Celestia Forums

AHHH

Just downloaded pre9 there a while ago to see the new features. Crosshair is nice, but it takes some getting used to- i still want to see it change only when you're over something though!!

Commas in the distances are nice too...

Anyway... cel://urls still aren't working for me. Ctrl & C or Ctrl & Ins does absolutely nothing...

System specs:
Celestia v1.3.1pre9 (standard install with nothing extra)
Pentium4 1.7GHz
127MB RAM
Windows 98 SE
Geforce 4 MX440

Would it make any difference if there was a menu option "capture cel:// url" or something, instead of a keyboard shortcut? Or would this have any effect at all...?

JackHiggins wrote:Commas in the distances are nice too...

Anyway... cel://urls still aren't working for me. Ctrl & C or Ctrl & Ins does absolutely nothing...

Howdy Jack,

Commas in the distance? What's that?

Bummer that Ctrl+Ins doesn't work in Win98SE. It does work in XPPro (which is what I'm using).

Do you happen to have another program running that might be using this shortcut?

Does Ctrl+c (Copy) and Ctrl-v (Paste) work in your normal text editing apps, since it is a regular Windows shortcut?

-Don G.

don wrote:Commas in the distance? What's that?

You know, like "Distance: 1,234,567km"! I never noticed it before, so it must have come in between pre6 and pre9!

don wrote:Bummer that Ctrl+Ins doesn't work in Win98SE. It does work in XPPro (which is what I'm using).

Do you happen to have another program running that might be using this shortcut?

Does Ctrl+c (Copy) and Ctrl-v (Paste) work in your normal text editing apps, since it is a regular Windows shortcut?

1. Could someone tell me does it work in Win2000 professional? I have a CD but I don't want to upgrade unless it's ABSOLUTELY necessary... (This would make it so )

2. Nope, I closed down every program, and everything in the system tray too- still no change...

3. Those two shortcuts always work for me in whatever program i'm using, so no problems there...

Looks like i'll just have to live with this for the time being so...

JackHiggins wrote:You know, like "Distance: 1,234,567km"!

Ahhhh, thanks Jack. I never noticed it either way <sigh>.

Sure hope someone can come to your rescue. I can't imagine Micro$oft changing the Windows API between versions, just for getting a keystroke, but one never knows with MS.

-Don G.

Don,

Your response was ambiguous: it isn't obvious if you're talking about the differences between W98 and WXP or between W2K and WXP.

W2K and XP are based on NT, not on W95.
The NT internals, including the keyboard input driver, are completely different from those of W95/W98, which sit on top of DOS. I would expect Celestia to act the same under W2K as it does under XP. Unfortuantely, I can't easily check since I overwrote my home system's W2K system disk a very long time ago.

If nobody else speaks up, I can probably test this tomorrow on a W2K system at work.

Hi Selden,

Oops, sorry, you're right. I'm new to XP (came from 98 SE) and keep forgetting that it uses a different kernel than the previous versions of Windows (98 SE, 98, ME, 95, etc.).

If I remember right, NT became 2000 but XP is a new, or mix-n-match kernel that used some of the NT/2000 code?

-Don G.

Don,

XP is Win2K plus a few more features (and bugs), mostly to make it more "user friendly" so that it's palatable as a replacement for Win98. My understanding is that most of the changes, like the user interface, are superficial.

Note, for example, that exactly the same Nvidia graphics device drivers are used for both 2K and XP.

Right so- Windows 2000 here we go! (er.. but not quite soon yet)

don wrote:Oops, sorry, you're right. I'm new to XP (came from 98 SE) and keep forgetting that it uses a different kernel than the previous versions of Windows (98 SE, 98, ME, 95, etc.).

If I remember right, NT became 2000 but XP is a new, or mix-n-match kernel that used some of the NT/2000 code?

More or less, see here for a more comprehensive overview of the Windows platformS. Hopefuly there's only one company providing Windows, Unix history seems almost simple by comparison considering the number of companies involved.

Jack,

I hope you have several hard drives connected to your system.

Be sure not to do anything irrevocable, like trying to "upgrade" your W98 system disk. Most software that has been installed under W98 is unusable under W2K. You should install W2K from scratch on a completely separate drive.

Also note that W2K is vulnerable to the DCOM security bug. A worm exploiting the bug has been causing lots of problems this past week. It is propagated directly from system to system using Microsoft's network software. It is not an e'mail virus.

Install the DCOM security patch before connecting your system to the network. In other words, download W2K SP3 plus the critical security patches from Microsoft before you install W2K. You should write them to a CD or other drive that W2K will have access to, and then apply SP3 and the security patches after the W2K installation has finished. (W2K SP4 has some serious problems.)

I hope these suggestions help a little.

selden wrote:Also note that W2K is vulnerable to the DCOM security bug. A worm exploiting the bug has been causing lots of problems this past week. It is propagated directly from system to system using Microsoft's network software. It is not an e'mail virus.

Ha! I was going yo say exactly the same. But it doesn't affect you if you have a well configured firewall (i.e. be sure your port 135 isn't accesible).
Or a DSL router (as it acts as a hardware firewall).

Christophe wrote:More or less, see here for a more comprehensive overview of the Windows platformS. Hopefuly there's only one company providing Windows, Unix history seems almost simple by comparison considering the number of companies involved.

Howdy Christophe,

They both look like an absolute mess to me <smile>. DOS, Windows and OS/2 are easier for me to follow because I was involved with each at some point in time. In the NT world, I only used NT 3.51 Workstation and never got into the guts of it. Never used Unix eaither, except on our web hosts.

Looking at his programming language history chart, it was amazing to see that the first two languages created (Fortran and COBOL) are still moving along (Fortran 2000, COBOL 2002), despite many new languages coming and going during their lifetime.

-Don G.

selden wrote:Jack,

I hope you have several hard drives connected to your system.

Be sure not to do anything irrevocable, like trying to "upgrade" your W98 system disk. Most software that has been installed under W98 is unusable under W2K. You should install W2K from scratch on a completely separate drive.

Also note that W2K is vulnerable to the DCOM security bug. A worm exploiting the bug has been causing lots of problems this past week. It is propagated directly from system to system using Microsoft's network software. It is not an e'mail virus.

Install the DCOM security patch before connecting your system to the network. In other words, download W2K SP3 plus the critical security patches from Microsoft before you install W2K. You should write them to a CD or other drive that W2K will have access to, and then apply SP3 and the security patches after the W2K installation has finished. (W2K SP4 has some serious problems.)

Yeah I knew that, thanks for the warning though! (That's why I said "er.. but not quite soon yet")!

I know all about that worm that's been going around... I've had to fix a few peoples systems for them around here...

I have firewall software installed (ZoneAlarm free, because i'm a cheapskate)- anyone know how effective this really is? I haven't had any problems with it, but that doesn't mean it's great...

JackHiggins wrote:I have firewall software installed (ZoneAlarm free, because i'm a cheapskate)- anyone know how effective this really is? I haven't had any problems with it, but that doesn't mean it's great...

Hi Jack,

A couple years ago, Steve Gibson (http://grc.com/default.htm) wrote some utility programs (Shields Up! and Leak Test) to test firewall software. At the time, Zone Alarm was the *only* firewall to block trojan horse (outbound) programs. Black Ice did not do this, nor did any other firewall program. That's when I switched from Black Ice to Zone Alarm and have never looked back.

I tried the "Pro" version last year, but found that it carried too much excess baggage with it and ate up a lot of system resources in Win 98 SE. So I went back to the free version.

I also use Norton AntiVirus software, and since we got DSL service a couple months ago, we also use a LinkSys NAT router with a built-in hardware firewall. I still keep ZoneAlarm loaded to stop outbound programs that have not been authorized by me.

So far, so good <smile>.

-Don G.

Brilliant!

I had norton personal firewall too before, but i found that annoying, (too many features!) so i'm glad I switched to ZA!

Everyone should have Antivirus software, no question about that... I have the same- Norton, but my virus definitions subscription thingy is going to run out soon... I wonder are there any (good) free antivirus programs out there?

This is getting SERIOUSLY off-topic... (But then again I started it... )

Personally, I think the small yearly subscription fee for AntiVirus Definitions is worth every penny <smile>. I also think Norton/Symantec does a very good job at keeping their definitions updated, unlike McAfee (which is where I started years ago since it was free then). Just my two cents worth ...

-Don G.

'spose i'll stick with norton for the time being so...