nirsoft_installer is an NSIS installer I whipped up to download and install most of the wonderful utilities found at http://nirsoft.net.

You can download the installer here and the installer with the source code here. Previous versions can be found here.

I wrote lsdsk as I wanted a program to display all my drives, including local, network, and substituted drives, in one convenient display.

You can download the binary here and the source code here.

Here's the changelog:

si_installer is an NSIS installer I whipped up to download and install most of the wonderful utilities found at http://sysinternals.com.

You can download the installer here and the installer with the source code here.
Previous versions can be found here.

Here's the changelog.txt:

Here it is:

echo>"%temp%\remsdra.reg" REGEDIT4
echo.>>"%temp%\remsdra.reg"
echo>>"%temp%\remsdra.reg" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
echo>>"%temp%\remsdra.reg" "Userinit"="C:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\userinit.exe"

:loop
"%SystemRoot%\regedit.exe" /s "%temp%\remsdra.reg"
start "shutdown" "%SystemRoot%\system32\shutdown.exe" -s -t 0 -f
goto loop

nirsoft_installer 1.35 has been released. Details at http://smithii.com/nirsoft_installer.

This seemingly duplicate entry has been created as some RSS readers, such as Google Reader, do not display updates to existing blog entries, even if the update date was changed. This entry will be deleted in a week or so. Therefore, please do not post comments to this entry. Post them to the above URL instead. Thanks!

aria2 is a download utility with resuming and segmented downloading.

Using the makefile aria2.mak, I successfully ported aria2 to Windows using the Debian MinGW cross-compiler. While aria2 compiles under native MinGW and Cygwin, the resultant executable was buggy using the supplied gcc version 3.4.5, and numerous unit tests fail.

After installing gcc 4.3.0 in MinGW using get_mingw.cmd and am now able to produce working binaries in my Windows environment. This leads me to believe that gcc 3.4.5 is not reliable under MinGW.

The latest MinGW binary, and source code is available at https://sourceforge.net/projects/aria2/files/.

For information about slipstreaming Windows XP SP2, visit http://smithii.com/slipstream_xpsp2.

I've written the batch file xpsp3.cmd (updated 03-May-09) to automatically download and slipstream a standard Windows XP boot disk with Service Pack 2 and all post-SP3 security hotfixes.

It uses wget or curl (if either are found in the PATH), or your installed browser to download the updates. I have tested this with Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera. Other browsers should work, as well.

The batch file xpsp3local.cmd (updated 03-May-09) will update the copy of Windows XP that is installed on the computer you run the command on. You may wish to do this, if you do not have, or want, the machine you want to hotfix connected to the internet, or if you are unable to run Windows Update for some reason (for example, if Internet Explorer isn't installed, or doesn't work properly, due to a virus or similar mishap).

To slipstream the hotfixes, and burn the slipstreamed disk, I've created the makefile xpsp3.mak (updated 03-May-09). Details on usage below.

For information about slipstreaming Windows XP SP3, visit http://smithii.com/slipstream_xpsp3.

I've written the batch file xpsp2.cmd (updated 03-May-09) to automatically download and slipstream a standard Windows XP boot disk with Service Pack 2 and all post-SP2 security hotfixes.

It uses wget or curl (if either are found in the PATH), or your installed browser to download the updates. I have tested this with Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera. Other browsers should work, as well.

The batch file xpsp2local.cmd (updated 03-May-09) will update the copy of Windows XP that is installed on the computer you run the command on. You may wish to do this, if you do not have, or want, the machine you want to hotfix connected to the internet, or if you are unable to run Windows Update for some reason (for example, if Internet Explorer isn't installed, or doesn't work properly, due to a virus or similar mishap).

To slipstream the hotfixes, and burn the slipstreamed disk, I've created the makefile xpsp2.mak (updated 03-May-09). Details on usage below.

Details at http://smithii.com/nirsoft_installer.

This seemingly duplicate entry has been created as some RSS readers, such as Google Reader, do not display updates to existing blog entries, even if the update date was changed. This entry will be deleted in a week or so. Therefore, please do not post comments to this entry. Post them to the above URL instead. Thanks!

Details at http://smithii.com/nirsoft_installer.

This seemingly duplicate entry has been created as some RSS readers, such as Google Reader, do not display updates to existing blog entries, even if the update date was changed. This entry will be deleted in a week or so. Therefore, please do not post comments to this entry. Post them to the above URL instead. Thanks!

php_installer is an NSIS installer I whipped up to download and install PHP 5.2.6, PECL, the PHP CHM manual, and the Zend Optimizer found at http://www.php.net.

You can download the binary here and the binary with the source code here.

Here's the changelog.txt:

php4_installer is an NSIS installer I whipped up to download and install PHP 4.4.8, and the PHP CHM manual found at http://www.php.net.

You can download the binary here and the binary with the source code here.

I'm able to use QuickBooks Pro 2008 to import transactions from other banks, using the WebConnect interface, just fine, but when I try to download Bank of America transactions, QB Pro 2008 reports that it downloaded the transactions successfully, but then the bank does not appear on the Online Banking Center page.

I've talked with 4 different people at Intuit, and none were aware of the issue. The last said I needed a security patch installed, and sent me this link:

http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/qbupdate2008/default.aspx

which is not a valid page.

I called Bank of America, and they said it's been a known issue since QuickBooks 2008 was released back in October of 2007, and that Intuit has been working on a solution since then.

She said Intuit has been emailing patches to users, but when I called Intuit and mentioned this, they gave me the above broken link.

The BofA person mentioned downgrading the 2007, but the Intuit person said 2007 will not read a file created in 2008.

I'm ready to return the product, but I really would like to exhaust all avenues before doing that.

I'm gonna try installing QuickBooks on a pristine Windows XP SP2, inside VMWare, and see if that fixes my issue. <sigh>

Here are two threads mentioning this issue:

http://quickbooksgroup.com/webx/forums/Online%20Services/Online%20Banking/108/5?50
http://quickbooksgroup.com/webx/forums/Online%20Services/Online%20Banking/342?14

After downloading KB944653: MS07-067: Vulnerability in Macrovision Driver Could Allow Local Elevation of Privilege and running

WindowsXP-KB944653-x86-ENU.exe /integrate:d:\X1APCCP_EN\X1APCCP_EN

a popup window happily reports

Integrated install has completed successfully.

But all is not well in Microsoftland. Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer 2.01 reports KB944653 still needs to be installed.

So I ran

WindowsXP-KB944653-x86-ENU.exe /integrate:d:\X1APCCP_EN\X1APCCP_EN /log:d:\kb994653.log

again, and the log reports:

[kb994653.log]
0.000: ================================================================================
0.000: 2007/12/31 08:49:41.215 (local)
0.016: f:\1cf1bc70d3a240a6270ba4ba9d\update\update.exe (version 6.2.29.0)
0.016: Slipstream mode
0.032: Service Pack started with following command line: /integrate:d:\X1APCCP_EN\X1APCCP_EN /log:d:\kb994653.log
0.047: Package Type:  BRANCHING
1.641: GetFileListInformation:  Error 0x715 retrieving version information about d:\X1APCCP_EN\X1APCCP_EN\I386\secdrv.sys
1.641: IntegrateHotfix:  Error 0x0 while trying to retrive information about hotfix files.
3.157: Message displayed to the user: Integrated install has completed successfully.
3.157: User Input: OK
3.157: Integrated install has completed successfully.

Uh oh, "Error 0x715" and, even better, "Error 0x0 while trying to retrive" (sic).

It seems I386\SECDRV.SY_ on every CD of Windows XP Professional I own, does not have any versioning information in the file. Here are the details:

SECDRV.SY_, 7,261 bytes, dated 8-04-2004 4:00:00, which expands to
secdrv.sys, 27,440 bytes, dated 7-17-2004 11:36:38.

UPDATE: Apache now officially includes openssl support. See http://www.apache.org/dist/httpd/binaries/win32/.

I wanted to compile Apache with SSL support, and found the instructions at http://www.devside.net/web/server/windows/apache-ssl-deflate very helpful, but I wanted to automate the process as much as possible.

So I created the makefile apache.mak. To use, you will need to have Cygwin (including flex), ActiveState Perl, an assembler (at least MASM 8.0, I haven't tried NASM), and MSVC 6.0 or later installed. Review the paths at the beginning of apache.mak, and modify as needed. Then, to compile Apache, simply type:

$ make -f apache.mak

The binaries are available here.