Tag Archives: tool

Resource Tools: Custom Resource Types

Posted by on April 30, 2012 No comments

This update for Resource Tools adds an option to access custom resource types, such as FILE, TYPELIB, REGISTRY etc. It lets enumerate the resource, and load/save them. The COM interafce adds new Items property; the code snippet below accesses type library of image2.dll and saves it into external tyle library file image2.tlb:

image = new ActiveXObject("AlaxInfo.ResourceTools.Image");
image.Initialize("C:\\Windows\\syswow64\\imapi2.dll");
image.Items("TYPELIB").Item(1).SaveToFile(null, "imapi2.tlb");

Additionally, image.EndUpdate(false) call makes the object close all references to the underlying file so that it can be available for other operations (e.g. overwrite), and the COM object might be further re-initialized and reused.

Download links:

GPS Location/Coordinate Converter: Fractional Seconds, More Shortcuts

Posted by on October 20, 2011 No comments

This adds a small update to the recently published GPS Location/Coordinate Converter utility:

  • Seconds in Degrees, Minutes & Seconds notation are shown and are accepted as floating point numbers
  • More shortcuts to popular online map services (note that only Google Maps and Yandex Maps are still accepted as input via clipboard):
    • Bing Maps
    • Yahoo Maps
    • Open Street Map
    • WikiMapia

The latter makes the tool an easy to use converted between the services for a GPS POI.

A binary [Win32] and partial Visual C++ .NET 2010 partial source code are available from SVN.

Utility Clearance: GPS Location/Coordinate Converter

Posted by on October 12, 2011 No comments

This tool came up as a result of mess around GPS coordinate formatting and variety of popular formats and notations. Some use latitude and longitude degrees, some prefer degrees and minutes with fractional part. this does not take into account choices for datum and file formats.

For instance, both Google Maps and Yandex Maps accept latitude and longitude as ll= URL parameter with the value of latitude and longitude in degrees, however Google uses latitude coming first, while Yandex prefers the opposite.

Recently, a rally road book contained the following formatting of track points:

Having to put a stop to the madness, this utility comes up as a handy assistant to convert and format GPS coordinates into reasonable presentation and separators.

The utility runs on background and monitors clipboard, and once it recognizes one of the following:

  • GPS Point in Degrees
  • GPS Point in Degrees and Minutes
  • GPS Point in Degrees, Minutes and Seconds
  • Google Maps URL
  • Yandex Maps URL

it flashes and updates its UI providing the choices of track point formatting:

The utility is trying hard to accept various separators and formats, just one thing is important to keep in mind: if you are using minutes without seconds, the fractional part of minutes should be separated by decimal point (.).

The utility also responds to hotkeys Ctrl+Shift+F1, Ctrl+Shift+F2 etc. and copies the formatted point location back into clipboard so that one could quickly re-format editable text in another application through clipboard updates. Alternatively, it is possible to click the formatted value and place it into clipboard.

The utility also provides clickable hyperlinks to open Google Maps and Yandex Maps into the point of interest.

A binary [Win32] and partial Visual C++ .NET 2010 partial source code are available from SVN.

Note: you might need to run the tool “As Administrator” elevating UAC privileges in Vista/7 operating systems.

Bonus links on the topic:

NTFS Links: x64 build

Posted by on October 12, 2011 No comments

Per user request, here goes 64-bit version of NTFS Links utility, which provides shell UI for NTFS Junction Points.

As 64-bit version of Windows operating systems provide two versions of shell explorer, and support both Win32 and x64 platform applications, it is typical to install both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the utility to cover/extend applications of both platforms. Note that 32-bit (Win32) applications can only load and directly interact with 32-bit builds of libraries (DLLs), so 64-bit (x64) applications need a corresponding matching version of the shell extension available.

As the utility provides a shell extension for directory property pages, here comes a curiosity exercise: how Windows 7 uses junction points to cross-map directories under user profile directory, e.g. C:\Users\<username>\Local Settings directory is actually a shortcut to C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local.

Current version of Alax.Info NTFS Links can be downloaded from:

Utility Clearance: Enumerate Audio ‘MMDevice’s

Posted by on August 30, 2011 No comments

The utility and code does straightforward enumeration of MMDevices (Vista+, check MSDN for MMDevice API availability), which correspond to MMDevice API, WASAPI, Core Audio API. The code itself is straightforward, with a ready to use binary to quickly lookup data of interest:

The data is detailed well and in Excel-friendly format (via Copy/Paste):

The code also automatically looks up for named Windows SDK constants, such as PKEY_Device_FriendlyName:

    Identifier    {0.0.1.00000000}.{4c1a7642-3f91-43e5-8fcf-b4b1e803d3f9}
    State    DEVICE_STATE_DISABLED    0x02
    Properties:
        {B3F8FA53-0004-438E-9003-51A46E139BFC}, 15    16 bytes of BLOB, DA 07 03 00 02 00 09 00 0E 00 39 00 16 00 C5 02    65
        PKEY_Device_DeviceDesc    Stereo Mix    31
        {B3F8FA53-0004-438E-9003-51A46E139BFC}, 6    Realtek High Definition Audio    31
        {B3F8FA53-0004-438E-9003-51A46E139BFC}, 2    {1}.HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0888&SUBSYS_80860034&REV_1002\4&37D44F2F&0&0201    31
        {83DA6326-97A6-4088-9453-A1923F573B29}, 3    oem29.inf:AzaliaManufacturerID.NTamd64.6.0:IntcAzAudModel:6.0.1.5964:hdaudio\func_01&ven_10ec&dev_0888    31
        PKEY_Device_BaseContainerId    {00000000-0000-0000-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF}    72
        PKEY_Device_ContainerId    {00000000-0000-0000-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF}    72
        PKEY_Device_EnumeratorName    HDAUDIO    31
        PKEY_AudioEndpoint_FormFactor    10    19
        PKEY_AudioEndpoint_JackSubType    {DFF21FE1-F70F-11D0-B917-00A0C9223196}    31
        PKEY_DeviceClass_IconPath    %windir%\system32\mmres.dll,-3018    31
        {840B8171-B0AD-410F-8581-CCCC0382CFEF}, 0    316 bytes of BLOB, 01 00 00 00 38 01 00 00 ... 00 00 00 00    65
        PKEY_AudioEndpoint_Association    {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}    31
        PKEY_AudioEndpoint_Supports_EventDriven_Mode    1    19
        {24DBB0FC-9311-4B3D-9CF0-18FF155639D4}, 3    0    11
        {24DBB0FC-9311-4B3D-9CF0-18FF155639D4}, 4    -1    11
        {9A82A7DB-3EBB-41B4-83BA-18B7311718FC}, 1    65536    19
        {233164C8-1B2C-4C7D-BC68-B671687A2567}, 1    {2}.\\?\hdaudio#func_01&ven_10ec&dev_0888&subsys_80860034&rev_1002#4&37d44f2f&0&0201#{6994ad04-93ef-11d0-a3cc-00a0c9223196}\rtstereomixwave    31
        {5A9125B7-F367-4924-ACE2-0803A4A3A471}, 0    1610612916    19
        {B3F8FA53-0004-438E-9003-51A46E139BFC}, 0    3    19
        PKEY_Device_FriendlyName    Stereo Mix (Realtek High Definition Audio)    31
        PKEY_DeviceInterface_FriendlyName    Realtek High Definition Audio    31
        PKEY_AudioEndpoint_GUID    {4C1A7642-3F91-43E5-8FCF-B4B1E803D3F9}    31

A binary [Win32, x64] and partial Visual C++ .NET 2010 source code are available from SVN.

See also:

Resource Tools: 64-bit build

Posted by on August 30, 2011 No comments

I rebuilt the Resource Tools utility in 64-bits to, supposedly, be able to be good with resources on 64-bit binaries (actually 32-bit code might be dealing with those fine also?). Anyway, the build is here and the tool available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

In particular, both 32-bit and 64-bit JavaScript scripts hosted by Windows Scripting Host (respectively, 32-bit from C:\Windows\syswow64 or 64-bit from C:\Windows\system32 – in 64-bit Windows) can leverage the tool in file manipulation.

This utility is specifically helpful in automating steps which involve resource updates, such as to apply OEM branding, or resource-based file operations. The code snippet below archives a copy of DLL and PDB files for published release into a .7z archive named using current file version of the DLL itself (that is, it created a ResourceTools.dll-1.0.6.296.7z archive file out of ResourceTools.dll and corresponding ResourceTools.pdb files):

image = new ActiveXObject("AlaxInfo.ResourceTools.Image");
image.Initialize(inputDirectory + fileName);
productVersion = image.VersionInfo.ProductVersionString;
fileVersion = image.VersionInfo.FileVersionString;
WScript.Echo(" Product Version: " + productVersion);
WScript.Echo(" File Version: " + fileVersion);
shell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell");
currentDirectory = shell.CurrentDirectory;
shell.CurrentDirectory = currentDirectory + "\\" + inputDirectory;
try {
    shellExec = shell.Exec(
        "\"" + toolDirectory + "7z" + "\" " +
        "a -t7z " +
        "\"" + currentDirectory + "\\" + outputDirectory + "ResourceTools.dll-" + fileVersion + ".7z" + "\" " +
        "ResourceTools.dll" + " " +
        "ResourceTools.pdb" + " " +
        "");
    while (shellExec.Status == 0)
        WScript.Sleep(100);
    if (shellExec.ExitCode != 0)
        throw new Error("7-Zip Exec failed, .ExitCode " + shellExec.ExitCode.toString());
    WScript.Echo(" Output File: " + "ResourceTools-" + fileVersion + ".7z");
}
finally {
    shell.CurrentDirectory = currentDirectory;
}

Title: Alax.Info Resource Tools
Version: 1.0.6
Download Links: ResourceToolsSetup.msi (Win32, 32-bit) and ResourceToolsSetup-x64.msi (x64, 64-bit)

Utility Clearance: Generate PCM .WAV File

Posted by on August 25, 2011 1 comment

GeneratePcmWavFile tool is generating PCM .WAV files with requested parameters, silent or with a sine wave data. The utility uses WavDest SDK Sample as a multiplexer, so it is expected to be available.

It is possible to define the following audio data parameters:

  • sampling frequency, number of samples per second, such as 44100 or 48000
  • number of channels; the utility does not constrain this to be stereo or 5.1, it will be able to create 64 or 128 channel audio data as well
  • 8 or 16 bit audio samples
    • 16-bit PCM only: sine wave signal parameters, frequency in Hz and amplitude/loudness relative to full scale, that is 0 dB is maximal loudness, and an argument of 23 will result in -23 dB loud audio (such as -23 dbFS, also see EBU R128 Specification, the signal depending on frequency may be used a reference source for normalized -23 LUFS audio)
  • file duration in seconds
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\>GeneratePcmWavFile.exe
Syntax: GeneratePcmWavFile <options> <output-path>
  /s:N: Sampling Rate N, Hz
  /c:N: Channel Count N
  /b:N: Sample Bit Count N, 8 or 16
  /t:N: Length N, seconds
  /f:N: Sine Signal Frequency N, Hz
  /l:N: Sine Signal Loudness N, dB below full scale
  /n:N: Noise Signal Loudness N, dB below full scale

A binary [Win32] and partial Visual C++ .NET 2010 source code are available from SVN.

UPDATE: An extra /n parameter lets the application add random noise within provided loudness parameter.