Install Conditions with WPKG

There can be zero or more conditions checked prior to installing software with WPKG. To perform multiple checks, enclose the checks with <check type="logical" condition="logicalcondition"> and </check>. You can use not, and, or, atleast, or atmost for logicalcondition. E.g. to have WPKG check for the existence of two files c:\windows\system32\ftlx0411.dll and c:\windows\winhlp32.exe, you could use the following:
<check type='logical' condition='and'> 
     <!-- The uninstall process doesn't remove winhlp32.exe, but does remove
     ftlx0411.dll -->  
     <check type="file" condition="exists" 
      path="%SystemRoot%\system32\ftlx0411.dll" />
     <check type="file" condition="exists" 
      path="%SystemRoot%\winhlp32.exe" />
</check>

In this case, WPKG will only consider the software installed if both files exist. If only one of them exists, the installation will proceed.

References:

  1. Packages.xml
    WPKG | Open Source Software Deployment and Distribution
  2. Re: [wpkg-users] Check command
    Date: June 11, 2009
    wpkg-users

[/os/windows/software/wpkg] permanent link

Sat, Mar 06, 2010 5:43 pm

Incorrect Installed Software in WPKG

If WPKG is showing an incorrect list of installed software, e.g. it shows a program is installed, but the program is no longer installed because it was removed outside of WPKG, you can correct the problem by editing C:\Windows\System32\wpkg.xml on the system where the software was installed. Just remove the section of the file applying to that package. E.g. from the package id="pkgid" name="pkgname" revision="1" reboot="false" priority="0"> to the </package> for the particular package. Then, if you use wpkg.js /show:pkgid the package will no longer be shown as installed.

[/os/windows/software/wpkg] permanent link

Tue, Mar 02, 2010 4:09 pm

OS X Line Endings

Operating systems handle the line endings in text files in different ways. For DOS and Microsoft Windows, the end of a line is marked by a carriage return (CR) and a line feed (LF) character.

The CR and LF characters were used originally on teletypewriters, aka teleprinters, which were electromechanical typewriters used for telecommunications or to control early computers. Though, later, the carriage return would usually move the paper in the device to the next line as well, initially it would cause the cylinder on which the paper was held (the carriage) to return to the left side of the paper after a line of text had been typed without advancing the paper to a new line. Today, the return key you see on a computer's keyboard is a descendant of the carriage return on the earlier teletype machines. In most word processors today, hitting the return key will move the cursor to the beginning of the next line.

If you are working on a text file, e.g. one with a .txt extension, on a DOS or Microsoft Windows system, when you hit the return key two characters are inserted in the file at that point, a carriage return (CR) character followed by a line feed character, which have the following hexadecimal representations.

DescriptionHex
Carriage Return (CR)0D
Line Feed (LF)0A

But, if you are working on a Linux or Unix system, then only the LF character is inserted at the end of a line when you hit return. This may be due to a desire to reduce disk storage space for text files on early Unix computers; disk storage was much more limited than it is today.

Mac systems use yet another convention, even with OS X, even though it is a Unix-based operating system, with a heritage in BSD Unix . They use just the CR character to mark the end of a line.

OSNewlineHexadecimal
DOS/WindowsCRLF0D 0A
Linux/UnixLF0A
Mac OS/OS XCR0D

So most Mac applications will, when you save a file as a text file, put just a CR at the end of the line. However, if you are editing a file from the command line on a Mac OS X system with a program, such as Vi, which is an editor that comes with Mac OS X, but which was originally developed for Unix, it will save a file with the LF (hex 0A) character at the end of lines.

E.g., I can create a text file test.txt with vi and put just the following two lines in it:

123
456

If I examine the contents of the file with the od program, I see the following, if I use the -c option to display ASCII characters or backslash escapes:

GS01:Documents jsmith$ od -c test.txt
0000000    1   2   3  \n   4   5   6  \n                                
0000010

The \n at the end of each line represents a newline

But, if I use -ax to see the ASCII and hexadecimal contents of the file, I see the following:

GS01:Documents jsmith$ od -ax test.txt
0000000    1   2   3  nl   4   5   6  nl                                
             3231    0a33    3534    0a36                                
0000010

I see that the lines are terminated with the hexidecimal 0A character for the newline character. Note: the hexadecimal representation that appears below the ASCII representation has the bytes reversed, i.e. 32 represents 2 and 31 represents 1.

If you need to convert a file that uses the Mac style of terminating lines with a CR character to the Linux/Unix style of using a LF character, then you can use the following procedure within vi taken from Using the shell (Terminal) in Mac OS X.

Type "1,$s/" and then press CTRL-V followed by CTRL-M. When you press CTRL-V nothing appears to happen, but the CTRL-M shows up as "^M". Continue with "/" and then CTRL-V again. Hit RETURN (which will show up as ^M and you could do that too - I just like it this way) and finally "/g". On your screen the whole thing looks like:

   :1,$s/^M/^M/g

What does that mean? It means "Starting at line 1 and stopping at the end of the file (1,$), substitute (s) any CTRL-M (/^M/) with Unix CTRL-M (^M/) and do it for the entire line rather than just the first CTRL-M you find (g) (On most other Unixes I'd just do s/^M//g ; I don't know why Mac OS X didn't let me do that). It is a little strange that you replace ^M with ^M but get something entirely different, but that's a subject for another day. The morbidly curious can start by typing "man stty" if they need to know now.

You can then use wq to save the file under the same name or wq newfilename.txt to give the converted version a new name.

Or, alternatively, if you don't want to use the vi editor, you can use the following:

cat file1 | tr "\\r" "\\n" > file2

That will use the translate, i.e. tr, command to translate all instances of the carriage return character, represented by \r to the newline character, in this case the LF character used on Unix systems.

If you wish, you could also create a script, e.g., mac2unix to perform the translation:

test $# -eq 2 -a "$1" != "$2" && tr "\015" "\012" < $1 > $2 || 
echo "Usage: mac2unix f1 f2"

After changing the permissions on the file with chmod 755 mac2unix, you could use mac2unix file1 file to convert the contents of file1 to file2.

I receive email messages from a Unix system that contain gpg encrypted data on a Mac OS X system. If I try to decrypt them with gpg --decrypt file1.gpg >file2.txt on the Mac system, I receive the error message gpg: [don't know]: invalid packet (ctb=53). So I first need to convert file1 with this procedure before running gpg to decrypt it.

If you needed to convert a file on a Mac system to the text format for a DOS or Microsoft Windows system, you could create a script, e.g. mac2dos to perform the conversion:

test $# -eq 2 -a "$1" != "$2" && { mac2unix $1 $2; unix2dos $2 $2 } || echo "Usage: mac2dos f1 f2"

That script would rely on the mac2unix script you created previously.

To go the other way, e.g. from DOS/Windows to the Mac text format or from Unix to the MAC format, you could use the following:

dos2mac

test $# -eq 2 -a "$1" != "$2" && tr -d "\012" < $1 > $2 || echo 
"Usage: dos2mac f1 f2"

unix2mac

test $# -eq 2 -a "$1" != "$2" && tr "\012" "\015" < $1 > $2 || 
echo "Usage: unix2mac f1 f2"

References

  1. Carriage return
    Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  2. Newline
    Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  3. Teleprinter
    Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  4. Using the shell (Terminal) in Mac OS X
    Date: December 2002
    MacOSX articles at APLawrence.com
  5. Vi
    Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  6. Line Breaks
    Date: July 1, 2003
    By: Rodney Sparapani/Medical College of Wisconsin
    The ESS-help Archives
  7. Why is the line terminator CR+LF?
    Date: March 18, 2004
    By: oldnewthing
    The Old New Thing

[/os/os-x] permanent link

Sat, Feb 27, 2010 9:12 pm

Windows Easy Transfer from Windows XP or Vista to Windows 7

If you are upgrading a prior version of Windows, such as Windows XP or vista, to Windows 7, you can use the Windows Easy Transfer program to transfer files and settings for accounts on the system.

[ More Info ]

[/os/windows/win7] permanent link

Sat, Feb 27, 2010 7:20 pm

Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor

You can use the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to check on whether a system is compatible with Windows 7.

After installing the software, start it and click on Start check.

Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor start check

The check of the system may take several minutes. When it completes, you will see a list of the issues found.

Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor issues found

If you scroll down through the issues found, you can determine if any issues were found with hardware in or attached to the system, such as a video card in the computer or a printer attached to the system, by examining the Devices section.

Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor issues found with devices

If you click on Save Report, you can save a report on what the Windows Upgrade Advisor found in .mht or .html format. A compatibility report for an HP Pavilion a1630n system can be seen here. The report indicates the NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE video card in the system is compatible with Windows 7 and that Windows Aero support should be available.

[/os/windows/win7] permanent link

Fri, Feb 19, 2010 11:14 pm

Files for Windows Live Messenger Custom Emoticons

In trying to determine how to copy Windows Live Messenger version 2009 emoticon files from one system to another, I found a C:\Users\acctname\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Messenger\user@example.com\ObjectStore\CustomEmoticons directory on a Windows 7 system. For the directory path acctname is the particular Windows account. The email address used for logging into Windows Live Messenger would appear in place of user@example.com. The equivalent directory on the Windows XP system from which I was going to copy the custom icons was \Documents and Settings\acctname\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Messenger\user@example.com\ObjectStore\CustomEmoticons.

The directory contained .dt2 and .id2 files. When I checked .dt2 files with FileAlyzer, I found that they were actually GIF files. Most were GIF89a files, but some were GIF87a files as is revealed by the first 6 bytes in the files. GIF89a files have 47 49 46 38 39 61 as the first six bytes in the files while GIF87a files have 47 49 46 38 37 61 as the first six bytes. If you change the extension on a file from .dt2 to .gif, you can view the file with an image viewing program.

FileAlyzer .dt2 file

There is a .dt2 and .id2 file for each emoticon with names similar to the example shown below.

ZysU6LltaOP0MVYOBvV4YcbnHr4=.dt2
ZysU6LltaOP0MVYOBvV4YcbnHr4=.id2

These are associated with the emoticons you see in the Custom emoticons section when you select an emoticon within Windows Live Messenger.

Custom Emoticons

I was able to transfer all of the custom icons for Windows Live Messenger from the Windows XP system to the Windows 7 system, by copying all the files in the CustomIcons folder on the Windows XP system to that folder on the Windows 7 system. Where the files already exist, you can choose to skip or copy over those files.

Note: if you have Windows Live Messenger open on the destination system at the time you copy the files to it, you will need to close all Windows Live Messenger windows and close the program and then reopen it to see the custom icons you copied.

References:

  1. GIF
    Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  2. Decrypting Messenger Id2 files
    Date: July 2, 2007
    Fanatic Live

[/network/chat/live_messenger] permanent link

Fri, Feb 19, 2010 8:48 pm

Mac GNU Privacy Guard 2.x

A version of GNU Privacy Guard is available for Mac OS X systems from Mac GNU Privacy Guard. A .zip file, MacGPG2-2.0.14RC2.zip, can be downloaded from Mac GNU Privacy Guard v2.x Files.

To install the software, once you've downloaded it, unzip the contents of the zip file, which you can do from a shell prompt with the unzip command. Then use the Finder to locate the .mpkg file that was extracted from the .zip file. Double-click on it to start the MacGPG2 Installer.

Welcome ot the MacGPG2 Installer

Click on Continue to continue with the installation. The next step will be to view the Read Me information, followed by the display of the GNU General Public License Version 3, which covers the use of the software. After agreeing to the license, you will be informed of the amount of space that will be used by the software, which is 21.6 MB for version 2.0.14RC2. When you proceed with the installation, the gpg executable will be installed in /usr/local/bin.

You can see other files installed during the installation with lsbom -fls /Library/Receipts/macgpg2.pkg/Contents/Archive.bom.

$ lsbom -fls /Library/Receipts/macgpg2.pkg/Contents/Archive.bom
./Applications/start-gpg-agent.app/Contents/Info.plist
./Applications/start-gpg-agent.app/Contents/MacOS/applet
./Applications/start-gpg-agent.app/Contents/PkgInfo
./Applications/start-gpg-agent.app/Contents/Resources/._applet.icns
./Applications/start-gpg-agent.app/Contents/Resources/Scripts/._main
.scpt
./Applications/start-gpg-agent.app/Contents/Resources/Scripts/main.s
cpt
./Applications/start-gpg-agent.app/Contents/Resources/applet.icns
./Applications/start-gpg-agent.app/Contents/Resources/applet.rsrc
./Applications/start-gpg-agent.app/Contents/Resources/description.rt
fd/TXT.rtf
./Library/LaunchAgents/com.sourceforge.macgpg2.gpg-agent.plist
./private/etc/paths.d/MacGPG2
./usr/local/sbin/MacGPG2-login.sh
./usr/local/sbin/MacGPG2-logout.sh

Your keyrings, such as pubring.gpg, will be installed in /Users/acctname/.gnupg/. where acctname represents the particular account you are using. If you have keyrings already on another system, you can copy those keyrings to that location. I.e., you can copy pubring.gpg, secring.gpg, and trustdb.gpg from the other system. You can see what keys are in your public keyring with gpg --list-keys.

References:

  1. GNU Privacy Guard
    Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  2. Mac GNU Privacy Guard
    SourceForge
  3. Uninstall applications installed from packages
    Date: January 11, 2010
    By: oblahdioblidaa
    Mac OS X Hints

[/os/os-x/software/security] permanent link

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