NirBlog

Each time that you run an application in your system, a Prefetch file (.pf file) which contains information about the files loaded by the application, is created by Windows operating system. The information in the Prefetch file is used for optimizing the loading time of the application in the next time that you run it. These Prefetch files are stored in C:\Windows\Prefetch, starting from Windows XP.
WinPrefetchView is a new utility that allows you to easily watch the content of these .pf files.  By looking in these files, you can learn which files every application is using, and which files are loaded on Windows boot.

For more information about this new utility, click here.

WinPrefetchView

NirLauncher is a package of more than 100 utilities of  NirSoft Web site with a launcher application that allows you to easily find and launch the desired utility or its help file.
A few months ago, I released the first Beta of this package in this Blog, and finally, now NirLauncher has a separated Web site with the latest package available to download.

The Web site address of  NirLauncher Web site is http://launcher.nirsoft.net/

Starting from today, NirLauncher package will also be updated more frequently than before. The latest version and the last update date are automatically displayed in the download page, so you’ll be able to easily see when there is a new package to download.
There is a new update from today, which includes all utilities changes made since the last NirLauncher release and the new FlashCookiesView utility. There is also a small improvement in NirLauncher application – it now allows you to launch the selected utility simply by pressing the Enter key. You can also change the functionality of Enter key in ‘Advanced Options’ window.

NirLauncher Download Page

The new version of SearchMyFiles utility provide a new search mode that allows you to easily find duplicate files in your system.  When you switch to the new ‘Duplicates Search’ mode, SearchMyFiles scans the files according to your preferences, like it does in the regular mode, but instead of displaying the list of all files, it only displays the files with identical content.

In order to start using the duplicates search, simply set the Search Mode combo-box in the search options window to ‘Duplicates Search’. It’s also highly recommended to narrow the search by setting time, size or subfolder depth restrictions, because if don’t set additional restrictions, the duplicate search might be very slow.

In the following example (in the screenshot), SearchMyFiles was configured to search for duplicate files under c:\users but only for files that their size is greater than 1000 bytes:

Duplicate Search Options

During the duplicate search, there are 2 stages. In the first stage, SearchMyFiles scans all files and folders according to your selection, but without adding any file to the main window.  The scan in the first stage is only made for collecting the files list, but without reading the files. In the second stage, SearchMyFiles compare all files with equal size, and when it find 2 or more files with identical content, they are added to the duplicates list in the main window.

After the scan is finished, the duplicates list looks like in the following screenshot:

Duplicates Search Result

Each chunk of duplicates files are painted with different color (There are up to 64 different colors) and there is also a ‘Duplicate Number’ column, which allows you to easily sort the list according to the duplicates order.

You can find the latest version of SearchMyFiles utility here.

in extension.nirsoft.net, a Web site which contains file extension information submitted by users of FileTypesMan utility,  the Popularity field is now active, and displays one of the following values: Low, Medium, High, and Very High.

The Popularity is calculated according to the number of submissions received for the specified record.

usbspeed.nirsoft.net,  a Web site containing speed tests results of USB flash drives submitted by users of USBDeview utility, accumulated a total of more than 5500 speed tests.

So it’s time to do something with this speed tests database and make it more useful: I created a new summary page, which contains the average, maximum,  and minimum values for both read speed and write speed. This page only display the information for common USB drives that accumulated at least 5 speed tests.

You can view the summary page of USB speed tests in this link.

2010 is almost here, so it’s time to announce about 10 new utilities that will be added to NirSoft collection in the incoming months.  8 of these utilities are already in advanced development state, while the other 2 utilities are only in ‘planned’ state, and it’s still possible that I’ll replace them with other ideas.

The first utility, FlashCookiesView, will be released in the incoming week, and the others will be gradually released in the first quarter of 2010.

Here’s the list of the new utilities, 8 of them with screenshots:

1. FlashCookiesView: Just like it sounds, this utility displays the list of cookies files and their content, created by Flash component in your Web browser. The first version won’t allow you to edit the cookies, but it’s possible that this feature will be added in the future.
   

   FlashCookiesView

2. DiskCountersView: This utility displays the system counters of each disk drive in your system, including the total number of read/write operations and the total number of read/write bytes. It also displays general drive information, like disk name, partition number, partition location, and so on.
   

   DiskCountersView

3. DiskSmartView:  This utility displays the S.M.A.R.T information extracted from IDE disks.  This information can be used to detect problems in the hard-disk.
   

   DiskSmartView

4. WinPrefetchView: Each time that you run an executable file in your system, Windows creates a Prefetch file (.pf extension) under C:\windows\Prefetch, which stores information about which files this application use, so in the next time, Windows will be able to optimize the  application loading process. WinPrefetchView utility allows you to view the content of these .pf files, which generally shows you the list of files that the application used.
   

   WinPrefetchView

5. BulkFileChanger: This utility is the successor of my very old ‘FileDateChanger’ utility. It’ll allow you to add multiple files from multiple folders (by wildcard, by drag & drop, and so on) to the list, and then make some operation on all of them at once, including: date/time change, attribute change, copy/paste, cut/paste, and maybe rename too.
   

   BulkFileChanger

6. AppCrashView: On Windows 7 /Vista, every time that application is crashed, a .wer file is created, which contains the information about the crash. This utility will allow you to easily watch the content of these .wer files.
   

   AppCrashView

7. SearchFilterView: When you search the content of files with Windows search, it uses the right search IFilter plugin according to the file extension. This utility allows you to easily view the search filters installed on your system, as well as to add/remote extensions associated with these filters.
   

   SearchFilterView

8. NTFSLinksView: Starting from Windows Vista, Microsoft use symbolic links and junction points of NTFS file system in order to make changes in the folders structure of Windows and keep the compatibility of applications written for older versions of Windows.
   This utility simply shows you to list of all symbolic links and junctions in the specified folder, and their target paths.
   

   NTFSLinksView

9. WakeMeOnLan: This utility will collect information about IP addresses and their associated MAC addresses on your LAN, and when you need it, it’ll allow you to send Wake-on-LAN packet to the desired computers in order to turn on these computers.
10. OperaPassView: Just like it sounds, a utility to recover the passwords stored by Opera Web browser.

Notice:  The latest version of NirLauncher package is now available at http://launcher.nirsoft.net/

Many people ask me to add ‘Auto Update’ feature that will automatically update the latest version of all NirSoft utilities and the NirLauncher itself.  So I’ll eventually add this feature in one way or another, but the first step is to create an official download page of NirLauncher package that will be updated with the latest utilities every week or every 2 weeks. I hope that the official download page will be available in the incoming weeks.

For now, there is a new Beta download of NirLauncher package, with the following changes:

• Fixed the missing icons problem in Windows 7/x64.
• Added packages menu to choose a package.  A package can also be selected from accelerator keys (Ctrl+1 for the first package, Ctrl+2 for the second package, and so on…)
• Added status bar information.
• Fixed the crash problems that occurred in some utilities on Windows 7/Vista, when running  NirLauncher as administrator.  This problem occurred only because the executable of NirLauncher contains the word ‘launch’. You can read more about this problem in this post.
  Here’s a small summary of the problem and the way that I solved it:
  • When any executable contains the word ‘launch’ (in my case, NirLauncher.exe), Windows Vista/7 automatically shim the application, which means that apphelp.dll and AcLayers.DLL are loaded into the process and replace the pointers to Windows API functions inside the export table.
  • When  NirLauncher run a utility, the utility is also shimmed, probably because child applications automatically get the same treatment like the parent application. However, if the utility requires elevation (To run as admin) while NirLauncher was executed without admin rights, the launched utility is not shimmed.
  • Some of NirSoft utilities –  ‘Network  Password Recovery’, LSASecretsView, and LSASecretsDump use some code injection technique in order to extract the system data. These utilities use the API function addresses returned  by GetProcAddress function to execute the desired code in a system process. But… when an application is shimmed,  GetProcAddress function returns the addresses of the shim layer instead of the real kernel addresses. These wrong addresses caused the system process to crash immediately and restart the system after a minute.
  • The easiest solution for this problem is to change the executable name of NirLauncher to something else, but this kind of solution is really ridiculous. Also, I cannot assure that Windows won’t shim my application from any other reason.
  • I also tried to add into the executable of NirLauncher and the other utilities a manifest which contains compatibility information. This manifest is a small XML which says to Windows OS: “This application is compatible with Windows Vista and Windows 7, so don’t shim it”.
    Unfortunately, this solution simply didn’t work.
  • The problem was finally solved by making changes in the problematic utilities (NetPass,  LSASecretsView, and LSASecretsDump), so these utilities will work properly even when they are shimmed.  When these utilities detect that they are shimmed, LdrGetProcedureAddress (in ntdll.dll) function is used to get the real address of GetProcAddress function inside the Windows kernel, and in this way, my utilities  bypass the shim layer and get the real kernel addresses.

Update (December 1st, 2009):  Fixed also the Shim issue in MessenPass and WirelessKeyView.

Download the third Beta of NirLauncher package with more than 100 utilities

Zip File Information:  (to verify that the downloaded file is Ok)

MD5: c181e7e46d4acde6f6c9b12309eb85b8
SHA1: 580fcb82d057c8a3cef752124802026886956172
File Size: 6,908,394
Number of files in the Zip: 247

When I released the first Beta of NirLauncher package, I warned you to avoid from running NirLauncher as Administrator on Windows Vista/7, because if you do so, launching a few of my utilities, like Network Password Recovery and   LSASecretsView,  may cause a crash in lsass.exe and then an automatic system restart.

After running some tests and researching  this problem, I found out a workaround, but a very weird one.  This problem can be solved simply by changing the .exe name from NirLauncher.exe to another name that doesn’t contain the word “Launch”.
Yes, you probably think that I’m crazy,  but until now I tested this issue in 3 different systems (one with Windows 7 and 2 with Windows Vista), and in all 3 of them changing the .exe name really solved the crashes problem.

If you still don’t believe it, you are welcomed to test it on your own Windows Vista/7 machine and see if you get the same results, but… Be careful and be aware that this test may crash the lsass.exe process and then restart your system.

Here’s the instructions for testing this weird issue:

1. Download the last build of NirLauncher package from here.
2. Extract the package into any folder you like. You must extract the package with folder names, so all files under NirSoft folder will be extracted into NirSoft subfolder.
3. Right-click on NirLauncher.exe and choose ‘Run As Administrator’.
4. Go to the ‘Password Recovery utilities’  tab, and run the ‘Network Password Recovery’ or ‘LSASecretsView’ utility.
   

   NirLauncher

5. Wait a few seconds, and then you should get the following crash message: “Windows has encountered a critical problem and will restart automatically in one minute. Please save your work now.” If you don’t get this crash message, try to run the other utility.
   

   Windows Crash

6. Wait a minute until the system restart. After the system reboot, Go to the folder of NirLauncher, and then rename NirLauncher.exe to NirBauncher.exe and NirLauncher.cfg to NirBauncher.cfg  (B instead of L)
   You can also rename it to any other name, as long as the name doesn’t contain the word ‘Launch’. Also, the name of the .exe file must be identical to the .cfg file, because NirLauncher reads the .cfg file according to the .exe name.
   

   Rename NirLauncher.exe to NirBauncher.exe

7. Now, right-click on NirBauncher.exe and choose ‘Run As Administrator’.
8. From NirLauncher interface, run the same utility that previously caused the system crash.  The utility should run properly without any crash. At least that what’s happen in the systems that I tested until now.

To ensure that this weird problem is not caused by something bad that I did inside NirLauncher, I also created a small program in c++ that only executes my ‘Netword Password Recovery’  utility (netpass.exe) with CreateProcess API and then exit. The tests with this small .exe still bring the same results: When the .exe file contains the word ‘Launch’, system crash is occurred, and when the .exe file doesn’t contain the word ‘Launch’, everything works fine.

The systems that I used to test this problem don’t have any installation of Antivirus, Firewall, or any other software that might affect the operating system behavior. So I guess that there is some code inside Windows kernel which says, “If the .exe contains the word ‘launch’, execute it in a different way than all other executable files.”

However, I can’t find any reasonable explanation for adding this .exe filename condition into Windows operating system. If you have any idea or information about this weird bug, you are welcomed to add your comment.

Update (November 28th):  Thanks for Dan about the writing the Shim comment. The problem is really the caused by Application Compatibility Engine. From some reason, when the .exe file contains the word ‘launch’, the Application Compatibility Engine consider the application as not compatible with Windows Vista/7, and thus the application is “shimmed”, which means that apphelp.dll and AcLayers.DLL are loaded and replace some API calls of Windows in order to resolve compatibility issues.  In my case, this  Compatibility Engine doesn’t solve compatibility problems… it actually creates the problem.

According to some Blog posts and documentations, embedding a Manifest inside the .exe that contains application compatibility information should disable the shimming and solve this problem, but… I tried it and unfortunately it doesn’t work.  However, because I already know which component cause the problem, I’ll eventually find a way to bypass it.

Many users of  SearchMyFiles utility complained that it’s hard to work with this utility, because after getting the search result, it doesn’t allow to do some basic operations on the search result, like deleting files, cut and paste, rename, and so on.
So the new version of SearchMyFiles now allow you to do these basic operations, similarly to the search result of Windows search. Be aware that the context menu of SearchMyFiles still doesn’t provide all options of Windows Explorer context menu, but I gradually improve it in future versions.

Here’s the list of all changes in the new version of SearchMyFiles utility:

• Added ‘Reset To Default’ button that allows you to easily reset the ‘Search Options’ dialog-box.
• Added ‘Open File On Double-Click’ option. When this option is checked, double-clicking a file will open it with the default program, like double-click in Explorer.
• Added new actions that you can make on the selected files of the search result: Explorer Cut, Delete, Move To Recycle Bin, and Rename.
• In the search option of file times, added ‘Today’ and ‘Since Last Reboot’.
• Added most-recently-used (MRU) list in combo-boxes of the search dialog-box. SearchMyFiles automatically remembers the last 10 strings that you used for every field, and allows you to easily select them from the Combo-Box. If you don’t want that your last search strings will be saved in the .cfg file (from privacy reasons), you can select the “Don’t Save MRU Lists” option in the Options menu.
• Fixed the ‘Subfolders Wildcard’ issue according to users request. Just for example: In previous version, if you tried to search in c:\ with abc*.* as subfolders wildcard, and you had a folder in c:\hello\bbbbb\abc123, SearchMyFiles utility didn’t search in this folder even when abc123 folder matched the folder name, and that’s because the folder below, bbbbb, wasn’t match the subfolders wildcard. Starting from this version, SearchMyFiles scan all subfolders, even if they don’t match the wildcard, but the actual file search is only made for subfolders that match the subfolders wildcard.

The new version of SearchMyFiles is available to download from here.

• ShellExView:
  • On x64 systems, ShellExView now always shows the shell extensions for x64 applications, even on the 32-bit version of ShellExView. If you want to get the shell extensions list for 32-bit applications, use ShellExView with /wow64 command-line option.
  • Added /remote command-line option, which allows you to view/enable/disable shell extensions in a remote computer on your network.
• MozillaCacheView and ChromeCacheView:
  • Fixed a bug that caused these programs to fail with copy of files from the cache when the filename contained invalid file characters (?, :, *, |, and others).
• WirelessKeyView:
  • Added ‘Use code injection method’ option in the Advanced Options window, as a workaround for using this utility on Windows 7.
• USBDeview:
  • Fixed bug: USBDeview displayed wrong drive letters when the serial number or ParentId Prefix contained only one character.
  • Added a separated version for x64 systems, in order to allow you to disable/enable items on x64 systems.
• MyUninstaller:
  • Added support for x64 installations.
• OpenedFilesView:
  • /filefilter command-line option now allows you to specify a filename without a path. For example, if you run OpenedFilesView with ‘/filefilter index.dat’, all opened index.dat filenames will be displayed.
• HashMyFiles:
  • Added ‘Delete Selected Files’ option, which allows you to easily delete duplicated files.
• FileTypesMan:
  • Fixed issue: When UserChoice is selected, FileTypesMan now displays the right file type properties loaded from the UserChoice application key.
  • Fixed issue: When UserChoice is selected, the ‘Open File Type In RegEdit’ option now opens the right UserChoice application key.