Copyright: (c) 1997 David Aylott


Contents

David Aylott's Utilities for Windows

Version 2.1

Introduction:

This collection of utilities performs some useful tasks for users of Windows 3.x and Windows 95. They may even work in Windows NT but we haven't tested that yet.

The utilities have been released as Shareware - you are welcome to try them out free of charge for a period of 30 days. If you find them useful please pay the author as detailed below otherwise you are required to delete them from your PC. Your support will make it possible to produce updates and additional Windows applications.

You are encouraged to pass these utilities on to friends and colleagues but please keep them in their original format and with all files included in the package.

Installation:

Copy all of the files into any folder (eg C:\WINUTILS). To make life easier for you, the folder should be included in your PATH. The .DLL files can be moved to the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM folder if desired.

You can then have shortcuts to the utilities at your fingertips (eg on the Windows 95 desktop).

The Utilities:

CLOSEALL

ENDWIN

EXIT2DOS

MINALL

NPAD

PLAYSND

REGISTER

RESTWIN

RUNQUIT

RUNSND

TIMEPROG

WINTIME

WPAD

Payment:

To receive the registration code for these utilities, please send US$15 cash or cheque to:

David Aylott

2/35 Bertram Street

ELSTERNWICK VIC 3185

Australia

This one small fee gives you access to the full power of all these useful utilities and any future updates or bug fixes.

Please note that cash (US$, AUS$ or UK£) is preferred as the banks are expensive for converting foreign cheques.

The registered versions do not have the annoying nag/brag screens.

Other Applications from Aylott Computing:

•	MS Word True Type Font Lister (produces a sorted list of all your TTF's with multiple fonts to a page)

•	True Type Font Printing Program (as above but does not require MS Word)

•	MS Access Country Database (over 250 countries incl. 2 letter country codes, currency, flag, map etc)

•	Biorhythms (decide when to stay in bed and when to get up)

•	English to French Translation (actually, it's Franglais just for fun!)

•	Music Player (play all your .WAV, .MID and .RMI files in order, randomly etc. - lots of options)

•	Guessing Game (ask me 10 questions and see if you can guess the object - just a bit of fun)

•	Banquet Auction Database for schools and other organisations (takes the hard work out of fund raising)

•	Mailing Databases (keep track of your contacts by various categories - print reports, labels and mail merge letters etc)

•	Help Desk Database (log problems and resolutions - print reports of outstanding and completed requests etc)

•	Donor Database for schools and other organisations to store information on students, past students etc (campus, qualifications, notes, donations etc)

 Services from Aylott Computing:

•	Computer Consulting

•	Training

•	Desktop publishing

•	MS Word and WordPerfect password cracking

•	Backup and disaster recovery planning

•	Programming (Web Pages, MS Access, Visual Basic, Word, Excel, Foxpro etc)

Email: daylott@melbpc.org.au

http://www.ozemail.com.au/~daylott

If you have requirements for any Windows Applications or Utilities please contact us.

We welcome any comments and suggestions for improvement.


CloseAll

CLOSEALL.EXE

This will close down (almost) all open applications and folders. See notes for some applications that will not close down automatically. You will be asked to save any files that have been modified. It does not close down 'hidden' applications (eg those in the Windows 95 System Tray).

The full version allows applications to be listed in the WINUTILS.INI file that will NOT be closed down automatically, for example:

[NotClose]

Program Manager=

Messaging=

Schedule+=


Close_Notes

A few applications (such as Windows Messaging [Exchange] and MS Publisher) can stop Windows closing down or rebooting automatically. For example, if MS Publisher has a file open (even if it has been saved) it may stop the automatic process.

The full version of these utilities will close down many of these applications automatically (whilst still checking for unsaved files).


Minall

MINALL.EXE

This will minimise all open applications and folders. We have found a shortcut to this on the Windows 95 desktop is easier than right clicking on the taskbar - and it also works in Windows 3.x.


EndWin

ENDWIN.EXE

This will close down Windows.  See notes for some applications that will not close down automatically. If applications are running it will send friendly messages to them exactly as Windows does so you will be asked to save any files that have been modified.


RestWin

RESTWIN.EXE

This will restart Windows.  See notes for some applications that will not close down automatically. If applications are running it will send friendly messages to them exactly as Windows does so you will be asked to save any files that have been modified.


PlaySnd

PLAYSND.EXE <filename>

This plays a single .WAV file - just pass the full path & filename to the program (eg PLAYSND C:\WINDOWS\CHIMES.WAV) and that's it! Pretty simple stuff, but we've found it useful (eg to play sound files through WINTIME at midnight to tell us to go to bed!).


WPad

WPAD.EXE (<filename>)

This utility is designed to run under Windows95. It starts Wordpad and, if a filename is passed to it, the file is opened. It then sets the default font to Courier New, 8 point. If no parameters are passed to it, the File Open dialog box starts automatically with All (*.*) File Types listed (instead of the default of Word (*.DOC) files). The default margins are also changed in exactly the same way as NPAD.

Note that parameters such as '/p <filename>' which normally sends the file directly to the printer do not work - you will need to print the file 'manually' after the font has been changed.

The full version allows the exact margins, font or FileType to be specified in the WINUTILS.INI file, for example:

[WordPad]

left=30

Right=30

Top=30

bottom=30

FileType=A

Font=Courier New

FontSize=8

Valid FileTypes are W - Word, R - RTF, T - Text, A - All

The Font name must match the name of the font in the Wordpad font window exactly.


NPad

NPAD.EXE (<filename>)

A problem with NOTEPAD is that it always starts with the same defaults (eg header, footer, margins). This evaluation version changes the default left and right margins to 0.6. It is not very clever as it ignores the country settings so, on my system, it sets them to 0.6mm and on others will set them to 0.6". The full version of the program can be tailored to your exact needs by keeping your required settings in the WINUTILS.INI file, for example:

[Notepad]

left=30

Right=30

Top=30

bottom=30

header=" "

footer=" "

filetype="*.htm"

wrap=1

If an entry is omitted, the defaults are used. The above example sets all margins to 30 (in my case 30mm), the header and footer are cleared and Word Wrap is turned on (any entry other than 1 will leave it turned off).

An annoying 'feature' of notepad is that it thinks the file has changed after Word Wrap is turned on - this application gets around that by performing a save just after turning it on. If you do not have Read/Write access to the file or drive this will fail and you will be asked to save the changes when you close Notepad.

The filetype entry lets you specify the default files to open. In this example, notepad will look for *.htm files instead of the default *.txt files.


RunQuit

RUNQUIT.EXE <program> (<parameters>)

This program runs a program and, when the application ends, exits Windows. It secures Windows 3.x whilst running as PROGRAM MANAGER is not available during this time.

It can be started from the DOS command line and passed as a parameter to the WIN application (eg WIN RUNQUIT WRITE.EXE).

It was designed to run under Windows 3.x but will work with Windows 95 although with slightly different results.

Most of this can be achieved using SHELL= in the WIN.INI although this method is not very flexible. RUNQUIT uses the current directory as the working (or default) directory and allows you to pass parameters to the application. It can be used in a BATch file as shown in the example below:

CD \DATA

WIN RUNQUIT NOTEPAD.EXE README.TXT

This starts Windows, starts NOTEPAD and opens the file README.TXT (which must be in the C:\DATA directory). When NOTEPAD is closed, the user is returned to the DOS prompt.

Notes:

•	RUNQUIT must be in your path to work properly.

•	You can pass the full path name of an application to RUNQUIT


TimeProg

TIMEPROG.EXE <filename>(, time)

This utility runs a program for a specified amount of time (in minutes). At the end of the time specified, the program will be closed automatically. If, for example, a file has been changed or a game not saved you will be asked if you wish to save the changes before the program terminates.

It was designed to limit the time spent by children playing computer games although it can be used for many other applications.

eg:

TIMEPROG C:\WINDOWS\SOL.EXE, 30

This starts Solitaire and will close it down automatically after 30 minutes.

Notes:

•	The remaining time is shown in the title bar of the application

•	The program name and time MUST be separated with a comma (,)

•	If no time is passed to the utility, it will default to 60 minutes

•	This version does not cope well with programs starting just before midnight and finishing next day

•	It is NOT designed to be accurate to the second - it should run the requested application for AT LEAST the time specified but may run over by up to one minute


WinTime

WINTIME.EXE

This utility will run a program or output a message on the screen at a specified time. The details are held in the WINUTILS.INI file as shown in the following example:

[clock]

sleep = 10

display = true

[Events]

NoEvents=3

;Starts notepad at five minutes past 9:00pm

Event1=c:\windows\notepad.exe

Time1=21:05

Type1=Run

;Plays a sound at 2:00am

Event2=playsnd.exe c:\sound\snore.wav

Time2=02:00

Type2=Run

;sends a warning message at 9:00pm

Event3=Notepad will start in FIVE minutes!

Time3=21:00

Type3=Msg

The [clock] section is used in Windows 3.1x only.

The sleep entry tells the program how many seconds to wait before checking the system clock (must be less than 60 seconds or events could be missed). Smaller numbers are more accurate but have a larger impact on system performance.

The display entry is either true or false. If true, a digital clock is added to the title bar of the active window.

In Windows 95, the system clock is checked every 15 seconds and no digital clock is added to the title bar (one can easily be added to the system tray).

The [events] section contains details of the times and programs / messages.

The NoEvents entry contains the number of events in the list.

Each entry consists of three lines:

Event<n>=	this is the full path name of the application to run (including any parameters)

Time<n>=	this is the time that the event is to be run (the 24 hour clock must be used)

Type<n>=	this is either Msg for a message or Run for a program

<n> is a number from 1 to the number of events (NoEvents). The order of the events is not important.

Notes:

It is recommended that you allow a few minutes between events as it is possible for an event to be missed if they are only one minute apart. This is particularly true of the evaluation version as the program is halted when the nag/brag screen is displayed (which happens after every event).

If used regularly, this utility should be added to your Startup group.


Exit2DOS

EXIT2DOS.EXE

This will close down Windows 95 to the DOS prompt.  See notes for some applications that will not close down automatically. If applications are running it will send friendly messages to them exactly as Windows does so you will be asked to save any files that have been modified.

The file EXIT2DOS.PIF must be in the same folder as EXIT2DOS.EXE.


RunSnd

RUNSND.EXE (<Sound filename>,) <filename>

This utility plays a sound before starting the specified program.

eg:

RUNSND C:\SOUND\SNORE.WAV, NOTEPAD

This plays the specified .WAV file just before starting Notepad

Notes:

•	The sound file and program name MUST be separated with a comma (,)

•	If no sound file is passed to the utility, it will simply run the specified program


Register

REGISTER.EXE

This is used to register the Windows Utilities.

A registration code will be sent to you when your payment is received.