In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 2 Dec 2023 13:52:38 -0500, Paul
<nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

>On 12/2/2023 12:24 PM, micky wrote:
>
>> Anyone still offerring a 32-bit FM on their webpage ought to have either
>> found a patch that would make it work, or include a warning that it
>> wouldn't find all directories or files. Surely most of the people in
>> the business of writing FMs know about this issue.
>
>This stuff is entirely too flaky for words.
>
>I ran my 32-bit test program on my W11x64 Home, and
>"navigating" to the path fails, but typing the path
>into the path box, works. Grrr. I ran the program

That box probably doesn't use anything in the test program, but goes
stright to a command line that is 64-bits.

Do you mean it then displays it just as if you had navigated? I guess
you do. My favorite FM PowerDesk doens't have a path box. It has a
launch bar with 7 popular program like IE, file finder, command,
notepad, wordpad

Xplorer2 does have that and by golly it works.

I guess Andy said this already but I didn't get where he meant until
now.

They should still give that warning, because using the path box is not
at all obvious. The advantage of these FM's is that they show you the
subdirectories. I figured the path box was for pasting from somewhere
else.

>as administrator (which probably should not be
>making a difference to this indirection trick).
>
> [Picture]
>
> https://i.postimg.cc/zDPRbnS4/a-strange-case-of-redirection.gif
>
> Paul

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 2 Dec 2023 14:01:36 -0500, Paul
<nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

>On 12/2/2023 12:13 PM, micky wrote:
>> In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Wed, 29 Nov 2023 20:52:32 -0600, Char
>> Jackson <none@none.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 29 Nov 2023 13:34:21 -0500, micky <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Wed, 29 Nov 2023 08:03:12 +0000, Andy
>>>> Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> micky wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> So that's 32-bit and it doesn't count as a test of my question!
>>>>>> The HOSTS Challenge has still not been fulfilled.
>>>>>> I'm doubling the prize.
>>>>>
>>>>> Don't you believe that I saw the same "lack of hosts file in the
>>>>> expected place" as you did?
>>>>
>>>> I certainly do.
>>>>
>>>> I guess I asked two questions along the way. What happens when you do
>>>> what I do? and later, maybe only implied.. Can anyone do parallel to
>>>> what I did and see the file?
>>>>
>>>> Because I had concluded and you found that page that said that no 32-bit
>>>> file manager would see it. So that created the second question above. I
>>>> don't expect to test every combination of OS and FM, but Char thinks
>>>> he's hit on one that works.
>>>
>>> Which combination doesn't work? I'd like to join the redirection party.
>>
>>
>> I'm sorry. Other responsibilties kept me away from this thread for a
>> couple days, and even now, and i've lost track of it.
>>
>> AFAIK no 32-bit FM works with any 64-bit OS except for the combination
>> you found.
>>
>> At least I pointed out the issue/
>>
>
>But there is something you can try for us.
>
>If FreeCommander has a box to enter the path as a string,
>try entering a string and see if you can "get past ETC" that way.
>
> C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc
>
> Paul

Well I dno't have FreeCommander after all. I was confusing it with some
other commander. That's why I didn't answer Andy's post parallel to
Char's

But as I say elswhere, it worked in xplorer2. Better than nothing,
especially for a tightwad like me who doesn't want buy another FM (and
who still prefers PowerDesk anyhow.) I wonder how many directories,
in addition to this etc, there are that won't be seen through
navigation.

On Sat, 2 Dec 2023 09:29:02 +0000, Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

>Char Jackson wrote:
>
>> Are we leaving this without a final resolution?
>
>I think mickey may have to donate the betting pot to charity
>
>> I was hoping someone would provide a 32-bit file manager that falls into the
>> redirection trap and is unable to navigate to the usual location for the hosts
>> file.
>
>I think everyone else has sort of decided that there's something unusual
>about your machine? The redirection does its thing for all our 64bit
>machines running 32bit programs, it's just yours that is misbehaving ...
>but not in a way that upsets you.
>
>> The one that I tried, FreeCommander XE 2023 Build 880 32-bit has no issues
>> with that task. Does anyone have a 32-bit file manager that doesn't work?
>
>That's the only one I tried and it has "the issue" i.e. the defined
>behaviour.

Sounds good, thanks. I'll clean up my VM and call it done.

On 12/2/2023 2:54 PM, micky wrote:
> In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 2 Dec 2023 13:52:38 -0500, Paul
> <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On 12/2/2023 12:24 PM, micky wrote:
>>
>>> Anyone still offerring a 32-bit FM on their webpage ought to have either
>>> found a patch that would make it work, or include a warning that it
>>> wouldn't find all directories or files. Surely most of the people in
>>> the business of writing FMs know about this issue.
>>
>> This stuff is entirely too flaky for words.
>>
>> I ran my 32-bit test program on my W11x64 Home, and
>> "navigating" to the path fails, but typing the path
>> into the path box, works. Grrr. I ran the program
>
> That box probably doesn't use anything in the test program, but goes
> stright to a command line that is 64-bits.
>
> Do you mean it then displays it just as if you had navigated? I guess
> you do. My favorite FM PowerDesk doens't have a path box. It has a
> launch bar with 7 popular program like IE, file finder, command,
> notepad, wordpad
>
> Xplorer2 does have that and by golly it works.
>
> I guess Andy said this already but I didn't get where he meant until
> now.
>
> They should still give that warning, because using the path box is not
> at all obvious. The advantage of these FM's is that they show you the
> subdirectories. I figured the path box was for pasting from somewhere
> else.
>
>> as administrator (which probably should not be
>> making a difference to this indirection trick).
>>
>> [Picture]
>>
>> https://i.postimg.cc/zDPRbnS4/a-strange-case-of-redirection.gif
>>
>> Paul

I should show you where I cribbed the program from. My
value added, is I fix the odd detail so it works with
MinGW. In this case, the "fix64" version of the program
used MinGW64 (on ubuntu), cross-compiled to 32-bit Windows PE32
and tested on Windows. The reason I don't use a MinGW64
on Windows and compile to 32-bit (you can do that),
is the instructions are too poor for poor old Paul to follow.
The Ubuntu didn't come with instructions, but after a bit,
I spotted the pattern in the packages and got the theme from that.
The executables have weird names, which explicitly names the
transform you want.

https://www.daniweb.com/programming/software-development/code/217307/a-simple-getopenfilename-example

When you have getopenfilename() collect a path from the
user, the little messagebox just prints out what the
selected value was. No attempt is made to open() the file.
The idea is, the program is not supposed to be changing the
OSes I test it on, in any way. (Paul is too careless to work
with real dynamite.)

Compile on Windows with mingw32 to make a 32-bit program, is like this:

g++ -o getopenfilename.exe getopenfilename.cc -lcomdlg32

Whereas Ubuntu 64, cross-compile to 32-bit Windows, looks like this.

/usr/bin/i686-w64-mingw32-g++ -I/usr/i686-w64-mingw32/include -o getopenfix64.exe getopenfix64.cc -lcomdlg32

In each case, the "libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll" must be seated, next to your EXE.

The shocker, is I didn't need to bind in anything kernel related
in the second case. I don't know where it's getting the
Wow64DisableWow64FsRedirection() routine from. Most of the time
when I write programs, they're throwing errors left and right,
and I need two shovels to make headway.

Paul