I just got my Core 2 Quad from the Intel Retailedge thing, and it's up an running, but i'm trying to find software for it.

I've been a Mac user for the past 17 years or so, so I don't really know what types of software are out there for Windows, in terms of the random freeware type of utilities.

Right now, i'm trying to find a program that's free to open on rar file.

In OS X I used unrarx. There is an unrar program for Windows that's free, but it seems to be command line only, so I can't just double click a rar file. The other problem is that the Windows command line seems kind of odd:

The free unrar is in /programfiles/unrarprogram where as the thing I want to unrar is in /users/me/downloads. If I open up a command prompt (with run "command" ) it doesn't seem to let me access executables from other directories with arguments from the current directory. Does Windows have like a /bin that it looks for commands in?

Another thing... shouldn't this processor and a GMA3100 (whatever the newest Intel one is) be able to do 720p h264 without stuttering? Because this one can't, at least not the trailers on Quicktime move trailers. I know i've seen lesser Macbooks decond the same videos without problems, so i'm guessing is a Quicktime on Windows or a Vista problem, does anyone know?

12/14/2007 2:53:48 PM

you could use winrar or winzip to unzip the files.

right click on that file and you should see an option to extract the files.

[Edited on December 14, 2007 at 3:04 PM. Reason : ..]

12/14/2007 3:03:10 PM

http://www.rarsoft.com/rar/wrar371.exe

The best and only rar tool you need. Also does any other format you'll need.

Windows has a PATH environmental variable the same way *nix does. by default i think it contains %systemroot% and %systemroot%\system32 . %systemroot% is an environmental variable specifying where your windows install is (c:\windows normally). System32 is where most OS binaries and libraries reside. You can put stuff there if you want, but i like to keep 3rd party executables out of there if i can. To change the environmental variables in windows, right click on my computer and hit properties. This brings up the System Properties control panel. Click on the Advanced tab and then on the Environmental Variables button.

You may or may not have a PATH variable under user defined variables. You should have one under system variables. If you want to add a directory to the Path variable, double click it and add the directory at the end of the list preceeded with a semicolon. just like in *nix

C:\Program Files\Support Tools\;D:\Program Files\Tools\Windows Resource Kits\Tools\;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;d:\pstools;D:\Program Files\Tools\Bitvise Tunnelier;C:\PROGRA~1\NcFTP;D:\Program Files\Tools\JProbe Suite 6.0.2\bin;D:\Program Files\Tools\Java\bin;C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0

Thats what mine looks like. Some programs will automatically add themselves to the path, others need to be done manually.

As for the h.264 thing, any c2d or c2q should handle it fine. Your problem is either that you're missing your chipset drivers/gpu dirvers or the fact that quicktime/itunes is a pile of shit. I'd recommend grabbing an h.264 direct show codec and just using wmplayer. Theres one in FFDShow which should work.

A quick word about codecs though. Dont fucking install codec packs. i know I just told you to get FFDShow which is a codec pack, but when you install it only select the h.264 codec. For divx support, grab the official divx codec from divx.com (choose not to install the player during setup). And for AC3 playback get AC3Filter.




[Edited on December 14, 2007 at 3:08 PM. Reason : ffffffff]

12/14/2007 3:04:55 PM

or dl 7zip for free

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/sevenzip/7z457.exe

12/14/2007 3:09:02 PM

Why the switch from OS X to Windows? Sounds like a bad move

12/14/2007 3:21:58 PM

i would install folding@home if i were you

message_topic.aspx?topic=118820&page=50

12/14/2007 3:49:06 PM

Haha, i'm not switching.

I still have and will primarily use my Powerbook.

I just couldn't resist the cheap quad core offer, and my 1.5Ghz G4 is starting to annoy me.

I'm going to try and dual boot OS X and Vista on this quad core.

I'll try 7zip.

WinRAR looks like it would do what I want, but it's only shareware, and really too mediocre for me to pay 12.95.

12/14/2007 3:49:13 PM

nm figured it out

[Edited on December 14, 2007 at 3:53 PM. Reason : my comptuer on desktop]

12/14/2007 3:52:56 PM

winrar is shareware but you dont ever actually have to pay for it. And you retain all the functionality forever.

12/14/2007 3:54:18 PM

^ true...but 7zip does everything that winrar does (including unraring files), and is free

[Edited on December 14, 2007 at 4:04 PM. Reason : .]

12/14/2007 4:04:16 PM

I have another question...

if I have a DVD that I need to make an ISO out of, what program does this? I got one called ISO buster but it's a demo, and only saves 500MB images.

12/15/2007 7:33:00 PM

http://cdburnerxp.se/

12/15/2007 9:19:31 PM

just visit some of these:
http://www.winaddons.com/top-300-freeware-software/
http://www.concisefreeware.com/
http://www.econsultant.com/i-want-freeware-utilities/index.html

12/15/2007 9:39:19 PM

thanks... i was going to ask about a hex editor next

12/15/2007 10:27:17 PM

this might make you feel at home too:
http://www.rocketdock.com

12/16/2007 12:33:37 AM

Quote :

"i would install folding@home if i were you message_topic.aspx?topic=118820&page=50 "

I installed it, but it is too conservative, I think, in its processor usage.

Is there any way to make it go nuts with the processor? Also, i'm assuming its multithreaded already, right?

12/16/2007 2:20:18 AM

This is the multi-threaded version:

Windows 2000/XP/Vista SMP client console version 5.91 beta
http://www.stanford.edu/%7Ekasson/folding/Folding@Home%20Windows%20SMP%20Client.EXE

It will max out all 4 cores to 100%

12/16/2007 3:08:09 AM

^ thanks

in the 9 hours I left it running while at work, it did 11,000 steps of 50,000 of a workload, maxing all cores.

Wow, I just got around to downloading Firefox and it is freaking fast, compared to IE.

[Edited on December 17, 2007 at 12:43 AM. Reason : ]

12/17/2007 12:19:10 AM

In OS X the display preferences has a little color calibration thing that you can do.

Is there anything like this for Vista? I found a program called "Monitor Calibration Wizard" but it doesn't accurately get the highlights right, they are always burned. Are there any other programs that do this?

1/1/2008 4:09:44 PM

Does anyone know of a good multithreaded DVD-MP4 converter?

There are a couple of ffmpeg frontends, but none of them seem to spawn multiple processes.

1/23/2008 12:50:06 AM

dvdfab?

1/23/2008 12:53:13 AM

did u get that os x/windows dual boot on the quad working?

1/23/2008 3:14:30 AM

^ Nope. It seems to be an issue with SATA. But it doesn't work when it's set to legacy mode in the BIOS even, so i'm thinking OS X doesn't like the SATA HW on this mobo, which is odd, because it's an Intel mobo (DG33 something) . I'm thinking of selling the mobo and getting one more compatible for OS X.

But... another n00b question.

Does windows not allow file sharing over the internet? I can connect to the computer with SMB from my laptop to the desktop, on the lan, but even if I put the desktop in the router DMZ and disable the firewall, it won't connect if i'm somewhere else, not behind a router, to Windows for file sharing.

Also, in Vista, how do you connect to another computer via IP address for file sharing? I can't seem to find this anywhere (I beilieve it's the same process as mapping a network drive in XP).

^^ The videos that generates seem to have the audio and video a half second out of sync. And even on the "high" quality mode, the videos are somewhat blurry. And it's using all cores, but it seems that single pass and double pass run at the same speed (about 60 FPS).

[Edited on January 23, 2008 at 10:12 PM. Reason : ]

1/23/2008 10:10:50 PM

Start -> Run

\\192.168.1.101\nameofsharedfolder

or just

\\192.168.1.101\
-or-
\\nameofcomputer\

then you just right click on the shared folder and map network drive

[Edited on January 24, 2008 at 11:08 AM. Reason : .]

1/24/2008 11:08:01 AM

Quote :

"I'm going to try and dual boot OS X and Vista on this quad core."

it's not a intel mac is it? good luck

1/24/2008 11:58:43 AM

^^^ you could turn on samba and set a windows firewall rule to let all ip's access it, but that's a horrible horrible idea, especially with DMZ on the host. Install openssh or cygwin and just forward an extraneous port to 22 on the intel machine and access it with ssh/scp or setup a vpn. just about any other method is going to be a big security risk or annoying to setup.

[Edited on January 24, 2008 at 12:45 PM. Reason : remember, people care about windows, so people scan for windows machines with shit open like that]

1/24/2008 12:44:50 PM

I've finally got OS X up and running.

It's mostly stable, and VERY fast (especially compared to my 1.5 Ghz G4 Powerbook), and it feels faster than Vista to me too.

On this mobo, none of the onboard audio or ethernet worked, or even GPU.

I had to get a discrete graphics card (an 8800 GT), scavenge an ethernet card out of an old Compaq (which actually worked without installing drivers), and use drivers scavenged from 10.5.2 (i'm on 10.5.1 here) to get it up and running. For audio, I had an maudio USB adapter lying around.

The only problem i've had so far is that VLC doesn't want to work (i think it has something to do with the GPU), and I keep getting messages in Console.app about some UUID, and I can't open Apple System Profiler because it crashes on launch. I haven't gotten to stress test it more yet though.

2/14/2008 1:30:33 AM

^Sounds better than Vista already.

2/14/2008 7:38:36 AM

Quote :

"WinRAR looks like it would do what I want, but it's only shareware"

yea but it never quits working, just gives you one screen you click ok to

2/14/2008 7:47:49 AM

^I don't think the latest version of WinRar displays the ok screen anymore. At least it didn't for me.

2/14/2008 7:58:32 AM

^^^ Another thing is that 1080p videos from Quicktime trailers play smooth as glass, something I couldn't get Vista to do on this machine.

2/14/2008 5:43:26 PM

OS X seems to be really unstable on this install.

The sessions seems to degrade over time. Just after login things are great, but as time goes on, apps start refusing to launch and then refusing to forcequit, then the computer hangs when I try to log out or restart.

Then i can restart, and the cycle begins again. I'm thinking possible Folding@home may be to blame, because it's the only thing I don't run on my powerbook that i'm running on the hack-tosh, and it could have a slow memory leak or something.

I know there's probably not a lot of hackintosh users out there, but does anyone run folding@home ont heir setups?

2/17/2008 12:12:00 AM

^why not just vm it?

2/17/2008 1:54:58 AM