empty folder
Ninou
Do you know a freeware that can find and delete empty folders ?
thanks
--
Ninou
Gratilog, le catalogue des logiciels gratuits
http://www.gratilog.net/
jmatt
http://www.nonags.com/nonags/cl.html
http://riverbbs.net/pub3/windows/RMEMP12.ZIP
* Posted via http://www.sixfiles.com/forum
Susan Bugher
> Hello
> Do you know a freeware that can find and delete empty folders ?
Hi Ninou, a few to investigate. Heed the warning about Shortcutter (do
NOT use with XP/2000 (NTFS)) - IIRC it's said to do horrible things if
you don't.
Program: RmEmpty
Author: Douglas Good
Install: CLI
Ware: Freeware
http://www.jsiinc.com/SUBL/tip5500/rh5538.htm
DL link is broken - direct download here:
http://riverbbs.net/pub3/windows/RMEMP12.ZIP
----------
Program: Shortcutter (v 2.0)
Author: Goldenfrog
W: LFW
Ware: v 2.0 (last available) v 2.15 (last?) Freeware (do NOT use with
XP/2000 (NTFS))
http://www.sover.net/~wysiwygx/index.html
-------------
Program: Start Menu Cleaner
Author: Mithril Software
Ware: (Freeware)
http://www.iceview.com/
----------
HTH
Susan
--
Pricelessware & ACF: http://www.pricelesswarehome.org
Pricelessware: http://www.pricelessware.org
ACF FAQ: http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/faq.html
ACF wiki: http://www.markcarter.me.uk/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?AcfWiki
Ninou
écrit:
thanks for the warning and for the propositions...
Susan Bugher
> Ninou wrote:
>>Hello
>>Do you know a freeware that can find and delete empty folders ?
>>thanks
>
> Disk Space Chart is very nice.
>
> Slightly naggy; very very slightly crippled.
>
> Right click integration. 189kb D/L
>
> http://www.silurian.com/win32/chart.htm
*Someone* said it doesn't *delete* empty folders. . . ;)
Subject: DiskSpaceChart - allows you to quickly and easily work out disk
space utilisation.
From: jo <ki...@lineone.net>
Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2004 01:08:58 +0100
Newsgroups: alt.comp.freeware
http://www.silurian.com/win32/chart.htm
This is really nice. I usually use the last freeware build of diskdata
to analyse drive info but this app looks to be lovely.
I found it while looking for an app to locate empty folders. This app
will find empty folders - unfortunately you can't delete them in the
app, but you can get all sorts of info as to what folder is using the
most space.
<SNIP>
omega
> Do you know a freeware that can find and delete empty folders ?
If you don't need to look and review them first, and instead want
to have it done straight from batch command, then XXCopy will do
it. I needed that for a project recently, and it worked very well.
---------DELEmptyDir.bat---------------------
xxcopy \yourdir\ /S /H/R /RSY /X*
::
:: /S include Subdirectories
:: /H/R include Hidden & Read-only
:: /RSY Remove Source Yes
:: /X* eXclude all files
-----------------------------------------------
I'm appending below the ref document from which I'd got the command,
an archived post by XXCopy's author. It also includes the trick to
make a skeleton tree copy from a source target.
/Karen
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
: Reply-To: "KanYabumoto" <tech....@datman.com>
: References: <cwZJ6.10635$4f7.8...@bgtnsc06-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>
: Subject: Re: How to Delete Empty Directories
: Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 23:57:08 -0500
: Keywords: XXCOPY , DELTREE, deleting empty directories
: Organization: Pixelab, Inc.
: Message-ID: <u753Z3Q2AHA.369@cpmsnbbsa09>
: Newsgroups: alt.comp.freeware
:
: Spoon, this may not be obvious even for experienced XXCOPY users.
: Let me suggest a couple of useful trick as the author of XXCOPY.
:
: As our FAQ page says, if you are looking for a file-management feature
: in XXCOPY, there is a very good chance you will find a way to do it.
:
: Here's how to remove all empty directories in a directory using XXCOPY.
:
: XXCOPY \yourdir\ /RSY /H /R /S /X*
:
: Explanation:
:
: /RSY remove source directory (in this case \yourdir\)
: /S including subdirectories
: /X* exclude all files (* == same as *.* in Win32)
:
: This technique takes advantage of the exclusion feature which
: does not delete any existing file in the directory. Since
: a subdirectory with a file (or subdirectory) won't be deleted,
: the only subdirectories that are deleted are empty ones.
: To make this command work better, you may want to add
: the following switches
:
: /H include hidden directories
: /R handle read-only directories
: /PD0 suppress prompt on directory
: /Q2 quiet (no display on skipped files)
:
: --------------------------------------
:
: Incidentally, the following XXCOPY command line will do the opposite
: (delete all files and leave directory skeleton behind)
:
: XXCOPY \yourdir\ /RSY /S /ED /PD0
:
: here,
:
: /ED preserve an empty directory
:
: Again, you may add /H /R /Q2 to make it more bullet-proof.
:
:
: Kan Yabumoto
: tech....@datman.com
:
: =====================================================================
:
: "spoon" <bo...@notreally.com> wrote in message
: news:cwZJ6.10635$4f7.8...@bgtnsc06-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
: > What utility do you recommend for getting rid of empty directories and
: > broken .LNK files that point to non-existent files?
: >
: > Some of them insist on looking through the entire volume (FDLINKS). Others
: > are limited to just the Start Menu (Start Menu Cleaner). Shortcutter, for
: > some reason, finds the empty directories but when I highlight the ones I
: > want to delete, and then click Delete, they don't get deleted!
: >
: > I'd like a utility that would let me specify a limited directory tree to
: > be searched for empty folders/dead links, and that gives me the option
: > whether or not to delete them.
: >
: > Thanks in advance.
: >
: > --
: > jim
:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
omega
> Heed the warning about Shortcutter (do NOT use with XP/2000
> (NTFS)) - IIRC it's said to do horrible things if you don't.
>
> Author: Goldenfrog
> XP/2000 (NTFS))
> http://www.sover.net/~wysiwygx/index.html
Shortcutter works well for me on my (w98) FAT32 partitions. However,
I had a problem recently. My target was a directory on my 80gb removable
drive. It will only let you specify drive letter, and not specific path.
Things crashed during its scan. Including a GPF in user.exe or something
like that. Probably the size of the target was just too big (60gb data).
So: if the target drives are FAT32, -and- if they are not too big (my
local partitions are all less than 8gb, and it's fine on them, and fast),
then Shortcutter is an option.
Its advantage over a commandline utility, or automatic cleaners, it's
that you can opt to manually review, and even sort results in different
ways, letting you choose deletes on a particular basis.
http://omega5.port5.com/clips/goldenfrog/EmptyFoldersDelete.png
(The manual review, it's a feature I require for my D drive, as most of
my empty directories are there because of a template structure that I
use for installed programs, and usually I do not want those emp folders
deleted.)
--
Karen S.
omega
> It also includes the trick to make a skeleton tree copy from
> a source target.
I misrepresented that. The mentioned command doesn't make a copy,
and instead operates directly on source (deleting files). That's
a different subject from this thread, but figure I needed to append
this extra to not leave the misleading statement like that.
> : Message-ID: <u753Z3Q2AHA.369@cpmsnbbsa09>
omega
> Do you know a freeware that can find and delete empty folders ?
Here is a neat little script (I got it from techrepublic.com).
http://www.redshift.com/~omega/2004/scripts/emptyfoldersVBS.zip
One advantage is that it automatically generates a text list of the
empty folders. The deletes are optional. It prompts on each one.
There is a text report generated on that, as well.
--
Karen S.
ms
> Susan Bugher <whoise...@kvi.net>:
>
>>Heed the warning about Shortcutter (do NOT use with XP/2000
>>(NTFS)) - IIRC it's said to do horrible things if you don't.
>>
>>Program: Shortcutter (v 2.0)
>>Author: Goldenfrog
>>Ware: v 2.0 (last available) v 2.15 (last?) Freeware (do NOT use with
>>XP/2000 (NTFS))
>>http://www.sover.net/~wysiwygx/index.html
>
> ftp://ftp.freenet.de/pub/.disk0/filepilot/windows/tools/srtcut.zip
In Firefox, when I click on the above link, a IE download screen automatically
opens (I have IE 5.01 on my HD), no destination folder options, it goes to a
"Temp" folder. When ever this happens, i can't find it in Windows\Temp or any
likely Windows IE folders. I don't use IE because of things like this.
What is it in the web page that automatically selects the browser?
And how to find the file in the Windows directory?
TIA
Mike Sa
omega
> > ftp://ftp.freenet.de/pub/.disk0/filepilot/windows/tools/srtcut.zip
>
> In Firefox, when I click on the above link, a IE download screen automatically
> opens (I have IE 5.01 on my HD), no destination folder options, it goes to a
> "Temp" folder.
Try setting your ftp association.
http://www.pc-tools.net/win32/setbrowser/
http://www.pc-tools.net/files/win32/freeware/stbrws14.exe (40k)
--
Karen S.
Rod
news:cdrbq09ffre9gs2tr...@4ax.com:
Is Setbrowser 1.4 an install version ?
Version 1.3 is standalone, and worked setting K-Meleon is my default
browser where version 1.4 failed.
Available here (20k):
http://www.winsite.com/bin/Info?500000033980
--
Rod
Listening to http://www.stubru.be/luisterlive/streams/high.html
omega
>
> omega <m...@privacy.net> wrote in
>
> > http://www.pc-tools.net/win32/setbrowser/
> > http://www.pc-tools.net/files/win32/freeware/stbrws14.exe (40k)
>
> Is Setbrowser 1.4 an install version ?
Just looked. You're right, that one's an installer download only.
Aaagh.
> Version 1.3 is standalone, and worked setting K-Meleon is my default
> browser where version 1.4 failed.
> Available here (20k):
>
> http://www.winsite.com/bin/Info?500000033980
That's curious, for v1.3 to succeed where v1.4 failed. I've no guesses
on that...
--
Karen S.
ms
This is a rare problem, only certain weblinks.
Every day is different, I just went to my start menu to search for srtcut.zip,
and Windows "Find" is no longer in the menu!
What fun. I think this is a SafeXP issue.
Mike Sa
Rod
news:3itbq09pri30jtlfe...@4ax.com:
> Just looked. You're right, that one's an installer download only.
> Aaagh.
>
Speaking of installers, IIRC you're a Gadwin Printscreen user to.
For a non-install equivalent you might be interested in Hoversnap:
http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm
omega
> Speaking of installers, IIRC you're a Gadwin Printscreen user to.
> For a non-install equivalent you might be interested in Hoversnap:
>
> http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm
Although I like that it is clean and green, Hoversnap's feature set
doesn't hold much interest for my uses. It might for others, who want
something that does timed caps to set folder, and that has an FTP
function.
Earlier, I misread your post, as "HandySnap." That's one that I do
find more interesting. Tor the annotation tools it provides at the
time of taking the clip. These are the visual notes I'd had about
it from when I'd first checked it out:
http://www.redshift.com/~omega/clips/handysnap/HSclips.htm
. . . .
By the way, to put together an html page for the screenshots, I used
"ADWARE." :)
Just like the (ridiculously attacked) Directory Lister, and so many
others, Irfanview inserts a link to its homepage when doing HTML
output.
--
Karen S.
ms
> ms <m...@nospa.com>:
>
>>>ftp://ftp.freenet.de/pub/.disk0/filepilot/windows/tools/srtcut.zip
>>In Firefox, when I click on the above link, a IE download screen automatically
>>opens (I have IE 5.01 on my HD), no destination folder options, it goes to a
>>"Temp" folder.
missing in the Start menu. Before I go to a Windows newsgroup, maybe I can ask you.
Yesterday, I ran SafeXP ver. 141020, the last one that runs OK on my W98SE. It has
settings to remove functions from the Start menu, I selected items to delete that
already didn't appear (bad move). Afterword, everything appeared OK. Today, when I
booted up, no Find function. I figure a SafeXP malfunction must have caused it,
never happened before.
On my HD, after 7 years operation, it is no longer safe for me to run "settings"
type utilities. I just checked Tweakui, and several setting had been changed by
something, maybe SafeXP.
I went on Google, found MS article that the Find key may be corrupted. I checked,
that key is correct. Next I went to scanreg/restore, I can today go back to the
registry where Find is back, numlock is off, but the password nuisance is back. I
only see 4 registrys total, will try your tip later.
Before I go to windows ng, any comments?
Realize it's thanksgiving, have a good one. Maybe afterwards.
Thanks,
Mike Sa
omega
> Yesterday, I ran SafeXP ver. 141020, the last one that runs OK on my W98SE. It has
> settings to remove functions from the Start menu, I selected items to delete that
> already didn't appear (bad move). Afterword, everything appeared OK. Today, when I
> booted up, no Find function. I figure a SafeXP malfunction must have caused it,
> never happened before.
>
> On my HD, after 7 years operation, it is no longer safe for me to run "settings"
> type utilities. I just checked Tweakui, and several setting had been changed by
> something, maybe SafeXP.
I'm not familiar with a program named SafeXP. If you want to use a system
tweaker, I recommend Xteq's X-Setup. It has restore functionality, and
features relating to providing detail of what tweak will do. You'd still
do best to pay attention when using that one. I mean, it might be a good
idea to write yourself a note, each time you use it to effect any changes.
> I went on Google, found MS article that the Find key may be corrupted. I checked,
> that key is correct.
It sounds like this "SafeXP" program has no undo/revert function?
> Next I went to scanreg/restore, I can today go back to the
> registry where Find is back, numlock is off, but the password nuisance is back.
There are many docs on dealing with widespread problem with w9x login
password. One of the commonly suggested steps, going from memory, it's
to delete your *.pwl file from the windir. You might want to Google for
a fuller outline of the steps that would be appropriate.
--
Karen S.
Rod
news:qj2cq0p67d36j6piu...@4ax.com:
> Rod <re...@group.please>:
>>
>> Speaking of installers, IIRC you're a Gadwin Printscreen user to.
>> For a non-install equivalent you might be interested in Hoversnap:
>>
>> http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm
>
> Although I like that it is clean and green, Hoversnap's feature set
> doesn't hold much interest for my uses. It might for others, who want
> something that does timed caps to set folder, and that has an FTP
> function.
> Earlier, I misread your post, as "HandySnap." That's one that I do
> find more interesting. Tor the annotation tools it provides at the
> time of taking the clip. These are the visual notes I'd had about
> it from when I'd first checked it out:
>
> http://www.redshift.com/~omega/clips/handysnap/HSclips.htm
This is very cool stuff.
I have no use at all for this right now, but I'm sure I'll think of
something.
Thank you for this:
One additional note, get it fast:
"HandySnap is a commercial software but during the testing period all beta
versions including the current one are absolutelly free! So don't wait and
download your copy right now."
> . . . .
> By the way, to put together an html page for the screenshots, I used
> "ADWARE." :)
That's pure evil.
> Just like the (ridiculously attacked) Directory Lister, and so many
> others, Irfanview inserts a link to its homepage when doing HTML
> output.
Ouch, first the ebay-option, now this, where's this world going ?
omega
>
> This is very cool stuff.
> I have no use at all for this right now, but I'm sure I'll think of
> something.
I like those little annotation tools. As to the interface, it's a tad,
uh, individualistic. Yet not too hard to adjust to.
> Thank you for this:
>
> http://www.wisepixel.com/
I see they've got a new release out too, v0.5. I'm downloading now. Big
download, because they include gdiplus.dll...
> One additional note, get it fast:
> "HandySnap is a commercial software but during the testing period all beta
> versions including the current one are absolutelly free! So don't wait and
> download your copy right now."
I admire that they are honest. It is so common for developers to market
as freeware and keep it sekrit that they plan to turn it shareware at a
later stage of development.
A note on the beta part. I've never noticed anything at all in the way of
bugs. I've quite decided that beta is in the eye of the developer. Or in
a case like HandySnap, it's more a way of dividing the line in development
where the product will turn payware.
> > . . . .
> > By the way, to put together an html page for the screenshots, I used
> > "ADWARE." :)
>
> That's pure evil.
Maohahaha. "ADWARE" prevailZ.
> > Just like the (ridiculously attacked) Directory Lister, and so many
> > others, Irfanview inserts a link to its homepage when doing HTML
> > output.
>
> Ouch, first the ebay-option, now this, where's this world going ?
I say it's time to have the full PL burned at the stake, along with DL.
Light the skies with that bonfire.
--
Karen S.
omega
>
> http://www.wisepixel.com/
Two details related to their download file...
[installer]
The installer is Inno. So if wish to bypass, then InnoUnp can do the
extract.
http://innounp.sourceforge.net/
http://umn.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/innounp/innounp014.rar (80k)
innounp -x hsnap_setup.exe
Uninstall would be deleting handysnap.ini from the windir; and deleting
the key [HKCU\Software\WisePixel\HandySnap].
[gdiplus.dll]
They include the big gdiplus.dll. They distribute the old version. Not the
new one after the security fix.
Direct download for the new one (1mb):
http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/b/c/abc45517-97a0-4cee-a362-1957be2f24e1/gdiplus_dnld.exe
I keep one copy of gdiplus.dll in a shared directory. I haven't so far found
any apps to demand some specific copy in their own directories (despite the
fact that msft informs developers to do it that way).
--
Karen S.
Rod
news:0eccq0l6p9qqv0ion...@4ax.com:
Thank you for the additional info Karen, I'm defintely gonna keep this one.
ms
function is more difficult. I'm not contemplating putting in my windows CD, so
I'll stay with the present registry and work with passwords.
Mike Sa
omega
> booted up, no Find function. I figure a SafeXP malfunction must have caused it,
> never happened before.
---------MergeMe.reg-----------------------------------------------------------
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoFind"=dword:00000000
;
; says NO to NoFind (double negative here does mean a positive)
; Restores the menu item "Find" back into the Startmenu
;
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Text to .reg instructions:
Save what's between the dash lines into notepad. Regedit4 must be the
very first line. There must be at least one blank line at the end.
(Or a commented one will serve, which is why I tend to add a semicolon
as last line when I post these.) Make sure that you have no breaks in
anything between the brackets [HK...].
Name the file to something with a .reg extension (eg MergeMe.reg).
If using a notepad with an execute command, like Win32Pad, click that.
If not, select the file in explorer, right-click, and choose the Merge
command. Yes to the prompts.
Don't know if you need to reboot to see the effect on the .reg above.
--
Karen S.
omega
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoFind"=dword:00000000
;
; says NO to NoFind (double negative here does mean a positive)
; Restores the menu item "Find" back into the Startmenu
;
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------MergeMe-alternative.reg-----------------------------------------------
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoFind"=-
;
; Or just kill the NoFind value altogether
jmatt
>
at Startup
> http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q152104
>
> =============================
>
> W95/98
> http://www.computing.net/howto/simple/logon/
> http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=86
> If you are not Networking .
> Click on Start --> Settings --> Control Panel , double click
on the Network icon .
> All you need in this Window is Dial-Up-Adaptor & TCP/IP.
> Delete the others .
> Ignore the warning message about not being complete . That's OK .
> If you ever need to Network , you can add them on again .
>
> Important reading .
> http://grc.com/su-fixit.htm
> http://grc.com/su-bondage.htm
* Posted via http://www.sixfiles.com/forum
omega
> the missing Find function is more difficult.
I've run bad "tweakers" myself. One that I ran (Optix), it had trashed
items on my startmenu. Forget which items (think it was logoff/shutdown,
maybe others). Main issue, it was that it did it without my having chosen
such settings, nor did it have any sort of revert options.
The records I did save on that story, it was that I had to go and extract
the regkey involved from a backup. I restored, from backup, this key:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
I've just posted the part of that key that pertains to NoFind, as it is
likely that's where SafeXP did its thing to you. If it did anything else,
though, you might want to take a full look at your key. Reading for what
values say yes (01) and what ones say no (00).
--
Karen S.
MLC
> I see they've got a new release out too, v0.5. I'm downloading now. Big
> download, because they include gdiplus.dll...
Downloading it now, me too. Thanks Karen for your notes.
--
Maria Luisa C - 25/11/2004 23.02.15
ms
I did the reg files as above, exactly as noted. Tried both versions, (your other
post), rebooted, even cold booted, still no Start/Find.
Don't know if you'll see this yet today, I'll keep looking back, because I will
loose one reg cab file when I boot up tomorrow. I may be wrong, but if I have to
choose, it seems the Find is a harder problem to solve, and I may have to choose
before I shut down tonight.
Btw, can't the "fancy" Find you provided awhile ago be a shortcut in the Start menu?
Comment?
Mike Sa
ms
> On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 12:52:08 -0800, omega <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>>I've run bad "tweakers" myself. One that I ran (Optix), it had trashed
>
>
> be checked and un-checked to restore features, functions, and services. It's
> always worked great for me, however YMMV using an older OS!
>
> -- Bob
Bob, I've run SafeXP in W98Se several times in past, no problem. Now, something in
registry is reacting to it. The latest version actually crashed my machine.
Mike Sa
omega
> Bob, I've run SafeXP in W98Se several times in past, no problem. Now, something in
> registry is reacting to it. The latest version actually crashed my machine.
I tested SafeXP tonight. (On w98. Claim of compatibility at its website.)
[TEST ONE. LAUNCH AND CLOSE ONLY]
I launched it, then closed it. I took no action at all. If it were safely
behaved, there should have been zero effect on my registry at that point.
Outside of writing to its own preferences key. However, its behavior proved
otherwise; completely irresponsible.
From this mere act of launch, without my having clicked a single button,
it wrote all over my registry.
It created a bunch of keys (empty keys) in weird places. Some 33 total
new keys on my system (outside of the legit ones of its own HKCU).
It created a bunch of new keys for software that is not on my machine.
For instance:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Outlook
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\PCHealth
HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Messenger
It created a bunch of new keys for services that are also not applicable
to my system. For instance:
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\LSA
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\helpsvc
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkStation
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Messenger
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NetBT
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\RDSessMgr
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time
It even went in and deleted a value in my registry.
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences "SilentAcquisition"
Sure, by the looks of that value, it is something I'd want deleted.
However, the important point: no deletes at all in my registry should
not have happened without my request.
It had no business writing to my registry as it did, without request,
just upon launch, outside of its own keys.
[TEST TWO. RESTORAL ABILITIES]
I cleaned the slate, reverted my registry, started over. This time I
took one action. I chose the comand "Save Settings to File." This would
seem to serve the purpose of making a backup of one's settings prior to
it making any changes. The confirmation said:
"System state is saved for later possible restoration by creating
the file: \<path>\SafeXP.dat"
After that one save action, I closed it. It automatically created again
that same slew of wrong keys, consequence of merely launching it. Next
I opened it again. I chose the action "Restore Settings from File."
I pointed it at the SafeXP.dat file it had created at the beginning.
The message said:
"The checked values are restored from the file. Please Apply button
to take effect. \<path>\SafeXPdat."
I hit the Apply button. Then closed.
!!EXTREME CHANGES
Total of 39 new keys spewed all over my registry during this second test.
This time with 117 new values, and 27 changed values.
Some of these were total garbage, as before, applying to software and
services that are not part of my system.
Other values it created did apply to my system, with immediate consequence.
It went and changed things in major ways for MSIE, and for various internet
protocols; and for the explorer, including rewriting all my settings for
the menu items on my startmenu. In addition to it writing a number of new
values to revamp all my settings, there were a number of changes to existing
values.
This second area of change was heavily targeted within my internet zones.
Taking a quick glance of what it had done, the most striking thing I
noticed was how it had gone in and trashed my security settings for the
MSIE internet zone.
It had turned on Active Scripting. It had changed "download unsigned ActiveX
controls" from Disable to Prompt. It had changed "Script ActiveX controls"
from Disable to Enable. It did the same thing with "Run ActiveX controls
and plug-ins," hurled open that door. These were only a few of its many
unpleasant changes throughout my zone settings...
Then there was the matter of the subkeys and values it created under
services. Items such as these:
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NetBT\Parameters "SMBDeviceEnabled"
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\RDSessMgr "Start"
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\MSTCP "DeadGWDetect"
While it created those things out of its own brain, most of which do not
apply to my OS, their entry in that registry section concerned me. There
are many parts of the registry where I myself take action with comfort and
ease, editing and deleting, sections where experience has shown me there
will not be real harm. One major exception is in that \Services\ section.
Here I am very cautious, and rarely touch things. Particularly I get nervous
when VxDs or other unfamiliar low level device drivers are involved. I have
the overall feeling that Windows is extremely picky during bootup, about what
it reads there, and will have great trouble loading if you have certain types
of bad entries there....
This part of the test, I am not in the mood to take all the way. I am not
going to see if SafeXP's horrible garbage writes under my Services keys
have a damaging effect to the extent of Windows giving error messages (or
even failure), when it next tries to boot up.
So it is time to immediately restore. Save myself from the risk of problems
in booting up. That decision gives me the bonus now, as well, of not having
to deal with the other effects.
Such as my startmenu items totally changed (judging by the registry entries,
which would take effect upon next boot, it made significant change there.
It added in things that I don't use (example, "msie favorites on startmenu").
And it removed other things which I do need (example, "show logged-in user").
And there were other things that it wrote under the explorer restrictions
policies key, for which I do not even know the consequence; but do know I
don't want the hassle of hassling out dealing with whatever it may have
tried to disable in my interface.
Further bonus in immediate restoral from its damage. It will mean that
I can have my proper security zone settings back in place. Without all
the doors flung open, as it had done, to things like Active Scripting.
[TEST THREE. RECOMMENDED SETTINGS]
Test three would be this. "What happens when I run SafeXP and tell it to
make changes to my settings?"
How much does that even matter at this point? It has already very much
burned my system. Already proved that it cannot have a restore point of
original setttings. All this before I could even get to the single stage
of testing that /should/ been the only one with reportable results. That
stage of logging what happens when one does actually say to it,
"OK, yes, do your so-called tweaking."
Merely launching it had created wrong keys all over my registry.
And next, simply telling it to save my system settings, then restore those
same settings, that resulted in the most horrific disaster.
No test three from me. Time for TUN to save my computer from this hell, and
time for the "tweaker" program to go into the nuclear disposal bin.
--
Karen S.
____________________________
ref'd registry logs
http://www.redshift.com/~omega/2004/var/krapp/safexp/
omega
> In restore, I now have no password issue, no Find.
>
> I did the reg files as above, exactly as noted. Tried both versions, (your other
> post), rebooted, even cold booted, still no Start/Find.
>
> Don't know if you'll see this yet today, I'll keep looking back, because I will
> loose one reg cab file when I boot up tomorrow. I may be wrong, but if I have to
> choose, it seems the Find is a harder problem to solve, and I may have to choose
> before I shut down tonight.
Having looked at the SafeXP disaster, Mike, it's my opinion that you should
revert to a registry backup that existed from before you'd ever first touched
that program. Is that possible; do you have any backups from that point in
time?
--
Karen S.
omega
> Downloading it now, me too. Thanks Karen for your notes.
I got to remark, HandySnap should feel very honored...to have caught
the eye of the serious freeware connoisseurs. :)
--
Karen S.
ms
Karen, you certainly debunked SafeXP. What you described with Optix is what
happened to me with SafeXP, it changed other things.
In future, the only settings utility that looks safe to me is Tweakui, that I've
used for years.
Yesterday, I lost one too many backups as I tried to solve the problem. I believe
it operates on the FIFO principle. The restore concept seems especially useful if
used on the next boot, when changes are clearly identified. A good tool for next time.
I'm left with the reg version that password is OK, but no Find function. Thanks
for the info on reg fixes, as I mentioned, no change. I will look into your tip on:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
If no help there, the probable next stop is a Windows ng. I use the Find function
constantly.
In the meantime, I will use the excellent File Finder you provided, shortcut to
the Start Menu.
Comment on above?
Mike Sa
ms
>>but the password nuisance is back
>>
>>How to Prevent a Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows Me Logon Prompt
>
> at Startup
>
>>http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q152104
>>
info available on the net. For me, it originally took trying many steps to finally
get a solution. Everybody's computer is different.
Mike Sa
Rod
> If no help there, the probable next stop is a Windows ng. I use the
> Find function constantly.
This might sound (and be) stupid, but did you try the windows key together
with the F key to call the Find-function ?
Or the F3 key ?
omega
> On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 01:02:04 -0800, omega <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>
> > "OK, yes, do your so-called tweaking."
> >
> >Merely launching it had created wrong keys all over my registry.
>
> does not even use Services, PCHealth, Etc. Most of those bogus keys you
> listed are already in the XP registry.
NO program should create keys like that, upon mere launch. If the keys
do not exist, it has no business creating that. It is irrelevant here what
OS. No need to even bring up the fact that many XP systems do not have
Messenger, Office, Outlook, and yet it created all kinds of keys and values
for those products.
> I rate SafeXP 7/10 for Windows XP. It's perfectly well behaved on my XP
> system. The downgrade is mostly due to the unimaginative interface.
It is extremely BADLY behaved. Right from the start, it is outlandishly
irresponsible for it to make all kinds of changes, without being asked.
And it is as far as can be from meeting the most important requirement
in a "tweaker" program, a log and a backup of each registry change it
makes.
--
Karen S.
ms
> ms <m...@nospa.com> wrote in news:30orl8F...@uni-berlin.de:
>
>
>>If no help there, the probable next stop is a Windows ng. I use the
>>Find function constantly.
>
>
> This might sound (and be) stupid, but did you try the windows key together
> with the F key to call the Find-function ?
> Or the F3 key ?
>
recent text file in 2XExplorer. I never use Windows Explorer, only to change file
associations. I always use the 2X shell. But do use the start menu Find function.
Mike Sa
Rod
>> This might sound (and be) stupid, but did you try the windows key
>> together with the F key to call the Find-function ?
>> Or the F3 key ?
>>
> Probably you mean in Windows Explorer. I just did the above, it just
> opens a recent text file in 2XExplorer. I never use Windows Explorer,
> only to change file associations. I always use the 2X shell. But do
> use the start menu Find function.
>
I meant in general, not in Windows Explorer.
The windowskey+F always brings up Find for me, I'm not sure how the F3 key
exactly works, but minimizing my open windows, left-clicking on the desktop
once to get focus there and pressing F3 also brings up Find for me.
But I guess in your case the whole Find function has disappeared.
omega
> I use the Find function constantly.
One of the places the SafeXP thing writes to, and specifically where I
suspect the startmenu problem might be involved, it's to both of these
keys:
[HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
[HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
I'm about 97% sure that you could simply delete those entire keys.
Back them up first. For now, put the backups in a central place; like
on the root of C. This is a good time to commit to learning the command
to restore a reg file in DOS. It's simply: "regedit filename.reg."
You might lose a couple of minor preferences in doing that. Such as
items that you previously might have chosen to not be on your startmenu
(msie favorites, recent docs, Windows update), and things like CD
autoplay. You could just put whatever prefs back later, using Tweakui.
--
Karen S.
ms
NoFind was a 1, as you mentioned before about double negative, I changed it to a
0, (not nofind *is* find), but not in my case. Still no Find, even after (hot)
reboot.
I will review and post back. Deleting the key seems somewhat scary, but may be the
easiest alternative.
I'll post to windows ng, hope to get better answer than "reinstall". A 7 year old
registry can be pretty fragile.
Mike Sa
omega
> omega wrote:
> >
> > One of the places the SafeXP thing writes to, and specifically where I
> > suspect the startmenu problem might be involved, it's to both of these
> > keys:
> >
> > [HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
> > [HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
> >
> > I'm about 97% sure that you could simply delete those entire keys.
>
> easiest alternative.
Nothing to lose in deleting them, if you back them up. Worst that can
possibly happen is that you need to restore them back. And I rate the
likelihood of that necessity rather small. I could test on my own machine,
to speak more certainly, but don't want to log off and reboot, etc, at
the moment. And mainly: it'd be good for you to know how to back up and
restore a reg key.
--
Karen S.
omega
> omega wrote:
>
> > [HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
> > [HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
> >
> NoFind was a 1, as you mentioned before about double negative, I changed it to a
> 0, (not nofind *is* find), but not in my case. Still no Find, even after (hot)
> reboot.
I hadn't yesterday thought to mention that HKLM one. You could look in that
one as well, see if it contains a Nofind=01.
--
Karen S.
ms
enough it was a 1, backed it up, changed to a 0, reboot and Find is back again.
So SafeXP cost me about 4 days of grief.
A housekeeping question you must have solved:
Now that all things are working again, I will back up registry (WRP- Shep's old
favorite). But that takes a conscious effort, I usually forget, and every time I
wish I had a backup to use, it is way too old to use.
Maybe automatic reg save at shutdown or bootup? As a concept, advice?
Any small util that comes to mind, exe preferred?
Mike Sa
jmatt
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q322756
The information in this article applies to:
* Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
* Microsoft Windows XP Professional
* Microsoft Windows XP 64-Bit Edition
omega
> On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 06:32:42 -0800, omega <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>
> >It is extremely BADLY behaved.
>
I gave of my time to record factual logs, and post them, to reveal
what this horrifically behaved program does when it is run. As a service
to others. You, OTOH, use it in the blind, and recommend it with total
disregard for the safety of others. Even after one user has already
had his machine trashed due to it her.
> Better send the software police to go arrest them.
What an idiotic comment.
--
Karen S.
Doc
>
> Maybe automatic reg save at shutdown or bootup? As a concept, advice?
>
HKLM/Run c:\windows\scanregw.exe /autorun
will back up registry once each day, but only after a reboot/startup. ie,
if you leave your PC running 24 hours a day then you will need to use a
task scheduler app.
I find it very handy to keep more than the default 5 registry backups too.
If you need it, I can post the method to change the default 5 backups.
--
Adware/malware/spyware free since 1996, using IE and OE.
omega
> Good news!!! Thanks much for the above, I went back to the second key and sure
> enough it was a 1, backed it up, changed to a 0, reboot and Find is back again.
Good to hear you did a successful repair on that. Although it's odd that
you didn't get Find back when you did that earlier. Ah well, at least
it's back now. Btw, that NoFind=01, it wipes out find not just from the
startmenu, but more fully (F3 etc, all gets killed). It's one of the
billions of restriction type settings, for use on public computers. Or
to torture individuals. :)
> So SafeXP cost me about 4 days of grief.
Stick with Tweakui, the one everyone is familiar with. Also look into
Xteq's X-Setup. It is the king, and the model of good behavior. Not
that it won't have some tweaks which might be undesirable, out of the
thousands it offers, but that every one of them is explained, recorded,
and can be easily undone.
> A housekeeping question you must have solved:
> Now that all things are working again, I will back up registry (WRP- Shep's old
> favorite). But that takes a conscious effort, I usually forget, and every time I
> wish I had a backup to use, it is way too old to use.
>
> Maybe automatic reg save at shutdown or bootup? As a concept, advice?
>
> Any small util that comes to mind, exe preferred?
You have two ways to go, but can even do both.
One is the old w95 way, using batch files to regularly make copies of the
system.dat+user.dat. There are a few "programs" that do this. I assume the
WRP you mention is one of them.
The other is to use the inbuilt scanregw. You can increase the number of
backups it makes, past five. The problem with doing this, however, is that
when you want to do a scanregw/restore, then you often won't see your more
recent backups. And have to do extra work at that point, such as first
renaming some of the older .cab backups, to get the display of the more
recent ones.
I recommend periodically going to the folder where the scanregw backups
are stored, and archiving some of those cabs. Do a find for rb*.cab to
find them. You can change where they are stored on drive, to a more
accessible place, if you need to, by editing the "BackupDirectory= "
line in scanreg.ini.
I was answering a different question than what you asked. It's because
I encourage occasionally storing some longer-term backups. It would have
been good for a situation such as that SafeXp thing you ran, which likely
wrote a bunch of krapp to your Services key, making Windows startup a big
mess, and which is something I think would be very difficult to fix by
direct edit.
But for your question, how to get more frequent backups. The "scanregw/
autorun" routine, its rules are to back up the registry once per day or
once per boot, whichever is longer. So if you're only rebooting once a
week, then that means only one backup a week. You could just take the
manual habit of hitting scanregw from your Run... box, to make more regular
backups. It only takes a minute.
But you want something that is fully automatic, and does a reg backup
say once per day?
There's an array of available scheduler utilities... Do you already run any
schedulers? If so, then it'd be choosing a reg backup command that could
then be entered in with them.
--
Karen S.
»Q«
<news:1geeq0dh65lmi4trd...@4ax.com>:
> On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 01:02:04 -0800, omega <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>> Merely launching it had created wrong keys all over my registry.
> "Wrong" keys for Win98X may be perfectly normal for XP. Remember,
> Win9X does not even use Services, PCHealth, Etc.
It sounds like the author of SafeXP should have remembered that. It's
website claims it has been tested under Windows 98 and is compatible.
> Most of those bogus keys you listed are already in the XP registry.
A lot of them aren't. Even if they don't cause the problems/crashes
mentioned before, why would an app designed to improve system
performance add superfluous bloat to the XP registry?
--
»Q«
omega
> Now that all things are working again, I will back up registry (WRP- Shep's old
> favorite). But that takes a conscious effort, I usually forget, and every time I
> wish I had a backup to use, it is way too old to use.
First, here is mskb about scanregw
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/183887/EN-US/
Commandline switches available
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184023/EN-US/
Commands related to doing the backup
scanregw :: gives you a prompt first
scanregw /backup :: does backup with no prompt
scanregw /autorun :: does backup with no prompt, max 1x per day
> Maybe automatic reg save at shutdown or bootup? As a concept, advice?
The scanregw command in your startup is already preset to where it checks,
on each bootup, to make sure there is backup for that day. Do you need more
often? If so, then you could use one of the commands above, entered into a
scheduler utility.
--
Karen S.
bambam
news:0vjfq0heueo7aqi74...@4ax.com:
>> >It is extremely BADLY behaved.
>>
>> You sound violated.
>
> I gave of my time to record factual logs, and post them, to reveal
> what this horrifically behaved program does when it is run. As a
> service to others.
I for one thank you for your time and effort. I downloaded SafeXP and
GameXP recently, but had not yet tried them, now I never will. :)
Cheers.
--
A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory
ms
> ms <m...@nospa.com>:
>
>>Good news!!! Thanks much for the above, I went back to the second key and sure
>>enough it was a 1, backed it up, changed to a 0, reboot and Find is back again.
>
>
> Good to hear you did a successful repair on that. Although it's odd that
> you didn't get Find back when you did that earlier.
Maybe I wasn't clear- yes, I did get Find back during the day in one of the reg
restores, but in trying to fix the password issue I rebooted several times, by the
time I decided to stay with Find, and then focus on password, the find reg was gone.
Ah well, at least
> it's back now. Btw, that NoFind=01, it wipes out find not just from the
> startmenu, but more fully (F3 etc, all gets killed). It's one of the
> billions of restriction type settings, for use on public computers. Or
> to torture individuals. :)
>
>>So SafeXP cost me about 4 days of grief.
>
> Stick with Tweakui, the one everyone is familiar with. Also look into
> Xteq's X-Setup. It is the king, and the model of good behavior. Not
> that it won't have some tweaks which might be undesirable, out of the
> thousands it offers, but that every one of them is explained, recorded,
> and can be easily undone.
>
I had used X-Setup last about a year ago. When I ran it yesterday, it opened with
a different screen than I'd seen before, my shortcut no longer worked right, so I
uninstalled. Maybe it just needs reinstall.
>
>>A housekeeping question you must have solved:
>>Now that all things are working again, I will back up registry (WRP- Shep's old
>>favorite). But that takes a conscious effort, I usually forget, and every time I
>>wish I had a backup to use, it is way too old to use.
>>
>>Maybe automatic reg save at shutdown or bootup? As a concept, advice?
>>
>>Any small util that comes to mind, exe preferred?
>
>
> You have two ways to go, but can even do both.
>
> One is the old w95 way, using batch files to regularly make copies of the
> system.dat+user.dat. There are a few "programs" that do this. I assume the
> WRP you mention is one of them.
>
> The other is to use the inbuilt scanregw. You can increase the number of
> backups it makes, past five. The problem with doing this, however, is that
> when you want to do a scanregw/restore, then you often won't see your more
> recent backups. And have to do extra work at that point, such as first
> renaming some of the older .cab backups, to get the display of the more
> recent ones.
>
> I recommend periodically going to the folder where the scanregw backups
> are stored, and archiving some of those cabs. Do a find for rb*.cab to
> find them. You can change where they are stored on drive, to a more
> accessible place, if you need to, by editing the "BackupDirectory= "
> line in scanreg.ini.
>
How do you choose which ones to store? IIRC, a reg cab even a week old can be
somewhat risky to run because things have changed.
> I was answering a different question than what you asked. It's because
> I encourage occasionally storing some longer-term backups. It would have
> been good for a situation such as that SafeXp thing you ran, which likely
> wrote a bunch of krapp to your Services key, making Windows startup a big
> mess, and which is something I think would be very difficult to fix by
> direct edit.
>
I opened the HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\ key in RegEditPlus. The list
of folders in the left panel- I'm not familiar with them to say something has been
added. I planned to list the folders here for your comment, but how to do it?
> But for your question, how to get more frequent backups. The "scanregw/
> autorun" routine, its rules are to back up the registry once per day or
> once per boot, whichever is longer. So if you're only rebooting once a
> week, then that means only one backup a week. You could just take the
> manual habit of hitting scanregw from your Run... box, to make more regular
> backups. It only takes a minute.
>
> But you want something that is fully automatic, and does a reg backup
> say once per day?
>
That sounds about right.
> There's an array of available scheduler utilities... Do you already run any
> schedulers? If so, then it'd be choosing a reg backup command that could
> then be entered in with them.
>
I'll look into the above, I shut down each evening, cold boot each morning.
Mike Sa
ms
> ms <m...@nospa.com> wrote in news:30pc3vF...@uni-berlin.de:
>
>
>>Maybe automatic reg save at shutdown or bootup? As a concept, advice?
>>
>
>
> HKLM/Run c:\windows\scanregw.exe /autorun
>
> will back up registry once each day, but only after a reboot/startup. ie,
> if you leave your PC running 24 hours a day then you will need to use a
> task scheduler app.
>
> I find it very handy to keep more than the default 5 registry backups too.
> If you need it, I can post the method to change the default 5 backups.
>
>
Karen mentioned?
Mike Sa
Doc
>>
>> I find it very handy to keep more than the default 5 registry backups
>> too. If you need it, I can post the method to change the default 5
>> backups.
>>
>>
> Thanks, that will be handy. Since you use it, how do you keep track of
> them like Karen mentioned?
>
> Mike Sa
>
Look here .... http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/regback1.html
Copy and paste of the procedure follows. This works very well for me,
first on Win98FE, now on WinME.
<quote>
Making Additional Backup Copies Of Your Registry
The mechanism that Windows uses to control Scanreg is amazingly simple.
It's just a plain text file called SCANREG.INI which you can easily edit
with Notepad. When you run Scanreg, it first checks in this file to see
if
you've customized any of the available parameters such as the maximum
number of backup copies, or where the copies are stored. To view and edit
SCANREG.INI, simply click once on a blank spot on the Desktop Taskbar and
press F3. Type SCANREG.INI in the Named: box, and type C:\WINDOWS in the
Look in: box. Click Find Now and in a moment, when you see the file in
the
window simply double click it to launch it in Notepad. The standard
version
of SCANREG.INI should read something like this:
;
; Scanreg.ini for making system backups.
;
;Registry backup is skipped altogether if this is set to 0
Backup=1
;Registry automatic optimization is skipped if this is set to 0
Optimize=1
ScanregVersion=0.0001
MaxBackupCopies=5 [We recommend changing this number to 14]
;Backup directory where the cabs are stored is
; <windir>\sysbckup by default. Value below overrides it.
; It must be a full path. ex. c:\tmp\backup
;
BackupDirectory=
; Additional system files to backup into cab as follows:
; Filenames are separated by ','
; dir code can be:
; 10 : windir (ex. c:\windows)
; 11 : system dir (ex. c:\windows\system)
; 30 : boot dir (ex. c:\)
; 31 : boot host dir (ex. c:\)
;
;Files=[dir code,]file1,file2,file3
;Files=[dir code,]file1,file2,file3
Prudent computing dictates that a back up copy of SCANREG.INI should be
saved in C:\WINDOWS\SYSBCKUP before you begin your editing session. Once
this is done, change the value for MaxBackupCopies= from 5 to 14. Save
and
close SCANREG.INI. Now you're ready for the next step.
When you practiced restoring your Registry in DOS as described above, you
probably noticed that only four copies of the Registry are available to
SCANREG. Even if you create more backup copies of your Registry as
suggested above, you will only be able to access four of those copies.
What's more, SCANREG will seemingly randomly choose any four copies. The
obvious drawback is that you don't have access to all your carefully
stored
copies. What if you need one of the copies that SCANREG has not made
available to you for restoration? Not to worry, we have a solution.
Bobstur's Batch File
A very knowledgeable friend and all around swell guy, Bob Sturtevant,
created a very crafty batch file which gives you more control over
restoring the Registry. This batch file overcomes the serious limitations
of SCANREG by making many more backup copies of the Registry easily and
readily available. To look at it here you might think it is complicated,
but in fact it's designed to be remarkably simple to use. We've made it
available to you here in two formats: As text you can copy and paste into
a plain
text (Notepad) file and then save with the name CABREST.BAT in your root
directory.
Or you can download a zipped copy of the batch file. Save it in a folder
on your
hard drive. After the download is finished, unzip it to your root
directory.
Either way, once it's in the root directory just leave it there and
forget about
it until you need it.
A few preliminary notes:
You will see a table which will allow you to select which CAB file to
restore from. So, for example, to restore from rb009.cab, you look at the
table and see 09 corresponds to the letter J. You type the J and NOT the
number.
This batch file assumes that your CAB files are stored in the default
location, C:\WINDOWS\SYSBCKUP and that your Windows directory is C:
\WINDOWS. If you have your Windows installation on another partition or
located in some other directory then please edit the batch file
accordingly.
Take a quick look in your C:\WINDOWS\SYSBCKUP directory and make sure
that
you currently only have CAB files in the range rb000.cab to rb014.cab.
(Note: rb means Registry Backup.) If there are any other additional rb-
CABs
move them somewhere else.
The program must be run from real mode DOS (Command Prompt Only) and will
intentionally abort if Windows is running.
Note in that CTRL-C will stop the program at any point, and you'll also
be
asked one last time if you want to restore the files.
About the only thing you could do wrong would be to restore an older
backup
when you didn't want to, but then you could just run the program again
and
restore the correct one, so don't worry if you're unsure which CAB to
restore.
Having made those points clear, it's time to take a look at Cabrest.bat:
cls
@echo ***Registry Restore by RLS***
@echo Revised 7/19/01a
@echo.
@echo This program will restore system.dat, user.dat, win.ini and
@echo system.ini files from the backup CAB file you select.
@echo It will create a C:\Windows\Temp3 directory and put the
@echo extracted files there. If this directory already exists,
@echo it will delete all files in it first.
@echo.
@echo ***Ctrl-C will stop the program at any time***
@echo.
@echo DO NOT RUN THIS WITH WINDOWS OPEN!
@echo.
@echo off
if not "%windir%"=="" goto WINDIR
choice /c:YQ Continue (Y) or quit (Q) ?...
if errorlevel 2 goto quit
smartdrv 8192 8192
cls
@echo Here are the files to choose from starting with most recent:
@echo off
DIR C:\WINDOWS\SYSBCKUP\*.cab /O:-D
@echo For the "XY" in RB0XY.cab, find the matching letter. (Ctrl-C to
quit)
@echo 00 A 05 F 10 K
@echo 01 B 06 G 11 L
@echo 02 C 07 H 12 M
@echo 03 D 08 I 13 N
@echo 04 E 09 J 14 O
choice /c:ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO Enter the letter for the "XY" you want.
if errorlevel 1 set num=00
if errorlevel 2 set num=01
if errorlevel 3 set num=02
if errorlevel 4 set num=03
if errorlevel 5 set num=04
if errorlevel 6 set num=05
if errorlevel 7 set num=06
if errorlevel 8 set num=07
if errorlevel 9 set num=08
if errorlevel 10 set num=09
if errorlevel 11 set num=10
if errorlevel 12 set num=11
if errorlevel 13 set num=12
if errorlevel 14 set num=13
if errorlevel 15 set num=14
@echo off
if not exist c:\windows\temp3 mkdir c:\windows\temp3
deltree /y c:\windows\temp3\*.*
extract /L c:\windows\temp3\ C:\WINDOWS\SYSBCKUP\rb0%num%.cab user.dat
extract /L c:\windows\temp3\ C:\WINDOWS\SYSBCKUP\rb0%num%.cab system.dat
extract /L c:\windows\temp3\ C:\WINDOWS\SYSBCKUP\rb0%num%.cab win.ini
extract /L c:\windows\temp3\ C:\WINDOWS\SYSBCKUP\rb0%num%.cab system.ini
@echo.
choice /c:YQ Last chance - restore the extracted files (Y) or quit
(Q)?...
if errorlevel 2 goto quit
cls
@echo off
attrib c:\windows\temp3\user.dat -r -s -h
attrib c:\windows\temp3\system.dat -r -s -h
attrib c:\windows\user.dat -r -s -h
attrib c:\windows\system.dat -r -s -h
copy c:\windows\temp3\user.dat c:\windows
copy c:\windows\temp3\system.dat c:\windows
attrib c:\windows\user.dat +r +s +h
attrib c:\windows\system.dat +r +s +h
copy c:\windows\temp3\system.ini c:\windows
copy c:\windows\temp3\win.ini c:\windows
@echo.
@echo Files were successfully restored from RB0%num%.cab
@echo Hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete to reboot.
@echo.
goto end
:WINDIR
@echo Oops! YOU have Windows open.
@echo.
@echo Files were not restored.
@echo.
goto end
:quit
@echo Files were not restored. Hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete to reboot or
@echo enter 'cabrest' again to start over.
@echo.
:end
That's it. Simple, no? Once in your root directory just boot into pure
DOS
and simply type CABREST and hit ENTER. The rest is cake.
And For You Die-Hard Windows 95 Users
Unfortunately none of this will work in Windows 95, unless you use our
Special PC911 Registry Backup & Restore Upgrade Tool Kit for Windows 95.
We've assembled all the files needed to enable you to use Windows 98
tools
for backup and restoration of your Windows 95 Registry. Actually it's
very
simple, just a matter of copying some files and then running one REG
file,
so there's no reason not to do it. There are just six easy steps:
Download the Special PC911 Registry Backup & Restore Upgrade Tool Kit for
Windows 95 to an empty temporary directory.
Unzip the contents of the archive into the same temporary directory.
Copy SCANREG.INI and SCANREGW.EXE to your Windows directory (usually C:
\WINDOWS).
Copy SCANREG.EXE to your C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND directory.
Copy CABREST.BAT to your root directory.
Double click SCANREGW.REG to merge the required information into your
Registry. You may now delete the temporary directory along with all the
files contained within.
The next time you reboot, SCANREGW will run invisibly in the background
when your desktop appears; it will backup your Registry and then
disappear.
It will continue to do this, invisibly, once each calendar day. Of
course,
you will be able to backup and restore your Windows 95 Registry files
exactly as described in the article above for Windows 98.
<end-quote>
omega
>
> To be safe, maybe users of old versions of Windows should stick to old
> utilities and avoid anything with "XP" in the name.
http://www.theorica.net/faq.htm
General
|
| Did Theorica Software test all of Windows versions?
|
| No, Many of Theorica Software's applications are native 32 bit.
| and developed under Windows 98 and XP. These are tested with all
| versions of Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP.
|
| What does "XP" means in SafeXP, GameXP etc.?
|
| XP is abbreviation of "Extreme Programming" that is a discipline
| of software development based on values of simplicity, communication,
| feedback, and courage.
--
Karen S.
omega
>
> I'm sure it's getting harder and harder for Freeware authors to compromise
> and maintain compatibility between current and legacy versions of Windows.
We all know of your fixation on your little XP chants, Bob, but you are
ranting on in entirely the wrong context, thoroughly blind, avoiding the
issues.
[1]
Upon mere launch, no action at all taken, the program wrote all over
the registry. Keys for software and services not existing on the system.
It is totally irrelevant at that point whether an affected system did
or did not in fact have MS Office and Messenger, or any other of those
programs involved which you seem to imagine to be part of XP.
There is not excuse whatsoever here. It is sloppy programming, and it
is not excusable.
[2]
Upon what should have been only a safe action, without consequence,
of "save my system settings" followed by "restore my system settings,"
the program committed a horrific mess in changes.
Created a flurry of keys, and now values too, for software not even on the
system. Just because you, Bob, might have keys for MS Outlook version 8, 9,
10, for which it created keys, that does not mean that you are right to
imagine that those are XP-not-98 keys. That is not OS related.
It created a bunch of subkeys and values under the \Services\ key.
[HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\] In your earlier post, Bob,
you make the severely wrong statement that 98 systems do not have this
key. We do have it, and it is a very crucial key, and it's one not to
let get screwed with by sloppy programmers, not if we want to be able
to boot without problems. The mess it created here was awful.
It made a great deal of changes under the policies key in explorer
(affects startmenu items, and other things). Changes it made here
affect both 98 and XP.
It wiped out my local .HTA keys. I run local HTA files, and do not
appreciate that simply launching this bad software made it think it had
rights to remove my abilities to launch my files. Once again, Bob. The
filetype, CLSID, etc, keys for HTA, they are not OS specific.
SafeXP wrote a great many things involving MS Media Player. I don't run
the thing, did not look at what all it was trying to do to me there, tho
did see it was trying to take away things like MRU. The version of Media
Player I have installed is 7.0, and I don't need to many changes to it,
even if I did run it.
However, if I wanted to change settings for Media Player, and if I wanted
to use a "tweaker" program to do so, then I would expect to be able to
read what changes, with a program that can recognize what Media Player
version is involved, and then choose that action with a positive command,
"Yes change these Media Player settings." This was totally not the case.
SafeXP merely went in and dumped a bunch of writes into Media Player keys,
as a side-effect of its total buginess, and not as a requested command
It made a great deal of changes to MSIE internet zones. Again, Bob, these
keys are on both 98 and XP. It did terrible things to my default internet
zone. Turning on active scripting, active-x control downloads, the whole
nasty business. It did these awful things, entirely unexpectedly, and
without a single note or log of its own.
> I'm sure there are lots of compromises in a program to make it work
> on both XP and 98 registries.
I log programs constantly, have for years. Fortunately most programmers
know the basics of writing to the registry, reading for which keys exist.
More importantly, not go in and make system-wide changes when not asked.
This safeXP thing acts as if it's basically a compiled set of registry keys,
which it just dumps out. Fully lacking any ability to read the registry
first, or to wait for user command on anything.
It is totally dim, to sit here and purport that the programming issues I've
described have a thing to do with 98 v XP.
--
Karen S.
omega
> On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 16:57:32 -0800, omega <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>
> >I gave of my time to record factual logs, and post them, to reveal
> >what this horrifically behaved program does when it is run. As a service
> >to others. You, OTOH, use it in the blind, and recommend it with total
> >disregard for the safety of others.
>
> life outside the binary world, Karen.
I speak as though acf is the place for users to provide their experience
and knowledge with software to each other. You jump in to attack me for
having shared the damage done by a bad program. Due to your inability to
deal with the facts of the matter, having never logged the program yourself,
you try to whip around with a "GET A LIFE" flame. For my having posted about
freeware in a freeware forum, and where you started arguing.
> If it will make you feel better, I take full responsibility for my 7/10
> rating. If anyone is killed or maimed by SafeXP, you can hold me personally
> responsible.
I don't see how anyone can take recommendations from you seriously, if
it concerns system utilities.
> Meanwhile, by registry is JUST FINE.
The only item within your knowledge is whether your computer fell down,
or not. You have no logs. No logs from what occurred before versus after
he first and subsequent times you used the program. And you have proved
here, you have no grasp at all of how programs are expected to interact
with the registry. Instead you substitute your old standby, your
one-track "modern OS" singsonging.
--
Karen S.
»Q«
<news:du4iq0p738rgipeih...@4ax.com>:
> It is sloppy programming
Thanks for posting all the details which make this such a clearly
correct conclusion.
--
»Q«
ms
> ms <m...@nospa.com> wrote in news:30rc0uF...@uni-berlin.de:
>
>
>>>I find it very handy to keep more than the default 5 registry backups
>>>too. If you need it, I can post the method to change the default 5
>>>backups.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Thanks, that will be handy. Since you use it, how do you keep track of
>>them like Karen mentioned?
>>
>>Mike Sa
>>
>
>
> Look here .... http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/regback1.html
>
> Copy and paste of the procedure follows. This works very well for me,
> first on Win98FE, now on WinME.
>
> <quote>
> Making Additional Backup Copies Of Your Registry
Many thanks, Doc. I saved it for future use, because today I downloaded the final
X-Setup, ran it through all the steps, and it has a setting for number of backups!
I set it to 7 to start, will find out in the next few days how it works. If
not, now I have your method. After all those steps, hitting Restart was
interesting on my old P166, but it seems to work fine.
That link you mentioned is good data.
Mike Sa
omega
>
> X-Setup also adds registry entries.
X-Setup does not create empty keys upon launch. X-setup create and changes
values, within specific keys, upon request. You read about a particular
settings, say "Apply," then have it do a write. It supports full logging,
full undo, for each and every one of the registry changes which the user
has selectively chosen to apply.
How you can mix a program that operates as does X-Setup, with the buggy
disaster of that other thing, it demonstrates that this is outside your
range. Stick with editors, or graphics programs, or something else, Bob.
Or, go back to your endless arguments with Aaron, where you rail on about
what a safe browser you consider Internet Explorer to be.
--
Karen S.
omega
>
> omega <m...@privacy.net> wrote in
>
> > It is sloppy programming
>
> Thanks for posting all the details which make this such a clearly
> correct conclusion.
Thanks to you, and to Bambam's note, at least I can feel that the time
and effort wasn't entirely for naught.
--
Karen S.
omega
> I opened the HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\ key in RegEditPlus. The list
> of folders in the left panel- I'm not familiar with them to say something has been
> added. I planned to list the folders here for your comment, but how to do it?
You'd choose the export command, for a selected registry key. Then you could
review it independently in a text editor.
It's a good idea to change your default action on .reg files, to make them
automatically open in a chosen editor. For the action to merge them, leave
that only as a context command. (There are also a couple of standalone reg
file viewers, which give hierarchical display of exported .reg files. But
I don't think you really would have need for those at this time.)
As to going over that particular key, it wouldn't work out. It is machine-
specific in many parts. The low level drivers, services, hardware, a lot
of items that are tricky and technical, and which are interbound with some
special files on drive C. I would not be able to help you edit that key;
and especially, I urge you not to make any changes to it.
--
Karen S.
omega
>
[w98 reg backup]
> omega wrote:
>
> > But for your question, how to get more frequent backups. The "scanregw/
> > autorun" routine, its rules are to back up the registry once per day or
> > once per boot, whichever is longer.
> > There's an array of available scheduler utilities... Do you already run any
> > schedulers? If so, then it'd be choosing a reg backup command that could
> > then be entered in with them.
> >
> I'll look into the above, I shut down each evening, cold boot each morning.
Then the scanregw /autorun in your startup should serve, for the daily
backup. As to the extravagant batch file Doc posted, for maintaining a
more extensive set of rb*.cab backups, I haven't tried it. My most common
approach to dealing with the rb*cab files, it's been to just casually
point-click over to them in explorer on occasion. Sort by date. Delete
a few (for instance when they're close together in time, and were done
when I knew there were no significant changes to my system). Also, to
archive a couple of them, on occasion.
--
Karen S.
omega
> How do you choose which ones to store? IIRC, a reg cab even a week old can be
> somewhat risky to run because things have changed.
It's far less risky than booting into a registry that had been trashed
during the previous week.
Another advantage to having a set of long-term backups, it's not for purpose
of loading them as active registry, but instead to be able to extract from
those saved files, certain regkeys which you have found to have got whacked
out.
There are a couple of freeware utilities by MiteC <http://www.mitec.cz/>
which can load static hive files (in w98, that's user.dat and system.dat,
which are the main contents of the rb*.cabs), and that can be used to
extract given keys as .reg files. To then import into active registry.
For instance, that time when I had the bad result with the component in
Optix having wiped out one or two things from my startmenu items, the way
I was able to get a fix was by retrieving the explorer policies key from
a backup. I did that by loading an old user.dat file up with a standalone
utility, and retrieving my earlier key, as it existed before Optix. I did
not want to revert my entire registry, only get back the one key.
Not that you want to do this kind of thing casually. You only want to
edit the sections of the registry that you are familiar with. As a rule
of thumb, you are generally okay messing with HKCU\. Especially those
regular software prefs keys that are not within the Microsoft branch.
And, corollary rule of thumb, serious caution on HKLM\.
--
Karen S.
MLC
Thanks a lot from me too: reading your articles saved me from troubles many
times.
--
Maria Luisa C - 28/11/2004 11.18.47
omega
> Thanks a lot from me too: reading your articles saved me from troubles many
> times.
Your note is very appreciated, Maria, thank you.
--
Karen S.
ms
data due to bad sleep.
It's interesting that the answer on the MS windows newsgroup was exactly what you
said, and that from 2 knowledgeable people- Alan Edwards and PCR, maybe you are
familiar with them.
Many thanks for helping me out of the mess caused by SafeXP in W98, and you have
alerted many others about the hazards. I agree totally with your comment about
programs that have hidden serious programming problems.
And those links to MS scanreg articles were good. As always with the MS Knowledge
Base, it took a while, but I saved a lot of data to analyze.
I just yesterday ran a new install of the latest X-Setup 6.6, works fine, still ha
many useful settings for W98SE.
I will work on this starting processing delay issue and post back. I know we have
to end this thread soon, don't want to set a record!
Mike Sa
ms
> On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 19:42:30 -0600, »Q« <box...@gmx.net> wrote:
>
>>
>>>On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 01:02:04 -0800, omega <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>>
>>>>Merely launching it had created wrong keys all over my registry.
>>
>>>"Wrong" keys for Win98X may be perfectly normal for XP. Remember,
>>> Win9X does not even use Services, PCHealth, Etc.
>>
>>It sounds like the author of SafeXP should have remembered that. It's
>>website claims it has been tested under Windows 98 and is compatible.
As seen in other posts in the OT part of this thread, Karen has halped me out of a
real mess in W98 caused by using SafeXP that the author labeled as "safe" for 98.
Looks like her advice has helped others, too.
Thanks, Karen.
Mike Sa
»Q«
<news:tofmq0hp4biabc8d7...@4ax.com>:
> I would guess there are 1000's of satisfied SafeXP users, and a
> few dozen that are suspicious of it. That should tell you
> something.
Yes. That you are guessing.
> I think the people here are smart enough
> to know that all information given here is PERSONAL OPINION, and
> should be weighed and filtered with their own knowledge.
Not all information posted here is 'PERSONAL OPINION'. For example,
Karen has posted facts about what the program does to the registry.
> I don't think your hair-on-fire scare tactics are a good
> alternative to my admittedly more casual approach.
But the fact-posting tactic seems to have worked out quite well.
Tricksy omega.
--
»Q«
omega
>
> If you ask the author SPECIFIC questions, he will tell you there are
> compromises. By this I mean there are XP registry entries that have no
> function in Win9X.
No knowledgeable or responsible programmer would create keys that are
not applicable to the target registry. The API to *read* the registry,
basically all *other* programmers learn that at the same time as how
to write to it.
The programming behind SafeXP is so weak as to seem to be nothing more that
a set of registry keys, hidden into a compiled exe, which dumps that out
onto the system.
In that case, it'd be a lot more honest, a lot less hype, to just distribute
a .reg file, which equally does not read the registry. Then tell the shallow
types like you, "Here merge this whole thing, blindly, and then chant to
yourself about how much you like it."
--
Karen S.
omega
>
> On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 16:50:32 +0000, jo <ki...@lineone.net> wrote:
>
> >Bob Adkins wrote:
> >
> >>I would guess there are 1000's of satisfied SafeXP users, and a few dozen
> >>that are suspicious of it. That should tell you something.
> >
> >It is on a par with: eat shit; 100 million flies can't be wrong :-)
>
> Well, that's IS good reasoning... if you're a fly. :)
You might be a fly, Bob, but most of the rest in ACF are not.
--
Karen S.
omega
>
> It's like standing back and watching a full volcanic eruption.
It's like I had to explain, over and over, the behavior of the program.
Because you sit there like a dumb pile of mud, unable to process any of the
facts.
--
Karen S.
omega
>
> All I'm saying is that SafeXP caused NO HARM to my registry.
If you wanted to make these statements whatsoever about what it did to
your registry, then you would have needed to look at *that* information --
what it to your registry. It's information that you never bothered with.
That which is your choice, on your own computer, within your own usage.
But to user your total lack of one piece of information of your own, against
full logs, and make your generalizations from there, as you have done, it
shows you as a foolish, loud blowhard.
> I don't expect them to. I think the people here are smart enough to know
> that all information given here is PERSONAL OPINION, and should be weighed
> and filtered with their own knowledge.
Logs of program behavior are not personal opinion, Bob. You try to put that
on par with your idiotic generalizations? Right.
--
Karen S.
omega
When seeing how *easily* that was set up, the natural implication here, I
even tried to resist.
But then, what the heck, the way he has been brainlessly buzzing over the
shit & and the extent to which he's become so non-stop irritating, how can
I not agree about the attributes involved.
--
Karen S.
omega
>
> On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 15:54:12 -0800, omega <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
> >Bob Adkins <bo...@charter.net>:
> >>
> >> To be safe, maybe users of old versions of Windows should stick to old
> >> utilities and avoid anything with "XP" in the name.
> >
> >http://www.theorica.net/faq.htm
>
> >| Did Theorica Software test all of Windows versions?
> >|
> >| No, Many of Theorica Software's applications are native 32 bit.
> >| and developed under Windows 98 and XP. These are tested with all
> >| versions of Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP.
> >|
> >| What does "XP" means in SafeXP, GameXP etc.?
> >|
> >| XP is abbreviation of "Extreme Programming" that is a discipline
> >| of software development based on values of simplicity, communication,
> >| feedback, and courage.
>
> By this I mean there are XP registry entries that have no
> function in Win9X.
You mean the XP in the name? Where you ignored all the issues, and made your
idiotic comment quoted above, about "stick with old utilities"? Or are you
*still* imagining that Outlook 8,9,10, and all that rest is part of the XP
registry?
--
Karen S.
omega
> Yea, because I use no logs, I don't know beans, do I?
Yes, in part, that you make generalizations out of thin air, without
consulting any actual reports. Combined with how you have shown in this
thread that you do not understand how a program is expected to properly
interact with the registry. Combined too with your ignorance of the keys
involved.
Its registry changes, during the save-restore settings action, included,
amongst a great many, the resets it does on the msie internet zones. It
turned on full Active Scripting & Active-X control downloads. Without
authorization. Without notifying the user it has done so.
As to harm that can result -- from just this one area alone? Yes. In
case you haven't heard, That indeed makes a user vulnerable to a wide
array of potentially malicious actions from websites. Wait, you have
heard. That's where you argue endlessly, for years, with Aaron. So now
you are espousing that everyone with MSIE should run a program that will
reset, without their knowledge, a program that will buggily reset all
their internet security zones to promiscuous? Swell advice, Bob.
--
Karen S.
omega
>
[Snipping, but want to say how much I appreciate your comments in this,
and your other post, Mike.]
> I will work on this starting processing delay issue and post back.
It's the easiest first step to look over if there are orphan refs in startup
which Windows might be trying to look up. Which startup manager(s) do you
use?
--
Karen S.
omega
>
> On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 15:30:44 -0800, omega <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>
> >seem to be nothing more than
> >a set of registry keys, hidden into a compiled exe, which dumps that out
> >onto the system.
>
WTF? How extremely clueless can you get!
FreshUI, TweakUI, WCP, X-Setup, X-Set v2 (the original X-Setup), every one
I have, the VERY FIRST THING THEY DO is read the registry. Showing the
current systems settings for each applicable tweak, directly in their
interface. Interacting with the system, and with the user, exactly as
a program is supposed to do.
Not one of these does a thing close to mindlessly dumping out precompiled
krap.
How long are you going to draw out this nonstop display of your ignorance,
Bob?
--
Karen S.
omega
>
> I'm still sitting here wondering what I said that caused all the
> pyrotechnics.
Pyrotechnics? You mean your insults, your "you sound like you were
violated," your "get a life," etc, coupled with your non-stop stream
of completely idiotic statements?
Why don't you quit?
--
Karen S.
omega
>
> No, I mean there are differences in the XP registry and the 9X registry.
D'OH.
> For example, any registry keys pertaining to XP Services, Firewall, etc. are
> just occupying space in Win9X.
And you attacked me for criticizing a program dumping out keys onto a system
when those did not apply to that system, that program's actions as reported.
Some keys related to some of the services not used by 98. Others keys
related to software that could be found, or not found, on either OS. The
whole point is that any software that gets to stage A of functionality,
it has the ability to READ the target registry.
> older OS.
This was not an OS issue, how can you not get that through your head.
You are so outrageously fixated on your tiresome XP singsonging. Wave
your XP rahrah flag when you want, Bob. But don't bring it in when it
is not the issue at hand.
--
Karen S.
omega
>
> Frankly Karen, you're showing a vicious side of yourself I
> wasn't aware of.
IOW, you thought you could DISH OUT all the krap you wish. My not
being passive about letting you do that, you then insultingly label
"vicious." Go kick on a teddy bear, instead, if its passive your
little ego craves.
--
Karen S.
omega
>
> How long are you going to keep up the foul-mouthed flaming?
You have very clearly resolved to litter out your insults and idiocies
without cessation.
--
Karen S.