Changing Drives on the Windows Command Prompt is Easier Now Apparently

Found out a new method of current-drive switching on the Windows Command Prompt today, just type the the drive letter and semicolon into the prompt. For example "X:" or "C:" etc. rather than using the "cd" command. This makes things a little easier especially when changing current-drive to a 'fake' drive as I sometimes forget to add the "/D" switch. (For those that don't know: "cd /D X:" is required to change drives the long-winded way).

Creating Virtual Drives on Windows

1. DOS subst Command (note: not persistent)

subst X: "C:\some_target_folder"

2. API-Call: DefineDosDevice (note: not persistent)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa363904(v=vs.85).aspx

3. Through the Registry (note: persistent)

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\Dos Devices"

Add a String Value "X:" where X is the new virtual drive and set the value to: "\DosDevices\C:\some_target_folder"

Personal Programming Diversions/Digressions

1. Feature-itis: I keep dreaming up interesting features to add and get side-tracked from the important functional code I should be writing.

2. Semantics/Perfectionism: I get obsessed with finding the perfect names for my classes/functions/variables. I take style-guides to be almighty laws.

Simple Alert Function for Win32 System Error

#pragma comment(lib, "Kernel32.lib")
#pragma comment(lib, "User32.lib")
extern "C" __declspec(dllimport) unsigned long __stdcall GetLastError();
extern "C" __declspec(dllimport) void* __stdcall LocalFree(void*);
extern "C" __declspec(dllimport) unsigned long __stdcall FormatMessageA(unsigned long, void*, unsigned long, unsigned long, char**, unsigned long, void*);
extern "C" __declspec(dllimport) signed long __stdcall MessageBoxA(void*, char*, char*, signed long);
inline void alert(char* s) { MessageBoxA(0, s, "Alert", 0); }
inline void alertSystemError() {
 unsigned long e = GetLastError();
 if(e) {
  enum {
   FORMAT_MESSAGE_ALLOCATE_BUFFER = 0x00000100,
   FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM     = 0x00001000,
   FORMAT_MESSAGE_IGNORE_INSERTS  = 0x00000200
  };
  char* s;
  FormatMessageA(
   FORMAT_MESSAGE_ALLOCATE_BUFFER |
   FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM |
   FORMAT_MESSAGE_IGNORE_INSERTS,
   0,
   e,
   0,
   &s,
   0,
   0);
  LocalFree(s);
  alert(s);
 }
 else { alert("No system error"); }
}

Simple Alert Function (Win32)

#pragma comment(lib, "User32.lib")
extern "C" __declspec(dllimport) int __stdcall MessageBoxA(void*, char*, char*, int);
inline void alert(char* s) { MessageBoxA(0, s, 0, 0); }

Displaing the £ sign on the DOS command line

DOS (Western Europe): #9C // 0x9C
Which in UTF-8 is: #A3 // 0xA3

Windows 7 Starter edition comes with one desktop background, which can't be changed or customized.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Personalize-your-computer

One word: wow. MS doesn't want users to be able to change the background?!?

format PE GUI
entry main
section '.code' code readable executable
 _main:
  push 0
  push _message
  push _caption
  push 0
  call [MessageBoxA]
  push 0
  call [ExitProcess]
  ret
section '.data' data readable writeable
 _caption db 'Simple Hello World Demo',0
 _message db 'Hello World!',0
section '.idata' import data readable writeable
 dd 0,0,0,RVA kernel_name,RVA kernel_table
 dd 0,0,0,RVA user_name,RVA user_table
 dd 0,0,0,0,0
 kernel_table:
  ExitProcess dd RVA _ExitProcess
  dd 0
 user_table:
  MessageBoxA dd RVA _MessageBoxA
  dd 0
 kernel_name db 'Kernel32.dll',0
 user_name db 'User32.dll',0
 _ExitProcess dw 0
 db 'ExitProcess',0
 _MessageBoxA dw 0
 db 'MessageBoxA',0
section '.reloc' fixups data readable discardable

Hello World!

Hello World!
Bonjour Monde!
Hallo Welt!
¡Hola Mundo!
Ciao Mondo!
Здравствулте! мир!

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