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OS/2 Vs. Windows... The Debate Rages On

Started by S.SubZero, 2007.11.02, 08:49:11

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RobertM

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.07, 06:30:53
Quote from: RobertM on 2007.11.06, 22:27:47
I dont know if you realize this, but you can replace virtually any driver (that will cause it not to install) on the eCS install disk with another one - in addition you can add new drivers (like SCSI, etc) that dont come on the disk.
Yes, as long as you keep up with that you're fine.  Integrating entire fixpacks not only takes care of this, but it also trims down all those post-install reboots.  My install shaves off five separate reboots for fixpack stuff, and means that any of those potential problems during install are taken care of.
[/quote]

Fixpacks should be one reboot... unless you are talking OS and device driver...

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.07, 06:30:53
Quote from: RobertM on 2007.11.06, 22:27:47
On Windows, it takes a considerable amount of effort to achieve the same thing. And heck, until Vista, you couldnt even install Windows on *ANY* machine that had SATA (unless the machine had a BIOS setting to translate the SATA interface over to IDE so XP would recognize it). You would need the SATA driver disk to install, or the OEM XP Install disk (which didnt always work... numerous OEM's; including HP & Compaq, would forget to put the SATA drivers on their otherwise generic XP install disk, rendering the entire install set useless).
To be fair, in 2001 the number of external ways to get data into a PC during an install was kind of limited.  The USB keychain thing hadn't really happened yet, and most PCs of the day had floppy drives.  At least with Windows the third party would ship their hardware with a solution.  It wasn't hinged on someone else who may or may not deliver a solution.  I personally never had a problem installing XP on SATA, I did so way back in 2003 without any special driver.  To level the playing field, since your OS/2 + SATA problem was solved with an existing OS/2 install you could use to make a new disk, it would only be fair to give the XP person the same crutch, and for that crutch I would just throw nLite at the problem (http://www.nliteos.com/).  Easy, painless driver integration, and you can throw in a service pack, hotfixes, updated IE, whatever.

I was not aware of a problem with OEMs (like Compaq which hasn't existed as a company since before SATA) wasn't including SATA disks with their hardware.  Do you have any links regarding information on this?

Yeah, but Compaq/HP account for most of the PCs sold. Since they included a standard WinXP disk and then driver and apps disks for most of their installs, they were useless on the SATA machines (except the few that had a SATA->IDE option in the BIOS, and customers who knew where that was).

As for modifying the WinXP install, MANY sites that helped do that have been sued or threatened out of existence by Microsoft. It's actually illegal to do what you propose (by the Terms of MS' license agreement). The only method you can use (which becomes difficult to find on their site at times) is the method outline on their site for commercial users.

Keep an eye on those sites (ntlite, etc) and download what you need now, b4 MS pulls the plug on them.

And, dont take that as an attack against u... i think MS's behavior in that matter is really sad, and a big disservice to their customers. :(

-Robert


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
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El Vato


AFTERTHOUGHT: Sun MicroSystems' "The Network is the computer."

Restated in another way, "The Internet is the computer [grid] common denominator" notion has been driving the strategy of entities like Google, so as to effectively threaten the relevance of organizations whose strategic business model relied on income from locally residing applications, i.e., MS's espoused model: "The computer is the network."

IBM's On-Demand notion simply represents a restatement of Sun Microsystems' earlier assertion. It implies that the Internet, with its vendor agnostic protocols, has enabled the collaboration of humans by enabling application use "On-Demand" and not necessarily tied to a specific operating system.  As long as the networking aspect of OS/2 is kept current with the industry, even in 32-bit mode OS/2ers will have access to modern online collaboration applications --take as an example of those the model Software as a Service (SaaS) initiated by SalesForce, and subsequently endorsed by IBM, Google, and Microsoft.

Needless to say, those organizations with an older business model are being forced to adapt and, as in the case of MS, provide hybrid applications whose full functionality still depends on locally installed application instances (think Office Live as an example).

The latter proprietary organization is positioning itself to remain relevant and has "invested" in conservative sanctioned FaceBook as an strategic alliance to engage the collaboration challenges brought about by the revolution of the Internet and its GUI enabler Web  technology.

Google, an open supporter of open standards inherent in Open Source Software (OSS) like Linux, not surprisingly was "snubbed" by conservative oriented FaceBook and has subsequently formed a closer collaboration with MySpace.

Those developments further reinforce Sun Microsystems notion  that could (again) be paraphrased as, The InterNetwork "is" in effect the level at which Computing tasks are executed --the focus shifting gradually from the local computer level.  Though not in "OOH SHINY!!" mode as other proprietary and/or open source capital and/or human resource rich platforms, OS/2 continues to remain a viable computing platform.

...hope that our friend who is doing the OS/2 research has read this last paragraph.

lwriemen

Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2007.11.06, 21:28:17
I do need to learn more. And I am trying to do so, hence why I trash/reinstall so often. If I mess something up, I start clean, and try to get past that point. If I wasnt trying to learn, I would not have kept reinstalling...

I think you would learn more by not starting clean each time. Boot to command line, maintenance desktop, and OSDELETE are all powerful tools that save a lot of time. Not to mention excellent third party tools like dfsee.

I think this just one of the harms that Microsoft did to the PC industry. Reinstall used to be the last troubleshooting tactic; now it is often the first. Ctrl-Alt-Del used to be called the Microsoft three finger salute (vs. a one finger salute  ;) ), and was the last thing you tried when your PC wasn't behaving well (SW reboot)(actually HW reboot was the last thing); now it is one of the first things people hit when their PC isn't behaving well.

lwriemen

Quote from: os2monkey on 2007.11.07, 06:21:16
The fact is that every great product is usually a great risk against established odds, and when good enough it usually replaces the old.
There was no choice in establishing the odds. This was the first DOJ remedy applied to Microsoft. (per-processor licensing)

Quote from: os2monkey on 2007.11.07, 06:21:16
After 1983 the commodore 64 sold almost 20 million computers (which I believe is the largest number of a single computer model ever sold). Do you not think this created a strong "barrier to entry" for other computer systems and platforms?
You should try to get a better understanding of what the term monopoly means. Commodore never had a monopoly, and they didn't even have enough marketshare to keep (for example) game developers from making a good profit writing games for Apple, Atari, etc.

Quote from: os2monkey on 2007.11.07, 06:21:16
Ok so you will probably say that microsoft controls technology standards which makes it nearly impossible to compete with them.
(office documents, html standards etc).
While that's true that they are using their position to maintain dominance, it's not impossible to thwart them. For example using wine or emulation, people don't "have" to stick with windows.
1) Microsoft only controls Window's standards, which often allows them to force other standards to move towards their point of view. Microsoft tends to ignore outside standards, as they don't promote platform lock-in.
2) Using wine or emulation does nothing to erode the "application barrier to entry". The only way to erode this is to make it profitable for ISVs to develop software for alternative OSes. If people can run your Windows software on other systems, then you capture that market with no additional cost. You also don't face losing revenue to that other market.

Quote from: os2monkey on 2007.11.07, 06:21:16
Furthermore it seems inevitable to me the open source software will dominate eventually, with all of the heavy hitters pushing it (IBM, SUN etc) and by the fact that it's mostly free. Microsoft can't really compete easily against free if the free product keeps getting superior.
This one falls under the George Santayana quote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Anyone want to take bets on how long before Linux's marketshare numbers are down around OS/2's after the US courts lift the sanctions against Microsoft?  ;)

Saijin_Naib

Yeah, I probably could learn more, but seeing as many things are broken from a clean install (RC3 comes to mind) I feel like there is little point in trying to work out whats wrong with a specific issue when there obviously are other issues that I have no knowledge of at work.

Basically, if I have a release that has NO issues post-install, then I will fight to keep it going by doing actual work, not just reformatting.

That was the case this summer. I had eCS 2.0 RC1 on my sisters laptop, and 9gb of pictures/movies from china and it would no longer boot into the WPS. I had NO internet access, and I had to get that information safely off. It took me about a week to figure something out, but I saved the data to my friends computer, and then I reformatted :p

Turns out the official OS/2 display driver from INTEL doesnt work for shit. Go figure :\

lwriemen

Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2007.11.07, 16:25:07
That was the case this summer. I had eCS 2.0 RC1 on my sisters laptop, and 9gb of pictures/movies from china and it would no longer boot into the WPS. I had NO internet access, and I had to get that information safely off. It took me about a week to figure something out, but I saved the data to my friends computer, and then I reformatted :p

Turns out the official OS/2 display driver from INTEL doesnt work for shit. Go figure :\
Here's some tips for non-starting WPS issues:
1. Boot off the recovery disks or eCS install disk and run CHKDSK /F. This is usually what is needed if you ever get the desktop not found message or a previously working system gets to a partial startup of the WPS.
2. Get the checkini or unimaint. Both check for corruption in the OS/2 INI files. I don't believe either of these tools are still supported, but they still should work.
3. Alt-F1 at the boot blob and reset to VGA. While 4-bit 640x480 is ugly, everything else will function.

Recovery disks (floppy or CD) and maintenance desktops are very useful things to have.

Saijin_Naib

^ Did try all of the above, except for unimaint and cleanini (hard to get when you have no internet access). Resetting to VGA does wonders for making it work again, but my whole issue was I could not look at my photos or videos the way they should have been, making the laptop a little useless. Not sure why the Intel driver fails, but oh well.

Ive had to use the cd for chkdsk /F many times, especially when applying updates to eCS 2.0 because one of them will trash the bootable JFS volume, and you need to repair it.

Recovery desktop is wonderful, but its missing many of the program shortcuts that I would normally go looking to to try and fix features that are broken (when my MPTS was weird and SOCKS would trap after WPS start). What exactly does the Maintenance desktop change over the default one?

S.SubZero

Quote from: RobertM on 2007.11.07, 08:48:31
Fixpacks should be one reboot... unless you are talking OS and device driver...
Base (XR_C005/6), Device Drivers (XR_D003), MPTS (XR_8708), TCP/IP (UN_2334), LAN Services (IP_8608).  All of these tell you specifically to reboot after they are finished installing, and in fact on one occasion one of the lock files got stuck and wouldn't let me install any other fixpacks until I cleared it.
Quote from: RobertM on 2007.11.07, 08:48:31
Yeah, but Compaq/HP account for most of the PCs sold. Since they included a standard WinXP disk and then driver and apps disks for most of their installs, they were useless on the SATA machines (except the few that had a SATA->IDE option in the BIOS, and customers who knew where that was).
This is hardly the case, as HP (Compaq no longer exists and hasn't existed for years) machines typically came with floppy drives, just like Dells and Gateways and whatever else.  I didn't have a floppy drive in my homebuild rig at that time, but I still had a box of disks from when I did have one.  The only time an HP would not come with a floppy drive in 2001 is if the buyer specifically chose not to have one. 
Quote from: RobertM on 2007.11.07, 08:48:31
As for modifying the WinXP install, MANY sites that helped do that have been sued or threatened out of existence by Microsoft. It's actually illegal to do what you propose (by the Terms of MS' license agreement). The only method you can use (which becomes difficult to find on their site at times) is the method outline on their site for commercial users.
Make sure Microsoft sues these hooligans:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/828930/

Microsoft would only care if one were to package their own "unofficial" updates and try to pawn it off as official MS stuff.  It's also not really kosher to distribute completed ISOs.  That's why software like nLite simply explains to the end user how to do it all themselves.

Quote from: RobertM on 2007.11.07, 08:48:31
Keep an eye on those sites (ntlite, etc) and download what you need now, b4 MS pulls the plug on them.
Microsoft launches a brutal attack!.. kinda.
http://tech.de.msn.com/home/computer_downloads.aspx?cp-documentid=5772388

MCP Magazine recommends such tools.
http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.asp?EditorialsID=1224

It gets it's own wiki!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLite

nLite has been around a long time and does nothing that violates anything in MS's ToS.  You are certainly permitted to have updated install media, in fact MS has switches in their updates JUST to do this.  I'm not sure why you think otherwise.

S.SubZero

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.07, 08:36:40
This is the first statement that you should have disclosed to our friend who is doing his OS/2 research.   You should have stated that you are not qualified --either because you are not willing to allocate the appropriate knowledge, experience, and monetary resources-- to provide an fair and unbiased assessment of the operating system functionality.  Clearly, the comparison was being done against an (some) operating system(s) with far more monetary and/or human resources, as would be WinXX and Linux distros, respectively.
Quite the contrary.  I think the best way to be unbiased is to have no attachment.  If you feel my qualifications are not to a certain level, then that only reaffirms my suitability for an honest answer because I don't have a rigged knowledge.  I'm an average Joe, trying to do things that in Windows would be considered average things.  I want to play youtube videos, or listen to online music, or write a letter, or watch a DVD, or whatever else an average Joe wants to do.  With OS/2 I found these things significantly more cumbersome and primitive to do than in Windows, or Linux.  Heck I'm currently in Solaris 10 x86 and even *this* comes with Flash 9 and RealPlayer 10 already installed and configured (and StarOffice).

For what it's worth, I think in the couple of weeks I played with OS/2 on and off I learned a heck of a lot about OS/2 *and* Virtualbox.  Online resources for OS/2 are kinda choppy, it's alot of deadwood information that is years out of date, idle IRC channels, and spam-cluttered newsgroups (I do miss the advocacy group).  I had to rely on knowledge I had forgotten a decade ago and try to fill in the rest with hopeful Google searches.  I am happy Hobbes is still around, it looks the same as it did all those years ago.  Finding OS2World was like finding an oasis in the desert.  It's just unfortunate that the most lively thread here is this one.  I would much rather be discussing OS/2 tweaks and which ZIP/UNZIP "front end" people like more.

FYI- Solaris 10's "Common Desktop Environment" has a box at the bottom very similar to the old Warp toolbar, complete with the up-sliding drawers.  CDE is ancient, so I will research to see which OS had this particular feature first.

RobertM

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.07, 20:57:21
Quote from: RobertM on 2007.11.07, 08:48:31
Fixpacks should be one reboot... unless you are talking OS and device driver...
Base (XR_C005/6), Device Drivers (XR_D003), MPTS (XR_8708), TCP/IP (UN_2334), LAN Services (IP_8608).  All of these tell you specifically to reboot after they are finished installing, and in fact on one occasion one of the lock files got stuck and wouldn't let me install any other fixpacks until I cleared it.
Quote from: RobertM on 2007.11.07, 08:48:31
Yeah, but Compaq/HP account for most of the PCs sold. Since they included a standard WinXP disk and then driver and apps disks for most of their installs, they were useless on the SATA machines (except the few that had a SATA->IDE option in the BIOS, and customers who knew where that was).
This is hardly the case, as HP (Compaq no longer exists and hasn't existed for years) machines typically came with floppy drives, just like Dells and Gateways and whatever else.  I didn't have a floppy drive in my homebuild rig at that time, but I still had a box of disks from when I did have one.  The only time an HP would not come with a floppy drive in 2001 is if the buyer specifically chose not to have one. 

That HP and Compaq are the same company is irrelevant... so is the fact that most of their machines CAME with floppies (hate to break it to u but most of the SATA machines DONT come with floppies - which you WOULD need to install the driver during standard installation via the F6 option). Regardless, you need the DRIVER in order to do that... which was impossible to find on HP's site. They screwed up. Quite simply put.

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.07, 20:57:21
Quote from: RobertM on 2007.11.07, 08:48:31
As for modifying the WinXP install, MANY sites that helped do that have been sued or threatened out of existence by Microsoft. It's actually illegal to do what you propose (by the Terms of MS' license agreement). The only method you can use (which becomes difficult to find on their site at times) is the method outline on their site for commercial users.
Make sure Microsoft sues these hooligans:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/828930/

Microsoft would only care if one were to package their own "unofficial" updates and try to pawn it off as official MS stuff.  It's also not really kosher to distribute completed ISOs.  That's why software like nLite simply explains to the end user how to do it all themselves.

Quote from: RobertM on 2007.11.07, 08:48:31
Keep an eye on those sites (ntlite, etc) and download what you need now, b4 MS pulls the plug on them.
Microsoft launches a brutal attack!.. kinda.
http://tech.de.msn.com/home/computer_downloads.aspx?cp-documentid=5772388

MCP Magazine recommends such tools.
http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.asp?EditorialsID=1224

It gets it's own wiki!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLite

nLite has been around a long time and does nothing that violates anything in MS's ToS.  You are certainly permitted to have updated install media, in fact MS has switches in their updates JUST to do this.  I'm not sure why you think otherwise.

While a few are still up, and some even have a Wiki page, (and its on an MSN page), that does nothing to change the fact that MS has already gotten rid of numerous others, and THEY have stated it is against their terms of service... check slashdot and you will find a number of articles on it.

And if you read their EULA, you will find that they DO make it against their EULA.


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
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El Vato

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.07, 22:18:52
Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.07, 08:36:40
This is the first statement that you should have disclosed to our friend who is doing his OS/2 research.   You should have stated that you are not qualified --either because you are not willing to allocate the appropriate knowledge, experience, and monetary resources-- to provide an fair and unbiased assessment of the operating system functionality.  Clearly, the comparison was being done against an (some) operating system(s) with far more monetary and/or human resources, as would be WinXX and Linux distros, respectively.
Quite the contrary.  I think the best way to be unbiased is to have no attachment.  If you feel my qualifications are not to a certain level, then that only reaffirms my suitability for an honest answer because I don't have a rigged knowledge.  I'm an average Joe,

Let me summarize the argument:  If you are no "doctor," and in your own words "an average Joe," eCS is for you.  Otherwise the evaluation against current professionally developed/supported operating systems is, by logical necessity, walking on stilts.

In an experiment (especially if the intention is to arrive at an unbiased conclusion) the parameters are applied uniformly across the domain objects under consideration --else the conclusions that are arrived at simply reflect the subjectivity (narrow and familiar notions) of the experimenter/observer.

Reiterating, you certainly did not start with an older OS/2 contemporary WinXX equivalent and start applying the patches to upgrade the same to the current standards against which you are measuring the older OS/2, did you?


Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.07, 22:18:52
trying to do things that in Windows would be considered average things.

Again, OS/2 is not WinXX, and in a heterogeneous operating system environment like the one that prevails in the Internet, WinXX is not the measure of everything. Otherwise, we would all migrate to your platform.

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.07, 22:18:52
I want to play youtube videos, or listen to online music, or write a letter, or watch a DVD, or whatever else an average Joe wants to do.  With OS/2 I found these things significantly more cumbersome and primitive to do than in Windows, or Linux.

That is not the main focus that you emphasized when you responded to our friend who was doing her/his OS/2 research.  On the other hand, I believe that some of the metrics under discussion were addressed in this thread.  "Primitive" or not, look around in the forum and you will find people doing all of those "average" tasks --and more.

If you adopt a more responsible stance and ask them in an appropriate manner, they will help you with your issues.

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.07, 22:18:52
Heck I'm currently in Solaris 10 x86 and even *this* comes with Flash 9 and RealPlayer 10 already installed and configured (and StarOffice).

Why is that a surprise?  Sun MicroSystems has been repositioning its operating system to take on Linux.   Solaris is a "fully" supported platform --implying that there is a lot of human and capital resources behind Solaris.

To help it achieve its aim, Sun has recruited  Ian Murdock, the founder of the Linux Debian GNU/Linux distro.  Possibly engaging in either substantiated and/or unsubstantiated assumptions --like yourself, Sun assumes that Murdock knows "a thing or two" about open source (and possibly so since Ubuntu uses Debian as its base).

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.07, 22:18:52
For what it's worth, I think in the couple of weeks I played with OS/2 on and off I learned a heck of a lot about OS/2 *and* Virtualbox.  Online resources for OS/2 are kinda choppy, it's alot of deadwood information that is years out of date, idle IRC channels, and spam-cluttered newsgroups (I do miss the advocacy group).  I had to rely on knowledge I had forgotten a decade ago and try to fill in the rest with hopeful Google searches.  I am happy Hobbes is still around, it looks the same as it did all those years ago.  Finding OS2World was like finding an oasis in the desert.

You can express your appreciation to Kim Haverblad, the enabler for the collaborative nature taking place in the site.

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.07, 22:18:52
It's just unfortunate that the most lively thread here is this one.  I would much rather be discussing OS/2 tweaks and which ZIP/UNZIP "front end" people like more.

Perhaps if you had began your incursion into the forum with an unbiased and constructive approach, the thread would have taken a totally different twist.

It is never too late to ask --with the appropriate issues known in hindsight-- about the more "average" uses of the OS/2.  For instance (and addressing the zip utility front end), in my collection of software from 1996 I have a file manager utility produced and/or distributed by Clear & Simple, Inc.: Disk Jockey (< http://www.chingonazo.com/diskJockey_OS2W3.JPG   >).  By simply double clicking on a compressed file, it is "cute" enough to show the compressed contents (in this case a current version of a compressed FireFox release).

Notwithstanding, when a user knows that behind the GUI the utility is actually decompressing the file into an temporary directory (either in your hard drive and or memory) subsequently proceeding to display the contents to the user,  I find that its "intuitive magic" is no challenge for my typing:

pkzip /view file.zip

it saves me the time to chase GUI buttons for file etc., etc.

Of course, it does not imply that other OS/2ers here do the same as I do.  OS/2, like Linux, offers an user more than one way to "skin a cat."  For one thing I am using the licensed version (read paid for) of PkWare's Pkzip for OS/2 (whose development stopped before the millennium was over --but that still performs the job).  Notwithstanding, there is an freely developed equivalent out there used with GUI utilities for OS/2.  I believe that X WorkPlace has, among other GUI features, an more up to date pkzip GUI alternative, ask around.

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.07, 22:18:52
FYI- Solaris 10's "Common Desktop Environment" has a box at the bottom very similar to the old Warp toolbar, complete with the up-sliding drawers.

That is what I remarked in certain prior post, did not I?  Being a member of the Sun Developer Network, I will dare to assume that I know "a thing or two" about that platform.

I believe that  you will find a couple of relatively recent screenshots of that platform around here.  OS/2ers know that their community extends far beyond the limits of the pond in which they are active.

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.07, 22:18:52
CDE is ancient, so I will research to see which OS had this particular feature first.

Since you are at it, you may want to research more thoroughly (certainly, placing your baggage of assumptions stacked on the side --next to those "resumes") the conclusions that you arrived at on the domain of virtualization technology --and how the different approaches affect the virtualized operating system.  Those continue to escape your grasp.

"And, dont take that as an attack against u...," if I may borrow a sentence from RobertM, our moderator --I am a provider/implementator of virtualization solutions;  correctly or incorrectly I will assume that I know "a thing or two" about the domain under consideration.

Cheers  :)!

RobertM

Quote from: lwriemen on 2007.11.07, 18:57:35
Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2007.11.07, 16:25:07
That was the case this summer. I had eCS 2.0 RC1 on my sisters laptop, and 9gb of pictures/movies from china and it would no longer boot into the WPS. I had NO internet access, and I had to get that information safely off. It took me about a week to figure something out, but I saved the data to my friends computer, and then I reformatted :p

Turns out the official OS/2 display driver from INTEL doesnt work for shit. Go figure :\
Here's some tips for non-starting WPS issues:
1. Boot off the recovery disks or eCS install disk and run CHKDSK /F. This is usually what is needed if you ever get the desktop not found message or a previously working system gets to a partial startup of the WPS.
2. Get the checkini or unimaint. Both check for corruption in the OS/2 INI files. I don't believe either of these tools are still supported, but they still should work.
3. Alt-F1 at the boot blob and reset to VGA. While 4-bit 640x480 is ugly, everything else will function.

Recovery disks (floppy or CD) and maintenance desktops are very useful things to have.

Shoot, sorry gang, I totally missed this one... There is a line you can add to your config.sys that will often help with the "desktop cannot be found" message... it is one of these two if memory serves (but I am no t sure which):

SET DESKTOP=C:\DESKTOP
or
DESKTOP=C:\DESKTOP

(of course, replace c: with the drive letter that has the desktop directory)

I ensure I have desktop archiving enabled, that way I dont have to rely on that method (which doesnt always work, and is sometimes indicative of a more serious issue in the INI files)... then I just restore an archive and am up and running.


And definitely check out the INI tools that lwriemen recommended... even when your system isnt having problems, they are great for removing unneeded entries from the ini files, which will keep things running faster, as well as longer without issue.

-Robert


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
Star Trek New Voyages
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RobertM

#57
A Zip Front End I find extremely useful is eZip from www.subsys.de/ezip

Looks pretty much just like a folder. It has a few minor quirks (you dont want to drag large files out of the archive... if you do, you have to hold the mouse button down over the target folder till it is done decompressing them... but you can simply use the "Extract to" menu option for those - which gives you a lot more options anyway) but nothing making it unusable.

Oh, and I change the "Ready" bitmap (the little red thing on the bottom right of the screenshot) to a green bitmap... normally it's dark red for ready or glowing red for "doing something"

It supports zip files (of course) with unzip/zip installed (free, from Hobbes) as well as rar files (with unrar which is free from Hobbes) - and creates templates for them so you can create zip "folders" by dragging and dropping from a template just like you would with a regular folder. It also supports zip in zip in zip... etc files (ie: nested zip files), and allows you to run or edit or view objects within a zip file.

And of course, it supports drag-n-drop

The only thing I wish they would do is check the drop object before they start decompressing files...

I also write simple REXX scripts to handle some of my ZIP and UNZIP functions from the pop-up menus. As a matter of fact, theres a REXX DLL that u can use as well to streamline and expand on that stuff quite nicely (though I am currently not using it... pretty simple to just have a REXX script set/make a directory to zip or unzip to - though using it and lets say DrDialog, would allow a nice progress bar and some other neat stuff).

-Robert


(Screenshot is of "Details view" - I think there are 2 other view options...)


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
Star Trek New Voyages
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S.SubZero

Quote from: RobertM on 2007.11.08, 02:54:20
That HP and Compaq are the same company is irrelevant... so is the fact that most of their machines CAME with floppies (hate to break it to u but most of the SATA machines DONT come with floppies - which you WOULD need to install the driver during standard installation via the F6 option). Regardless, you need the DRIVER in order to do that... which was impossible to find on HP's site. They screwed up. Quite simply put.
Very few machines on HP's site today can be configured without Vista.  So far I found one, a $3000 multimedia PC with one hard drive.  Likely it's not RAID, so the controller will support standard IDE mode.  You make it sound like EVERY SINGLE machine that ever got branded with an HP (or Compaq?) logo ABSOLUTELY will not run XP because they will not allow a floppy disk and absolutely offer NO option to make the SATA answer like legacy IDE.  No person on earth can install XP on an HP box.  Ever.  Is this what you are saying?  Or are you saying a very small number of people running configurations that they were ignorant about when they configured it, won't install XP?  I bet you it is VERY easy to build a box that OS/2-ECS will not install on.  It's downright *hard* to build a box XP will not install on, and you practically have to do it on purpose.

Vista, as you know, can accept drivers from a variety of sources during the install, and does not require a floppy disk to install them.

Also, for the die-hards, floppy connectors still come on most motherboards.  Intel has a couple of boards without them now, which will trickle down and the floppy drive will finally go away.  Finally.

Quote from: RobertM on 2007.11.08, 02:54:20
While a few are still up, and some even have a Wiki page, (and its on an MSN page), that does nothing to change the fact that MS has already gotten rid of numerous others, and THEY have stated it is against their terms of service... check slashdot and you will find a number of articles on it.
What numerous others?  Besides sites that re-package Microsoft's own updates as their own?  Like I said, nLite absolutely, positively, undeniably offers ABSOLUTELY ZERO Microsoft code.  None.  Zero.  There's not a lick of Microsoft update or anything in the program they offer.  The only thing it does, is take your existing updates, integrate them into the install, and make you a nice, updated install disc that can save you time and save Microsoft bandwidth.  You're not understanding this at all.  You see one Slashdot article about a site hosting Windows updates (which has always been a no-no) and you extrapolate that to "anything that does anything to Windows will get shut down."  You know that's not true.  There's a zillion sites out there that have been out there for ages and Microsoft loves them and Microsoft even sometimes buys them.

You sound paranoid.  *This* is the irrational-ness that comes from too much Slashdot and Inquirer.  They breed the neo-cons of the computer world.  Microsoft isn't out to get you, don't worry!  There's no Red Dawn!

Microsoft's own site tells you how to do the things nLite does (as my link shows).  It's not some voodoo magic that is locked away in a vault somewhere.  It doesn't violate a EULA and doesn't break laws.  It simplifies a process Microsoft WANTS users to do.

S.SubZero

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.08, 09:16:35
Let me summarize the argument:  If you are no "doctor," and in your own words "an average Joe," eCS is for you.  Otherwise the evaluation against current professionally developed/supported operating systems is, by logical necessity, walking on stilts.
First off, ECS would be nice to try, but the Live CD looks brutally limited and dated (Firefox 1.0.7?).

Secondly, Serenity's site lists nothing I either can't get free for OS/2 4.52 (from Hobbes) or otherwise simply don't need.  Xworkplace?  Check.  AE Editor?  Check.  InnoTek stuff?  Check.  Warpin?  Check.  ISDNPM?  Er..   ECS is OS/2 4.52 with fluff.  *My* 4.52 install is a newer service level all around than ECS 1.2R is.  I'd be curious to see what ECS 1.2R would be without that C:\ECS directory.  OMG THE THEMES!  :rolls eyes:  If I'm ignorant about this please correct me, as I am reading off Serenity's site right now and really, I see nothing of interest.  I especially see nothing warranting dedicating an entire PC to ECS, and ECS will not install in Virtualbox (resource.sys trap at CD boot, which ALSO happens on real hardware). 

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.08, 09:16:35
In an experiment (especially if the intention is to arrive at an unbiased conclusion) the parameters are applied uniformly across the domain objects under consideration --else the conclusions that are arrived at simply reflect the subjectivity (narrow and familiar notions) of the experimenter/observer.
I draw most of my data from comparisons with XP, which came out around the same time as OS/2 4.52 (late 2001).  Really, XP came out in October and OS/2 4.52 in December.  Call 4.52 a maintenance release if you like, MS didn't really consider XP a big deal either... Win2K is NT5, XP is NT5.1.  A double irony, OS/2 went up over half a version number, while XP went up .1.

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.08, 09:16:35
That is not the main focus that you emphasized when you responded to our friend who was doing her/his OS/2 research.  On the other hand, I believe that some of the metrics under discussion were addressed in this thread.  "Primitive" or not, look around in the forum and you will find people doing all of those "average" tasks --and more.
I said they were tasks that were doable (to an extent) but they are clunky and complicated to set up.  Flash for Windows can be done in about 4 mouse clicks.  Flash for OS/2 (of a version that can play Youtube) involves consideraly more work.  Mind you, for that you get exactly a Flash that can play Youtube videos.  Any other video-related site (like cnn.com) would not work.


Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.08, 09:16:35
Perhaps if you had began your incursion into the forum with an unbiased and constructive approach, the thread would have taken a totally different twist.
I answered a question.  It was unbiased, as I never said what OS I was using (for the record, I was in OS/2 in a VM under Vista x64).  I also never tried to directly compare OS/2 to any new Windows (I mentioned Windows 2000).

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.08, 09:16:35
Since you are at it, you may want to research more thoroughly (certainly, placing your baggage of assumptions stacked on the side --next to those "resumes") the conclusions that you arrived at on the domain of virtualization technology --and how the different approaches affect the virtualized operating system.  Those continue to escape your grasp.
Please list the conclusions I came to.  I'm not approaching virtualization from the back-end, I'm approaching it from the front-end.  One of the biggest issues I think OS/2 faced was people on the back-end not understanding the people on the front-end.  Microsoft understood the people on the front-end, at a time when it was critical to do so.