micolous.id.au

I’ve had a bit of a problem with ddrgen lately. That is, with the new ddrhelper stuff there’s a need for protocol handlers to be inserted. Many games don’t do that. While GameSpy Arcade may be the closest thing to what I want it to do, it’s full of adware. So I may start another project: one that will register itself as a URL handler for all those games, and be able to call them appropriately. The URL handler should strip off the protocol cruft from the URL, and just give it a simple server+port.

This project would work in a similar way to DDRHelper: games use dynamically compiled plugins. A thin “layer” seperates the plugin from the actual win32api calls, to try and limit potential damage, and make it so the only thing that the plugin should care about is trying to locate where the game is installed to.

I had the oppertunity to do some preliminary testing of ddrgen with Windows Vista Beta 2, seeing as Microsoft made it a public beta. At the moment, there’s no need for special detection techniques to be employed, as Vista reports a lot more information about itself over NetBIOS. All versions of ddrgen should show Vista’s edition (ie: “Home Basic”, “Home Premium”, “Ultimate”, etc.) and build number. In the case of builds number, Beta 2’s build number is 5384.

Presently, x86_64 detection of Windows XP is done by the build number only – Windows XP x86_64 reports as having the same build number as a Windows 2003 SP1 system (3790). Windows XP x86 doesn’t report a build number at all. I haven’t downloaded the x86_64 build of Windows Vista yet, but due to it’s size it’s unlikely I will soon.

I intend to do some further work on it, where I will include the build number to beta version translation. This will also be included for any further betas or release candidates I gain access to, and get around to examining.

Do you have access to Vista or Longhorn betas? Mind doing me a favour?

I’m looking for more information about what all the Vista and Longhorn betas are numbered. I’d love to be able to detect them all. I don’t want you to send me copies of Vista or Longhorn. All you need to do is send me an email with:

• The output of smbclient -gNL [ip address] from a computer with Samba installed, where the IP address is that of the Vista/Longhorn box. For example: smbclient -gNL 192.168.1.5. Make sure there is at least one folder shared from the Vista/Longhorn system.
• The build number, version number, edition (eg: Starter, Home Premium, Ultimate) and architecture (x86 or x86_64/32-bit or 64-bit) of the installation.
• Any additional information about the build (was it a public beta, or is it a leaked or private beta version?)

Thanks!