Shareware Overload Trio 2

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Text File | 1994-06-27 | 35KB | 712 lines

/////////////////// /// // ////////////////// // // // // // // // // // // // // // // // // // // // // // // // // // // // /// // // // // // Tessler's Nifty Tools (tm) (TNT) Release 4.0 <<< SHAREWARE >>> Copyright (c) 1986-1994 All Rights Reserved. TNT is a collection of over 30 useful SHAREWARE MS-DOS and Windows programs. Many TNT programs are featured in COMPUTE, INFOWORLD, and COMPUTER and PC Computing magazines. The latest versions of TNT programs are posted in Compuserve's IBMSYS, IBMCOM, IBMHW, and WINSHARE areas under the common keyword of TNT. Registered users of any program will receive the complete collection for review. Most programs are individually priced at $19. Several programs are $29 each. Bring up each program's help screen for specific pricing information. Special prices with substantial savings exist for partial and complete collection purchases. Contact me for more information. Monetary contributions and any ideas for enhancements may be sent to: Tessler's Nifty Tools (tm) (TNT) Release 4.0 430 Canyon Woods Place Suite A San Ramon, Ca. 94583 CompuServe: 71044,542 ************************************** ** Summary of programs: ** ************************************** CAPSTAT.EXE Sets DOS ERRORLEVEL to 0 if your local printer is NOT being captured to a Novell printer. Sets it to 1 if it IS being captured. CHEK4DUP.EXE Generates a list of files that exist in both .EXE and .COM form. This usually occurs when software is upgraded from a COM format to an EXE format and the old COM version is accidentally left on the system when the new EXE form is put onto the system. DOS will always invoke the COM form before the EXE form program so you should delete the older COM program if required. Useful to avoid having old versions of software on your system. CHKPARM.EXE Analyzes the 'pathname' and determines if it contains a drive letter and/or file/sub-directory name and if whether it refers to a local physical disk or a remote file-server based file. CHKPARM is useful in batch files. CFGCNTRL.EXE (Config-Controller) is a intelligent text (ascii) file controller. Just what does this mean? Well a bit of history is required to explain this new type of software utility... Experienced PC users may want to skip to the section titled 'CFGCNTRL Syntax' for actual program syntax, etc... I created CFGCNTRL because my office had MS-DOS laptop PCs running Windows software and LanManager LAN software that had to have specific LAN device drivers and video drivers installed and activated when the laptop was plugged into its desktop docking station with a LAN card and external video monitor, and a different set of device drivers installed and activated when the laptop was out in the field running remote LAN access software with its internal LCD display which required custom video drivers. We were managing this mess by keeping two copies of Window's configuration files -WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI files and LanManager PROTOCOL.INI files present on each PC -one set for the docking station mode and one set for remote access mode. This didn't work well, for every time the user added/deleted or moved a group on his/her desktop, these changes were never saved to the other set of configuration files. Installing software that modified these configuration files had to manually be added to the other set of configuration files. Maintenance became a total nightmare. Similarly having two separate LanManager PROTOCOL.INI files was just as difficult to maintain. Out of this need was born CFGCNTRL... CFGCNTRL does away with multiple configuration file sets. You only have your single set of standard Window's configuration files and LanManager files to deal with. As you will see, together, CFGCNTRL and DOS' batch file capabilities allow you to control all aspects of your configuration files. Before describing CFGCNTRL's features further, a little bit on terminology... When dealing with Window's INI files and similarly structured LanManager PROTOCOL.INI/LANMAN.INI and DOS 6.n CONFIG.SYS files, we can describe these formatted files as a series of sections that each contain several action entries. For example a portion of a typical Windows WIN.INI file might contain: 1) [windows] <= section name is '[windows]' 2) spooler=no <= action_entry is 'spooler=no' 3) load= <= action_entry is 'load=' 4) run= 5) Beep=No 6) 7) [Desktop] <= section name is '[Desktop]' 8) Pattern=(None) 9) TileWallpaper=0 22 130 10) GridGranularity=3 11) IconSpacing=65 <= action_entry is 'IconSpacing=65' 12) wallpaper=(None) 13) 14) [Extensions] <= section name is '[Extensions]' 15) cal=calendar.exe ^.cal 16) crd=cardfile.exe ^.crd 17) trm=terminal.exe ^.trm Some structured configuration files (such as an AUTOEXEC.BAT) have no sections. They consist of one long section that has no name. For example, below is a typical mini AUTOEXEC.BAT file. 1) path=c:\\;c:\\dos 2) set temp=c:\\ 3) prompt $p$g 4) smartdrv a b c 5) rem This is last line of the file.... In this case, there are 5 action_entry lines with no leading section name. In this case the missing (null) section name is referenced as []. Another variation on the above structured configuration file is one with a leading null section followed by standard sections (such as a DOS 6.n CONFIG.SYS file. For example, below is a typical mini CONFIG.SYS file. 1) rem Sample CFGCNTRL CONFIG.SYS file 2) rem version 2.99 3) rem by GST 4) 5) [menu] 6) menuitem=standard, STANDARD Setup 7) menuitem=minimal, MINIMAL Setup 8) 9) [common] 10) shell=c:\\dos\\command.com c:\\dos\\ /e:2000 /p 11) break=on 12) dos=high,umb 13) files=50 14) buffers=5 15) 16) [standard] 17) device=c:\\dos\\himem.sys 18) device=c:\\dos\\emm386.exe 19) 20) [minimal] 21) rem don't load anything here... In this case, the leading null section reference by '[]' consists of lines 1-4. The [menu] section consists of lines 5- 8, etc... Now that we have our terminology and file structures explained, more on CFGCNTRL. CFGCNTRL can run in three distinct modes... The first mode is the 'Existence mode (/Me mode)'. In this mode, you ask CFGCNTRL to check if a file (like WIN.INI) contains a specific action entry (or several of them). The result of the search is returned via DOS' ERRORLEVEL capability. These mode is useful if you (or a batch file) wants to determine if a specific section and action entry exists in the file. For example, using the above WIN.INI file, issuing a CFGCNTRL command of: CFGCNTRL /Me c:\\windows\\win.ini /A[windows]Beep=No will return a DOS ERRORLEVEL of 0 since this line of data DOES exist in the file. You can test for the presence of several action entries on the same command line too. Now that you know how to test for presence of lines in files, the remaining two modes allow you to modify your file. The remaining two modes are very similar -differing only in the way actions/commands are presented to CFGCNTRL. Once these actions/commands are presented to CFGCNTRL, they are handled identically by the program. The 'Instruction-file mode (/Mi mode)' receives your desired actions/commands from a text (ascii) disk file. The 'Command line mode (/Mc mode)' receives your desired actions/commands from the command line. If you have a few actions/commands to apply to your file, the 'Command line mode (/Mc mode)' may be for you. If you have many actions/commands, you can avoid the DOS command line limit of 127 characters by using the 'Instruction-file mode (/Mi mode)' and saving your actions/commands in a disk file. These actions or commands are very similar to the formatted file structure as explained above. The only difference is the addition of 'prefix' commands that may preface sections or action entry lines. The prefix commands are: * <= indicates a comment line. + <= create or append this line which may be a complete section or action entry line. - <= delete this line which may be a complete section or action entry line. The characters *,+,- may be replaced with characters of your own choosing via the '/P' command (see below). Some examples of configuration file manipulation are in order. We will experiment with the sample WIN.INI file from above using the 'Command line mode (/Mc mode)' syntax. To delete a complete section and all of its action_entry lines, you enter a command of the form '/A-[section-name]'. For example, to delete the complete Desktop section you would enter '/A-[Desktop]'. To delete a complete null section you would enter '/A-[]'. To delete a specific action_entry line from your file, you enter a command of the form '/A[section-name]-action_entry'. If there are spaces within your action_entry line, enclose the complete command with double-quotes (this is a DOS standard). The action_entry data must EXACTLY match the line in your configuration file that you are modifying n order to be deleted. For example, to delete the line 'Pattern=(None)' from section [Desktop], you would enter '/A[Desktop]- Pattern=(None)'. To delete the line 'TileWallpaper=0 22 130' from section [Desktop], you would enter \"/A[Desktop]- TileWallpaper=0 22 130\" including the double quotes. To delete an action_entry line from a null section, use the form /A'[]-action_entry'. To add a specific action_entry line to your file, you enter a command of the form '/A[section-name]action_entry', '/A[section-name]+action_entry', '/A+[section- name]action_entry', or '/A+[section-name]+action_entry'. Essentially, the '+' is implied and therefore is optional in front of the section name and action_entry. If there are spaces within your action_entry line, enclose the complete command with double-quotes (this is a DOS standard). If the section doesn't exist, it will be created for you. For example, to add the line 'Addme=data1' to section [Desktop], you would enter '/A[Desktop]Addme=data1'. To add the line 'Addme=data1 OK' to section [Desktop], you would enter \"/A[Desktop]Addme=data1 OK\" including the double quotes. To add an action_entry line to a null section, use the form '/A[]action_entry'. To comment your instruction files (see discussion of instruction files below), you may want to include comments. Comment commands are simply lines prefaced by the default character '*'. Comment commands are ignored by CFGCNTRL. The 'Instruction-file mode (/Mi mode)' syntax is better explained with a full blown example that will further demonstrate the power of CFGCNTRL. The /Mi mode syntax is similar to the /Mc mode syntax except that section names must NOT precede every action_entry line. Lets apply the following instruction action file to the WIN.INI file from above. So given the commands below: [windows] *delete the line below from the WIN.INI file [windows] section. -Beep=No *add these next two lines to the WIN.INI file [windows] section. device=Addme please 1 +device=Addme please 2 *remove the complete [Extensions] section from the WIN.INI file. -[Extensions] [MyNewSection] *create this new section [MyNewSection] with the two new lines below. device=MyNewLine1 device=MyNewLine2 <eof> After CFGCNTRL processes this command file, it will result in a new WIN.INI with the following contents: 1) [windows] 2) spooler=no 3) load= 4) run= 5) device=Addme please 1 6) device=Addme please 2 7) 8) [Desktop] 9) Pattern=(None) 10) TileWallpaper=0 22 130 11) GridGranularity=3 12) IconSpacing=65 13) wallpaper=(None) 14) 15) [MyNewSection] 16) device=MyNewLine1 17) device=MyNewLine2 <eof> So you can see that within a batch file, you can use CFGCNTRL's 'Existence' mode to check on the configuration of your file and then apply specific actions to the file. Remember that the above functionality is applicable to any text (ascii) file including DOS 6.n CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files, your BATCH files, and LAN protocol files. The possibilities are endless.... CONTROLP.EXE Allows the user to turn on screen to printer echoing as if the user had pressed Ctrl-P or Ctrl-PrtSc. DesqView compatible. Status mode too. Great for use within batch files. COMSPEED.EXE Returns the actual baud rate that a COM (serial) port is set to. With today's high speed modems that can adjust their phone line and data rate (speed) automatically, it is often very difficult to determine if your line is operating at the proper rate. Use COMSPEED to check your COM port's data rate after establishing a data connection. COPYWA.EXE Copies files while preserving the source file's read-only attribute. Does it the way XCOPY should have done it. CRTDUMP.EXE Copies the contents of either a color or monochrome monitor to a specified file. DELTREE.BAT A batch file that runs TNT's CHK4ROOT to protect you from accidentally deleting every file on your hard disk. DON'T try the following example! I created DELTREE/CHK4ROOT when one day I thought I was logged to my A: floppy when in actuality I was logged to my C:\ drive and I typed "DELTREE /Y \" and DOS' DELTREE proceeded to delete EVERY file including my hidden operating system files from my hard disk. Now with DELTREE/CHK4ROOT, you will not be allowed to do what I did. You will only be allowed to automatically (/Y) delete files from floppies (or whatever drives you consider valid). DIR2BAT.EXE Will write a listing of drive_path_file specs matching the user's entered file specification to the file DIR2.BAT. Each file specification found may be prefixed and suffixed by user provided strings. This batch file will then be able to perform actions to the files..... For example, if your C: disk contains the following files: README.DOC TESTME.DOC LIST.DOC PRINTER.DOC Then the command: DIR2BAT C:*.DOC /S /A "ATTRIB -R ! /S" "DEL !" will append the following lines to an existing DIR2.BAT file: ATTRIB -R C:\README.DOC /S DEL C:\README.DOC ATTRIB -R C:\TESTME.DOC /S DEL C:\TESTME.DOC ATTRIB -R C:\LIST.DOC /S DEL C:\LIST.DOC ATTRIB -R C:\PRINTER.DOC /S DEL C:\PRINTER.DOC <eof> DVCPU.EXE is a DesqView utility program that is meant to be run right before running a program that requires full usage of the CPU's computing power. It pops up the DesqView window and sets 'Share CPU when in Foreground' to 'Y' or 'N' depending on the parameter entered. It useful for programs that insist on running in a non-multitasking environment such as voice sampling and digitization programs. DVPROMPT.EXE Facilitates naming of DOS windows under DesqView. For example, upon opening and using several DOS windows with command line programs, the user often finds it difficult to remember which window he/she was doing what task in. Since each window has the same DOS prompt, DOS gives him/her no visual clue to the identification of the current window. This program will change each DOS window's DOS prompt into the typical form of: 1 C:\> 2 C:\> 3 C:\> etc. PROMPT n <user_string> where n is the counter value of this DesqView window in DesqView's 'switch' window and the user_string is a PROMPT string (typically $P$G). If the user_string contains spaces, enclose it with double quotes. A useful example is as follows: Assume that DesqView invokes AUTOEXEC.BAT as "AUTOEXEC X" whenever it opens a DOS command shell. Let AUTOEXEC.BAT contain: VERIFY OFF PATH = C:\;C:\DOS;C:\WPROC IF %1Y==Y GOTO NOT_UNDER_DV REM INVOKED BY DESQVIEW DVPROMPT $P$G TEMP <- DOS jumps to this batch file to set the prompt :NOT_UNDER_DV REM INVOKED BY PC UPON POWER-UP DEL DVPROMPT.DAT <- reset the counter to 1. PROMPT $P$G DVRUN.EXE A DesqView utility program that returns ERRORLEVEL = 0 if DesqView is running or 1 if it is not. EXPNDTAB.EXE Copies the file matching the source filespec to the destination filespec with any source file <tab> characters expanded into space characters into the destination file. Great for printers that can't handle tabs but you still want the formatting/alignment preserved. FEEFIFO.EXE Enables the FIFO of a 16550A serial UART chip at the COM port specified by the user. Also sets the FIFO depth to 1,4,8, or 14. Use in status mode to determine what type of serial chip you have. GROWP.COM Unique TSR gives visual indication of shelled process via C:> prompt to avoid turning off PC when a program is suspended and is shelled to DOS. Any time you have a master program (including Windows) running in the background, GROWP changes your prompt. Only program of its kind in industry. Avoids DOS 6 disk corruption. This resident program requires about 1400 bytes of resident RAM to add a default '>' or user entered growth character to the environment's 'PROMPT' string each time another copy of COMMAND.COM is shelled and to remove the growth character when the copy of COMMAND.COM is terminated. GROWP requires DOS version 3.0 or higher. Each growth character represents a suspended program in RAM and gives you a visual warning that you should not turn-off your PC before returning to the suspended program and gracefully exiting it. GRP2INI-INI2GRP (Group file to INI file converter and back) converts encoded (non-text/non-ASCII) Windows 3.0 and 3.1 GRP (group) files into a plain text (ASCII) INI format file for your review and editing. It is considered a pre-processor to the CFGCNTRL program. After GRP2INI creates the textual INI formatted output file, you can edit it with your word processor or use CFGCNTRL to act on it. Then the companion post-processor INI2GRP (INI file to group file converter) must be used to reconvert the INI file back into the encoded GRP file format that Windows requires. GRP2INI-INI2GRP puts a powerful dimension of Windows configuration control into your hands with or without the use of CFGCNTRL. A 'group' in Windows is a collection of icons (programs). Example Windows groups are: Main, Accessories, Games, and Startup. Example items in a typical 'Main' group are: File- Manager, Control-Panel, Clipboard, and PaintBrush. GRP2INI reads the encoded GRP file and constructs an INI formatted text file that has a section of information associated with each item in the group. Each section's entries are explained in plain English. You can control every aspect of the complete group's window including its size, location, and name. You can control every aspect of your group's items including each item's name, program name, program location, working directory, short-cut-key, run-minimized state, icon picture (bitmap), icon size, icon colors, and location of the item's icon within the group's window, etc.. Tired of waiting for Windows to start up? GRP2INI can help. As you add and delete more and more items from a Windows group, your GRP files grows in size. Windows does a poor job of recovering wasted space in your group's GRP file. In fact, Windows does no wasted space recovery. GRP2INI will automatically remove all wasted space in your GRP files. Just run your GRP file through GRP2INI-INI2GRP and notice the file size and speed improvements. This wasted space recovery is similar to disk defragmentation processes. Have you ever wanted to force Windows to load certain programs in your Startup group in a certain order? Before GRP2INI- INI2GRP you couldn't. Now you can! Windows loads items in the order that they appear in the GRP file. However, when adding a new item into your group, Windows simply finds puts the item into the first hole it finds. Simply generate the INI output file and move the sections around to suit your needs... If you've ever wanted to 'move' an application from a disk drive to another disk drive (perhaps because your hard disk was filling up and you wanted to rearrange your data), or even to another sub-directory, you were forced to uninstall the application (losing all of your application's settings) and reinstall it in the proper new location all because of Windows' encoded GRP formatted files. With GRP2INI and INI2GRP, you simply generate and edit the text INI file replacing the application's paths, locations, and working directories with whatever you want. IFONSCRN.EXE IFONSCRN will examine the video screen for the appearance of up to three case-sensitive trigger (search) character strings. Great for programs that don't return errorlevel (like compilers) but you need to know if they terminated with an error condition. Also runs as TSR with sound/beep/dialog box alert modes. Can control parallel port devices too. IFONSCRN may be run as a TSR (RAM-resident) or as a non-TSR program (CL mode). If IFONSCRN is running in the command line (CL -non-resident) mode, and it finds one of the trigger strings, it sets the DOS ERRORLEVEL to 0 (zero) , else if it is not found, it will be set to 1 (one). In either TSR or CL mode, after finding the trigger string, an optional window may pop up with the user's message. Different types of beeps may be associated with the window, including the ability to control an external parallel port device. After pressing any key to clear the window, optional keystrokes may be automatically sent to the foreground program (TSR mode only). IFWAIT.EXE Controls a speaker and/or parallel port device including the TNT IFBUZZ buzzer device. Makes the speaker and/or device buzz or beep so that you can add buzzer indications to your batch files. Great for batch files that need loud buzzing noises to attract your attention back to the PC. PARKHEAD.EXE Parks up to 2 hard (fixed) disk's heads over the disk's shipping area where user data doesn't reside. Runs on IBM PC/286/386/486/pentium and most compatible clones. One of the first head parkers ever written. PDEL.EXE PERMANENTLY deletes with verification, your specified filename. You will be prompted to press 'Y'<cr> to delete the specific file. The deleted file can not be recovered. PLAYER.EXE Plays a WAVE or VOC formatted sound file on a Sound Blaster or Sound Blaster Pro or Pro or Audio 16 card. PRTSCRFF.EXE Appends a form-feed (paper eject) command to your printer whenever you press the PrintScreen key. Very useful to keep your printer always at its top-of-form position. For laser printers, this saves you from taking the printer off-line, and pressing the PageEject button. RLIST.EXE Prints a range of lines from a file to the console or printer. Useful to view a portion of a file's contents. RWDIR.EXE Generates a list of non-read-only files. Useful to keep track of the few files on your system that are read-writable since the cautious user will have the majority of his/her files marked as read-only. Certain applications require their files to read-writable so not every file may be set to read-only. SETBEEP.COM Installs itself as a RAM-resident program that will set the beep character's (ASCII decimal 7 or control-G) duration to a user specified value. The default beep tone duration is 1 second which is too long and annoying for many people. The beep can even be disabled to provide for a truly silent PC. This program intercepts BIOS interrupt 10h WRITE_TTY. TUNE4DAY.EXE Plays a voice file(s) upon invocation. TUNE4DAY uses TUNE4DAY.INI to control its operation. It maintains a pointer in this file to control which file(s) it will act upon during its next invocation. It runs a command on this file(s). Even though TUNE4DAY is meant to traverse down a directory of sound files and play the next sequential file(s), it can be used to perform any command on a directory of any type of files. Displays a random saying each time it is run. User can add his/her own 'sayings' to the data file. Package includes pseudo-Murphy's computer laws. Uses TNT's PLAYER program. VDEL.EXE Will delete with verification, files that match your filename specification. You will be prompted to press 'Y' to delete the specific file. 'Read-only' files will prompt you for an additional 'Y' to be deleted. VERS.COM Installs itself as a RAM-resident program that will set the DOS versions to a user specified value. This is useful when running programs that require a specific DOS version for no useful reason. (Many DOS supplemental programs require specific versions for no reason. For example, if you are running DOS 3.1 but like DOS 3.2's ATTRIB.EXE '/S' sub-directory search option, you could set VERS to 3.2, then run ATTRIB and then reset it back to 3.1). TSR lets you set DOS' two versions - the TRUE and FAKE versions that applications may ask for... Works better then SETVER. Fool programs on what version they're running under. You read about this in INFOWORLD! ZDIR.EXE Reports the sizes of files specified in a format appropriate for managing large disks. <eof>