freeCommander (dual pane filemanager, new version)

[Antoine]

I downloaded what should be the same file you did:
fc_setup_200410.zip.

It is indeed the same file I downloaded.

I used InnoUnp (Inno Setup Unpacker,
http://innounp.sourceforge.net/) to extract setup.exe, bypassing
the installer. Then I monitored my first run of it.

I didn't know there existed an Inno setup Unpacker. Thanks.

[...]
You want to get TUN configured so that it does not tell you about
normal Windows activity in its installation reports. The standard
approach for this is to run TUN for a snapshot; do some of your
normal Windows things; then when it gives you a report from that,
set the keys shown in that report into its TUN's Ignore settings.

Thank you for this tutorial and pieces of advice about TUN.

IMO, it should not have been distributed in installer form in the
first place. It runs totally green. And user has only to delete
its folder from drive for uninstall.

I second this suggestion, all the more as the registry entries I
evoked seem to be generic entries produced by Inno setup.

It uses a local ini. Some programs have got mad at me when I was
too lazy to not do an S&R in their ini to change referenced files
paths, prior to moving them. But with Free Commander, I did a lazy
move just now, and it gave no complaint, coping easily.


The second one: path_to_the_free_commander_folder.

As I played a little with free commander, I confirm this. FYI, the
actual .ini that is used is indicated through Help > Info.

Thank you Karen for your help.

 

[Antoine]

Well then you might have found a bug - and a OS dependent one
maybe, since FC seems to work fine here w/ Win2k (and your OS
is?).

OS : Win XP home edition SP1 - french
PC : Dell Dimension 4500

Same behavior as you experience (tries to read floppy drive
when loaded even if floppy pane is not active/current) until I
select "show removable drives only with disk" under the options
menu (view->disks), then no problem.

I tried once again ; no way, it still tries to read the floppy drive.

Best regards.

 

[Widya Santoso]

1/ if you use a specific version of free commander with no
installation

No, I installed the next to latest version.

2/ if not, are you sure the free commander folder can
be copied 'roughly' from a computer to another one

Yes; installed it at work, then copied the installed directory to my USB
key.

3/ the free commander configuration window indicates that the .ini
file can be chosen ; by default, the .ini file is the one located in
the "installation" folder. Does it mean :
C:/Program files/free commander
or
C:/The_path_to_the_free_commander_folder_wherever_the_user_has_set_it

The folder where you've put Free Commander.

 

[omega]

It is indeed the same file I downloaded.


I didn't know there existed an Inno setup Unpacker. Thanks.

InnoUnp is a fairly new development. I'm very happy about it,
since I prefer to bypass installers whenever possible. Too bad
that there seems to be no simple way to avoid the really ugly
installers: InstallShield v7, and MSFT's MSI...

Though at least do we have that InnoUnp helps for a whole lot of
freeware downloads, since Inno Setup is their most popular installer.

I second this suggestion, all the more as the registry entries I
evoked seem to be generic entries produced by Inno setup.

The pattern of forced installer, it's so silly. All that extra litter,
without justification.

[...]

As I played a little with free commander, I confirm this. FYI, the
actual .ini that is used is indicated through Help > Info.

Thank you Karen for your help.

Thank you for calling it help. I'd posted a little early, before having
read the whole thread carefully through. I did soon see your steps in
trying to work out a floppy drive seek problem with the program. It sounds
at this point that it would be a good deed if you were up to sending a note
to the program author to inform that they might well have a bug to fix.

 

[Alex]

Antoine <[email protected]>:

=====================

Hope I am quoting the correct poster: I counted the number of >> to aid
me.

Would you think this .INI premise might be the reason that
Free Commander (for me at least) is soooo slooooow to come
alive? Once it opens, it does a whopping big load of stuff
to rival Power Desk ..., but it is so slooooow.

 

[Antoine]

InnoUnp is a fairly new development. I'm very happy about it,
since I prefer to bypass installers whenever possible. Too bad
that there seems to be no simple way to avoid the really ugly
installers: InstallShield v7, and MSFT's MSI...

That is why I like programs without any installation : Xnews for
example.

Thank you for calling it help. I'd posted a little early, before
having read the whole thread carefully through. I did soon see
your steps in trying to work out a floppy drive seek problem with
the program. It sounds at this point that it would be a good deed
if you were up to sending a note to the program author to inform
that they might well have a bug to fix.

I contacted him 3 days ago ; he promptly and very kindly replied and
asked for the operating system I was running ; I immediately
answered (WinXP HE SP1- fr) . Since then no news ; he might be
trying to understand what is happening. Except this little (but
annoying) floppy-drive-scan glitch, this program is outstanding.

 

[Antoine]

=====================

Hope I am quoting the correct poster: I counted the number of >>
to aid me.

Your quoting is correct indeed.

Would you think this .INI premise might be the reason that
Free Commander (for me at least) is soooo slooooow to come
alive? Once it opens, it does a whopping big load of stuff
to rival Power Desk ..., but it is so slooooow.

This looks strange ; here it loads in about 2 seconds on a PIV 2GHz
machine with 512 MB of RAM. It takes up to 9 MB of RAM when running.

 

[Richard Steven Hack]

Powerdesk is not a dual pane file manager, and I am not used to working
with such a file manager.

Yes, it is a dual pane manager. Actually a multi-pane manager in a
sense since you can open up multiple windows (although they seem to
want to open in a weird crunched up manner which is a pain to
unravel). You can have at least two windows open, split horizontally
or vertically. That is, you can have two sections open, each of which
has a directory section and a files section, so you can drag and drop
between them or between one section's file pane and the other
section's directory pane. So you have essentially four panes open.
You can also swap panes.

Powerdesk has some kind of zip file treatment, but it doesn't work as it
does in classic file managers.

Worked okay for me, but I decided to install ZipGenius for more
advanced capabilities.

Free Commander is real freeware, powerdesk has a splash screen when you
exit it.

That's true, but it only stays up for a second or two, then
disappears.

The main problem I have with PowerDesk is some bad behavior - the
occasional crash and at times the EXTREME slowness at which it creates
a new directory if you have multiple panes open (it has to update each
pane and it takes forever.)