windows 10 issue

pilot0315

I am having this issue. Had to reload windows 10 pro. Now all of a sudden getting this when trying to open pnut. Pnut will launch after saying No. Any ideas?
Thanks

whicker

Run windows update and install all the critical patches. Depending on settings, your computer may have already downloaded updates and could be waiting for a restart.

pilot0315

@whicker

all updates are done. Never had this problem until suddenly the search window died. Then reloaded windows 10 pro. same settings. very weird.
Restart after critical updates. done. When I initiated wpro 10 6 months ago all worked.

Cluso99

I've not seen this on my W10 Pro machine. I've just allowed the update from 1809 to 1909 and pnut v34i runs fine, both before and after the W10 update.

Publison

Try running Windows Defender on the folder containing PNutxx.exe. I had to satisfy MS that I wanted to run the Program. Windows 7 Pro just deleted it as an active threat.

pilot0315

@Cluso99
@Publison

Thanks I will check both.

pilot0315

@Publison

I told windows defender to allow it and it still happens.
Any ideas??

Thanks

evanh

I had the unpleasant experience of having to work with Win10 just recently. One thing I remember when going through the settings to disable some of the crud that M$ puts in there these days is it had an option, defaulted to ON, for always doing an online search for suitable programs to fit the data files.

Sounds a little like this feature might be triggering.

Wuerfel_21

Yes, there's this amazingly great and not at all conceptually fatally flawed feature where it blocks executables that haven't shown up in M$'s database often enough yet. Aside from the data harvesting concern, how is an executable supposed to get into the database when noone can use it on default settings?

Anyways, that one has a much larger and more annoying (= intentionally obscured bypass button) popup. IDK what's happening here, the "you need to install something" box IIRC is supposed to pop up when opening an unknown file type. Has the EXE file type definition gotten messed up? (yes that is a thing that can happen).

Ahh, the wonders of Windows 10, the most unusable Windows ever since ME.
...
They say that every other major Windows version is bad. I heard Windows 8.1 was kinda tolerable, so that apparently counted as a major version

localroger

I do software development on a Windows 10 box and find it mostly tolerable, given a few caveats.
1. Install Classic Shell. You can't find any of the damn setups without it.
2. Decline EVERYTHING when installing the OS. If you neglected to do this find a website that comprehensively lists all the spyware features and turn them off.
3. If you have the crippleware 10S version, upgrade it to regular 10. Unfortunately it is not possible to do this without a Windows Live account, as they force you to get it from the App Store. Fortunately you can make a burner account for this since it's free, and it's not necessary to link the machine to the Live account.

I regularly use the PropTool, BST, a couple of the new P2 tools, the Arduino IDE, and Visual Basic 6 (both the IDE and applications I wrote myself) with no difficulties either in composition or downloading.

pilot0315

@evanh

Which feature are you talking about.
This problem was not an issue until I reinstalled the windows 10 pro.

evanh

It was a setting in the system prefs for online searching and recommending programs to use/buy. I have no idea where in the setting exactly sorry. I don't have any version of Windoze here to check.

Yanomani

Are you talking about this ?(courtesy: microsoft support):

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4458596/windows-10-change-your-app-recommendation-settings

Another (verboselly explained) version, by Dennis Haas:

https://infopackets.com/news/10498/how-fix-disable-microsoft-recommends-installing-app-request

I can't personally do nothing but watch such a dog race; my only-lonelly PC uses Windos 8.1 and a solid lock (GWX Control Panel Monitor), thus, its very unlikelly being forced to upgrade anything (unrequested) during its lifetime (perhaps mine too).

evanh

:shrug:

kamilion

Uh, guys? pnut has to be somewhere on the path. Just like dos, windows 95, 98, NT3.51, NT4, Win2000, Win XP, Win2003, Win7, Win8, Win8.1... Nothing has changed in windows 10 in that regard. No need to spread FUD.
(Edit: Looks like you also need to have run/double clicked on the .exe manually at least once (Or RightClicked-Properties-Unblock), for it to have been added to windows' LRU (Least Recently Used / Last Run) array. Even on 7.)

Don't like Windows-Store? Neither do I. Install Server2019. At this point it's the same as windows 10 with some ifdefs changed and no storefront. Most apps just see it as win10.
And if you're stuck with windows 10, you really need to be on 1903 or 1909, otherwise scripted bots on the internet will attack you. WebRTC is the current dirty trick to slip past your router's NAT "firewall" of returning closed-port responses by pretending to be just another internet phone call to your Web Browser. Bots usually targeting the windows filesharing facilities, even if you don't have a fileshare, windows still makes a network printer spool for every printer you have (including that lovely PDF printer that *everyone* has now instead of having to pay adobe... hint hint. Unshare that thing.)

https://www.fortinet.com/blog/threat-research/curveball-exploit-making-rounds.html

There is an active exploit for curveball (CVE-2020-0601 AKA Chain of Fools) in which Windows 10 can be tricked into believing malicious digital signatures for executables are genuine, and such executables can and do come from "nearly anywhere", from "Asus LiveUpdate" to Steam Games, to specific windows store "Free" apps and games loaded with hidden malware, to the apps that came on the machine (Like IOBit Uninstaller / ActiveCare for some set of unlucky users...)

@pilot0315
As for the quick fix to your pnut problems,

Windows-Break to open ControlPanel-System, Advanced System Settings, Environment Variables. Check the system PATH and the user PATH, and either add the path to your pnut executable with a semicolon separator, or copy the pnut executable into one of the paths in the listing.

I do this with microsoft's process explorer all the time.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

I highly suggest grabbing procexp64.exe and leaving it running in the background all the time, with the "Check VirusTotal.com" option enabled, and "Submit Unknown Executables".
One of the easiest ways to work around the annoying "This binary hasn't been seen often by Microsoft SmartScreen".

Also python on windows likes to monkey with the path, as well as many many many other applications.
It's a constant headache if you use git or switch back and forth from linux a lot.

@localroger Classicshell has gone belly up. But the author released the source at the end.
Now you want https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu

evanh

Pilot will be double clicking on Pnut. No path config needed for that.

pilot0315

@pilot0315
As for the quick fix to your pnut problems,

Windows-Break to open ControlPanel-System, Advanced System Settings, Environment Variables. Check the system PATH and the user PATH, and either add the path to your pnut executable with a semicolon separator, or copy the pnut executable into one of the paths in the listing.

I do this with microsoft's process explorer all the time.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

I highly suggest grabbing procexp64.exe and leaving it running in the background all the time, with the "Check VirusTotal.com" option enabled, and "Submit Unknown Executables".
One of the easiest ways to work around the annoying "This binary hasn't been seen often by Microsoft SmartScreen".


[/quote]

I will look at that thanks

localroger

@kamilion while it's true Classic Shell is officially deprecated the last time I tried the standard install from classicshell.net it still worked on a new PC. I have had to disable UAC on a couple of machines because Windows Update breaks it and it can't reconfigure itself after an update without an un-bypassable UAC warning otherwise.

VB6 is also officially deprecated and I still do most of my development for PC's (including both Windows and Linux via Wine) with it.

pilot0315

pilot0315 wrote: »

@pilot0315
As for the quick fix to your pnut problems,

Windows-Break to open ControlPanel-System, Advanced System Settings, Environment Variables. Check the system PATH and the user PATH, and either add the path to your pnut executable with a semicolon separator, or copy the pnut executable into one of the paths in the listing.

I do this with microsoft's process explorer all the time.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

I highly suggest grabbing procexp64.exe and leaving it running in the background all the time, with the "Check VirusTotal.com" option enabled, and "Submit Unknown Executables".
One of the easiest ways to work around the annoying "This binary hasn't been seen often by Microsoft SmartScreen".

I will look at that thanks[/quote]

I have not played with pathways before. You mentioned copy the pnut.exe into one of the paths. Is there a link for a simple dummy step by step??

Thanks

Also interesting read about paths.

Do you also have a links about more windows operating system stuff. I think that I have another laptop that I can experiment on and not screw up my main machine.

Thanks

pilot0315

@kamilion

Also I downloaded the program you suggested and will study it. I may have questions before I use it.

Thanks

JRoark

@localroger Are you actually able to install VB6 complete with the IDE on Win10? I had to give-up on VB6 (my ultimate fav language!) because *nothing* would install on the new Win versions and DDE was broken even for simple executables.

If VB6 is “back”, you just made me a very happy camper!

Cluso99

VB6 used to be my goto language for simple file manipulation (without any real screen activity). Never got around to installing it on my later laptop. Now I would just use python although I am not sure what screen routines are available in python as I just use the command line / terminal.

localroger

Yes I have been able to successfully install VB6 on at least ten Windows 8 and 10 boxes. The installer does hang, but you can restart it and generally on the second try get it to the point where it asks if you want to install MSDN. This never works, but by this time the actual IDE system is in place and you can manually make a link to the .exe to start up the IDE. Some of the plugins and the original data tools don't work, but I do everything to the Windows API and all data to flat files so the only dependency I have is vbrun600.exe, which is actually part of Windows. This means I can copy one of my applications to a new machine by copying its directory, just like the good old DOS days. You can't do that with .NET LOL.

Tubular

Thats really interesting, thanks localroger

If anyone fines VB6 a bit too new, there's also QB64 which has the look and feel of QuickBasic 4.5, but many of the windows mod cons. I was impressed to find a lot of stuff "just works"

JRoark

Well guys... that is some very encouraging news!

And there is this; http://nuke.vbcorner.net/Articles/VB60/VisualStudio6Installer/tabid/93/language/en-US/Default.aspx where someone has made an “official” (and apparently nearly flawless) aftermarket installer for VS6 on Win10!

kamilion

localroger wrote: »

You can't do that with .NET LOL.

Generally don't need to; I've got quite a few ~200KB exe files from .net that work out of the box on win7 and above, and 'just work' on mono/dotnet on linux, since they only rely on core assemblies shipped as part of the OS. Windows 10 has a baseline of .NET 4.0, so unless you're still relying on "some cruft" from the .NET 1.1/2.0 days like newtonsoft.json.dll or sqlite3.dll, most things just work without having to install an extra package (like Microsoft Visual C++ runtimes)

VB6 will still technically work, but none of the integration stuff like OLE/DDE will work, and many aftermarket controls will fail, as they relied on interfaces that went away in the windows NT family after 95/98/ME's death.
Support for intel native 32bit executables will probably not go away, however. Right now, Windows 10 on ARM64 (tablets?) can run 32bit intel binaries including most older DirectX games like diablo without a problem. Only has issues with modern 64bit stuff, and microsoft's working on that.


These days, it's a lot easier to use python and the QT Creator tools, and you have the benefits of running on windows, mac and linux seamlessly.
As a pertinent example:
https://github.com/tasmota/tasmotizer

But I definitely know the feeling of "I learned this thing, it should still be useful, why isn't it useful anymore??" too. I'm generally a linux guy, so .NET was historically a thorn in my side, but after microsoft finally started opening up to FOSS development, they open sourced dotnet (the linux runtime for .NET) and powershell (which relied on .NET assemblies previously unavailable in Mono).
https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell
MIT licensed. So now Mono's pulled those previously unavailable assemblies in, and for a surprising bulk of .net apps and games, things more or less work as intended in linux as of 2018 onward.

Outside of python, I'd say C# is now the second choice for developers targeting native crossplatform binaries.

As a side note, you can import old *pure* visual basic projects into visual studio 2010 and build them as .NET4.0 executables for win7/10 which will require no DLL hell. Any non microsoft OCX makes that unreliable though.

Flip side? Pascal's still alive and well. Borland Delphi 7 is still in wide use too.
https://mayakron.altervista.org/wikibase/show.php?id=AcrylicHome
Including the fastest DNS proxy around. Beats any other.

Also, something very cool about the .NET executables: They run natively on ARM32/64 tablets without emulation. Since CIL is a platform independent bytecode, it gets compiled to the most recent native ARM machine code the specific platform allows for (so ARMv8.4 with atomics, if available, for example) and cached. Next time that function runs, it gets the cached native. No need for the developer to rebuild the solution.

Folks, please don't read this as "you need to change your habits" -- it's more of a "times have changed, here's the cliff notes."

I also just wanna say -- Micropython literally changed the way I code for MCUs. Previously I was doing the compile/fix/recompile cycle, now I invoke the text editor on-device (pye.py) which understands NANO-like keybinds. I can now fix bugs in the field, opencode new tests, copy code and data to/from SDcard, and I've been working on an IBM 3270-like "fullscreen" form editor class. (Fry's Electronics still uses IBM3270 terminal emulators on windows PCs, and so do many other brick and mortars... It's surprising!)

Looking forward to doing the same thing on my P2D2 with forth words and micropython.

pilot0315

@kamilion

>Windows-Break to open ControlPanel-System, Advanced System Settings, Environment Variables. Check the system PATH and the user PATH, and either add the path to your pnut executable with a semicolon separator, or copy the pnut executable into one of the paths in the listing.

I opened this and did not see exactly sys path and user path.
How exactly does one add the path??

Never tried this before don't want to screw it up. Do you have a link as to the procedure. Was looking on the internet and did not see anything clear.

Thanks

localroger

Oh, I guess everyone is eventually seduced by the dark side.

I remember when VB was the dark side. I was using DOS tools with about 80% Basic (not QB, but a pre-PC compatible MS basic compiler called Series 100 Basic, originally intended for the HP Series 100 Touchscreen non-PC compatible MSDOS platform, and I used that compiler because it was simpler and more predictable than QuickBasic and I had better homemade tools for it, until Windows came out.)

VB3 was unusably slow but VB4 had both a 16-bit and 32-bit compiler and was performant. I learned that a Windows 3.1 system that was not trying to multitask could be quite stable and I built several of them with VB4. Win95 and even 98 turned out not to be up to my standards for a standalone industrial system and so I skipped them.

I moved to VB6 in the windows NT 4.0 days and that became our platform. Then when XP came out it turned out to work for everything. It skips a generation but that was the one Microsoft got right. And I have powerful homemade tools written in VB6 to parse VB6 code and write more VB6 code for me. Those tools allow me to turn out a project that would take most programmers two weeks in two days, as long as it's a project of the type I targeted. It's worth it to me to keep that toolchain working despite Microsoft's most recent antics. And I don't really expect them to break it for me any time soon, since thereaosn the VB6 runtime is part of Windows is that parts of Windows itself are obviously written in VB6.

pilot0315

@kamilion
@evanh

Thank you for your help. Created path rebooted unpinned from task bar re-pinned now works great.

evanh

The pinning must have done something. Weird.

Cluso99

I am using W10 (updated to 1909 a week ago).

I needed to run a tiny VB6 exe that I created many years ago so I dug it out.
It complains about a missing directory although it actually takes the input file, writes out the file with a new filename, and then modifies the file where it is now supposed to write out the new file. Of course it doesn't write out the new fixed file.

So, I now need to write the program in python. What a PITA! I am sure MS goes out of their way to break older things just to force upgrades. Like they used to say, "the job's not done 'til Lotus won't run".