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New BYOND version, putting finishing touches on virtual PA.c drive letter app

Submitted by GamecraftAdmin on June 14, 2013 - 7:02pm

First things first, there's a new version of BYOND out. It's been out for a few weeks actually but the auto-update function of the previous version never asked to update to it and I hadn't gotten around to manually updating it and uploading the new installer.

I really have no clue where I'm supposed to be putting the new version links to update the directory listing with so I'll just put it here.

http://www.mediafire.com/?dpd6ud2zdd7dh3j
Version: 499.1193
MD5: 7629fdcfe3413f0b70692bb2f161b9f0

In other news, I found a way to easily keep portable app recent file lists accurate without knowing where the list is stored. MS-DOS and by extension Windows has a built in command-line function called SUBST which assigns a drive letter to a specified path.

For example SUBST B: I:/ would create a new drive "B:" with exactly the same contents as "I:".

I also found a Freeware GUI for this function called VSubst. On it's own it's already portable, storing all it's settings in a .INI file in the same folder as itself, so it was pretty simple to create a PA.c wrapper for it. I've been using it myself for a while to assign my flash drive to mirror as the B: drive with no issues, as soon as I contact the person who made it I'll put it up on the Beta Testing board.

Comments

John T. Haller's picture

SUBST requires rights that most folks don't have when logged in as a limited user. So we replace the paths in the app's settings/preferences files to ensure everything keeps working.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

I'm pretty sure it doesn't require any advanced access rights, I'll log into one of my guest accounts to test it in a bit.

I need to change my notification settings so I'll know when I get responses to these...

John T. Haller's picture

You also can't rely on a specific drive letter being available as people map all kinds of letters to all kinds of things.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Well, the B: drive will usually be available because Windows will only auto-map floppy drives to either A: or B: and nowadays IF a computer has a floppy drive there's only one so B: is still empty. In fact when I map my 8GB USB drive to B: it shows up as being a floppy drive, functions as a USB drive as usual but is named Floppy Drive and has the floppy drive icon.

EDIT: Just tested it using command line instead of the GUI app, SUBST works perfectly fine on limited user names.

John T. Haller's picture

Either way, it's still not permitted in official apps (or apps attempting to become official) due to the collisions issue. I've seen systems where people already had things mapped to A through Z including B. And I've seen corporate installations with SUBST locked out. There's no guarantee it'll work.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Oh it works just fine. I'm just not allowed to get it put into the database/app listings.

Perhaps I'll upload it to Mediafire and put a link to it here in my blog, assuming that's OK with admins who don't want it in the official app listings.