• OverFlow
  • DriverPacks Administrator & BASE Developer
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  • From: Cincinnati
  • Registered: 2006-12-02
  • Posts: 6,730

Topic: November was great!

We had updates for Soundpack A and Mass storage in late November

Mass Storage Pack
Debugger had suggested a workaround for issues where a RAID driver got the upperhand when the chip was set for Base-Mode. The Paths in the pack were shortend to help make Method one more viable and some SI drivers were added - Jaak put a lot of work into this. 

Sound A Pack
mr_smartepants fixed an issue with the soundblaster driver where the Audigy control panel was installed for the Xfi driver. lucky2007 posted this issue and was a HUGE help in testing and providing the fix and getting it resolved - (it's not just 'lucky' it's hard work) HWID's were trimmed from some of the INF's to address driver conflicts. Jaak continued with my vision of keeping method One alive and shortened the paths in Sound A too.  Dolivas, Major, and corytk all helped and deserve a round of applause. Thanks guys, this was a true TEAM effort.

Muiz Released a third party driverpack (3rd party DriverPack) for Monitor that Bons helped with.
Dolivas  Updated the 3rd party DriverPack for modem
Overflow finaly wrote the help file for BartPE Tutorial link

We already have updated packs for December - LAN, Graphics A & B, Sound A & B, and WLAN
Folder structures were optimized for Method 1 by Jaak

Driverpacks is opensource and freeware. Our team members donate their personal time to make this project happen.

Members Like Bâshrat the Sneaky, Helmi, Muiz, Jaak, Overflow, JakeLD, debugger, Chud, Twig123, maxximum, RougeSpear, mr_smartepants, fragbert, Ricktendo64, Ruudboek, TigerC10, Lightsout, McStarfighter, Major, Signet, Dolivas and BigBrit. 

We always need people with access to a variety hardware for our test packs -  If this sounds like you then become a team member and help make DriverPacks all it can be! we need YOU! or as Jaak is fond of saying

                                                      "You need us - We need you"

have a great holiday season and thanks to all. 

---- Jeff Herre AKA OverFlow

and now there is more to the story - and Jaak accuses me of never sleeping....

Dear Gentlebeings,
Jeff mentioned the folder structures are changing to get Method 1 more viable.
When we compared the old Mass storage driverPack with the new one, we found that we had added 14 drivers, and despite that we have been able to shorten Path length by approximately 200 characters.
The additions were actually older driver versions we needed to be able to support several Silicon Image Mass storage chip BIOS versions.

Today, Sound A, Sound B, and Graphics B have all had their folder structures changed as well.
The new structures will take getting used to, I guess.
It is something we wanted to do long ago, and now we are at it..

Jeff also mentioned that we trimmed HWIDs from several INF files in the Sound DriverPacks.
Approximately 2050 duplicated HWIDs were found in Sound A and B.
The testers were patient, and we added some new people to the team.
They earned their place, let me tell you that.
It would not be possible without you.
Thank you for helping us help you.
---Jaak

for those of you who don't know there is a MS path limit on method one of 4096. The path for method one was 6895 last month. Jaak has trimmed that to 6090. That is a total pickup of 805, and a lot of work. My hat is off to you my friend...

Last edited by OverFlow (2007-12-05 17:39:20)

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  • JakeLD
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  • Registered: 2007-07-05
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Re: November was great!

Nice! Keep it up guys!! Chipset needs to be updated now, LAN pack for PE would be really nice too. big_smile

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  • OverFlow
  • DriverPacks Administrator & BASE Developer
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Re: November was great!

hint hint... ;P

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  • Jaak
  • Old Timer Rookie
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  • Registered: 2006-07-23
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Re: November was great!

Dear Gentlebeings,
Jeff mentioned the folder structures are changing to get Method 1 more viable.
When we compared the old Mass storage driverPack with the new one, we found that we had added 14 drivers, and despite that we have been able to shorten Path length with approximately 200 characters.
The additions were (older) driver versions we needed so as to support several Silicon Image Mass storage chip BIOS versions.

Today, Sound A, Sound B, and Graphics B have had folder structure changed as well.
The new structures will take getting used to, I guess.
It was something we wanted to do long ago, and now we are at it..

Jeff also mentioned we trimmed HWIDs from several INF files in the Sound DriverPacks.
Approximately 2050 duplicated HWIDs were found across Sound A and B.
The testers were patient, and we got some new people in the team.
They earned their place, let me tell you that.
It would not be possible without you.
Thank you for helping us help you.

The answer was 42?
Kind regards, Jaak.
  • Jaak
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  • Registered: 2006-07-23
  • Posts: 3,594

Re: November was great!

Jeff? Or Wim? Get coding.

OverFlow once estimated we could trim over 2000 characters out of the path.
We were close to 7000 for all main packs.

Yesterday, I Xperimented a path.
Sad story.. I was down to 4200 in the path, and a raging storm blew my file away.
I got a brownout, and lost work.
(or a spike? who cares.. it was lost.)
I need a good UPs.
I also direly need araxis paid licence to keep helping you..

The answer was 42?
Kind regards, Jaak.
  • OverFlow
  • DriverPacks Administrator & BASE Developer
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Re: November was great!

needing a good oops...?  lol

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  • From: MI - U.S.A.
  • Registered: 2006-05-27
  • Posts: 301

Re: November was great!

Jaak wrote:

Yesterday, I Xperimented a path.
Sad story.. I was down to 4200 in the path, and a raging storm blew my file away.
I got a brownout, and lost work.
(or a spike? who cares.. it was lost.)
I need a good UPs.

Sorry for the setback man... that isn't cool.
UPS's are great, unless you are me...
lol, for 2 years I had my "Big Blue" monster of a PC plugged into my UPS. When power went out.. my Monitor would stay on, but my PC would shut off (I figured that it was a beast and was just taking all of the power.) Anyways, 2 years after getting my UPS I moved... then when hooking my system back up... I was like *DOH* ... only half of the unit was UPS, the other half was just Surge *sigh* you gotta laugh about some things like that though tongue

  • Helmi
  • Moderator & Translator (German)
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  • Registered: 2006-05-27
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Re: November was great!

LOL, haha, nice story smile

In any case, if you're aiming for the cheap man's UPS, simply get a notebook, hook it up to AC but keep the battery in!
That gives you even longer supported running time than a regular UPS (which purpose is only to allow you to save all open documents/work and shut down the system savely) wink

... or you could get yourself an old power generator running on gasoline, probabaly from a hospital or some place.
That way, you can even support your whole home with enough power for some days (depending on your gasoline stockage, of course).
Great for living in rural areas with lots of snow and rain, I guess tongue


PS: I heared nuclide batteries do an excellent job as UPS and are totally free of maintenance, for several thousand years big_smile

Last edited by Helmi (2007-12-14 06:03:27)

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  • Jaak
  • Old Timer Rookie
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  • From: Eeklo, in the East Flanders
  • Registered: 2006-07-23
  • Posts: 3,594

Re: November was great!

nuclears?
LOL tongue

Hi.
I finished TWO experiments today.
One was a method One slipstream, after which I manually edited the path in WINNT.SIF to the shortest possible I could do right now (This job included some file shuffle as well..) , and with all MAIN packs, I got a path of UNDER 3500.
This was tested in VPC2007, and installed fine.

Now, the second succesful experiment.
There are packs I can shuffle a good deal without punishement.
I could put all folders in D\root...
There are Two packs  which don't allow that.
Chipset cannot be shuffled at will. (The intel subfolders break slipstreaming if I rename, or move or delete the folder needed for the specified OS..). Folders have to be in D\C\ or SLIP gets you a CRIT.
ditto for Mass.
Mass storage won't allow me to do what I could do for LAN and WAN.
Again a CRIT.
But... I have packs what work, and I am down to 5109 right after streaming.
After this, it is very easy to replace txt in WINNT.SIF, and then shuffle some files in $OEM$.. and then I get 3391. (Well, that took me three minutes.. I already know what to look for, see.).
This leaves me some headroom.

NOTES;
There are a few ATI folders Erik worked very hard on, and I will undo some shufflework I did there, which would probably bring me up to 3550.

Jeff will get a mail, and I will make the experimental collection available somewhere.
I will also help him to the two packs that stop the slipstream process cold.
He'll need them to test Base code.  smile

wow, M1 will live a full life again for me.

The answer was 42?
Kind regards, Jaak.
  • From: Cambridgeshire, UK
  • Registered: 2007-01-27
  • Posts: 6,226

Re: November was great!

Jaak wrote:

NOTES;
There are a few ATI folders Erik worked very hard on, and I will undo some shufflework I did there, which would probably bring me up to 3550.

The ATI folders can get some work done on them.  I'll have to look into the .cat files to see if the .infs are signed.  If they're signed, there's not much we can do with the folder containing the drivers (i.e. \B34585\,  The others can get worked.  I'll look into it when I'm building the next G_A dp for the ATI 7.12 drivers and nVidia updates in the next week or so.
If I remake the G_A dp, the G_B and G_C will need path/.ini updates as well.  No problem!

10 more shopping-days before Christmas!
Happy holidays everyone!
smile

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  • Jaak
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  • From: Eeklo, in the East Flanders
  • Registered: 2006-07-23
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Re: November was great!

Mass storage updated
http://forum.driverpacks.net/viewtopic.php?id=2236

@ Erik
The Graphics shufflework I showed to Jeff was for method 1 optimizing.
What happens is this.
Folders that have NO INF in them, add empty semicolons in path.
The Path is found in WINNT.SIF.
When I shuffled folder content, I used common sense, and looked at references.

When I did a private experiment, I had a path under 3500 characters with Wlan included, and it worked.
I think we cannot mess up the known structures too far, because that would make the work we have to do on packs very hard on the eyes, but I also believe we should post detail on HOW it can be done.

An example.
Jeff and I have looked at a working chipset pack under 60 Chars. Jeff would not hesitate and code the shufflework. However, I think that is not maintainable because we want to rid ourselves of hardcoded folder references in Base, and he would be coding more than we had before.
Paradox ad nauseam.

The answer was 42?
Kind regards, Jaak.