Tip of the day/General Tips etc

**MilesAhead** · 11 Feb 2009, 09:20 AM

btw I totally reworked CommentConfig utility. Now it's called
TipOff

It still has a Property Page dialog for entering comments when you right click on a file. And it still shows the comments in Tooltips for supported archive file types like zip and rar etc..

But I got rid of the whole configuration program. The installer registers the shell extensions and uninstall unregisters and removes them. Now it creates a comment data file in the same folder as the commented files, instead of system wide. Less memory lugging by the shell. Also it has a small converter to read the CommentData.tof file in the current folder and write CommentData.hjt. This is a simple TreePad format file that can be imported and edited with TreePad Lite. I think I'll actually start using this thing again myself. I was so sick of it from testing before. But now it's a lot lighter. Plus you can move a folder with comments to an external drive or another machine without everything getting disconnect since the comment data file is in each folder. (Of course if you merge commented folders all bets are off.)

It even works on Vista64 if you use the Half Shell utility with it.

Edit: I updated to v. 1.1 Now you don't have to bother with the command line. The Comment Property Page now has a button to generate the TreePad file.

Edit2: I think I finally have this the way I want after only 8 years.

Version 1.2 doesn't mess with case in the filenames. Just stores 'em
as it sees 'em. Now I can start pasting in descriptions from the web sites as I download stuff again. Just makes it convenient to remember what the download is supposed to do.

**MilesAhead** · 14 Feb 2009, 06:59 AM

More shell extension support for Vista 64

I added a "Half Shell" Button that's only enabled on Vista 64 bit to my XMon utility. It opens selected folders using the 32 bit shell for compatibility with 32 bit shell extensions.

Attached Files

XMonShot.jpg (16.3 KB, 192 views)

**dr_ml422** · 16 Feb 2009, 12:31 PM

nlite for XP n Vista even better now.

nlite got better both through it's ease of use n newer fixes/support especially for Vista. Just to let you know: http://www.nliteos.com/download.html

**MilesAhead** · 20 Feb 2009, 05:48 PM

I posted TipOff 1.5 Beta

After only 8 years I'm getting close to this thing actually working. The beta has drag & drop so you can copy commented files from the source folder to another and the comments move along with them(or at least it looks that way.. each folder that gets comments has a text file created to hold keys and comments.)

If you have file create/modify permissions I think it may even work over the network but I haven't tried it yet. Too tired right now.

Edit: Yup. does work on mapped network drive. Think it's ready for prime time.
Take it around the block if you're a download freak and would like a means to comment your downloads.

**dr_ml422** · 21 Feb 2009, 03:49 AM

I hear you Miles. I was up at around 2am when I got your post. I myself didn't want to stop until figuring out something I was working on. Finally our friend Google came through, but not w/out some common sense on my part.

For what it's worth if anyone's having trouble copying the .inf driver files to integrate w/nlite, just download the drivers and xtract them 1 by 1 to a folder on your desktop. Go through each one in the folder and find any .inf file in the driver you're looking at. Add it to the sorce window in nlite and do the same for each driver. After you have all the driver .inf files in the integration window delete the .exe driver files and any .zip file they may have come in. Just leave the folder on your desktop that you created w/the xtracted driver files. Reason being is that although you may have pointed to the new folder nlite will integrate all the xtra ones on your desktop as well. I noticed this after seeing the size of the integrated files after nlite was done w/them several times. I think 39 mb's is a bit much for legacy drivers no? Lol... You live and you learn.

The all nighter was well worth it.

**MilesAhead** · 21 Feb 2009, 05:19 AM

@ dr_ml422 nice when you get a find or figure something out. Other than the Paragon Partition/Drive Backup freebies, the nicest find lately has been "repair discs" for Vista 32 and 64 bit. Supposedly they are bootable and give you the "automatically repair" yadda yadda screen needed to de-hose your boot up setup. I haven't tried booting 'em but they're in a drawer just in case.

**MilesAhead** · 22 Feb 2009, 01:46 PM

No more beta! TipOff 1.5

Works great afaict. Glad I changed the design. If I could only get Explorer to let go of shell extensions it would be perfect. But if it's hooked into explorer, it's imperfect by definition!

Edit: v. 1.62. It's pretty much done. Comes with a TreePad format help file and a link to download TreePad Lite. Don't think it really needs any new features. If you have simple documentation and don't need screen shots doing help using TreePad is really fast!! Create a node, type in an explanation, create another node, until you are done. I'm starting to like it. By the time I could have done one html page with PsPad the whole help file is written.

Edit: v. 1.63. Now the help in the Start Menu group uses an ebook stand-alone reader incorporating the TreePad format help. TreePad no longer needs to be installed on your system to read the help docs.

Edit: v. 1.71. Anyone using TipOff is encouraged to update to v. 1.71 since it fixes a bug where deleted comments weren't removed from the data file. The new version also has a Help button right on the Property Page instead of resorting to the start menu folder.

**MilesAhead** · 5 Apr 2009, 03:27 AM

Restore Point creation shortcut for XP and Vista

I've seen a few of these .vbs scripts to create a restore point but this is the best I've run across. Works in both Vista 32 and 64 bit and should work in XP also. Plus it pops up an input box so you can enter a comment for the restore point. The shortcut should be edited to match whatever folder you use to hold the .vbs script.

The download link is in this tutorial

**MilesAhead** · 16 Apr 2009, 07:17 AM

Paragon Drive Backup and Backup Capsule tip

I've been burned by this a couple of times so I thought I'd pass it on. If you have the Paragon Drive Backup Personal that lets you create a "backup capsule" so you can hit a hotkey during boot and restore from that partition, make sure you slice off some space manually before running the wizard.

I don't know if it's a common problem or not, but on 2 different machines with 2 different versions of Paragon, I used the wizard and just moved the slider to select how much space I wanted for the backup capsule, and hit the button to create it. Says, OK, now reboot to perform operation.

Boots down, but not back up. And your partition table is hosed!!

Fortunately when I did a backup and restore last night trying out Macrium Reflect paid version, when it laid the image back on it fixed up my partition table. Now Vista Disk Management shows I can shrink C: partition in a normal range if I wish.

I did use the backup capsule gizmo on one of the machines and it did work. I just had to slice off some disk space at the end of the drive manually with Disk Management first.

Just thought I'd save somebody some grief. The time before this that it happened was over a year ago so I forgot about having to manually slice off the disk space.

**MilesAhead** · 21 Apr 2009, 03:42 AM

Boot HD OS from floppy/CD/USB

Looks like some people have been working on booting Windows installed on HD from a floppy/cd/usb as you could in Linux for a long time. This
thread has some links to various approaches and tools. There's one that claims to work in Vista and several for XP.

It's easiest if you have an actual floppy disk drive but there are emulators and also it may be possible to assign A: to the USB drive but I'm not certain. Anyway, the links have the information.

It's handy to have if something hoses your MBR or boot loader program. Pop in the disk and boot off the HD. Then you have more resources at your disposal to fix whatever it was.

**dr_ml422** · 21 Apr 2009, 04:05 AM

Ever since I obtained Acronis True Image it's been nothing but butter regarding a boot or your whole hdd cloned. I just take out the hosed drive if that's the case, or if playing guinea pig on oem and you don't want to void the warranty, I pop in the oem os that's on the hdd. Easiest setup I've run into.

Yes I've heard about issues w/Paragon. Sometimes you get what you pay or don't pay for.

**MilesAhead** · 21 Apr 2009, 04:18 AM

Hardware compatibility is the big thing I think. I got Macrium paid version and they give you a WinPE 2.0 that works for Vista. I had to mess around with WAIK to include the 64 bit RAID driver in the boot image so it would see my HD without manaully loading with Drvload. So I have the WinPE disc which will supposedly let me run an MbrFix program to restore my MBR, Macrium also has a Linux Rescue CD that does have a driver for my HD but they don't support backup and save of just MBR. So I have a dummy partition backed up. I can use the restore to restore the dummy and then it will give me the option of replacing the MBR from the backup.

But I still would like a disk or USB that I can pop in just to skip over the bootloader. Probably just because I could do it in Linux before and don't see any reason not to do it in Windows. It will probably work more easily for W7 since that has a straight Sata setup and that will be supported by whatever wizard creates this boot diskette thing I would think.

**dr_ml422** · 21 Apr 2009, 04:49 AM

Oh Ok. You're looking for more of a workaround for boot than a backup solution. Yes that would be great, especially if you'd like to boot to a different hdd or partition to use a different os as in a dual boot. Would that be possible?

Hope they make up their mind w/Windows 7 and go straight to 64 bit as I don't see any real reason to have it at 32 bit w/XP Home still chopping away.

**MilesAhead** · 21 Apr 2009, 05:28 AM

Originally Posted by dr_ml422

Oh Ok. You're looking for more of a workaround for boot than a backup solution. Yes that would be great, especially if you'd like to boot to a different hdd or partition to use a different os as in a dual boot. Would that be possible?

Hope they make up their mind w/Windows 7 and go straight to 64 bit as I don't see any real reason to have it at 32 bit w/XP Home still chopping away.

Yeah, I'm exploring all the little rescue things I can find. Paragon not working on my RAID machine took me by surprise, so I'm getting everything I can going. I see USB is easy to work with. A lot of the old Floppy Disk Tricks work with USB. I just found a page that describes how to create a floppy disk that skips over the MBR and boot loader and loads the boot loader from the floppy, then loads the installed OS from HD. It was much easier than I thought. I just made a USB Key drive boot gizmo following these Vista instructions on my W7 32 bit PC. Worked fine!! Only takes a few minutes and no special software needed.

Vista Boot Floppy

**MilesAhead** · 21 Apr 2009, 05:34 AM

btw I just confirmed you can use DiskPart to select a USB key drive, and assign it letter A. So you can use some of those Floppy Disk scripts that make bootable floppy utilities etc..

Here's the MS page with docs for DiskPart

Before you do anything that formats or deletes the selected volume, just triple check it's the USB key and not your system disk!!