Database Users

WM5 / XP System Restore Theory.

I just noticed, i was looking through the windows folder and i found the filed i wanted to rename to force it to fail loading for a test,
using resco i cleared the readonly flag.
i renamed the file
within 2 seconds the screen refreshed and the original file was there again aswell as the renamed one.
this is similar to xp's prefetch where you can delete system specific files and it will replace them itself, in theory delete the windows folder and it will rebuild itself back to a working system, i went through it on a W2003 Advanced Server course aswell.
if this repairing action could be halted, it would open the devices modding capabilities somewhat.

This is NOT prefetch.
Prefetch is when windows loads some programs into ram ready to run them at boot time. This means its quicker to run word etc when you choose it, so booting takes longer and running word is quicker.
and in theory, if you delete the windows folder, it will be deleted and windows will quickly crash, and not boot again.
It does NOT have the power to re-create copies of deleted files from nowhere!
This magical self generation of windows files is not taught on "W2003 Advanced Server course" or any other, I suggest you ask for your money back.

cool
Pyrofer, thanx for the well needed humour, u made me laugh with your comments.

You are thinking about the System File Checker thingy. On Windows (not on WM5) there is a directory with a copy of all the system files. If you replace or delete a system file then windows picks up on it and restores the file. As Pyrofer said, its not magical and its not prefetch
Paul

Pyrofer, I think you should get some facts straight before typing,
as a test for me, check you got system restore running, go into your windows installation folder and MOVE notepad.exe to somewhere else, low and behold notepad.exe reappears in the windows installation folder.
http://www.theeldergeek.com/system_volume_information_folder1.htm
That link may educate you a little more
or this one
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309531
have you been on any computer courses, maybe you should, as its obvious you know very little about modern operating systems, I may have got the prefetch incorrectly named and should have been clearly explained to the now obvious non technical network engineer, but atleast i know what the systems are capable of.
If WM5 is using the extended_rom as the system restore like and this can be stopped, alot of tidying up from the windows folder will make more ram avaliable
This magical self generation of windows files is not taught on "W2003 Advanced Server course" or any other, I suggest you ask for your money back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you done the course? maybe you should and you'll find out yourself that windows is more capable than you think.
GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT BEFORE SHOOTING PEOPLE DOWN IN FLAMES TW4T

System Restore / System Volume Information has nothing to do with the system file protection feature you are describing. They are 2 entirely seperate things. The feature you are actually taking about is described here;
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=222193
WM5 does not have either of these features, the extended rom only contains OEM cab files and operator settings, WM5 has no advanced features like this at all.
There are a number of possible explanations, rom files cannot be deleted, but some can be masked by another file of the same name, you can then delete or rename the 2nd file exposing the 1st file in rom. I have seen this behaviour in WM2003.
Paul

thanks psneddon, thats the system i was trying to find the name of, if that can be stopped from happening.

Thanks for having a go at my knowledge, its always nice to see that you did exactly what you accused me of...
"System Restore / System Volume Information has nothing to do with the system file protection feature you are describing. They are 2 entirely seperate things"
And you agreed with this comment, ie, admitted that in your correction of your post, where you slagged me off, you still got it wrong.
So, in two posts you got them both wrong, in my post i stated a list of correct facts. I never said there was no feature to restore wnidows files, i said that it wasnt prefetch and it wasnt.
ALso, I wasnt "BEFORE SHOOTING PEOPLE DOWN IN FLAMES " and using all caps to shout, I was simply trying to point out your mistakes in a humerous way, obviously my humour went over your head.
I didnt flame you, or call you a twat.
Im sorry if I managed to offend you and understand that humour is a very subjective thing, at least one person here got the joke, so lets just end it here please.

I accept your apology, maybe some smileys around the humor parts would help me a little :lol: and maybe i did fly off the handle a little after nearlly getting killed on my way to work this morning. :roll:
WFP ( Windows File Protection ) does exist, ive now researched into it a little and its been around for a while, and you can delete the contents of the windows folder or system32 and it will replace it all (windows o/s related anyway).
What i was implying was that the universal could be using a similar system to this, ie, getting missing files from the rom and putting them back, and like WFP, this comes with an overhead on performance as it has to continually monitor specific folders for the changes.
I know replacing a file with a blank renamed file blocks this from happening but this can cause issues down the line, like replacing the imate today skins, yer renaming txt files and replacing them stops them from being recreated, but you can still choose them in the today skin manager.
Anyway i've had enough caffine now, lets get the Univeral up to the standards that the advertising led us to believe.

lockdown application - development

Hello all,
first let me say I love this site , and if it wasn't for these forums then I never would have been able to do the following...
secondly, let me also say that I am no means a coder- but more of a graphic artist as such I am sure the following application could be written better...so I am offering the source code and graphics in case anyone wants to develop it further...personally I would like to have been able to make it landscapable as well as read the 'password' and the program to block from a config or .ini file..as it is now the password is embedded within the actual .exe.
I know there is development of a similar app (much better probably too)but I figured I would share what I have and hopefully it might grow into something better.
.zip file contains the folder with my vs2008 project/source code
a folder with all the graphics I used (as well as layered .psd files for artists to manipulate further)
and lastly the actual .exe and 3 .wavs used in the application..
because I am new to this if you want to try the application out you must place it on your storage card in a folder called Lockdown in 'Program Files'
thus: Storage Card\Program Files\Lockdown
please let me know what you think (even though I dread the inevitable.."you could have done all that with just these 2 lines of code"...but its a learning experience for me and I am thrilled to have been able to get this far with it.
the PASSWORD to unlock SMS messages is : 1-7-9-3 then hit 'OK'
thank you:

[Q] Duplicate file in file system: cannot remove either. Video included

Hello,
Earlier today, I copied a file named AVATOR.PNG into the \Windows folder of my HTC Touch HD (running Grzegorz10s custom Dusk ROM). The file was meant to replace an existing Avator.png file. (The graphics file is part of a skinned Manila 2.5 installation, but that's beside the point.) I ended up with two separate files in \Windows; one named AVATOR.PNG and the other named Avator.png.
At this point, I can't remove either file, nor can I change their file properties. A few days ago (before doing a task 29 and reflashing the ROM to improve device performance), I could replace the packaged file without problem. The procedure at that time was simply to stop HTC Sense from the list of Home Screen items, remove the read only attribute of Avator.png, and overwrite it with another graphic with the same name.
This time, I apparently didn't pay enough attention to upper and lower case characters.... To view the symptoms and issue, please refer to this YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMQkgENs0DA
Can anybody help me out? I could always reflash the ROM but it seems like too much work for something this "simple."
Thanks,
Svein

ok, you already wrote, you will care for case sentitivity next time, so no lecturing there
these might sound stupid, but have you tried, either renaming AVATOR.png (the one you copied there, if i'm not mistaking) to Avator.png (should either ask to overwrite or at least give another error) or something completely unrelated (to get rid of the conflict)?
can you maybe move that file to, say, my documents\ and delete it there?
the only other things, that would come to mind would be to write a script to delete that one file and run it in startup, before anything else starts, or in a UC environment, where also nearly everything else is stopped, but to be honest, you should rather perform a hard reset, much faster.

Chef_Tony said:
ok, you already wrote, you will care for case sentitivity next time, so no lecturing there
these might sound stupid, but have you tried, either renaming AVATOR.png (the one you copied there, if i'm not mistaking) to Avator.png (should either ask to overwrite or at least give another error) or something completely unrelated (to get rid of the conflict)?
can you maybe move that file to, say, my documents\ and delete it there?
the only other things, that would come to mind would be to write a script to delete that one file and run it in startup, before anything else starts, or in a UC environment, where also nearly everything else is stopped, but to be honest, you should rather perform a hard reset, much faster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, Tony. Yeah, the case sensitivity is a given - my bad. And I will likely opt for a hard reset. I had *really* looked forward to not having to reconfigure my device again, now that I finally found a ROM that I thoroughly enjoy, but alas... The files are locked (can't move, delete, or change attributes no matter what...)
Googled "UC environment" with both HTC and windows mobile as keywords and came up with Unified Communication. Is that the right way to go or did I just blow my cover and will get tossed outta here as the functional, non-techie user that I just professed to be?

by UC, i was referring to the automatic customizations (formerly known as EXTROM), run after a hard reset or through an automatic installer integrated in many roms, i saw it as XDA_UC or Cloudy AutoInstall. Because the purpose of these automatic customizations are to install settings (mms, internet) or skins and wallpapers, usually done by your carrier, when running this setup, all connections are cut, all apps are shut down and only a basic windows mobile is running (also sense is shut down).
these autoinstallers can use cab or xml or mortscript files, but setting up a mortscript to try and delete a file, when you've never done it before, probably takes longer than hard resetting and setting up your device again. yet, you can make use of autoinstallers to get all your programs up and running, sync with myphone, and all that is left to do is make some basic settings like owner information. usually that should take less than an hour, that way, being much faster than searching solutions for several days

This software worked for me - dublicatefilesdeleter.com

[Q] .DATA Files in WP8 Isolated Storage

Hello - I'm doing some security testing on a WP8 application. The isolated storage has a bunch of .DATA files. If I try and view these in notepad ++ it is gibberish. Any ideas on how to view the contents of these files? I'm assuming they are database files.

OK, first of all, you already asked this in another thread. DON'T DO THAT.
Without knowing what the app in question is - which I don't really expect you to tell me - I can't much help you. I assume this is a blackbox assessment, or you'd have checked the source code. If the app is managed code, you can try decompiling it (you can try this if it's native code too - IDA Pro supports ARM - but that's obviously more difficult).
The extension .DATA doesn't mean anything. There are only a few common database formats used on WP8, so it might be one of those... but then, it could also be encrypted so even if you figure out the format you'll need the key too. It could just be a flat text file that has been compressed and/or encrypted, for that matter. You could try checking the file for magic numbers, either manually using a hex editor or by checking the file using libmagic (on *nix systems, /bin/file is usually a front-end to libmagic and should be able to tell you if the file is, for example, a known compressed format).

GoodDayToDie said:
OK, first of all, you already asked this in another thread. DON'T DO THAT.
Without knowing what the app in question is - which I don't really expect you to tell me - I can't much help you. I assume this is a blackbox assessment, or you'd have checked the source code. If the app is managed code, you can try decompiling it (you can try this if it's native code too - IDA Pro supports ARM - but that's obviously more difficult).
The extension .DATA doesn't mean anything. There are only a few common database formats used on WP8, so it might be one of those... but then, it could also be encrypted so even if you figure out the format you'll need the key too. It could just be a flat text file that has been compressed and/or encrypted, for that matter. You could try checking the file for magic numbers, either manually using a hex editor or by checking the file using libmagic (on *nix systems, /bin/file is usually a front-end to libmagic and should be able to tell you if the file is, for example, a known compressed format).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry about posting in multiple spots. I figured I shouldnt ask multiple questions (diff topics) in one thread so I thought I would do a stand alone. Won't happen again. The vendor has told me that these files are encrypted...but I am also trying to get some more info on what that actually means and what they are doing for key storage.

It's quite likely that the files are encrypted using the data protection API for WP8 apps (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...ity.cryptography.protecteddata(v=vs.105).aspx). From what I've read, that uses 3DES with a key derived from the user (probably meaning app) and system (probably meaning device-specific) identities. The key derivation and management is invisible to the user, though.

[Q] multiple utility files or just one big one?

I'm new to software engineering and android development. I'm curious what I should do in terms of what is done is done in industry. I could either make one generic large utility file, or I could make a bunch of separate utility files with some overlapping functionality. These utility files are for reading and writing json files.
Thanks!

Since you're new - I'd say just go with what seems easiest to wrap your head around. I think it would be best having many smaller files.
Having one large file can get complex when developing; as it's structure gets larger, it becomes harder to wrap your mind around it.
Having many smaller files allows for easier debugging as well, because if you have 10 files, you can say: "Oh, its messing up when reading from file x, so I know file y is good", whereas if you have one large file, you don't know where you've gone wrong. Make sense?
As for best practices in the industry - there's really so many different opinions.
For one, you can use databases instead of files, like SQLite (which is built into android). SQLite is like its own multi-file system (kind of, its actually a "relational database"). Or sometimes you will have a single config file, and then a large data file. Other times you will have hundreds of small files.
In industry, you see all sorts of things as "best practice". You'll learn that "best practice" is an opinion. For now, focus on creating software that works, and worry about weather or not the nitty gritty like this is "best practice" when you're more experienced.
-Brian