RAD Studio XE has (just?) been released, see http://www.embarcadero.com/rad-studio-xe-preview

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I have installed a new rating plugin that gives you, my readers, a convenient and fast method to give feedback. So please do so, let me know what posts you find interesting!

I have also added a Contact form in case you have any questions, article suggestions or maybe even consultation requests. The contact page is an attempt to streamline the e-mails I get from this blog so I hope this will work

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The backup has been restored and all downloads should be working again. If you do find a non working download please leave a comment.

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Most of the downloads are not working (error 404) at the moment, I am waiting for my hoster to restore some stuff from the backup so please be patient…
UPDATE: backup is restored and downloads are working again!

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I needed to do an unattended install of an application (in this case Exact Globe 2003) on Citrix. In this case the application provides a special executable, WSetup.exe for an unattended install.

WSetup takes several parameters, the most important ones are:

/I: Installation Path
/S: Install Type
/IM: Installation Mode

So this appeared to be an easy task, however when testing the Deployment the /I parameter seemed to be ignored and the whole thing was installed in C:\Program Files.

I analyzed what WSetup.exe does with my favorite tool, Ida Pro and at first all seemed ok. WSetup determines the default location of the Program Files Directory by reading the ProgramFilesDir registry key (which is of course C:\Program Files).

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On a Citrix environment 2 different applications were required. One of the applications required java version 1.5 (and didn’t work with 1.6) and the other application needed specifically version 1.6.

Because the applications are installed on a Citrix server the users do not have write permissions to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE so that was another complication.

After a lot of monitoring with process monitor the general process of how a particular Java version loads in Internet Explorer became clear to me.

Java adds an addon to IE called ssv.dll, you can see this trough Tools | Manage Add-ons | Enable or Disable Add-ons:

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One of my customers recently asked if it was possible to preven the user from renaming or deleting the My Documents icon on the desktop.

If you know that deleting the icon from the desktop doesn’t really delete the My Documents folder from disk but just hides the icon then it’s obvious that it must be some kind of registry setting.

So I fired up Process Monitor from Sysinternals and deleted the icon. This showed that after deleting the icon changed registry keys at the following location:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\ClassicStartMenu\

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