Windows 8 ISO files have the following BTIH hash values. Use them with my aria2 script to download Windows 8.
ndiswrapper allows Linux users to use Windows drivers for PCI/USB network adapters on Linux. If you own a network device for which Linux support is still absent or premature, then you need to compile ndiswrapper yourself and install Windows driver for your network device. Fortunately, today's Linux supports most network devices out-of-box, so most distributions don't bother to include ndiswrapper. However, I am compiling ndiswrapper believing that Windows NDIS drivers would outperform native Linux drivers.
To my surprise, building the latest version of ndiswrapper (1.58rc1) did not require any patch. After compiling Linux 3.5.4, I downloaded the ndiswrapper source from the sourceforge site. I chose the testing version because I thought it would work better with Linux 3.5.x. I unpacked the source.
tar xzvf ndiswrapper-1.58rc1.tar.gz
cd ndiswrapper-1.58rc1
I typed the following commands to compile and install ndiswrapper.
KVERS=3.5.4 make uninstall
KVERS=3.5.4 make
KVERS=3.5.4 make install
Then, I generated modules.* files again.
depmod -e -m -F /boot/System.map-3.5.4 3.5.4
The following files were installed by ndiswrapper.
/lib/modules/3.5.4/misc/ndiswrapper.ko
/sbin/loadndisdriver
/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper
/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper-buginfo
/usr/share/man/man8/loadndisdriver.8
/usr/share/man/man8/ndiswrapper.8
This is just another version of my previous post on Cygwin with focus on MinGW64. I hope this guide will more or less make it easy to install MinGW on Windows. After following this guide, you'll be ready to develop genuine Windows applications. Just download and run setup.exe from the Cygwin website and choose the following packages.
To select a package for installation, type the name of the package in the Search box, expand the category by clicking the + sign, and click on the package until its version number shows up.
When you see the Resolving Dependencies window, just accept and click Next.
If you're building 32-bit applications, add the following line to /etc/fstab so that /mingw is properly set up.
/usr/i686-w64-mingw32/sys-root/mingw /mingw none bind
If you're building 64-bit applications, add the following line to /etc/fstab instead.
/usr/x86_64-w64-mingw32/sys-root/mingw /mingw none bind
Start the Cygwin terminal and create symbolic links to gcc and g++ in this manner.
ln -s /usr/bin/i686-w64-mingw32-gcc.exe /usr/i686-w64-mingw32/bin/gcc.exe
ln -s /usr/bin/i686-w64-mingw32-g++.exe /usr/i686-w64-mingw32/bin/g++.exe
ln -s /usr/bin/x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc.exe /usr/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/gcc.exe
ln -s /usr/bin/x86_64-w64-mingw32-g++.exe /usr/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/g++.exe
If you're building 32-bit applications, type the following commands or put them in ~/.profile:
export CC=/usr/bin/i686-w64-mingw32-gcc.exe
export CFLAGS="-mtune=pentium2 -mthreads -mms-bitfields -O2"
export CXXFLAGS="-mtune=pentium2 -mthreads -mms-bitfields -O2"
export CPPFLAGS="-I/mingw/include"
export LDFLAGS="-L/mingw/lib -Wl,--enable-auto-image-base -Wl,--enable-auto-import -Wl,--enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc"
export PATH=/mingw/bin:/usr/i686-w64-mingw32/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/mingw/lib/pkgconfig
If you're building 64-bit applications, type the following or put in ~/.profile:
export CC=/usr/bin/x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc.exe
export CFLAGS="-mtune=core2 -mthreads -mms-bitfields -O2"
export CXXFLAGS="-mtune=core2 -mthreads -mms-bitfields -O2"
export CPPFLAGS="-I/mingw/include"
export LDFLAGS="-L/mingw/lib -Wl,--enable-auto-image-base -Wl,--enable-auto-import -Wl,--enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc"
export PATH=/mingw/bin:/usr/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/mingw/lib/pkgconfig
For more information on possible -mtune values, look here.
MPlayer is one of my favorite media players. It is used with a frontend like smplayer, gnome-mplayer and MPlayerGUI to provide a good alternative to Windows Media Player. Although there are already several Win32 builds of MPlayer on the net, I like to build MPlayer on my own using MinGW compiler because I want to optimize my build for my CPU. So I installed MinGW and compiled MPlayer as follows.
Build ffmpeg statically or dynamically as shown in this post.
./configure --prefix=/mingw && make && make install
(Optional) Fribidi is a rendering library for right-to-left scripts, such as Arabic and Hebrew. If you are a speaker of such right-to-left languages, compile fribidi statically as shown below:
./configure --prefix=/mingw --disable-shared --disable-debug
make
make install
More information can be found here.
./configure --prefix=/mingw --enable-static
make
make install
./configure --prefix=/mingw --disable-shared
make
make install
./configure --prefix=/mingw --disable-shared
make install
./configure --prefix=/mingw
make
make install
tar xjvf mplayer-export-snapshot.tar.bz2
cd mplayer-export-2010-02-07/
Then, run ./configure:
CPPFLAGS='-DFRIBIDI_ENTRY="" ' ./configure --prefix=/mingw --enable-runtime-cpudetection --enable-static --enable-theora --enable-fribidi --disable-ffmpeg_a --disable-gl --disable-vidix --yasm=/mingw/bin/yasm --extra-libs='-lfribidi'
The CPPFLAGS value allows fribidi to be linked statically.
make
After successful build, strip the executables:
strip m*.exe
Optionally, compress the executables with upx:
upx --best --strip-relocs=0 mplayer.exe
upx --best --strip-relocs=0 mencoder.exe
Download MPlayer codecs from here. The MPlayer codecs for Windows platform has a filename like windows-essential-20071007.zip. Extract the codecs package and you'll get a folder "windows-essential-20071007". Rename it as "codecs" and move the "codecs" folder inside where mplayer.exe file is located.
Make sure that HOME environment variable is set to your personal folder(for example, C:\Users\Jocelyn). Upon the first run of mplayer, a new folder named mplayer will be created in your HOME folder. Copy codecs.conf to the mplayer folder. The "config" file stores default options for playing movie files. Open the "config" file and make changes as follows:
# Write your default config options here!
cdrom-device=D:
dvd-device=D:
ao=dsound
vo=direct3d
font=C:\WINDOWS\FONTS\MALGUN.TTF
framedrop=yes
subcp=cp949
My win32 build of mplayer can be downloaded from here. It is recommended that the zip archive should be extracted in C:\Program Files.
Now, let's try mplayer. First, get a movie file ready. In the Command Prompt, type a command in the following form:
mplayer mymoviefile.avi
Alternatively,
mplayer -vo direct3d -ao win32 -font C:\WINDOWS\FONTS\Tahoma.ttf -framedrop mymoviefile.avi
A new window will pop up with the movie playing inside it.
The next step is to get and set up SMPlayer.
cdrtools is a powerful open-source CD/DVD/BD burning tool. It is used as backend software for free DVD-burning applications, such as Infrarecorder and cdrtfe. To build cdrtools for Windows, install Cygwin as shown in this post. Additionally, I installed the following Cygwin packages.
I set up some environment variables before I started.
export CC=/usr/bin/gcc.exe
export CC_OPT="-O2"
export CFLAGS="-march=pentium2 -mtune=i586 -mthreads -mms-bitfields"
export LDFLAGS="-L/usr/lib -Wl,--enable-auto-image-base -Wl,--enable-auto-import -Wl,--enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc"
Then, I built smake.
cd smake-1.2
make
make INS_BASE=/usr install
Then, I built cdrtools.
smake
smake INS_BASE=/usr install
I tested my cdrtools build. To create an ISO file from a folder, I ran mkisofs:
mkisofs -J -R -hide-rr-moved ~/Downloads > dl.iso
To burn an ISO:
cdrecord -scanbus
cdrecord dev=0,0,0 speed=8 driveropts=burnfree dl.iso
To make a copy of a data CD:
readcd dev=0,0,0 f=dl2.iso speed=8 retries=16 -nocorr -noerror
To scan a music CD, I ran cdda2wav:
cdda2wav -scanbus
cdda2wav dev=0,0,0 cddb=1 -cddbp-server=freedb.freedb.org -cddbp-port=8880 -J -N
To rip the second track of the music CD:
cdda2wav dev=0,0,0 cddb=1 track=2 ~/Music/track2.wav
Here you can get my cdrtools build.
If you don't want to deal with the command line, there are, of course, user-friendly GUI frontends for cdrtools.
cdrtfe is free CD/DVD/BD burning software for Windows. cdrtfe actually use the command-line program cdrtools as its burning engine. I have used cdrtools on Linux to create ISO images and burn or rip CD. I'd like to have cdrtools on Windows also. Fortunately, cdrtfe includes cdrtools Win32 binaries along with the nice-looking GUI application.
To install cdrtfe, I downloaded the cdrtfe zip archive (cdrtfe-1.5.zip) and unpacked the zip archive. Double-clicking on the cdrtfe file will start the cdrtfe program. (Warning: Running the Cygwin terminal and cdrtfe at the same time can cause a problem due to cygwin1.dll incompatibility, so close the Cygwin terminal before starting cdrtfe.)
So far, I have only tried ripping music CD's with cdrtfe. I will add more as I get to know more about cdrtfe.
To rip a music CD, click on the DAE tab and click the Options button. Check to make sure the options are okay.
Back to the main window, click Read TOC to update the track list, check the Save tracks to folder, and click Start to begin ripping.
Cygwin provides a Unix-like environment for Windows users. Cygwin is useful for people who want to learn Unix or popular Linux without having to install Unix or Linux. Cygwin can also be used to port Linux applications to Windows or develop genuine Windows applications. To install Cygwin, download setup.exe from the Cygwin website and run it.
In addition to the default packages, select the following packages for common development environment:
To select a package for installation, type the name of the package in the Search box, expand the categories by clicking a plus, and clicking on the package until its version number shows up.
If you want to develop software applications that depend on cygwin1.dll (which emulates Unix on Windows), install one of the following packages. This is when you want to port Linux applications to Windows with little modification.
If you want to develop pure Windows applications, install one of the following packages.
When you see the Resolving Dependencies window, just accept and click Next.
Setting the environment variable %HOME% is useful for various reasons. First of all, it allows regular users to compile freely in their user folder without requiring access to C:\Cygwin. Secondly, it allows users to save user-specific configuration in their user folder. For example, user configuration files such as .profile, .gtkrc-2.0, .fonts.conf and .pango-aliases can be saved in the folder specified by %HOME%.
The file C:\Cygwin\etc\fstab is used to set up mount points in Cygwin. If you installed mingw64 packages, open the file C:\Cygwin\etc\fstab in a text editor and append the following line.
/usr/i686-w64-mingw32/sys-root/mingw /mingw none bind
Start the Cygwin terminal and type the following commands to set up Cygwin for Windows compilation.
ln -s /usr/bin/i686-w64-mingw32-g++.exe /usr/i686-w64-mingw32/bin/g++.exe
ln -s /usr/bin/i686-w64-mingw32-gcc.exe /usr/i686-w64-mingw32/bin/gcc.exe
Also, set up some environment variables.
export CFLAGS="-march=pentium2 -mtune=i586 -mthreads -mms-bitfields -O2"
export CXXFLAGS="-march=pentium2 -mtune=i586 -mthreads -mms-bitfields -O2"
export CPPFLAGS="-I/mingw/include"
export LDFLAGS="-L/mingw/lib -Wl,--enable-auto-image-base -Wl,--enable-auto-import -Wl,--enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc"
export PATH=/mingw/bin:/usr/i686-w64-mingw32/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/mingw/lib/pkgconfig
If you installed the gcc4 compiler (as opposed to mingw*), set up some environment variables to customize your build environment. I usually type the following commands:
CC="/usr/bin/gcc.exe"
CFLAGS="-march=pentium2 -mtune=i586 -mthreads -mms-bitfields -O2"
CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/include"
CXXFLAGS="-march=pentium2 -mtune=i586 -mthreads -mms-bitfields -O2"
LDFLAGS="-L/usr/lib -Wl,--enable-auto-image-base -Wl,--enable-auto-import -Wl,--enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc"
export CC CFLAGS CPPFLAGS CXXFLAGS LDFLAGS
Many people want to try the new Windows 7, but they're not too sure if Windows 7 is worth it. After all, it doesn't make sense to buy a new computer to try Windows 7 and then find out it's another lame bloatware. This guide will help an average joe to download, install and activate Windows 7 with freely available tools.
First, you need to decide if your computer is capable of running Windows 7. According to Microsoft, Windows 7 has the following hardware requirements:
That means Windows 7 can run on most computers available. You may have to buy additional memory or a new video card to be able to run Windows 7. See the Windows 7 Compatibility site.
Next, decide which edition of Windows 7 you want to install on your computer. There are many editions of Windows 7, for example, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate. For most people, Windows 7 Home Premium is good enough.
It is recommended that you use aria2, Halogenware Retriever or Free Download Manager to download Windows 7 so you can resume a download in the event of connection problems. On the Web, you can download DVD images of Windows 7 from the following locations:
I like using aria2 for download. Get my aria2 win32 build from here. To use aria2c to download Windows 7 Home Premium, open the Command Prompt and type the following command.
aria2c --file-allocation=prealloc http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-65732/X15-65732.iso
To stop the download, press Ctrl+C twice. Later, you can resume download with the command:
aria2c -c http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-65732/X15-65732.iso
After the download has finished, verify the checksums of the download with md5deep or HashCheck shell extension.
This is optional. If you want to create a single All-in-One DVD that can be used to install Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate edition, download and run eicfg_remover. This tool removes ei.cfg from the ISO file.
Then, burn the image to a blank DVD. You need to have a DVD burner and a blank DVD, of course. For free DVD-burning software, you can get ImgBurn, InfraRecorder or CDBurnerXP.
I just finished setting up my laptop. It's got Windows 7 Home Premium installed. The following is a list of software I installed onto my laptop:
I am building a new PC from old spare parts. The new PC will be used mainly for the Internet, so a hard drive won't be necessary unless there's a need to download music and movies. I'm going to put together a computer with no internal storage, but use a USB stick as the main storage. Windows XP Professional will be installed on the USB stick, and the computer will boot up from the USB stick. Here I show how to install XP onto a USB stick and boot the PC from it. You should have the following ready.
Let's begin.
Get your Windows XP installation CD and copy its contents to an empty folder on the hard drive. If you don't have the CD, use utorrent or emule to download the ISO file.
Then, use 7-zip to extract the contents of the ISO file into an empty folder.
Start the Command Prompt, go to the I386 subfolder and type the following commands to uncompress the USB driver files:
CD I386
EXPAND -I USB.IN_
EXPAND -I USBPORT.IN_
EXPAND -I USBSTOR.IN_
We'll get 3 new files: USB.INF, USBPORT.INF and USBSTOR.INF. Remove the original .IN_ files.
ERASE USB.IN_ USBPORT.IN_ USBSTOR.IN_
[BootBusExtenders.Load]
pci = pci.sys
acpi = acpi.sys
isapnp = isapnp.sys
acpiec = acpiec.sys
ohci1394 = ohci1394.sys
usbehci = usbehci.sys
usbohci = usbohci.sys
usbuhci = usbuhci.sys
usbhub = usbhub.sys
usbstor = usbstor.sys
Likewise for [BootBusExtenders] and [InputDevicesSupport]:
[BootBusExtenders]
pci = "PCI Bus Driver",files.pci,pci
acpi = "ACPI Plug & Play Bus Driver",files.acpi,acpi
isapnp = "ISA Plug & Play Bus Driver",files.isapnp,isapnp
acpiec = "ACPI Embedded Controller Driver",files.none,acpiec
ohci1394 = "IEEE 1394 Bus OHCI Compliant Port Driver",files.ohci1394,ohci1394
usbehci = "Enhanced Host Controller",files.usbehci,usbehci
usbohci = "Open Host Controller",files.usbohci,usbohci
usbuhci = "Universal Host Controller",files.usbuhci,usbuhci
usbhub = "Generic USB Hub Driver",files.usbhub,usbhub
usbstor = "USB Storage Class Driver",files.usbstor,usbstor
Insert the following in the [HiveInfs.Fresh] section:
[HiveInfs.Fresh]
AddReg = hivedef.inf,AddReg
AddReg = hivesys.inf,AddReg
AddReg = hivesft.inf,AddReg
AddReg = hivecls.inf,AddReg
AddReg = hiveusd.inf,AddReg
AddReg = dmreg.inf,DM.AddReg
AddReg = usbboot.inf,usbservices
Then, in the [SourceDisksFiles] section:
[SourceDisksFiles]
usbboot.inf = 1,,,,,,_x,3,,3
bootvid.dll = 1,,,,,,3_,2,0,0,,1,2
kdcom.dll = 1,,,,,,3_,2,0,0,,1,2
Save and close TXTSETUP.SIF.
[Files]
d1,usbboot.inf
d1,_default.pif
d1,12520437.cpx
d1,12520850.cpx
Edit USB.INF as follows:
[StandardHub.AddService]
DisplayName = %StandardHub.SvcDesc%
ServiceType = 1 ; SERVICE_KERNEL_DRIVER
StartType = 0 ; SERVICE_DEMAND_START
ErrorControl = 1 ; SERVICE_ERROR_NORMAL
ServiceBinary = %12%\usbhub.sys
LoadOrderGroup = Boot Bus Extender
[CommonClassParent.AddService]
DisplayName = %GenericParent.SvcDesc%
ServiceType = 1 ; SERVICE_KERNEL_DRIVER
StartType = 0 ; SERVICE_DEMAND_START
ErrorControl = 1 ; SERVICE_ERROR_NORMAL
ServiceBinary = %12%\usbccgp.sys
LoadOrderGroup = Boot Bus Extender
Modify USBPORT.INF like this.
[EHCI.AddService]
DisplayName = %EHCIMP.SvcDesc%
ServiceType = 1 ; SERVICE_KERNEL_DRIVER
StartType = 0 ; SERVICE_DEMAND_START
ErrorControl = 1 ; SERVICE_ERROR_NORMAL
ServiceBinary = %12%\usbehci.sys
LoadOrderGroup = Boot Bus Extender
[OHCI.AddService]
DisplayName = %OHCIMP.SvcDesc%
ServiceType = 1 ; SERVICE_KERNEL_DRIVER
StartType = 0 ; SERVICE_DEMAND_START
ErrorControl = 1 ; SERVICE_ERROR_NORMAL
ServiceBinary = %12%\usbohci.sys
LoadOrderGroup = Boot Bus Extender
[UHCI.AddService]
DisplayName = %UHCIMP.SvcDesc%
ServiceType = 1 ; SERVICE_KERNEL_DRIVER
StartType = 0 ; SERVICE_DEMAND_START
ErrorControl = 1 ; SERVICE_ERROR_NORMAL
ServiceBinary = %12%\usbuhci.sys
LoadOrderGroup = Boot Bus Extender
[ROOTHUB.AddService]
DisplayName = %ROOTHUB.SvcDesc%
ServiceType = 1 ; SERVICE_KERNEL_DRIVER
StartType = 0 ; SERVICE_DEMAND_START
ErrorControl = 1 ; SERVICE_ERROR_NORMAL
ServiceBinary = %12%\usbhub.sys
LoadOrderGroup = Boot Bus Extender
Edit USBSTOR.INF:
[USBSTOR.AddService]
DisplayName = %USBSTOR.SvcDesc%
ServiceType = 1
StartType = 0
Tag = 3
ErrorControl = 1
ServiceBinary = %12%\USBSTOR.SYS
LoadOrderGroup = Boot Bus Extender
Create a new file USBBOOT.INF with the following contents:
[usbservices]
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR","DisplayName",0x00000000,"USB Mass Storage Driver"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR","ErrorControl",0x00010001,1
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR","Group",0x00000000,"System Reserved"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR","ImagePath",0x00020000,"system32\DRIVERS\USBSTOR.SYS"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR","Start",0x00010001,0
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR","Type",0x00010001,1
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbehci","DisplayName",0x00000000,"USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller Miniport Driver"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbehci","ErrorControl",0x00010001,1
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbehci","Group",0x00000000,"System Reserved"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbehci","ImagePath",0x00020000,"system32\DRIVERS\usbehci.sys"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbehci","Start",0x00010001,0
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbehci","Type",0x00010001,1
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbhub","DisplayName",0x00000000,"USB2 Enabled Hub"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbhub","ErrorControl",0x00010001,1
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbhub","Group",0x00000000,"System Reserved"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbhub","ImagePath",0x00020000,"system32\DRIVERS\usbhub.sys"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbhub","Start",0x00010001,0
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbhub","Type",0x00010001,1
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbuhci","DisplayName",0x00000000,"Microsoft USB Universal Host Controller Miniport Driver"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbuhci","ErrorControl",0x00010001,1
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbuhci","Group",0x00000000,"System Reserved"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbuhci","ImagePath",0x00020000,"system32\DRIVERS\usbuhci.sys"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbuhci","Start",0x00010001,0
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbuhci","Type",0x00010001,1
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbohci","DisplayName",0x00000000,"Microsoft USB Open Host Controller Miniport Driver"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbohci","ErrorControl",0x00010001,1
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbohci","Group",0x00000000,"System Reserved"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbohci","ImagePath",0x00020000,"system32\DRIVERS\usbohci.sys"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbohci","Start",0x00010001,0
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbohci","Type",0x00010001,1
If you haven't erased the original .IN_ files, do so now.
erase USB.IN_
erase USBPORT.IN_
erase USBSTOR.IN_
Compress the modified files with cabarc.
cabarc n USB.IN_ usb.inf
cabarc n USBPORT.IN_ usbport.inf
cabarc n USBSTOR.IN_ usbstor.inf
You'll get 3 compressed files with IN_ extension.
You'll need this boot sector (w2ksect.bin) to make your new CD bootable. Put w2ksect.bin inside the main folder containing XP files.
Now, let's burn a new CD containing Windows XP files. Start ImgBurn and select Write files/folders to disc. Click the Browser for a folder... icon and select the folder containing Windows XP files. Then, set up options as follows.
Insert a blank CD into your optical drive and burn it.
Plug in your USB flash drive or USB hard drive to your computer and run the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool. On Windows Vista or Windows 7, run it as administrator.
From the I386 folder of XP installation CD, copy the following files to the USB drive:
Then, create a new file boot.ini with the following contents. Put it on the USB drive.
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
Run the Partition Table Editor (PTEDIT32.EXE) as administrator. Select your USB drive from Hard Disk pulldown menu.
Change the type of primary partition on the USB drive from 00 to 80. Click the Save Changes button.
Partition Information should read FAT16X, Bootable
Remove your hard drive from the computer. Then, connect your USB flash drive directly to your computer.
Change the boot order in the BIOS so that your computer can boot from a USB drive. Typical BIOS options are as follows:
Insert your new Windows XP CD your burned above and boot your computer with it. During installation, don't format the USB drive. Just leave it as is.
After successfully installing Windows XP on your USB drive, install the EWF or FBWF filter.
GTK+ is a set of open-source widget libraries that are mature, functional and portable. GTK+ library is mainly used by many Linux programs. I am building a complete stack of GTK+ 2.x library before beginning my programming projects. This tutorial makes use of the free MinGW compiler to build GTK+.
If you haven't installed MinGW yet, read this tutorial on installing MinGW in Windows. Alternatively, you can also install MinGW Portable on your USB flash drive so you can enjoy compiling anywhere. GTK+ depends on many basic libraries that provide image, localization, font and other functions. These prerequisite libraries have be compiled first. Once you've installed MinGW and MSYS, launch MSYS. The following steps require you to type commands into MSYS console.
Zlib is an essential compression library required by png, tiff and cairo. Get the zlib source and unpack it:
tar xzvf zlib-1.2.7.tar.gz
cd zlib-1.2.7/
Compile zlib like this:
make -f win32/Makefile.gcc
Then, manually copy the files as follows:
cp -iv zlib1.dll /mingw/bin
cp -iv zconf.h zlib.h /mingw/include
cp -iv libz.a /mingw/lib
cp -iv libz.dll.a /mingw/lib
libiconv is a character-set conversion library, and is needed by gettext. Download the libiconv source and compile libiconv:
./configure --prefix=/mingw
make
make install
GNU gettext is a tool for localizing and translating programs. Build gettext like this:
./configure --prefix=/mingw --enable-threads=win32 --enable-relocatable
cd gettext-runtime/
make
make install
glib's configure script requires pkg-config.exe and msgfmt.exe in the PATH. Download the executables and save them in /mingw/bin. Remember to set the system-wide environment variable PKG_CONFIG_PATH:
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/mingw/lib/pkgconfig
glib 2.30 and later depends on libffi. Compile libffi like this:
./configure --prefix=/mingw && make && make install
Then, get the glib source from ftp.gnome.org and compile glib as follows:
./configure --prefix=/mingw --with-threads=win32 --with-pcre=internal --disable-debug
make
make install
Download ATK from here. Compile it like this:
./configure --prefix=/mingw
make
make install
PNG can be compiled like this:
./configure --prefix=/mingw
make
make install
The following libraries are optional, but many GTK+ packages include them. It's up to you to decide whether to compile them or not.
As usual, compile any of them like this:
./configure --prefix=/mingw && make && make install
Get Pixman and Cairo from cairographics.org. Compile Pixman as follows:
./configure --prefix=/mingw
make
make install
Then, compile cairo:
./configure --prefix=/mingw --enable-pthread
make
make install
Compile Pango like this:
./configure --prefix=/mingw --with-included-modules=yes
make
make install
Download and compile gdk-pixbuf:
./configure --prefix=/mingw --without-libjasper --with-included-loaders=yes --disable-modules --disable-debug
make
make install
At last, we are ready to compile GTK+ for Windows. I compiled GTK+ like this:
./configure --prefix=/mingw --with-included-immodules=ime --disable-modules --disable-debug
make
make install
To test your newly compiled GTK+ library, run gtk-demo.exe or testgtk.exe.
Here are my power settings on Windows Vista or Windows 7. I find the default setting annoying or inadequate, especially the Start menu power button triggering sleep.
Here you can download free, open-source audio encoders for MP3, OGG and AAC music formats. I compiled LAME and Ogg Vorbis tools with MinGW whereas FAAC was compiled by someone (faac-1.28.7z).
Download my package of Windows executables, including mencoder and mp4box here.
I built it using MinGW. The package contains the following programs.
It is recommended that you unpack the package into C:\Program Files. If MPlayer and Mencoder were installed in C:\Program Files\MPlayer, start Command Prompt and set PATH to include the MPlayer folder:
PATH "C:\Program Files\MPlayer\bin";%PATH%
Mkvmerge is part of Mkvtoolnix that can be obtained from http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/.
I installed the following programs on my Windows 7 machine.
I've been using Windows 7 happily until I played a DVD movie and heard continuous jittery noise. The picture was fine, but Windows Media Player 12 only uttered the jittery noise instead of words and music.
I think it's a codec problem. To fix the problem, I downloaded Preferred Filter Tweaker for Windows 7 and disabled Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder.
This renames C:\Windows\System32\msmpeg2adec.dll so that Windows Media Player 12 doesn't use its own codec. Then, I installed AC3Filter. This fixed the jittery noise problem. Alternatively, ffdshow can be used instead of AC3Filter.
Here's my gtk-gnutella build.
You may choose to install the GTK+ library and gtk-gnutella in the same folder. This means gtk-gnutella.exe and libgtk-win32-2.0-0.dll are in the same place.
Create a shortcut on the desktop to the GTK-Gnutella executable. Double-click the shortcut to run gtk-gnutella.
First format a floppy with the following command:
fdformat /dev/fd0 (in Linux)
fdformat /dev/rfd0c (in OpenBSD)
format A: (in DOS)
Insert a floppy and use the dd command to write an floppy image to the floppy diskette.
dd if=floppy46.fs of=/dev/fd0 bs=32k (in Linux)
dd if=floppy46.fs of=/dev/rfd0c bs=32k (in OpenBSD)
Use the following command to make sure that the image is written correctly to
the floppy.
cmp /dev/fd0 floppy46.fs (in Linux)
cmp /dev/rfd0c floppy46.fs (in OpenBSD)
If you use Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7, use fdimage or ntrw to write the boot floppy. Make sure the floppy has been formatted first.
C:\> ntrw floppy46.fs a:
3.5", 1.44MB, 512 bytes/sector
bufsize is 9216
1474560 bytes written
Or,
C:\> fdimage -q floppy46.fs a:
In Windows 9x/ME or DOS, you can use rawrite to write your boot floppy.
C:\> rawrite
RaWrite 1.2 - Write disk file to raw floppy diskette
Enter source file name: floppy46.fs
Enter destination drive: a
Please insert a formatted diskette into drive A: and press -ENTER- :
Because Toshiba Mini NB205 has BIOS with embedded SLIC 2.1 signature, it is easy to activate the netbook if the owner obtains an .xrm-ms file and a valid Windows key. Thanks to the Internet and powerful search engines, this seemingly difficult task becomes rather easy for average people. Surprisingly, new computers and motherboards in most cases come with SLP 2.1 capable BIOS, thus making it easy to activate new computers.
For your information, SLP (system locked preinstallation) 2.1 is the newest anti-piracy scheme used by Microsoft to sell more Windows 7 on OEM computers. In this case, BIOS of OEM computers have SLIC 2.1 signature which is unique per each OEM manufacturer. An OEM version of Windows 7 is installed on an OEM computer and contain an OEM certificate (*.xrm-ms) that should match SLP/SLIC 2.1 thing in the BIOS. In this post, it is assumed that you installed an OEM version of Microsoft Windows 7 that can be downloaded using utorrent, eMule or Limewire.
If you use the SLIC Dump Toolkit on Toshiba Mini NB205, you can find that SLIC 2.1 begins with the string TOSCPLTOSCPL00.
Now you can search for an OEM certificate matching your SLIC 2.1 data with the help of a search engine. You can use such search keywords like: TOSCPLTOSCPL00 2.1 XRM-MS.
Clicking on the fourth link in the picture above, you'll be taken to a page where you can download a file containing TOSCPLTOSCPL00.XRM-MS. You'll need to type a 3-digit number to download the archive 2.1.rar. Once you downloaded it, open it and extract TOSCPLTOSCPL00.XRM-MS.
Open a command prompt with administrator privilege.
Type the following command to install the OEM certificate.
slmgr -ilc TOSCPLTOSCPL00.XRM-MS
Now you need to activate Windows 7 with a valid Windows 7 key. Use a command in the following form to activate Windows 7.
slmgr -ipk XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX
Some valid Windows 7 keys are circulating on the Internet. With luck, you'll be able to find one. The following are some keywords to locate a Windows 7 key:
I found it hard to set up file transfer between Windows XP and Windows Vista using direct Ethernet connection. Sometimes, Windows Vista can see a Windows XP machine, but Windows XP somehow can't see a Windows Vista machine. I connected a PC running Windows XP and a PC running Windows Vista with a Ethernet crossover cable.
You can open the Local Area Connection Properties dialog by opening Control Panel, Choosing Network and Internet Connections category, clicking Network Connections icon, right-clicking the icon for your Ethernet connection and choosing Properties from the right-click menu.
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