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#128879 - 2004-11-03 09:24 PM Re: Kix32.exe is too large, I use an old version.
ciper ciper Fresh Scripter Registered: 2004-11-03 Posts: 36	Ill try crc32.exe, it will help with some other file version checking I have to take care of! Im not doing much in the kix script becuase I have 12 batch files taking 23k in the netlogon share doing the majority of work, plus executables to make up for the missing parts in batch commands. Each of those is serving a different function too, all users in the domain point to the same main script. I want to migrate the function over to kix but it takes alot of time and testing that I havnt found yet. I wonder, is there some way to easily translate a batch file into a kix script automatically? Quote: I store Kix32.exe, crc32.exe, and 70+KB of script code on the client that is executed globally by 35,000 clients daily. I much prefer the added functionality in Kix32 and with it staged locally, I have no issues that site. If you want to see my batch file for launching this it is here: LOGON.BAT (the overkill version) if Kix32.exe or the scripts are altered or otherwise corrupted they will be replaced because they will fail a CRC32 check. If I add updated code on the DC again the locaaly cached files fail the CRC and will be updated. You must not be doing very much with your code if you are elated with 3.21.
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#128880 - 2004-11-03 09:25 PM Re: Kix32.exe is too large, I use an old version.
ciper ciper Fresh Scripter Registered: 2004-11-03 Posts: 36	Ill download a copy of 4.5, as the latest version I have currently 4.22 . Does it matter what compression level you use? Quote: ciper, Have any feeling why upx would be able to compress v4.22 of kix32.exe, but using the exact same commandline, be unable to compress v4.50 of kix32.exe ? Have you seen behavior like this before ? -Shawn
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#128881 - 2004-11-03 09:29 PM Re: Kix32.exe is too large, I use an old version.
Shawn Shawn Administrator Registered: 1999-08-13 Posts: 8611	Didn't really muck with the parms too much, will try it later tonight ... The 4.50 alpha version of Kix32 is not publicly available yet.
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#128882 - 2004-11-03 09:38 PM Re: Kix32.exe is too large, I use an old version.
ciper ciper Fresh Scripter Registered: 2004-11-03 Posts: 36	No wonder I was having a hard time to find it Have you started a thread in the UPX forums that I can join? I was reading the "our happy customers" forum and found that IM client Jabber uses UPX. Do KIX developers read these forums, or is there a better way to contact them? I think it would be great if KIX had UPX compression from the source. Im able to test most things on my own but it would be reassuring if the entire community was there testing it with me along with the author. If you doubt the credability, you may want to visit the first authors web site http://www.oberhumer.com/ Quote: We are involved in a number of projects - doubtlessly the most exciting being the NASA MER project, where we have designed and implemented the lossless on-board data compression module for the NASA Mars Exploration Rovers, better known under the names Spirit and Opportunity.
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#128883 - 2004-11-03 09:49 PM Re: Kix32.exe is too large, I use an old version.
ciper ciper Fresh Scripter Registered: 2004-11-03 Posts: 36	Does a thread exist to explain the extra code needed to support Win9X systems? I dont understand enough about the way kix works to know why. The idea of a lite/stripped version wasnt acceptable then how about a NT/2K/XP only command line version? If this existed, Id run different applications if the machine is XP rather than 2000 and skip if its 9X based. Something like If "%OS%" == "Windows_NT" Goto 2000XP GOTO NOTXP2K :2000XP echo is this windows XP? >> "%temp%\loginsteps.txt" ver > "%temp%\ver.txt" find /I "XP" "%temp%\ver.txt" > nul if %errorlevel% == 2 GOTO OSCHECKBROKE if %errorlevel% == 1 GOTO OSCHECKNOTXP if %errorlevel% == 0 GOTO OSCHECKXP GOTO END I already have in the script to skip past machines that are servers (based on the first two letters of the name) echo Check If server >> "%temp%\loginsteps.txt" if not exist c:\temp\$PosLen.bat copy /Y %logonserver%\netlogon\$PosLen.bat c:\temp call "c:\temp\$poslen.bat" %computername% 0 2 IF %$substring% == US GOTO ISASERVER Poslen is super cool, lets you extract letters from a string at the POSition and LENgth you specify, and it runs without needing any support from an external application. You guys might find a use for it. @echo off setlocal set $substring= if {%1} EQU {} goto end if NOT "%3" GTR "0" goto end set $string=####%1#### set $string=%$string:####"=% set $string=%$string:"####=% if "%$string%" EQU "" goto end set $string=%$string:####=% for /f "Tokens=*" %%i in ('@echo %%$string:~%2^,%3%%') do set $substring=%%i :end endlocal&set $substring=%$substring% REM end $PosLen http://www.jsiinc.com/SUBI/tip4100/rh4191.htm
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#128884 - 2004-11-03 11:29 PM Re: Kix32.exe is too large, I use an old version.
Shawn Shawn Administrator Registered: 1999-08-13 Posts: 8611	I dont think so, but basically to support 9x, Kixtart needs some extra support DLL's, and it needs an RPC service running on the domain controllers ... So kix32.exe has the extra "layers" of code, to talk to the DLL's that talk RPC to the service. Thats my take on it anyways. All this RPC stuff makes up for the fact that lanman services on 9x is domain dumb. (Anybody?)
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#128885 - 2004-11-03 11:41 PM Re: Kix32.exe is too large, I use an old version.
NTDOC NTDOC Administrator Registered: 2000-07-28 Posts: 11624 Loc: CA	I view this as sort of like a Linux/Windows/Mac Holy War so not really much to say. I don't view this as a CRITICAL ISSUE that is impacting CIPER's job or anyone else here that is at least vocal about it. If Ruud picks up on this and wants to go that route, fine, but otherwise I don't see that there is a problem with KiX
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#128886 - 2004-11-03 11:45 PM Re: Kix32.exe is too large, I use an old version.
Shawn Shawn Administrator Registered: 1999-08-13 Posts: 8611	I think he picked-up on it, just taking a different approach ... instead of decreasing the size of kix32.exe, and making the exe "faster", he implemented "tokenizing" and has decreased the size of the scripts, and tokenized scripts run faster... idk
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#128887 - 2004-11-04 12:14 AM Re: Kix32.exe is too large, I use an old version.
ciper ciper Fresh Scripter Registered: 2004-11-03 Posts: 36	NTDOC: I think you have spent too much time arguing on forums. Im just asking for a more streamlined version of KIX, this is the suggestion forum afterall. Is it the "stranger" title next to my name that makes you so harsh? A WIN32 only version of KIX command line and also a "general purpose" version (with 9x support) seems like the obvious step to one day not supporting the older operating system. Once an OS has reached end of life by microsoft most companies will have switched already or have a migration plan in mind. As I remember, Windows 95 released Aug 1995, Windows 98 released Jun 1998. So 95 is over 9 years old and 98 is over 6 years old. Im not saying to get rid of support for the old OS completely, but give the users the option to drop the chunk of code they will never use. Now you could argue that Windows ME was released in december 2000, but Windows 2000 was released BEFORE it. I know of exactly 0 people who run ME on a corporate or home machine other than driver compatibility testing. Is this the CRC32.exe mentioned previously? http://www.kzin.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?/utillc/crc32
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#128888 - 2004-11-04 12:23 AM Re: Kix32.exe is too large, I use an old version.
Shawn Shawn Administrator Registered: 1999-08-13 Posts: 8611	The 9x specific code in kix32 may or may not be sizable, for all we know it's insignificant, but on a more constructive level, if you were to browse through the latest and greatest help (chm) file for Kixtart, and suggest a few functions and features that should be "chopped" from Kixtart (not to be included in a smaller version of Kixtart), what would be on your short-list ? -Shawn
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#128889 - 2004-11-04 12:46 AM Re: Kix32.exe is too large, I use an old version.
Les Les KiX Master Registered: 2001-06-11 Posts: 12734 Loc: fortfrances.on.ca	I will reiterate that KiX should not have any commands/functions removed. I do feel though that Ruud can provide a pared down runtime EXE as per my MakeEXE suggestion, by removing the tokenizer and by the use of compression which he already uses on the tokenized script. If you want a pared down command/function set, stay with the old version you are using now. _________________________ Give a man a fish and he will be back for more. Slap him with a fish and he will go away forever.
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#128890 - 2004-11-04 12:47 AM Re: Kix32.exe is too large, I use an old version.
NTDOC NTDOC Administrator Registered: 2000-07-28 Posts: 11624 Loc: CA	No it's not the title of STRANGER, but yes I would say that I am a little put off by what appears to be your first post on this board. Quote: Not sure I understand the continual increase in size of the KIX executable over time. Are the developers getting lazy on optimization? As I view it, that is a personal attack on the author whom I hold in high regards. Thus I would initially maybe have wanted to attack you back, but I did not. I pointed out (imho) what I felt were the tasks/issues/drawback/time involvment with using a Compression Algorithm against KiXtart. Now you seem to have switched course a little and are asking for two versions of KiXtart, which I originally did not reply to you about. Again, I'm not saying that Ruud can't do such, but rather I do know that his time is VERY limited as he is no longer allowed to work on KiXtart at work, so just like many of us I would assume he has to balance his personal life with his family and work as well as his hobby (KiXtart). I'm sure though that he might be quite willing to drop support for Windows 9x and leave current users of KiXtart at version 4.22 (but agian that is my opinion and may not be shared by Ruud) Not trying to "argue" with you, just that I don't see much merit myself in your FIRST posting about compression, but I do agree there is merit in the idea of dropping Windows 9x support (not so much for the decrease in file size, but perhaps in allowing better/faster things to be done for the NT/2000/XP/2003 class of systems), in fact it would probably be great to quit supporting NT 4 as well, but think there is still a LOT of those systems around the World, but again maybe leaving NT 4 at v4.22 of KiXtart might not be such a bad idea either. After all it is quite a great little scripting engine as it currently is at 4.22 I apologize if you felt that I was attacking you personally as that was not my intent, but rather was meaning to point out that I did not see proof of merit for what you were asking and don't recall other users sharing the same issue either. That is why I see/saw it as something almost like the OS Holy Wars. Sort of like: "Gee, have you tried this cool new little toy, it's that best thing since sliced bread., Come on guys, you've got to try it." You didn't present it as a legitimate issue as I recall since you then went on to say how much bandwidth you did have, so agian I find/found it difficult to believe there is a real issue here that needs to be solved. I do agree on the dropping of Windows 9x support and even NT from a going forward point of view and maybe a new topic for such should be started, but I still find it difficult to find a real need for the author to go out of his way to try and decrease the file size by such a small amount.
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#128891 - 2004-11-04 01:01 AM Re: Kix32.exe is too large, I use an old version.
Shawn Shawn Administrator Registered: 1999-08-13 Posts: 8611	In terms of the Kixtart developer (Ruud), I hold him in extremely high regard, respect him greatly. He's "stuck-with-it" over the years, way beyond when most developers would have lost interest long ago, hes still pluggin away at it in his spare time (what little spare time an MS principle consultant gets these days) ... But here's what I really want to say ... I trust Ruud's judgement explicitly ! I've seen some really whacky ideas for new features thrown his way, some even not-so-whacky ones, but he has this "knack" for filtering out the junk from the truely important stuff, he probably agonizes over what goes into Kixtart and what shouldn't, it aint an easy call but I think he's done a great job.
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#128892 - 2004-11-04 01:44 AM Re: Kix32.exe is too large, I use an old version.
ciper ciper Fresh Scripter Registered: 2004-11-03 Posts: 36	Tokenizing is an automatic inline operation I guess, the document doesnt mention it very often. Is it possible to output the tokenzied version of the script and use this later? I didnt realize that only one person is working on the coding of KIX, I would agree its alot to ask someone with already limited time so why do it? Allow others with the knowledge to contribute to the work. The first thing that comes to mind is VNC. Third parties have written some of the coolest VNC packages, with everything from domain authentication to dual screen support! Although I still use NT, I wouldnt be against dropping its support either. It has also reached end of life by Microsoft. Not as many people still use it as you might think, its too much of a risk. If vulnarability is discovered effected 2k/xp which also effects nt and a virus is written to take advantage of it those NT machines will be screwed since Microsoft will not supply a patch. I may have information that would be useful to the developer in deciding to drop support for certain OS. Will I get in trouble for sharing? Without being too vague, one of the products my company makes is in most of the homes with a computer or game console. On the computer side the application supplied captures the OS each person has and reports back. Let me ask someone if its okay to give it out if I dont identify the source. So I found out I have two sources, one for what the applications report and another based on the the os each person has when they download the driver Edited by ciper (2004-11-04 02:01 AM)
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#128893 - 2004-11-04 01:58 AM Re: Kix32.exe is too large, I use an old version.
Shawn Shawn Administrator Registered: 1999-08-13 Posts: 8611	ja, tokenizing works like this: C:\> kix32 /t myscript.kix this produces a file called "myscript.kx" (note the new extention .KX) ... this file contains byte code, looks like this: ÕÖ•ÀœÏ Æ²Å¤Ö³ï¢Ë¨ÚµÆ©Ï»ç°Ù·Ó¼Ë¸ä§Ò Ò·ÙûžìŸö™÷«ùŒââú÷÷8Ð”_ƒË€ ÌÝŽá‡ó„å—ò®ì‰å‰Õ–ù”ù–øø2î£Â¡É Î«ç†èú›ü™ÚµÛ½Ô³Æ´Õ¡È§ÉÉï÷Ó;´h; T2F1P"GV?\.A2];OD-C'H?LS&T&C-Yjkm_b~ct({vvVw`ÙA$W<H'WW›qh‚‚M your standard unreadable blob, then you can run this tokenized file back through kix32 like this: C:\> kix32 myscript.kx Depending on the script, and what its doing, you can get anywhere from 0 to 50% "compression" in size ... plus its already mostly "pre-parsed", so it should be faster ... -Shawn
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#128894 - 2004-11-04 02:05 AM Re: Kix32.exe is too large, I use an old version.
ciper ciper Fresh Scripter Registered: 2004-11-03 Posts: 36	Wow! Why is it not mentioned in the word document on the web site? Is it possible to detokenize a file too? Oh and I have a third source now. Some research firm called NPD? Supposedly its where everyone goes when they dont have data of their own. http://www.npd.com/ Someone is going to give me access to that data, then I dont have to share possibly confidetntial stuff
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#128895 - 2004-11-04 02:13 AM Re: Kix32.exe is too large, I use an old version.
Shawn Shawn Administrator Registered: 1999-08-13 Posts: 8611	Can't detokenize the scripts - we dont want to be able to de-tokenize the scripts, Ruud will not be publishing information on how to reverse engineer the byte code (afaik). Mostly because this tokenization process provides a bit of "code mangling" and security, so that some folk may take comfort in knowing that user's wont be able to read whats in the login script. Even maybe to the point of allowing one to embed passwords in the login script - but please, lets not "go there" (the password thing), we would be opening up a whole new can of worms (trust me, we dont want to go there) ;o)
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#128896 - 2004-11-04 02:14 AM Re: Kix32.exe is too large, I use an old version.
Les Les KiX Master Registered: 2001-06-11 Posts: 12734 Loc: fortfrances.on.ca	Quote: Wow! Why is it not mentioned in the word document on the web site? It is not mentioned in the Word doc because it is still a private beta release but it is discussed in the beta forum. The concept of detokenization too is/was hotly debated. _________________________ Give a man a fish and he will be back for more. Slap him with a fish and he will go away forever.
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#128897 - 2004-11-04 02:19 AM Re: Kix32.exe is too large, I use an old version.
Les Les KiX Master Registered: 2001-06-11 Posts: 12734 Loc: fortfrances.on.ca	Quote: embed passwords tsk tsk Shawn... bad boy... bad BAD BOY! You just had to mention it didn't you! {sigh} Now I have to go into one of my rants again. What Ruud does is not irreversable encryption but simply obfuscation. To quote him again: Quote: In general, you should never, ever, put truly sensitive information in any shape or form within the users security context. Whether or not passwords in scripts are truly sensitive depends on your specific situation. _________________________ Give a man a fish and he will be back for more. Slap him with a fish and he will go away forever.
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#128898 - 2004-11-04 02:24 AM Re: Kix32.exe is too large, I use an old version.
Howard Bullock Howard Bullock KiX Supporter Registered: 2000-09-15 Posts: 5809 Loc: Harrisburg, PA USA	CRC32.exe is something I had compiled internally. You can find it at http://home.comcast.net/~habullock/kix_solutions.htm _________________________ Home page: http://www.kixhelp.com/hb/
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