System Requirements for FileAlyser

Hi Patrick and Everyone in the Forums :D:

Just a quick question about what OSes FileAlyser should run on ? I'm currently using 1.2rel3 on WinNT 4.0 SP6a + SRP + hotfixes.

It appears to function without error, however later versions such as 1.4 and 1.52 beta have problems complaining about things like:

"missing .dll msimg32.dll" - obviously needed to process image data like icons (I can add this to the system)

"invalid entry point in GDI32" - looks like FileAlyser is making calls to functions that don't exist on NT4 systems :sad:

Is this the end of the line for your product on NT 4?

Calvin.

http://nt4ref.zcm.com.au

The 1.5.2 beta has the same problem? Hmm... will check this tomorrow; that was a problem with our development environment not supporting Windows 95/NT4 any more, but we've got it manually patched. Actually we're not thinking about end of lines there, instead going backwards as well as forwards trying to support Wine, ReactOS & the like even.

Btw, imho you can use the msimg32.dll from dll-files.com and even those versions will run ;)

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Originally Posted by PepiMK

The 1.5.2 beta has the same problem? Hmm... will check this tomorrow; that was a problem with our development environment not supporting Windows 95/NT4 any more, but we've got it manually patched.

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EXCELLENT - I'm really pleased to hear that you intend to keep supporting NT4 and it's era. Many software writers seem to be going out of their way (or is it just that they are plain lazy) to kill off everything except XP, in some cases they won't even support Win2k !

In answer to your question - YES, on my systems here (have tested on 2 different NT4 boxes) V1.52b complains about invalid entry point in GDI32 :sad:

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Originally Posted by PepiMK

Actually we're not thinking about end of lines there, instead going backwards as well as forwards trying to support Wine, ReactOS & the like even.

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Kewl - ReactOS is the most likely candidate for a replacement OS here when NT4 finally reaches a point of no longer being able to be maintained - but I suspect we are years away from ReactOS becoming a 'production/stable' release !

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Originally Posted by PepiMK

Btw, imho you can use the msimg32.dll from dll-files.com and even those versions will run ;)

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Already done - I've had to 'pull this trick' several times with other software packages to satisfy their needs :) I have checked the NT4 installation media and confirmed that msimg32.dll is not part of the base installation for this OS - I presume it is added to your test systems by IE ? This could explain why I don't have this .dll - IE is TOTALLY banned here and has never been installed as it is too big a security risk ! (SeaMonkey is used in preference)

Hopefully you can sort this problem out - FileAlyser is a great tool and I'd really like to be able to use the latest releases !

BTW: I trust your statement of ongoing support of NT4 includes SpyBot as well ? (I hope so, the best anti-spyware product out there !)

All the best - thanks for the quick response,

Calvin.

http://nt4ref.zcm.com.au - Serving the NT4 community since November 2003 - since Microsoft wont !

Not sure if I have any newer than the default IE version on those machines, usually I don't deal with it there.

Yes, that includes Spybot and every other app we have, with the exception of TagsRevisited, which due its Unicode features and the status of being a fun app only doesn't get that much attention ;)

We created CompatAlyzer especially to make this (checking application compatibility easily) easier. It's database is not complete and it checks only for statically linked functions (with dynamically linked ones, it's not clear whether they're loaded depending on the availability, or improperly always), but it gives a good first look, as to where an app can run, and whether it's something big, or a small thing that prevents compatibility to Windows version X.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PepiMK

Not sure if I have any newer than the default IE version on those machines, usually I don't deal with it there.

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OK

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PepiMK

Yes, that includes Spybot and every other app we have, with the exception of TagsRevisited, which due its Unicode features and the status of being a fun app only doesn't get that much attention ;)

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I'm delighted to hear that - glad some people still recognise that there is a world of Windows outside of XP (Yuk) or Vista (bleah)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PepiMK

We created CompatAlyzer especially to make this (checking application compatibility easily) easier. It's database is not complete and it checks only for statically linked functions (with dynamically linked ones, it's not clear whether they're loaded depending on the availability, or improperly always), but it gives a good first look, as to where an app can run, and whether it's something big, or a small thing that prevents compatibility to Windows version X.

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Nifty tool - I downloaded it and tried it - works OK here on my NT4 system.

I tried feeding FileAlyser V1.52b to CompatAlyser and it reports no problems - however when I launch FileAlyser 1.52b for real NT4 reports:

"The procedure entry point GdiGradientFill could not be located in the dynamic link library GDI32.dll"

I have confirmed GDI32 is the latest (and last) for NT4 ie: Version 4.00.1381.7270

Calvin.

Could be than that GdiGradientFill is just not yet in CompatAlyzers database - it depends on us parsing as much files as possible, then checking that information on each OS. Will have to update it with Vista information anyway, so I guess I should plan a new release of it ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PepiMK

Could be than that GdiGradientFill is just not yet in CompatAlyzers database - it depends on us parsing as much files as possible, then checking that information on each OS. Will have to update it with Vista information anyway, so I guess I should plan a new release of it ;)

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Sounds good - I hope we can also ultimately clear up this problem with FileAlyser as well, so it is useable on NT4 systems.

Thanks for the quick responses,

Calvin.