[Tihiy]

Here are some lightweight tools made by me which you may have seen before, or may not.

It's mostly abadon-ware (no further developed), but all stable and useful.
They should work on 98/Me.

Network activity indicator

Nice applet blinking like 2000/XP does. Shows simple network stats and open ports.
Link: http://tihiy.net/files/IpTest.zip
Install: extract dll&exe into \windows\system, run install.reg and re-login.
Uninstall: run uninstall.reg, delete dll&exe from \windows\system.

Task manager

Simple process manager which hooks Ctrl-Shift-Esc (not resident).
Link: http://tihiy.net/files/Taskmgr.exe
Install: copy exe into windows\system, run taskmgr /install
Remove: run taskmgr /remove, delete exe

Add/Remove program alternative

I think it's clear what it does.
Link: http://tihiy.net/files/programs.zip

Shut down dialog alternative

XP-alike shutdown dialog. Accepts command line flags [-f] [-r|-s|-l] ([force] reboot/shutdown/logoff).
Link: http://tihiy.net/files/shutdown.exe

This post has been edited by Tihiy: 03 October 2010 - 05:02 AM

[Tihiy]

alive tools

GDI+ thumbnails

Nicer, faster thumbnails for image and video files. ME shell preffered.
New version. Now works as proper COM extension and doesn't break Office picture preview.
Requires GDI+ runtime.
Link: http://tihiy.net/files/gdipthms.zip
Install: copy dlls&exe into \windows\system. Run regsvr32 gdipthms.dll.
Remove: Run regsvr32 /u gdipthms.dll. Run regsvr32 /i browseui.dll. Delete gdipthms.dll&gdipsrv.exe from \windows\system.

How to enable Thumnails view for every folder in Windows 98 (not Me) shell

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ExtShellViews\{8BEBB290-52D0-11d0-B7F4-00C04FD706EC}]
"MenuName"="T&humbnails"
"HelpText"="Displays items using thumbnail view."
"TooltipText"="Thumbnails"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex\ExtShellFolderViews\{8BEBB290-52D0-11d0-B7F4-00C04FD706EC}]
"Attributes"=dword:60000000
"ISV"=hex(2):7b,38,42,45,42,42,32,39,30,2d,35,32,44,30,2d,31,31,64,30,2d,42,37,\
  46,34,2d,30,30,43,30,34,46,44,37,30,36,45,43,7d,00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex\ExtShellFolderViews\{8BEBB290-52D0-11d0-B7F4-00C04FD706EC}\ISV]
@="{8BEBB290-52D0-11d0-B7F4-00C04FD706EC}"

Copy into .reg file, import it. Don't forget empty line at the end!

This post has been edited by Tihiy: 03 October 2010 - 05:02 AM

[slhk]

Thanks for all these goodies! Would you consider to include them in RP9 as optional components?

[BenoitRen]

I've discovered long ago that, strangely enough, GDI+ works on Windows 95. Does this mean that there is a possibility for your COM extension to work with the Windows 95 shell?

[Tihiy]

Quote

Would you consider to include them in RP9 as optional components?

No, although i consider to provide integration for them in RP9.

Quote

Does this mean that there is a possibility for your COM extension to work with the Windows 95 shell?

If 95 shell had those interfaces, then sure... But you can install 98/Me shell on Windows 95.

[Dave-H]

Hi Tihiy.
Just trying out your tools, and I've run into a slight problem with a couple of them.

The Task Manager window is cut off at the bottom, and I can only see the top half of the "Description" field, the rest is lost. There seems to be no way of resizing the window or dragging its edges to reveal the missing information.

Similarly, the Add/Remove Programs replacement (which is amazing BTW!) has part of its detail cut off on the right hand side. Although you can drag the edges of this window, it doesn't reveal the missing information.

I am using large (120dpi) fonts.
Is that the problem and is there any way to fix it?
Thanks, Dave.

[Tihiy]

Quote

Is that the problem

Yes.

Quote

is there any way to fix it

No.

[Dave-H]

Tihiy, on Apr 10 2009, 06:36 AM, said:

Quote

Is that the problem

Yes.

Quote

is there any way to fix it

No.

Thanks.
I was afraid that you were going to say that!

[Dave-H]

Me again Tihiy!

Just another query, this time agout your GDI+ thumbnails.
They seem to work fine, and I'm very impressed with the thumbnails from movie files!

I have a lot of Quicktime movies on my system, and some produce thumbnails and others don't, even though the movies use the same codec, which is slightly puzzling.

Anyway, my main qestion is actually about the size and aspect ratio of the preview thumbnails that appear in Windows Explorer when you select a file.
My system used to produce these for image files, as designed, and they were always the correct shape.
Now they seem to be a fixed size (set by the parameters in folder.htt) and are always that size, height and width, resulting in many image file previews being very distorted.
Is there anything that can be done about that?

Sorry to be a pain.

[Queue]

Dave-H, on Apr 10 2009, 04:51 AM, said:

Thanks.
I was afraid that you were going to say that!

When making program interfaces, accouting for different font DPI settings is a headache/nightmare. An achemare if you will. =/

Honestly, accounting for any non-default window settings is very tough; any software I've made in the past decade's titlebar got shot to hell by Vista's titlebar changes. The wide buttons give far less space for the window's title text at the very least.

Queue

[Dave-H]

Quote

.....my main qestion is actually about the size and aspect ratio of the preview thumbnails that appear in Windows Explorer when you select a file.
My system used to produce these for image files, as designed, and they were always the correct shape.
Now they seem to be a fixed size (set by the parameters in folder.htt) and are always that size, height and width, resulting in many image file previews being very distorted.
Is there anything that can be done about that?

Any feedback on this Tihiy?

[Tihiy]

Quote

Any feedback on this Tihiy?

Well, M$ is never clear in documentation. Fixed, re-download.

[Dave-H]

Tihiy, on Apr 18 2009, 01:24 PM, said:

Quote

Any feedback on this Tihiy?

Well, M$ is never clear in documentation. Fixed, re-download.

Thank you Tihiy!

Works fine now.
Now that's what I call service, you're a star!
(As well as a genius of course.......)

[slhk]

Sorry to advise that I tried all the tools but none of them worked on my Chinese Win98. Are they not compatible with DBCS Windows?

[Chozo4]

Small issue to note with the Network status monitor...

Object: Network Status Monitor
Issue: Error message every connection update
Cause: Occurs when there are no connections to pull up from the TcpTables

[Tihiy]

Updated: added registry trick which allows to turn on thumbnails in all 98 shell folders.
Added shutdown.exe, rare post-RP7 recollected version.

[eidenk]

The Network applet is very nice and useful.

[slhk]

Tihiy, on Apr 30 2009, 03:58 AM, said:

Updated: added registry trick which allows to turn on thumbnails in all 98 shell folders.

It works on my Chinese Win98SE now. Thank you

[Dave-H]

Tihiy, just another query about your thumbnail viewer, now I've used it for a few weeks.
I have a system monitor in my system tray called "Cool Beans System Information".
I believe that it is no longer in development, but I've used it for years mainly to keep an eye on CPU usage.

Since I've had your thumbnail viewer, the usage indication keeps on going to 100% if I browse through files using Windows Explorer, and this is without actually having thumbnail view enabled. All your program is doing is generating preview stills from image and video files on the left of the right-hand pane in Explorer.

Once it's gone to 100% CPU usage, it never drops down from that again until I reboot.
System performance doesn't seem to be impaired though.
The strange thing is, if I look at the CPU usage in Process Explorer, it isn't shown as 100%!
"System Idle Process" is shown as using most of the CPU, which I believe is normal, and the actual CPU usage is shown as being around 4-5%.

This may well have absolutely nothing to do with your thumbnails program of course, but I'm pretty sure that it only started doing it when I installed it. As I said, the CPU usage reading on Cool Beans only goes to 100% after I've been browsing with Windows Explorer and generating preview frames from images and video files.

Not a big deal, but any ideas why this might be happening, and why Cool Beans (which I've always found to be very reliable) has suddenly started showing what may well be spurious 100% CPU usage readings?

[Tihiy]

Uninstall and compare. I do believe it's a mistake.