Drive 29 March 2003
Version 3.01 Shareware
Copyright (c) 1999-2003 Webdesign Mika Salonen
[email protected]
http://www.mikasalonen.com
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INTRODUCTION
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Drive is a great Windows-based, full-featured pop-up drive browser,
virtual drive creator, CD autorunner, and much more. You are able to
get a fast access to your drives at any time. Floppy disks, hard
disks, CD drives, network drives, virtual drives, etc. are supported.
You are able to open your drive contents in the My Computer style
windows, browse drives in the Windows Explorer or play/run your CDs
from the system tray. Now you can open, browse, run, or play your
drives and disks automatically.
In addition to that, Drive also allows you to create and remove
either permanent or temporary virtual drives!
GREAT FEATURES: AUTORUN, AUTOPLAY, AUTOBROWSE...
The additional features allows you to autostart CDs without having to
open the drive and manually select the appropriate file. In other
words, each time you insert your audio/data CD on drive, the program
allows you to choose whether or not you want to use autoplay/run
feature or just open or browse the contents of your disc.
When you insert an audio CD on drive and have disabled all the
autorun and autoplay features of Microsoft Windows, Drive still
offers you five seconds time to autoplay it by clicking Drive's
system tray icon. When you insert a data CD-R(W) disc including the
file AUTORUN.INF, you can use the autorun feature by clicking Drive's
system tray icon.
On the other hand, if the CD or zip disk doesn't include the autorun
information file just mentioned, you can open or browse its contents
by clicking the tray icon in five seconds or just told Drive to do
that automatically. In other words, there are data CD auto-open and
autobrowse features available, too.
CREATE YOUR OWN VIRTUAL DRIVES
This great program allows you to create permanent or temporary
virtual drives. They are really only a folder, but appear and act as
if they were an additional hard drive.
In other words, Drive modifies your system to allow the use of unused
drive letters to point to a folder on a hard drive or floppy disk.
GET RID OF YOUR SHORTCUTS!
Maybe you have plenty of hard disks and other drives? Is your Windows
desktop full of shortcuts to each of them? Why? When using Drive, you
have fast access to specific drives without using the shortcuts which
are at the desktop and behind all the program windows.
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SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
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The following is a list of the Drive system requirements:
- Microsoft Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP operating system
- less than 1 MB free hard disk space
- file COMCTL32.OCX (version 6.00.8105 or later)
- file MSVBVM60.DLL (version 6.00.9237 or later)
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INSTALLATION AND UNINSTALLATION
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Before installing Drive on your computer, it's good to create a new
folder (C:\DRIVE, for example). After that use software such as
WinZip, for example, to unzip the package DRIVE300.ZIP to the folder
you just created. Run DRIVE.EXE and browse your drives.
By the way, we prefer putting a shortcut of Drive in your startup
program group.
To uninstall the program, delete Drive's folder, all its contents,
and the shortcuts you have created.
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USING THE PROGRAM
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We prefer putting a shortcut of Drive in your startup program group.
Opening and browsing your drives is very easy. Just left- or
right-click the program icon in the system tray and select one of the
drives.
If you prefer opening hard drive contents in the My Computer style
windows, just select "Open in My Computer" from the "Options" menu.
To browse hard drives in the Windows Explorer, you can select the
option "Browse in Windows Explorer" from the same menu.
When you click one of your data CDs, its contents will be opened in
the My Computer style window. If you would like to browse the
contents instead of opening them, just select the option "Browse
data CDs when clicking". To enable the autorun data CD feature,
choose "Run data CDs when clicking" and your data CDs will be runned
automatically when you select them from the drive menu.
If you are using Drive for the first time and click one of your audio
CDs, Drive will start playing it. If you don't like that and want
clicking to open the contents of your audio CD, select the option
"Open audio CDs when clicking". The third option available is "Browse
audio CDs when clicking". If you want to play your audio CDs instead
of browsing and opening them, just select the option "Play audio CDs
when clicking".
When you insert a CD (audio or data) or zip disk on drive, the system
tray icon of Drive will be changed. Then you have five seconds time
to play, run, open, or browse the drive by clicking the icon. Now you
also can choose what Drive should do when you insert your audio or
data CDs on drive. When a data CD has been inserted, Drive can either
open, browse, or run it automatically. In case of an audio CD, the
program is able to open, browse, or play it automatically. Please
note that you don't have to choose these "when clicking" options if
you don't want to do it.
For example, if you have selected the option "Autorun data CDs when
inserting" and the disc just inserted doesn't include the autorun
information required, clicking the icon will open the contents of
your disc in the My Computer window. The same will happen if you have
chosen the option "Run data CDs when clicking" and you select a data
CD which doesn't have the autorun information. By the way, please
note that the autorun feature is not supported with the zip disks.
The submenu "Tools" includes direct links to drive tools of Microsoft
Windows. In other words, when you choose "ScanDisc", the selected
tool of Windows will be executed. In addition to these familiar
tools, there are also commands for adding and removing virtual
drives.
To create a new virtual drive, choose "Add Virtual Drive", select the
drive letter to create and enter the folder to substitute. If you
want to make a permanent virtual drive, select the option "Make
Permanent". After you have the correct path and drive letter
selected, click "Add" to create the virtual drive. If you created a
permanent drive, it will be created every time you execute Drive.
To remove a virtual drive, go to the "Tools" menu, select "Remove
Virtual Drive" and then choose the drive letter to be removed and
click the "Remove" button.
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HISTORY OF PROGRAM
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Version 3.01 Shareware (29 March 2003)
- increased the maximum number of drives which can be listed on the
pop-up drive menu (from 24 to 26)
- modified the source code a bit
- fixed the size problem of the program icons used in the splash
screen and "About Drive" window
- corrected some spelling mistakes in the documentation and "Add
Virtual Drive" window
Version 3.00 Shareware (28 December 2002)
- fixed a nasty bug which sometimes made hiding the pop-up drive
menu too difficult
- fixed a minor bug: autoplay feature couldn't start playing CDs,
it executed the CD player only
- added a new feature: you are able to create and remove virtual
drives, either temporary or permanent
- added a new feature: when you insert a data CD on drive, Drive
can open, browse, or run it automatically
- added a new feature: when you insert an audio CD on drive, the
program is able to open, browse, or play it automatically
- added a new feature: when you choose a data CD from the menu, its
contents can be opened in the My Computer or Windows Explorer
style window or the disc can be autorunned
- added a new feature: when you click an audio CD, its contents can
be opened in the My Computer or Windows Explorer window or Drive
can start playing it with the external CD player software
- added new commands to the "Options" submenu: Open data CDs when
clicking, Browse data CDs when clicking, Run data CDs when
clicking, Open audio CDs when clicking, Browse audio CDs when
clicking, Play audio CDs when clicking, Open data CDs when
inserting, Browse data CDs when inserting, Autorun data CDs when
inserting, Open audio CDs when inserting, Browse audio CDs when
inserting, Autoplay audio CDs when inserting
- added the "Tools" submenu with the following commands: Add
Virtual Drive, Remove Virtual Drive, Disk Cleanup, Disk
Defragmenter, ScanDisc
- removed the autorun feature of zip disks
- removed the pop-up menu hotkey (ALT + Z)
- modified the "Help" submenu
- modified the splash, registration, and "About Drive" windows
- improved the registration system
- hard disks etc. without names are shown like this on the drive
menu: "C: (not labeled)"
- modified the error management and messages
- cleaned up the code
- re-written the documentation
Version 2.10 Shareware (18 July 2002)
- fixed a couple of minor bugs which placed a small titlebar on the
desktop when the program was used
- modified the splash and registration windows
- changed and improved the registration system
- the unregistered version will expire after 14 days
- the unistaller not included anymore
- cleaned up the code and error messages
- modified the documentation
Version 2.00 Shareware (28 May 2002)
- fixed a bug which caused the following error: "Run-time error
365: Unable to unload within this context"
- fixed a minor bug that allowed you to access the pop-up menu
when it wasn't ready for that
- added a new feature: you are able to browse, open and play your
audio CDs (not only to open and browse)
- added a new feature: when you insert a zip disk or data CD-R(W)
which includes file Autorun.inf, you have five seconds time to
autorun it by clicking Drive's system tray icon
- added a new feature: when you insert a data CD-R(W) or zip disk
which doesn't include file Autorun.inf, you have five seconds
time to open/browse its contents by clicking the tray icon
- added a new feature: when you insert an audio CD on your drive,
you have five seconds time to autoplay it by clicking Drive's
system tray icon
- added a new pop-up menu picture for audio CDs (works properly
only if you are using Microsoft Windows is English)
- modified Drive's icon, hyperlinks and "About Drive" window
- improved error handling
- added a couple of new error messages and modified the older ones
- updated the system requirements
- cleaned up the code a bit
Version 2.00 beta 1 Shareware (04 April 2002)
- fixed bugs which caused the following error message: "Run-time
error 5: Invalid procedure call or argument"
- fixed a couple of bugs which caused problems with closing and
opening the pop-up menu
- fixed a bug that allowed you to close Drive when its windows
("About Drive" and/or "Register") were just opened
- minor bug fixed: right-clicking the Drive's system tray icon will
re-activate the "About Drive" window if it's already opened
- minor bug fixed: mouse pointer doesn't disappear anymore in the
"About Drive" window
- added a new hotkey (ALT + Z) for accessing the pop-up menu
- added a new feature: when you select "Open in My Computer" and
select one of your drives, the contents of it will be opened in
the My Computer window
- added a new feature: when you select "Browse in Windows Explorer"
and select one of your drives, the contents of it will be opened
in the Windows Explorer window
- increased the maximum number of drives allowed (from 20 to 24)
- added a pop-up menu picture for RAM drives (special thanks to
Reijo Immanen)
- included uninstaller to clean up your Windows registry if you
want to uninstall and get rid of Drive some day
- added a new splash screen
- modified the user interface and "About Drive" window
- improved error handling and added a couple of new error messages
- file COMDLG32.OCX not required anymore
- re-written the whole documentation of Drive
- changed the whole registration system, it's compatible with the
system used earlier
Version 1.00 Shareware (19 December 2001)
- first final Shareware version
- bugs fixed
Version 1.00 beta 2 Freeware (03 July 2000)
- first public release
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DISCLAIMER
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The author of this program accepts no responsibility for damages that
may be caused by this program and make no warranty or representation,
either express or implied, with respect to this software. This
software is provided "AS IS", and you, its user, assume the entire
risk when you use it.
THIS IS AN EVALUATION (TRIAL) VERSION OF THE SOFTWARE. You are
allowed to use this program as a trial version, then after you have
evaluated it you must register. You may not use it unregistered for
more than 14 days.
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REGISTRATION
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For the latest pricing information and to get your registration
code, please visit the following URL:
http://www.mikasalonen.com/order.shtml
After receiving your registration code via email, you have to enter
it to the register form. You can get the form by clicking "Register"
from the Help menu.
When you buy Drive, you also get unlimited free technical support
and future versions and improvements for free!
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DISTRIBUTION
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You are free to distribute this unregistered Shareware version of
Drive as long as the following conditions are met:
1) Drive 3.01 Shareware must be distributed as a complete package
(DRIVE301.ZIP) including only the following files:
DRIVE.EXE 176 128 bytes
FILE_ID.DIZ 584 bytes
README.TXT 16 815 bytes
If you did not receive all these files please contact the author
via electronic mail to [email protected].
2) The package including all related program and documentation files
cannot be modified in any way.
3) This version is not to be sold. However, you may charge a
reasonable distribution fee for the package.
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CONTACTING THE AUTHOR
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You can send your messages, comments, bug reports, suggestions that
can improve the program, etc. via email to [email protected].
When sending bug reports, please describe what you did, what
happened, what version of Drive you have, any error messages program
gave, what kind of computer or operation system you have, and
anything else you think might be relevant.
For updates and other great products, please check out our website at
http://www.mikasalonen.com.
Author: Webdesign Mika Salonen
Software development: [email protected]
http://www.mikasalonen.com
Webdesign services: [email protected]
http://www.webdesignsalonen.com/en/