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OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical => Applications => Topic started by: Martin Iturbide on May 02, 2021, 06:48:33 pm

Title: Desktop Enhancement for WPS
Post by: Martin Iturbide on May 02, 2021, 06:48:33 pm
Hi

I want to test some of the old desktop enhancements (https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Desktop_Enhancement) tools on ArcaOS 5.0.6 VMs. This can be very experimental and it make break the WPS, but this is why I'm using a test VMs.

1) I want to try WPS-Wizard, which I know it is very experimental.
- ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/wps-wizard/wpswizard-0_6_1a3-eng.zip
But I can not install it. The install.cmd procedure can not register CWObject on ArcaOS 5.0.6 WPS.

I get:
Quote
Current directory is C:\Programs\wpswizard

Registering class CWWizzSettings...
Registering class CWMenuFolder...
Registering class CWLaunchArea...
Registering class CWObject...

Error while registering class CWObject
Deregistering class CWWizzSettings
Deregistering class CWLaunchArea
Deregistering class CWMenuFolder
Exiting...


 An error occured. WPS-Wizard is not installed properly.

Use a tool like checkini to check/repair your INI files.

Press <ENTER> to quit.

>

I did a "chechkini /c /r" restarted the WPS, but I still can not install and register the class.


2) I want to try Dialog Enhancer. There is this installer on hobbes (https://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/util/wps/de99_200.zip). But I can not install it. The installer says it can not find the .txt files that are already there.  I also don't understand how it is supposed to apply the .DAT updates of it.  (os2site)

Any tips are welcome.

Regards
Title: Re: Desktop Enhancement for WPS
Post by: Ian Manners on May 03, 2021, 05:29:52 am
Checking in my WPSWizard directory, the Readme.1st file has:

Quote
Be sure to have installed Cairo 1.22 (including libc06.dll)
and the Innotek font engine. Otherwise installation will fail.

Make sure you have the EMX runtime libraries installed as well.
Title: Re: Desktop Enhancement for WPS
Post by: Martin Iturbide on May 04, 2021, 01:42:45 am
Hi

I have Cairo 1.12.18 installed from the rpm. (cairo2.dll, cairos2.dll).
I noticed that WPSWIZZ.DLL asks for "cairo146.dll"  (using pmdll). I will check if I can find it from some old cairo package.

Regards
Title: Re: Desktop Enhancement for WPS
Post by: Martin Iturbide on May 04, 2021, 01:58:30 am
Hi

"cairo146.dll" on the sys/dll directory did the trick to let me install wps-wizard. I'm rebooting now to see if it worked.

Regards
Title: Re: Desktop Enhancement for WPS
Post by: Martin Iturbide on May 04, 2021, 02:21:17 am
Hi

I'm sure if it installed correctly. I was able to see the "drives" page enhanced with the icons on the window (the toolbar). But the rexx gadgets are not working.

Anyways it is interesting. I found that some things of wps-wizard can be good to reuse in some project to improve the WPS.

Regards
Title: Re: Desktop Enhancement for WPS
Post by: Ian Manners on May 04, 2021, 07:06:18 am
Quote
But the rexx gadgets are not working.

I've always viewed them as examples of what can be done, otherwise they are a distraction but thats the good thing about packages like this, you can use what you want, change what you want. Might be the rexx type you have installed.

Quote
I found that some things of wps-wizard can be good to reuse in some project to improve the WPS.

I've had it installed since some very early period, ditto X-Workplace & Audio/Data-CD-Creator V0.57 from Chris Wohlgemuth.
Title: Re: Desktop Enhancement for WPS
Post by: Martin Iturbide on May 05, 2021, 03:17:51 pm
Hi

I'm also trying "ALWALTFX (https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/ALWALTFX)" for the fun of it. I'm also having problem understand what some of feature does, like "Key enhance". I will look for some documentation.

If someone else want to jump in with his favorite desktop enhancement and what consider it is the best feature, just jump it. There is not right or wrong answers, since "desktop enhancement" sometimes is a personal taste thing :)

Regards
Title: Re: Desktop Enhancement for WPS
Post by: Martin Iturbide on May 11, 2021, 03:46:49 am
Hi

I want to see if I can try eThemes on ArcaOS. 

I can not find the "eThemes125b.zip"
http://web.archive.org/web/20071117013718/http://os2ecs.org/ethemes.html (http://web.archive.org/web/20071117013718/http://os2ecs.org/ethemes.html)

Jeramie told me it is ok with that being freeware and I want to try to see if I can install it on ArcaOS.

Regards
Title: Re: Desktop Enhancement for WPS
Post by: Wim Brul on May 12, 2021, 10:31:31 am
Hi Martin,

Perhaps eThm135b.zip (http://www.dreamlandbbs.com/gfd/wpstool/eThm135b.zip) will do ?

Regards,
Wim
Title: Re: Desktop Enhancement for WPS
Post by: Remy on May 12, 2021, 04:03:45 pm
Hi Martin,

Perhaps eThm135b.zip (http://www.dreamlandbbs.com/gfd/wpstool/eThm135b.zip) will do ?

Regards,
Wim

I tried to download the given file but my anti viral tool detected a virus inside.
Title: Re: Desktop Enhancement for WPS
Post by: Andreas Schnellbacher on May 13, 2021, 01:55:07 am
I tried to download the given file but my anti viral tool detected a virus inside.
You never got a false alarm before?

It should be save to run the executable (and the resource DLLs) on OS/2.
Title: Re: Desktop Enhancement for WPS
Post by: Remy on May 13, 2021, 11:39:15 am
I tried to download the given file but my anti viral tool detected a virus inside.
You never got a false alarm before?

It should be save to run the executable (and the resource DLLs) on OS/2.

I'll check again using online virustotal
Title: Re: Desktop Enhancement for WPS
Post by: Martin Iturbide on May 13, 2021, 05:01:40 pm
Thanks for the link Wim.

Remy, can you let me know which virus is detecting and with which AV? ClamAV?

I had tried the installer on my ArcaOS VM and it searchs for a valid eComStation license. But the files looks ok with me.

Regards
Title: Re: Desktop Enhancement for WPS
Post by: Remy on May 14, 2021, 04:44:01 pm
Thanks for the link Wim.

Remy, can you let me know which virus is detecting and with which AV? ClamAV?

I had tried the installer on my ArcaOS VM and it searchs for a valid eComStation license. But the files looks ok with me.

Regards

Hi Martin,

I checked the link/file using online totalvirus and he found nothing.
The virus was found under my windows system protected by licenced Avast tool and firefox avast plug-in.
Regards 
Title: Re: Desktop Enhancement for WPS
Post by: Martin Iturbide on May 14, 2021, 05:11:07 pm
Hi
I checked the link/file using online totalvirus and he found nothing.
The virus was found under my windows system protected by licenced Avast tool and firefox avast plug-in.
Yes, Windows and even the latest Firefox for Windows are detecting some OS/2 files and .cmd files as virus. All xcenter widgets are detected as virus while they are not.

Regards
Title: Re: Desktop Enhancement for WPS
Post by: Doug Bissett on May 14, 2021, 10:55:12 pm
If microsoft didn't write it, or if the files were not submitted to microsoft so they can charge to "inspect" them, they will probably be classified as a virus, by the microsoft, so called, anti virus checkers. They are getting a LOT more aggressive at doing things like that, even with well known, third party, windows software (Avast, AVG, CCleaner, and probably more). Even worse, is that microsoft software will prevent such software from being installed, and will often just kill it when the user attempts to start it, if it is already installed. At least we don't need to worry about that.

Somebody, with very deep pockets, needs to haul them off to court.
Title: Re: Desktop Enhancement for WPS
Post by: Dave Yeo on May 15, 2021, 01:09:19 am
The weird thing is that generally our OS/2 files (excepting cmd) won't even load on modern Windows. I guess some DOS programs are LX and might load and be confused.
Anyways the odds of an OS/2 file having a virus is so close to zero that I wouldn't worry about it. So far the only virus I've had was one that infected the MBR that came on a floppy, a driver disk for some hardware I'd bought. WinOS2 actually spotted it and just had to rewrite the MBR. Strictly speaking it wasn't an OS/2 virus as it ran before an OS was installed.
Title: Re: Desktop Enhancement for WPS
Post by: Doug Bissett on May 15, 2021, 03:08:16 am
Actually, a couple of years ago, I bought some WiFi capable "smart plugs", from Amazon. After a couple of days, i had a problem, where something, repeatably, crashed, while I was in Firefox. After I investigated, it was a program. called Hello.exe. Looking further, that is, apparently, one of those ransomeware things.  The, so called, smart plugs opened a path for the virus to be introduced into my computer. OS/2 just spit it out, with no damage. It did infect my router, but a reset to factory fixed that. Amazon did take them back, but nobody did anything else about it.

The "problem", today, is that perfectly valid software is classified as a "problem", simply because microsoft did not make a dollar, by "inspecting" the files.
Title: Re: Desktop Enhancement for WPS
Post by: Dave Yeo on May 15, 2021, 04:01:00 am
Yea, OS/2 will try to invoke WinOS2 to run a PE executable, especially if you have installed Win32s. Usually fails due to 8.3 name issues in the path. I had an extension, downloadthemall or such that kept trying to run a Windows executable, all it did was fill up a log until I removed the executable.
This was one of the reasons that it was ill advised to install win32k.sys from Odin, it might have run hello.exe.
I also remember a browser flaw getting used to try to run C:\Windows\cmd.exe, which failed due to our browser having a bug and most people not having a C:\Windows\cmd.exe accessible. At that I've heard that most Windows malware can be defeated by not installing on C:
As for MS trying to monetize everything, it is a problem with our stock based system demanding endless growth instead of being happy with a good steady income.
Title: Re: Desktop Enhancement for WPS
Post by: Martin Iturbide on May 19, 2021, 10:35:18 pm
Hi

I'm still fighting to install Dialog Enhancer. I will appreciate any help to test it out.

Regards