MSFN Forums > WinntbbuED

TheMadGuy

Jul 7 2005, 05:11 AM

Hi Evry1!

I'm not sure if i am too late with this, since not much happening here anymore...
But anyways, i had a little spare time and was tired of the work needed to modify texts in the winntbbu.dll, so i put together a little VB-Application.

I tried to keep it as tight as possible, so if i am not mistaken all you will need to run this are the vb6 runtimes (which, if you dont run winxp anyway, can get from ms directly).

Click to view attachment

Note, this is the first release, consider it Beta, there are limitations, much room for improvements, and surely there will be bugs. But i will try to work on this as my free time allows.

Ok, to make it bit more clear heres the list of current limitations:

CODE

In its current Version this editor only allows editing of
the following in Winntbbu.dll:

*Colors
*Fonts (Large & Small)
*Headlines & Billboards
*Step Texts
*Pictures (HighColor & CDBoot only):
Backgroundimage
Step Images
Top-Left-Logo
Processinganimation

----------------------------------------------------------

Preview:

The Preview is currently only available for small
resolution setups. Only changes made to the appropiate
Resources will take visual effect. Of Cource all made
changes get written to the dll.

SysSetup:

Though for visual completeness Texts from syssetup.dll,
if present in the same directory as the selected
winntbbu.dll, are displayed, they are, at least at the
moment, not editable.

Pictures:

There are no validation Checks on the Bitmaps
that you might use, so have to take care yourself.

All Pictures are limited to the use of Bitmap Images.

Every Bitmap has a display in the pictures editor
with its current size, hold the mouse over that,
and you will get a tip with the size microsoft has
intended.

Fonts:

The font that you use MUST be present and registered
at the time of setup.

Since only Fontname and Fontsize are stored in the .dll
even though the dialog for fonts allows it, you cant use
styles like bold etc.

Dont Knows:

There are still some aspects in the resources
i dont know what they are good for, any additional
information is welcome.

Comments & Suggestions are very welcome

Last Update: 29.07.2005
Current Version 0.3.1

Mirror = http://www.wpiw.net/downloads/WinntbbuED_3.1.exe

Hope you'll like it

Greetz

The Mad Guy

Kelsenellenelvian

Jul 7 2005, 05:17 AM

OOOOOOOOooooooooooooo Looks very nice and handy!

Kelsenellenelvian

Jul 7 2005, 05:21 AM

Could you make it so it can modifype after saving the file?

nateklomp

Jul 7 2005, 05:25 AM

Hiya,

Looks great! Have jcarle's compressionbin installed anyway, so modifype's not a problem...will be trying it out today.

Thanks!

tap52384

Jul 7 2005, 06:46 AM

this program is impressive...allowing on the fly changes and even a simulation of the final product is really handy. If this helps, i'll note that all of the text on the billboard showed up in english correctly except for "Installation will complete in 39 minutes". Instead, it said:

Installation abgeschlossen in ungefahr 33 minuten

which i'm guessing to be german or something along those lines.

Hope this helps, keep it up.

IceBlackIce

Jul 7 2005, 07:15 AM

Its really a nice app...thank you

TheMadGuy

Jul 7 2005, 07:23 AM

QUOTE (kelsenellenelvian @ Jul 7 2005, 01:21 PM)

Could you make it so it can modifype after saving the file?

Hi!

i guess you mean the checksum update that is done by modifype, right ?
Thnx for pointing it out, i really forgot about that.

Next version will do so

Greetnx

The Mad Guy

TheMadGuy

Jul 7 2005, 07:31 AM

QUOTE (tap52384 @ Jul 7 2005, 02:46 PM)

this program is impressive...allowing on the fly changes and even a simulation of the final product is really handy. If this helps, i'll note that all of the text on the billboard showed up in english correctly except for "Installation will complete in 39 minutes". Instead, it said:

Installation abgeschlossen in ungefahr 33 minuten

which i'm guessing to be german or something along those lines.

Hope this helps, keep it up.

Thnx,

the text you are talking about it not in the winntbbu.dll, it is in the syssetup.dll which is (not yet) supported by the editor. The text that is displayed, indeed german, is hardcoded in the editor and only shown for visual completeness, so that you get a better idea how the final thing will look like.

which btw is already pointed out in the limitations on the ? menu in the editor

Greetnx

The Mad Guy

glent

Jul 7 2005, 08:10 AM

Wow great app!

TheMadGuy

Jul 8 2005, 04:54 AM

Hi!

as promised heres a little update:

CODE

a - added
f - fixed
r - removed
c - changed
n - note

V0.1.1 Checksum Correction

a - IMAGE_OPTIONAL_HEADER Checksum now gets updated while saving.
thnx 2 kelsenellenelvian for pointing that out

so no need to run modifype anymore...

OLD VERSION REMOVED

Have Fun!

Greetnx

The Mad Guy

piXelatedEmpire

Jul 8 2005, 05:22 AM

looks good so far.. may I advise you that the best way to stop people from downloading the first release is to update the visrt post as you release a new version, just saves people downloading earlier versions and complaing of probs

piXelatedEmpire

Jul 8 2005, 05:27 AM

I must say this is a very impressive app!

couple little things, very little, just a few spelling mistakes

please see the attached images where I have highlighted incorrectly spelled words

I named each attachement with the correct spelling for you

like I said, nothing to be concerned about, but if you plan on making upgrades to this software, might as well fix the little things too

TheMadGuy

Jul 8 2005, 11:46 PM

QUOTE (piXelatedEmpire @ Jul 8 2005, 01:22 PM)

looks good so far.. may I advise you that the best way to stop people from downloading the first release is to update the visrt post as you release a new version, just saves people downloading earlier versions and complaing of probs

Hi!

thnx for the hint, edited the first post and will do so in the future aswell!
Good Point

TheMadGuy

Jul 8 2005, 11:51 PM

QUOTE (piXelatedEmpire @ Jul 8 2005, 01:27 PM)

I must say this is a very impressive app!

couple little things, very little, just a few spelling mistakes

please see the attached images where I have highlighted incorrectly spelled words

I named each attachement with the correct spelling for you

like I said, nothing to be concerned about, but if you plan on making upgrades to this software, might as well fix the little things too

Thnx for your time and efforts here, i am currently cleaning up the project anyway, so the next version is in the making, and i'll surely correct these misspellings in the process aswell.

piXelatedEmpire

Jul 9 2005, 02:04 AM

fantastic, can't wait to play with the new release!

Shoshoni

Jul 10 2005, 01:46 AM

This is really good! wow

k0pect8

Jul 10 2005, 08:31 AM

QUOTE (piXelatedEmpire @ Jul 8 2005, 07:27 AM)

I must say this is a very impressive app!

couple little things, very little, just a few spelling mistakes

please see the attached images where I have highlighted incorrectly spelled words

I named each attachement with the correct spelling for you

like I said, nothing to be concerned about, but if you plan on making upgrades to this software, might as well fix the little things too

and "appropriate" (you left out an 'r'- see 3rd screenie, above misspelled "Cource")

k0pect8

Jul 10 2005, 08:31 AM

dbl-post, please delete, sorry.

Kelsenellenelvian

Jul 13 2005, 09:21 PM

So how is the new vesion coming.

P.S. This little app is freakin Awesome.

TheMadGuy

Jul 14 2005, 05:23 AM

QUOTE (kelsenellenelvian @ Jul 14 2005, 05:21 AM)

So how is the new vesion coming.

P.S. This little app is freakin Awesome.

Thnx

The new version is coming pretty good, actually i discovered something quite nice,
though i really could use some help on analyzing how winntbbu.dll is used / works.

there are still some strings, that i dont know what they are good for (especially the Id's 18 & 20 make me curious), and i found 2 more color values i cant make any sense with. Beyond that i dont really understand how the placing of text and images is handled if you use ones with other dimension then the original ones. Making the Preview only a good one if you dont change sizes, elseway you end up with quite a mess.....

And VisualBasic is giving me a hard time with image handling stuff, havent worked out a few things yet, keeping me from adding a feature i would consider nice to have....

Anyways,
Before i will go into more deep research on those things, i will release my current version (actually in a few minutes) cause its already worth a new build

Hope you'll like it

TheMadGuy

Jul 14 2005, 05:34 AM

Hi All!

It's update Time Again!

may i interduce:
V0.2.0

CODE

a - added
f - fixed
r - removed
c - changed
n - note

V0.2.0 Cleanup and Fixes

f - a few spelling errors, thnx to those who pointed them out.

f - first String in a Stringtable sometimes wasnt updated

f - the last Stringtable never was updated

f - when changing fonts, the Headline in the Preview lost its Bold
property

f - updating failed on Stringtables which were empty or contained
zero length strings

r - a lot of left overs from early development stages in the code

c - handling the resources is now really object orientated code
(redone some code, and applied optimizations)

c - About Dialog Credits, just saying thnx to those who take their
time for constructive feedback.

a - if syssetup.dll is located in the same dir as the winntbbu.dll
then now the two strings from it in the preview are actually
fetched from syssetup.dll (though no option to edit them yet)

a - MakeCab Feature, when makecab is found on the system, an Extra
menu is enabled which lets you execute makecab on the currently
loaded file.

a - Most Recent Used (MRU) Menu

a - Settings Dialog

a - when saving, makecab is executed automaticly if enabled in
the settings.

a - Expand Feature, when expand is found on the system and you have
enabled the Auto Expand option in the settings, its possible to
select a compressed winntbbu.dl_ File for editing. This file,
if possible, will then be expanded into the same Directory.
And the uncompressed Version will be used for editing instead.

a - Loading Progress Window (cause expanding might take a little)

a - new spelling errors, just a guess, but i am almost sure :)

a - 'Dirty' System for the Strings, now only actually changed ones
are updated, this speeds up saving a lot in most cases

a - Transparency to the Step Images in the Preview

n - While testing with the actually Setup, it showed that the Step
Images are drawn with Transparency

a - Step Images Transparency color to the edit colors Dialog
(Yep, you can change that too)

OLD VERSION REMOVED
So Grab WinntbbuED 0.2.0 and let me know what you think.

Any Help researching winntbbu.dll and the way setup uses it is very welcome

boooggy

Jul 14 2005, 05:39 AM

can u make one for the boot screen?

piXelatedEmpire

Jul 14 2005, 08:08 AM

great new release!

promind

Jul 15 2005, 03:01 AM

Rapidshare link doesnt work for me.
can any1 upload WinntbbuED 0.2.0 somewhere else.

promind

Jul 15 2005, 03:02 AM

Rapidshare link doesnt work for me.
can any1 upload WinntbbuED 0.2.0 somewhere else.

stasys44

Jul 15 2005, 03:41 PM

Rapidshare works!

At the bottom choose - free, another page opens then wait or click to download.

Fritz_Saxi

Jul 15 2005, 03:48 PM

Rapidshare stuff doesnt work for me either.
I'd really like to try this app

Kelsenellenelvian

Jul 15 2005, 06:34 PM

Personal mirror.

To show my support for this little, wonderfull app!!

maxXPsoft

Jul 15 2005, 07:28 PM

Really nice

excellent utility and much needed. Keep up the good work.
I get errors trying to edit picture
Runtime error 9 Subscript out of range
But everything else seems to be working.

TheMadGuy

Jul 16 2005, 05:32 AM

QUOTE (kelsenellenelvian @ Jul 16 2005, 02:34 AM)

Personal mirror.

To show my support for this little, wonderfull app!!

Thanx 4 Setting up the Mirror!
I appreciate that.

TheMadGuy

Jul 16 2005, 05:37 AM

QUOTE (maxXPsoft @ Jul 16 2005, 03:28 AM)

Really nice

excellent utility and much needed. Keep up the good work.
I get errors trying to edit picture
Runtime error 9 Subscript out of range
But everything else seems to be working.

Mhhh Strange!

Can you be a bit more specific?!
or share your winntbbu.dll you are trying to edit?
Cant reproduce that error with mine.

TheMadGuy

Jul 16 2005, 06:10 AM

QUOTE (boooggy @ Jul 14 2005, 01:39 PM)

can u make one for the boot screen?

Maybe i could, but i wont.
I dont see any sense in doing so.
There are already tools covering it.

Have you tried BootEditor 1.0.1 which is freeware ?

And besides that there are several other tools for this task, some free, most shareware.

boooggy

Jul 16 2005, 10:51 AM

thanx for the tips!
also great program u made... keep up the good work!

n7Epsilon

Jul 16 2005, 03:17 PM

This topic should be stickied...

maxXPsoft

Jul 17 2005, 06:17 AM

Sure, this is actually one I d/l from here and the pic has been changed already. I did try it on several more I have and get the same subscript out of range
http://www.maxxpsoft.com/uploads/Chrisitina.rar
Should it not have a pic already or is it possible to change again. Well you can test with that one, maybe run in debug..

BTW someone else i know that pointed me to this has same problem.

n7Epsilon

Jul 17 2005, 07:07 AM

Here's a suggestion for a new feature:

1. Add option to right-click a resource (a bitmap resource or text resource) from the preview window and save to a BMP or TXT file...

This would make WinntBBuEd a very easy to use WINNTBBU resource hacker...

I also hope that SYSSETUP.DLL becomes editable and text is displayed in English...

maxXPsoft

Jul 17 2005, 05:33 PM

QUOTE

text is displayed in English

When I open one of my .dll's it does display in English, I would think your language.

@TheMadGuy
I don't get an error if I open a WINNTBBU.DLL without a picture already.

n7Epsilon

Jul 17 2005, 05:43 PM

I mean the SYSSETUP.DLL text, it appears to be hard-coded to German

maxXPsoft

Jul 17 2005, 06:52 PM

Ok but those are Not editable fields right now according to the readme
I have them all in same folder when I'm messing with them.

@TheMadGuy
I found that after copying to my %windir%\System32 I no longer get that Error 9.
I created a right click on .dll and .dl_ to just open the WinntbbuED Editor but can't make it open the file I'm right clicking on. Are there any commandline switches? Maybe later on as its in its early day's.

EDIT: Some get the error and some don't.

TheMadGuy

Jul 17 2005, 10:31 PM

QUOTE (ChipCraze23 @ Jul 17 2005, 03:07 PM)

Here's a suggestion for a new feature:

1. Add option to right-click a resource (a bitmap resource or text resource) from the preview window and save to a BMP or TXT file...

This would make WinntBBuEd a very easy to use WINNTBBU resource hacker...

I also hope that SYSSETUP.DLL becomes editable and text is displayed in English...

Hi!

Thanks for your suggestions.

to 1. Added to the ToDo List, for now with low priority though

to 2.
from the Changelog of 0.2.0:

CODE

a - if syssetup.dll is located in the same dir as the winntbbu.dll
then now the two strings from it in the preview are actually
fetched from syssetup.dll (though no option to edit them yet)

so if you put winntbbu.dll & syssetup.dll in the same dir, all strings should be whatever language your .dll's are.
And editing them is on the ToDo List, it will come..., but i'm still researching on the used ID's

But plz consider, this is a project i do in my spare time, i'll appreciate every suggestion and consider it, but realising may take some time.

TheMadGuy

Jul 17 2005, 10:41 PM

QUOTE (maxXPsoft @ Jul 18 2005, 02:52 AM)

Ok but those are Not editable fields right now according to the readme
I have them all in same folder when I'm messing with them.

@TheMadGuy
I found that after copying to my %windir%\System32 I no longer get that Error 9.
I created a right click on .dll and .dl_ to just open the WinntbbuED Editor but can't make it open the file I'm right clicking on. Are there any commandline switches? Maybe later on as its in its early day's.

EDIT: Some get the error and some don't.

Hi maxXPsoft!

with the help of the .dll you shared i could pinpoint the problem, it's caused by .dll's where BitMap Resources are completely deleted. (Missing ID's)
I will fix this issue in the next release.

As for the command line switches, there are none in the current version, but i put that on the ToDo list aswell.

Thnx for taking the time to test around.

P.S.: Be sure you have disabled Windows File Protection if you play in %windir%\System32, elseway you might get fuzzy results.

maxXPsoft

Jul 18 2005, 06:41 AM

QUOTE

with the help of the .dll you shared i could pinpoint the problem, it's caused by .dll's where BitMap Resources are completely deleted. (Missing ID's)

That wasn't my file I created. Mine don't do that.

TheMadGuy

Jul 19 2005, 07:05 AM

QUOTE (maxXPsoft @ Jul 18 2005, 02:41 PM)

That wasn't my file I created. Mine don't do that.

What i ment was by pointing me to a non working .dll, i could find and eliminate the bug.

Thnx 4 that

TheMadGuy

Jul 19 2005, 07:12 AM

Hi All!

Boy, have i got something up my sleeve

How about a new version?
Yeah?
OK!

Here goes:

CODE

V0.3.0 Getting a REAL Preview

f - the 'Runtime error 9 Subscript out of range' Bug
this was caused when BitMap Resources where completely
deleted and the resource ID was missing in the dll

a - My whole Pride: REAL PREVIEW
In the extras menu you can call Real Preview in three
different sizes. Its a Previewmode that actually uses the
code from within winntbbu.dll to render the Preview.
You can't get any more accurate :)

n - Do me a faviour, READ the Read this first!
I dont want to see any questions that are already answered
in there!

a - a Statusbar to the main window
it shows the version of the currently loaded winntbbu.dll and
also the version, if found, of the syssetup.dll or otherwise
that it was not found.

a - Commandline passing of a Filename, now you can directly pass the
name of the file you want to edit to WinntbbuED e.g.:
WinntBBUED "f:\xp\cd\i386\winntbbu.dll"

a - 'Shell Extension' submenu to the 'Extras' menu
here you can (un)register WinntBBUEd to the Explorer context menu
for .dll and .dl_ files

This kept me quite busy, but it was worth it

Go grab WinntbbuED 0.3.0 right now!

Mirrors:
OLD VERSION REMOVED

urie

Jul 19 2005, 07:28 AM

Great work m8 excellent program

maxXPsoft

Jul 19 2005, 07:31 AM

hmm might take me a bit to get the right click going on it and update the reg. Should have worked with the \"%1\"

maxXPsoft

Jul 19 2005, 07:35 AM

That real preview is awesome, excellent work.
You said VB, what version you doing? I do my own app in VB6

TheMadGuy

Jul 19 2005, 07:47 AM

QUOTE (maxXPsoft @ Jul 19 2005, 03:31 PM)

hmm might take me a bit to get the right click going on it and update the reg. Should have worked with the \"%1\"

Thats an Easy one:
You only need the \ infront of double quotes when you are having REG_SZ Keys as plain text in your reg file, the command string you set is a REG_EXPAND_SZ in hex form, where you dont need the backslash.
Taken from your earlier post it should, to make it working, look like this:

CODE

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\...\shell\Edit\command]
@=hex(2):25,00,77,00,69,00,6e,00,64,00,69,00,72,00,25,00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,\
00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,57,00,69,00,6e,00,6e,00,74,00,62,00,\
62,00,75,00,45,00,44,00,30,00,32,00,30,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,20,00,22,\
00,25,00,31,00,22,00,00,00

Note: this is just a correction of your earlier post, it would still point to %windir%\system32\WinntbbuED020.exe "%1" and i replaced the classname with "..." above, since its the same for dllfile and dl_file

Hope you get the idea anyways.
And you can also use the (Un)Register option in the editor itself if you like

TheMadGuy

Jul 19 2005, 07:49 AM

QUOTE (maxXPsoft @ Jul 19 2005, 03:35 PM)

That real preview is awesome, excellent work.
You said VB, what version you doing? I do my own app in VB6

Thnx!
I'm pretty proud of that too

Was quite some job to figure it out....

I'm using VB6 SP6

maxXPsoft

Jul 19 2005, 07:51 AM

Ok I dropped the \ from mine and it did work so corrected above. It didn't with the .dl_ because it errors out and don't expand.
Are you saying it will set the keys itself now? with the Register option