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Free Stuff |
Here, we offer a mixed bag of free software, some of our own making and others that we have come across in over 15 years of cyber travel. Visit regularly, as we shall be adding to this list. Enjoy, and help yourself to seconds!
Note: Many programs listed here have names that begin with P6. This refers to P6 Consulting, the trade name that we used from 1993 through September 2005, and to the Six P’s that frame significant aspects of our company philosophy, henceforth known as The WizaarWrx Way.
The 2007 Time Zone Fixup is the only program of its kind (so far as we are aware) that can fix the Daylight Saving settings on all versions of Microsoft Windows, from Windows 95 onwards.
If your computers run Microsoft Windows XP, all you need to do is run the latest critical updates from Microsoft, at http://update.microssoft.com. Everyone else has two choices.
Since our program supports all versions of Windows, it is safe to use, and it won't harm anything to update the time zone information twize. We did so dozens of times while testing this program.
To find your Windows version, choose the About Windows option from the help menu in Windows Explorer or My Computer.
These are from others, as they are not the sort of program we create. But we enjoy using them.
This stress reducer came to us courtesy of a wonderful GI doctor from India. Download it, run it, and feel the stress melt away.
We have two versions of a nifty magnifying glass program that sits in your task tray until you need it to magnify the tiny print on that legal document you've been asked to sign, or just for fun. Not really a toy, but you will enjoy using it. Pick your version; we like both of them.
These tools were developed for internal use. Though all are simple to use and would be useful without a manual, we have prepared small one-page HTML documents to explain and illustrate how to use each program. The links below show you the actual documentation that comes with each program. At the bottom of each page is a download link.
Shameless Plug: Some of these tools were created using WinBatch, the Windows Interface Language, from Wilson WindowWare. We have been using WinBatch off and on since we first saw it at Windows World in 1992 or so. The rest were created using other programming tools, including Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 and Visual C# 2005, and ActivePerl. These are three of the many tools that we use to make computers do magical things. Ask us how we can make some special magic for you.
CONC@DE.EXE, formerly CONCATDE.EXE, is a little MS-DOS utility that we wrote 16 years ago to solve a problem for a client. The client still uses it today for its original purpose, and to do new jobs that we did not anticipate when we created it, and we use it internally for its original purpose.
Though it is a DOS program and is blissfully unaware of modern file systems, CONC@DE.EXE runs happily on modern hardware and operating systems. We and the client for whom we wrote it have run it on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT Workstation 4.0, Windows 2000 Professional, and Windows XP Professional.
While we have no plans to upgrade the DOS version, we have a Perl script that performs the same function in a 32 bit character mode environment, and we have considered writing a 32 bit Windows version for sale at a small price.
DOSTOOLS, is a collection of little MS-DOS utility programs that we wrote in 1990
to make our batch files work better, a Windows NT command file that demonstrates two of
them, and a Visual Basic Script that shows how to pause a VBScript progrm, running in
CSCRIPT.EXE, so that a user can read its output.
Our clients still use the DOS programs today, and we use them internally.
Though these DOS program are blissfully unaware of modern file systems, they run happily on modern hardware and operating systems. We and our clients have run them on Windows 3.1x, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT Workstation 4.0, Windows 2000 Professional, and Windows XP Professional.
While we have no plans to upgrade these DOS programs, we expect to continue to use them indefinitely.
pEnumConfigRecs is a little DQL procedure that I threw together for the benefit of one of my few remaining DataEase users. This DQL procedure exports all the configuration records, a task that cannot be accomplished using an ordinary DQL procedure and is poorly documented. The package includes sample output and an installation command file, so that you can quickly install it into an existing application.
MD5WIN is a graphical Windows program for computing and comparing MD5 digests. It is available in source and object form on this page.
MD5Digest is a dynamic link library for computing MD5 digests. It is available in source and object form on this page, under the Lesser GPL. The latest version, posted 25 October 2008, incorporates full support for Unicode text strings, and calling from pure Unicode applications.
In addition, the new version includes several performance improvements, especially in the
handling of big input files, improved error reporting, and much more complete user and
technical documentation. As a bonus, one of the test harness and demonstration programs,
WWStatPlus.EXE is a utility program that compiles the MD5 digests, along with
comprehensive directory information, into a tab delimited text file, which you can open
directly into Microsoft Excel.
P6_EnumFormFlds began life in 2003 as part of a project to create a data driven forms processor for use on the Web sites that we develop for our clients. It reads a standard HTML document and creates a standard XML document that fully documents the form and its input controls (widgets).
P6_FixLineEndings is a Perl script that lets you change the line endings of a text file from the command line or interactively. It can be launched from the Windows Explorer context menu to process a selected file.
Is you desktop cluttered with duplicate application windows that you opened, only to have their windows hidden by other applications? Have multiple instances of a program caused data corruption? Stop the insanity! Give your Windows programs a dose of P6Just1 today.
Read more about P6Just1 and download your free trial copy to protect your data from corruption.
This is a collection of useful Perl scripts that we offer, both as free tools for your use and as a demonstration of the kind and quality of software that we create for our paying clients. Since we expect to add to this page from time to time, you should check periodically for new scripts.
On 06 March 2005, we added P6TrimText.pl, a script that we created
last week to help us banish unwanted blank lines and trailing blank spaces from the text
files that we generate and use. This little program fills a need that we have had for many
years.
P6PickWindow lets you capture a window caption (title) from a list of all active windows, both visible and hidden, on your machine. We use it to capture captions that contain two or more spaces and other weird characters. The captions can be pasted into your favorite programmer's editor and used to call Windows API functions that require a window title. It is also useful for developing accurate documentation.
P6_RenameFile_NWFS.EXE works around a limitation that prevents you from renaming a file on a NetWare volume when the only difference between the old name and the new name is capitalization of one or more letters. Though it is a Windows program, it accepts one or both of its arguments from the command line. This means that you can call it from another script or program or interactively from the shell. See the documentation for more details.
P6CryptAES is an easy to use implementation of the industry standard AES (Rijndael) encryption algorithm, based on the published work of Dr Brian Gladman, a world renowned expert on the algorithm. The binary distribution includes examples and sample code, showing how the library is used in C, Visual Basic, VBA, and WinBatch code. The library is distributed in source and binary forms under the GNU Lesser GPL.
P6srwin began life in 2000 as both a learning exercise and a tool to fill a serious internal need for a fast, flexible program to perform find and replace operations on whole forests of files. It has evolved over the last three years into its current incredibly powerful and adaptable form.
Uses for P6srwin.pl are pretty much limited by your imagination. Here are a few
to get you started.
You say you don't know Perl, or even have it installed? Perl is a very widely used and readily available scripting language. If you haven't used Perl yet and you are a programmer, you just might discover a new language to love. Roughly one third of the code we currently write is in Perl. If you are not a programmer, you can still make good use of this script, and possibly Perl itself. If you can install a program onto Microsoft Windows, you can install and run Perl scripts, of which there are many freely available at http://www.cpan.org and many other Web sites.
P6StrLen is a special purpose calculator for calculating string lengths. Among the uses we have found for it are the following.
We have learned that imaginative users will find more uses than we imagined for
our code. We'd love to learn how you use P6StrLen.
The new version requires the Microsoft .NET Framework. Please see the
P6StrLen information page, at the link above, for complete details.
P6_Perl_Libs.ZIP is a collection of modules that that we use for the Perl scripts that we write and run on the Win32 platform. Check periodically, as we regularly add and improve them.
Note: Though we created these scripts for use on Windows machines, all but one of them will run on any platform that supports Perl.
Unix and Linux Users, this version contains a new function that creates generation data groups with a single function call.
SafeReg.zip is a one-line Registry hack that makes .REG files
safer to process, by changing the default action from Merge to Edit.
The Zip file contains a very clear explanation by James A. Eshelman, who
created the .REG file.
The MD5 digest of this file is a256bc39ab073ac63a35b1ce8b9b6bf2. You
can use MD5WIN to verify the MD5 digest of this
and other files.
Our new Shockwave Version Checker quickly tells you whether you have a Flash (Shockwave) player installed. If you have one, it also shows its version. Read more and get your copy here.
USERFORM.EXE is a self-extracting version of UserForm.ZIP, available at
http://www.kingstonco.com/Downloads.htm and elsewhere. However, since this one is
self contained, it can be distributed to machines that may not have PKUNZIP.EXE
installed. Install it into your DataEase program directory and insert
USERFORM.EXE -O (That is, a hyphen followed by a letter "O" for
overwrite.) into your DataEase batch file just ahead of your DE16M.EXE
command.
Download USERFORM.EXE.
The MD5 digest of the above file is c4fcc5678067ddbfc34dac595b8be18f and the
MD5 digest of the enclosed USERFORM.DBS is 665b97cdd9870190a0c1753226604723
and that file is dated Monday, June 01, 1992, 03:14:16 and contains 1,436 bytes.
You can use my free MD5WIN utility, available here, or any other MD5 digest calculator to verify the above MD5 digests. We strongly urge you to do so before you put this file into production.
Zip archive WB2HTML.zip is clean, tested, pure WinBatch source file of Detlev
Dalitz' excellent and popular WinBatch script WB2HTML.WBT for creating
colorized HTML text from WinBatch scripts. We provide a copy here to save others the work
we did to clean up the colorized version on his Web site, which, unlike the functions
posted there, was unavailable in raw form.
Download WB2HTML.zip or visit this page to learn more.
WinDummy lets you test batch scripts without running all the actual programs. You substitute WinDummy.EXE for the real program, changing its name and location to correspond to the expected location of the real program. When the script calls the substitute program, a message box displays, showing you the program name and all the command line parameters, just as the real program would see them.
New Version! On 03 April 2006, we released version 2, 0, 0, 1, a complete rewrite, in the C programming language, that is fully self contained. This new version is much easier to use for testing, and includes additional command line parsing intelligence.
On 05 April 2006, we released version 2, 0, 0, 2, a minor update that fixed a problem that prevented the program icon from appearing in the task list. This change required the addition of a hidden, do-nothing window. Its whole job is to own the message box that displays the program output.
WWLOGGER is a console mode, or command line, program that records batch file and script activity, with time stamps, in a text file. Its uses include recording the steps completed by a long batch file or other script that runs unattended. Among its many features are the following.
WWSLEEP is a console mode, or command line, program that pausea a batch script
(a .BAT or .CMD file) for up to a specified number of seconds,
to give its user time to read its output. Unlike its ancient companion,
P6PAUSE.COM, which waits indefinitely, this program waits no more than a set
number of seconds. Called without parameters, the wait time is 30 seconds. CTRL-C
and CTRL-BREAK can be used to stop the countdown, and continue with the next
step or abort the batch file.
WWSimStatus complements the testing capabilities of WinDummy by giving you a way to easily and safely test the behavior of a script or other program when a program that it calls returns a nonzero status code. This is a great way to exercise exception handling code in a script or program, without suffering the actual exception.
When called by your test script or other program, WWSimStatus displays a message box, showing the status code that it is about to simulate. When you dismiss the dialog box, the program exits, returing that status code, allowing you to observe the behavior of the script or program that called it.
Note: On 06 April 2006, we released version 1, 0, 0, 2, a minor update to correct the text shown in the window caption. The program worked fine, but showed its ancestry by displaying "WinDummy" in its message boxes.
xpicons.zip is a comprehensive collection of Windows Icon (.ICO)
files for all the commonly used Windows widgets. The collection of 145 files contains
icons for everything from folders to the dreaded Critical Stop icon, seen on
message boxes.
Thanks to fellow Winbatch colleague Stan Littlefield for this collection.
The MD5 digest of this file is 351c4ea01af571dbad6735369490b567. You
can use MD5WIN to verify the MD5 digest of this
and other files.
Last Updated 29 October 2008
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