Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ms-windows Path: network.ucsd.edu!ames!agate!apple.com!claris.com!szebra!tin From: cbmsw@Saigon.COM Subject: v6inf08: cbmsw.faq (part 01/01), Informational Posting Message-ID: Followup-To: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d Keywords: cbmsw info Sender: tin@saigon.com Organization: SZebra - Saigon.COM (VietNet Archive) Data:1-408-730-1092 Date: Thu, 6 Jan 1994 06:47:32 GMT Approved: tin@saigon.com (Moderator, Tin Le - comp.binaries.ms-windows) Lines: 353 X-Comment: Anonymous FTP archive located at wuarchive.wustl.edu X-Comment: in directory /usenet/comp.binaries.ms-windows X-Comment: MailServer at mailserv@Saigon.COM Checksum: 1580090760 (Verify with "brik -cv") X-Submissions-to: cbmsw@saigon.com X-Questions-to: cbmsw-request@saigon.com Posting-number: Volume 6, Issue inf08 Archive-name: ms-windows/admin/cbmsw.faq $Author: cbmsw $ $Header: /usr4/cbw/doc/RCS/cbmsw.faq,v 1.3 1994/01/06 05:56:59 cbmsw Exp cbmsw $ wuarchive.wustl.edu:/pub/comp.binaries.ms-windows/cbmsw.faq CBMSW FAQ PLEASE READ THIS FAQ FIRST BEFORE YOU POST QUESTIONS TO CBMSW: ================================================================== 1) What is the purpose of comp.binaries.ms-windows newsgroup? 2) How do I obtain files posted to it? 2a) Using FTP. 2b) Using a Mail Server. 3) Something is wrong with the .zip (.zoo) etc package I downloaded. 4) How do I submit a file for posting? 5) Why is non MS Windows binaries posted to this newsgroup? 6) What is WIN32, WIN32S (and WIN32S.DLL)? 7) How do I get only the missing parts of a posted file? e.g. v4i14? 8) What is VBRUN100.DLL (VBRUN200.DLL and VBRUN300.DLL)? 9) .......more to be added; send in your questions (_and_ answers if you know). ................................................................... -1-: ***** Q: What is the purpose of comp.binaries.ms-windows newsgroup? A: Here is the original charter for CBMSW This is the charter of comp.binaries.ms-windows newsgroup. The group was created on Jan 1st, 1993 for the following purpose. PURPOSE: Distribution of applications and device drivers for the Microsoft Windows operating system, including Windows 3.x, Windows for Workgroups, Windows NT and Windows for Pen Computing. Drivers, product patches, shareware, demos and binaries containing source code may be posted if they are, in the judgement of the moderator, beneficial to the audience of the newsgroup and do not appear to violate copyright laws. STATUS: Moderated; moderator is Tin Le . REQUESTS All requests and questions should go to cbmsw-request@saigon.com CBMSW ARCHIVE Currently, the main archive will be hosted at wuarchive.wustl.edu This may change in the future. DISCUSSIONS All followup discussions about binaries posted on CBMSW are pointed to comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d at the moment. This also is subject to change in the future, if traffic warrants its own newsgroup. WHAT TO SUBMIT Programs that are of general use or interest to many people are good submissions. Programs that would only be useful to a select group of people would not be ideal, because of the method of distribution and costs involved. HOW TO SUBMIT Submissions can be packed with any major archiver, but I prefer that they be submitted in either zoo or zip format. However, avoid send self-extracting archives. There are two ways to submit, via e-mail or ftp. By e-mail: The submission should be sent in UUencoded format to the address "cbmsw@saigon.com". Programs which when encoded are larger than 60k in size should be split and e-mailed as separate parts. the subject of the submission should be of the form: Subject: progname (part XX/XX) description Where progname should be the program identifier, such as the name of the zoo or zip file, without the zoo or zip at the end. If there is only one part, still include the (part XX/XX) section, and use 01 for both of the XX's. part01 should also contain a good description of the program before the beginning of uuencoded text. By ftp: Submissions can be uploaded to the system wuarchive.wustl.edu (currently xxx.xx.xxx.x, but use the name if you can, as it moves around) into the directory cbmsw-submit. Once the transfer is completed, _immediately_ send e-mail to cbmsw@saigon.com, telling me what name it was under and what it is (good descriptions help), with "FTP:" being the first thing in the Subject. ------------------------------------------- -2-: ***** Q: How do I obtain files posted to it? 2A: There are several methods. The simplest is to use anonymous ftp to retrieve the complete file. All files posted to CBMSW are archived on wuarchive.wustl.edu. Please observe usage restriction. The CBMSW files are located in /usenet/comp.binaries.ms-windows. Login as anonymous, password is your email address. Here is a short example: $ ftp wuarchive.wustl.edu Connected to wuarchive.wustl.edu. 220 wuarchive.wustl.EDU FTP server (Version 2.0WU(14) Fri Apr 9 13:34:10 PDT 1993) ready. Name (wuarchive:cbmsw): anonymous 331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password. Password: cbmsw@saigon.com 230- 230- Welcome to Wuarchive.wustl.EDU !!!! 230- 230- This is an experimental FTP server. If your FTP client crashes or 230- hangs shortly after login please try using a dash (-) as the first 230- character of your password. This will turn off the informational 230- messages that may be confusing your FTP client. 230- 2B. The second method is through a ftp by mail service. DEC Western Research Lab offer such a service. Please observe their usage rules. Send email to ftpmail@inet-gw-2.pa.dec.com with the word help in your message for instruction. You may now also use the mailserver available at Saigon.COM. This only contains the actual posted articles. It does not contain the ZIP or ZOO files. Send email to mailserv@Saigon.COM with the following in your message: begin mail cwd CBMSW get index end ------------------------------------------- -3-: ***** Q: Something is wrong with the *.zip (*.zoo) etc package I downloaded. A: Make sure you downloaded using the binary mode. If you are using FTP, set file type to binary _before_ downloading. The same applies if you are using a modem communication program. All posted parts have checksum values. Make sure each parts still have the correct checksum. Another possible problem is that your ZOO or UNZIP extract program maybe one version behind. Make sure you have version 2.10 for ZOO and version 2.04g or better for PKUNZIP. ------------------------------------------- -4-: ***** Q: How do I submit a file for posting? A: WHAT TO SUBMIT Programs that are of general use or interest to many people are good submissions. Programs that would only be useful to a select group of people would not be ideal, because of the method of distribution and costs involved. HOW TO SUBMIT Submissions can be packed with any major archiver, but I prefer that they be submitted in either ZOO or ZIP format. However, avoid sending self-extracting archives (otherwise I will have to spend time repackaging the archive). SIDE NOTE: The reasons self-extracting archives is not allowed are: 1. They add an extra 10-12K in size, multiply that by the number of nodes in Usenet and we have a lot of excess bytes to xfer around and wasting net bandwidth. 2. Most people know what PKZIP is, they have it, or can get a copy. There are two ways to submit, via EMAIL or FTP. By EMAIL: The submission should be sent in UUencoded format to the address "cbmsw@saigon.com". Programs which when encoded are larger than 60k in size should be split and e-mailed as separate parts. the subject of the submission should be of the form: Subject: progname (part XX/XX) description Where progname should be the program identifier, such as the name of the zoo or zip file, without the zoo or zip at the end. If there is only one part, still include the (part XX/XX) section, and use 01 for both of the XX's. part01 MUST contain a good description of the program before the beginning of uuencoded text. By ftp: Submissions can be uploaded to the system wuarchive.wustl.edu (currently xxx.xx.xxx.x, but use the name if you can, as it moves around) into the directory cbmsw-submit. Once the transfer is completed, _immediately_ send e-mail to cbmsw@saigon.com, telling me what name it was under and what it is (good descriptions help), with "FTP:" being the first thing in the Subject. POSTING POLICIES All submissions are rigorously checked by me using the latest available virus scanners, and checked to see if they work as advertised. Naturally, not all combinations of hardware and software configurations can be checked, so it is possible for a posted program not to work in some cases, and it is possible that a virus program may escape detection. Use the posted programs at your own risk - I accept no responsibility. Anything that is of interest will be posted. Utilities are usually considered to most useful. Games will be posted as well, but utilities get top billing. Please make an effort to insure that what you have is the latest version. Out-of-date programs slow down the process. PROCESSING Generally, things are tested in order,and posted in the same order they arrive. However, some programs may have special requirements which all the testers might not be able to meet, so testing may be delayed. Updates to previous programs which had possibly dangerous bugs will go out more quickly. Extremely important packages, such as virus protection software, will be posted almost immediately after verification. All postings will be posted in either ZOO 2.10 or PKZIP 2.04g format. This will require ZOO 2.10 or PKZIP 2.04g (or UNZIP 5.0) or better or BOOZ 2.0 to extract the posting. Possible exceptions would be the posting of other archivers in self-extracting format, or programs using the authentication routines of the archiver. All parts of a posting will contain a brik checksum for verification, and the first part will contain BSD checksums for all parts and the resulting file. All parts are compatible with the combine shell script for decoding the parts. QUESTIONS Questions should be referred to cbmsw-request@saigon.com REPOSTS Parts will be reposted only if a large number of sites is missing the part or there was some corruption of the post. I will _NOT_ repost a part because one or two people didn't get it, nor will I e-mail the part. parts are available via anonymous ftp from wuarchive.wustl.edu in directory /usenet/comp.binaries.ms-windows. ------------------------------------------- -5-: ***** Q: Why is non MS Windows binaries posted to this newsgroup? Or Why is NT binaries posted to this newsgroup? A: Because the charter for CBMSW allows all MS Windows and related software. NT contains a superset of MS Windows API (WIN32). Someday, the traffic maybe large enough to warrant splitting CBMSW into subgroups (i.e. comp.binaries.ms-windows.nt, comp.binaries.ms-windows.pen, and so on). Until that time arrives, binaries for related software will be posted to CBMSW. If you feel strongly about splitting the news group now, you are welcome to start the Call For Discussion (CFD) and Call For Vote (CFV) process. I will be happy to give you supports and even be willing to moderate the new groups. I just do not have time at the moment to go through the CFD/CFV process. ------------------------------------------- -6-: ***** Q: What is WIN32, WIN32S (and WIN32S.DLL)? A: Basically, WIN32 is Windows 32 NT API. It is a 32bit API that is a superset of the MS Windows 3.X API. WIN32s is a scaled down subset of WIN32 that will run on Windows (but without the features that NT supports, e.g. threads, beziers, etc.). WIN32S.DLL is a DLL for Windows 3.X that add supports for WIN32s. ------------------------------------------- -7-: ***** Q: How do I get only the missing parts of a posted file? e.g. v4i14? A: All files posted to CBMSW are archived on wuarchive.wustl.edu in both ZIP (or ZOO) format, plus as the way they were posted. That is, as individual parts, e.g. v4i14 v4i15 and so on... The location of the posted articles are /usenet/comp.binaries.ms-windows/vN/posted/vNiM.Z where N = volume number and M = article number within that volume. So for pfe00409 v4i14, you would get it from /usenet/comp.binaries.ms-windows/v4/posted/v4i14.Z They are in compressed format. If you forgot which parts and which volume, get the index file. The index files are located in /usenet/comp.binaries.ms-windows/vN.idx Where N = volume number. So index for volume 4 is v4.idx ------------------------------------------- -8-: ***** Q: What is VBRUN100.DLL (VBRUN200.DLL and VBRUN300.DLL)? A: VBRUNX00.DLL is a Visual Basic Runtime DLL (Dynamic Link Library). Where X00 is version 1.00 (100) or 2.00 (200) and 3.00 (300). Programs written in Visual Basic will almost always require the runtime library. Some packages include the DLL, some do not. At one point in time, Microsoft publicly stated that you can not distribute VBRUN as it is copyrighted by Microsoft and you have to get written permission to distribute it with your application. They might have changed their mind by now, but I advise you check with Microsoft first. I believe Microsoft allows VBRUN to be distributed freely now, as it is easily found on numerous MSDOS archive sites. You can find all 3 versions of VBRUN.DLL on wuarchive.wustl.edu in the directory: /systems/ibmpc/msdos/basic .