Here you can post constructive comments telling us how the HFSLIP web site can be improved. Report spelling or grammatical errors, if sections can be worded better, etc.

URL: hfslip.org


<rant>One thing I won't change is the core code of the site. It was designed from the ground up to be XHTML 1.1 compliant and at the same time compatible with MSIE 5.5, MSIE 6, as well as any standards-compliant web browser (tested in Opera 9, Mozilla SeaMonkey 1.0 and Mozilla Firefox 1.5). For MSIE in general you need to have scripting enabled, and for MSIE6 on XPSP2 and Win2003 in particular you need to allow it to process active content. Working around the "yellow information bar" problem means degrading the code to "street HTML", resulting in degraded display and possible compatibility problems with modern web browsers. I won't go there. People who want to progress should be rewarded.</rant>

this is great.
not to slander myself <laughs> but... finally a much needed overhaul; my documentation was so patchworked i didn't really know where to begin

glad i can 'clean up' and trim my site down now...
though it's touched on, the way you have things, it is my bet that people are going to e-mail you asking 'where does xxx go? how about yyy?' you might want to have a sample graphic illustrating this (no need to keep it updated, but something to give people an idea).

Nice

hi!
i've already said this before the site is nice & simple ... and is not heavy when loading

Sorry about that!

I think more emphasis should be placed on FDV integration (IE Removal). I, for one, was brought to HFSLIP by FDV's project which really is a separate entity, however well-integrated it may be.

IE Removal is a *huge* feature of HFSLIP, a main feature for some of us, and it should be on the front page and should probably have its own menu entry on the left.

this isn't goodbye to you FDV right? HFSLIP is still going to be mentioned in your site i'm sure ... and certainly too you are going to frequent HFSLIP ...

No, certainly not! I'll still be roaming the board.
I do anticipate:
- less work on the 2k fileset, because it's very mature and close to perfect as it can get
- less work on my version of the HFSLIP documentation; I'll be retaining the reduction files and info
- using windows less personally as i learn something else
So I'll definitely see you all around!

Finally a site I can point some (brighter) people at and they won't give up after the first minute...sorry FDV not many people are willing to follow through things that aren't "pretty" or "neat" but thats not unique to your stuff at all. Handholding is where its at! haha

I've been forcing myself to learn more of the nitty-gritty linux things setting up and customizing various firewalls/routers/etc. You can wring a lot of uses out of a $50 appliance 1 2 or quite the modest PC. The snort logs filtered just to my cable's subnet is so sad...its zombieland incarnate. Either that or my neighborhood is nothing but evil programmers

Its an interesting shift from 'click and done' things, and you can learn fun stuff like importing improperly formatted text files from windows can cause unexpected disasters. There was a very good format long before MS, but they just had to change it.

"Those who don't understand UNIX are doomed to reinvent it, poorly."

I'm really starting to realize how deep a statement that is today.

Step six of the basic howto could be expanded to let newbies know that, while the bbie.exe file is needed, its purpose is to extract a cd-rom boot image. Also, do not forget to explain that HFSLIP needs the output of bbie.exe to be renamed to boot.img.

In step eight:I think that it would more correct to say:


Thanks for everyones hard work in such a great project!

OK.

That hasn't been the case for several months. BBIE outputs *.BIN files, MKISOFS can work with *.BIN files, and CDIMAGE can work with *.BIN files. There's no point in forcing people to rename it to *.IMG so it was dropped. Since that change, if BOOT.IMG exists but not BOOT.BIN, BOOT.IMG is automatically renamed to BOOT.BIN.

Thanks.

BTW dont forget a link to the HFSLIP worldmap!
http://www.frappr.com/hfslip

Technically, I think it would be more accurate and grammatically correct to say:

ack! Brain fart. Dunno why I typed .img as the extension.

lol.

Dear friends,

Thanks for making such a useful and helpful website.
Even a newbie like me can use your method with success, I found out.
You make me feel happy to contribute making it still better.

1. Availability of Non-ENU versions
You point to Tomcat76'Complete List of XP Updates for the files to go in folders.
The list limits to ENU versions.
I can see why and agree.
For a non-ENU user like me, for most of the files it is easy to find the corresponding NLD version.
In some rare cases however it seems impossible.
After long tedious searching the Internet the question remains: does a non ENU version exist?
This was the case with
WindowsXP-KB905474-ENU-x86_0aad890762cf263dbd4c825c477ef7ba821a852f.exe
My question: can you or Tomcat indicate for which files only ENU versions are available?

2. P or C
In step six you mention

WIN51IP
Win51ip.sp2

Maybe it is useful to mention the fact that the 'P' in these filenames occurs in the case of XP-Pro versions, the XP-Home version has a 'C' instead.

3. Optionals
Step seven mentions: SFC_OS.DLL (OR USE AN EMPTY SFCFILES.DLL)
To me it was not immediately clear if I had to have one of these optionals or could forget both of them. Just a matter of formulation.
I suggest (hope I understood correctly):

SFC_OS.DLL (OR USE AN EMPTY SFCFILES.DLL)
You can, but you do not have to shut off WFP. If you are an "HFSLIP Expert," you might want it. A quick word about Windows File Protection. It was designed not to thwart you, but to prevent software from changing your DLLs on you. WFP is a good thing 95% of the time. Also, if you're setting up a system for someone else, and WFP is off, how long do you think it would be before they were on the phone with you telling you that their system is "acting weird?"
Here is two methods to shut off Windows File Protection.
First method: edit SFC_OS.DLL (how to link coming, for now use Google).
Alternately, instead of hacking SFC_OS.DLL, you can leave it alone and use a version of SFCFILES.DLL that is empty. Download this new SFCFILES.DLL and put it in FIX. I got the idea here, but there were several errors in the approach, so a programmer friend re-wrote the DLL for me. Here is the source.
When you don't want WFP shut off, do not include an edited SFC_OS.DLL or new SFCFILES.DLL in the FIX folder.

Dear friends,

I would like to suggest adding something to Step Fourteen.

After explaining how to set up Nero for making a bootable CD,
please point out the user has to add to the CD to be burned:
- the files from the folder \HFSLIP\Sourcess,
as well as
- the folder with the "excellent software to install "

To you it may seem trivial, but be sure it is not for everybody.

Just my two cents..

@ebernard

This thread is about hfslip.org. You're talking about FDV's site which is about to be slimmed down.

Concerning my hotfix lists on this forum and on my server (see my signature)... It's been requested before but I don't have the time for that. Some people also asked to put MD5 sums there. It may happen some day.

hi ebernard!
for MD sums, Super-Magician actually started a thread on this & updates it too Checksums for English XP SP2 hotfixes and updates, July 23, 2006

ebernard did not actually request a page of MD5 sums, but nevertheless, thanks for linking to it, Kiki!

he! he!
i just seconded what TC could be anticipating

I think that a very good web site improvement will be the availability of non-ENU updates.

If you read this thread perhaps adding Hotfixes in other languages not present a very big problem: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=77438

Sorry for my english again. I try to lern more and more english every day but it´s very difficult to me.
Thanks in advance.

zartrix

The actual hotfix lists aren't part of the main HFSLIP site.

Tomcat, the download links on hfslip.org are broken (404).

I tried all three of 'em... Can't see the problem...

Some browsers have a setting that will let you disable referer checking. In Opera, for example, it is on the F12 menu near the bottom.

Please enable referer checking/logging for hfslip.org.

I tried again on a different computer, but only the mirrors work. The main link gives me a 403 forbidden error.

SM, what browser are you using? This is what you are reporting as your referer:
...and some other similar reports.

A valid referer should include the domain name, and this is what we check.

I'm using Internet Explorer 6. Would that be a problem?

It's working for me in IE6. Make sure nothing on your PC is blocking referrers...

A proxy can also affect referer logging.

Maybe because of a download manager ?

Nope, no download manager.

I should have mentioned this last night, but here's what happened.

1. I was on a Win2K system and clicking on each link would give me a 'page not found' error (after accepting the disclaimer).
2. I went onto an XP system later and tried the links again. The two mirrors would download properly, but the main link would give me a '403 forbidden' error.
3. I finally went back onto Win2K and tested again. Since Tomcat changed the download system, I would be brought to a 'thanks for downloading' page after accepting the disclaimer. However, nothing would download at all for all three links.

SM,

We are getting some really inconsistent 403 reports from your IP. The latest ones look like the request and referrer are reversed. I can't spot a trend and am, quite frankly, stumped as to why this is happening to you.

I've successfully downloaded all files with three different browsers on two different hosts.

You aren't the only one who has had a problem, but you ARE the only one kind enough to report back so far. Anyone else having issues?

I changed the referrer checking code around a bit...please see if you get different results now.

Thanks for the response, but I was just about to edit my post above when my computer froze. Everything works perfectly now !

Thanks!

Minor edit: Actually, it only works perfectly on my XP system. #3 (see above) still occurs on 2K. I am no longer getting any 403 or 404 errors.

Never mind. All seems to work well on 2000. Thanks again!

Glad to hear it. Please report any more/other problems as they arise.

In both IE and Firefox on my computer, Yzöwl's name does not appear properly on the Links page. I think there is a problem with the rendering of the "ö" symbol.

In IE, the name appears as 'Yz?'. In Firefox, I see 'Yz?wl' where the ? is not plaintext but some special graphic.

Yzöwl is written "Yzöwl" in the HTML source. I don't know much HTML but I know this is not recognized.

This is alright when using the iso-8859-15 encoding. This is what the HTML page is specifying and that's what the server obeyed to up till recently. I just checked it out and noticed that the server is sending the HTML page as UTF-8 now, which is not correct.

Thanks for reporting this.

haha! Hey TC, remember when I mentioned some server changes "that shouldn't affect hfslip.org"? This is one of them

I'll fix it when I get home

I was able to do this remotely.

Fixed.

Improved compatibility with IE 5.0:

- worked around improper navigation menu height
- worked around non-support for JavaScript's "undefined" (downloading HFSLIP should work now)

Improved display of download popups in case there's a scrollbar in some people's configurations and added complete support for IE7.

Impressive show of support for antiquated and unfinalized browsers. Is there any browser that you *don't* go out of your way to support?

Netscape 4

I wish I could check in Safari and Konqueror as well but I haven't got a Mac nor a Linux box. But my code assumes that every "other" browser supports the current web standards.

hi! would it be possible to have a download feature in the site ... something like here in our thread if i for example would like to download the topic ... or perhaps a .chm or sort ... thanks!

@TC:

You have some options there.

Try a Live CD that has the browser you want or this screenshot-generating site.

hi! the link for Extra add-on for Windows 2000 shows this:
Not Found
The requested URL /data/hfcleanup_2kextra.zip was not found on this server.

You are talking about this URL, right? : http://hfslip.org/advanced.html
That is a link to FDV's hosted file. Hopefully FDV and/or TC addresses this...

@TC: Maybe the index at the top of that pageshould be links to the appropriate sections?

Good idea, TAiN. I added anchor links on the Advanced Features and Special Features pages.


@Kiki

Thanks for reporting the bad link. For the moment, all hfcleanup files are hosted on hfslip.org.


@Kiki again

I'm thinking of doing any of the following:
- add a black&white printer stylesheet so the pages can be printed off the web (might not work reliably in IE)
- offer a PDF file for download containing the site in plain b&w format

This might take a while to achieve, but is it along the lines of what you were after?