Thanks for that. I'm still merging in some changes I had that need to
go in before any next release. Some things based on questions and
feedback I've received that'll reduce confusion. I'll probably enable
multi-proc generating support, and hopefully make it safe to just backup
wallet.dat to backup your money. It's good to be coding again!
I'm going to hide the transaction fee setting, which is completely not
needed and only serves to confuse people. It was only there for testing
and demonstration of a technical detail that can only be needed in the
far away future, if ever, but was necessary to implement at the
beginning to make it possible later.
What was the problem with the shortcut in the startup folder? If you
could send me the code, I'd like to take another look and see if I can
see what the problem was. The first strcat in the registry code should
be strcpy, otherwise it would fail intermittently. If the same code was
in the shortcut one, maybe that was the problem.
It's encouraging to see more people taking an interest such as that
NewLibertyStandard site. I like his approach to estimating the value
based on electricity. It's educational to see what explanations people
adopt. They may help discover a simplified way of understanding it that
makes it more accessible to the masses. Many complex concepts in the
world have a simplistic explanation that satisfies 80% of people, and a
complete explanation that satisfies the other 20% who see the flaws in
the simplistic explanation.
mmalmi@cc.hut.fi wrote:
I made a Windows installer for the latest version of Bitcoin, which
includes the autostart and minimize to tray features. The installer
makes a start menu shortcut and a startup registry entry. I first
implemented the autostart with a shortcut to the startup folder, but I
found out that it doesn't always work by default and ended up doing it
with a registry entry. The registry entry is removed by the uninstaller
and can be also disabled from the options menu, so I don't think it's
such a big menace to the user after all.
I made the installer with NSIS, and the nsi script can be found in the SVN.
Could you add the installer to the SF download page? Here's the file:
http://bitcoin.sourceforge.net/uploads/Bitcoin_setup.exe
There are some new users registered to the bitcoin.sf.net site. One of
them just announced that he's trading Bitcoins for dollars. Here's his
site: http://newlibertystandard.wetpaint.com/. Making an exchange
service first seemed a bit premature for the time being, but on the
other hand it's good that people show interest towards the project, and
this might attract even more interested people (and hopefully more
developers). I just sent the guy an email.
Satoshi Nakamototo Martti Malmi <mmalmi@cc.hut.fi> · · original
I got it, I see you checked in the startup folder code before changing
it to registry. I don't see any visible problems in the code. I guess
it depends what exactly the problem was with it not always working by
default. Was there a Vista/UAC security problem?
Satoshi Nakamoto wrote:
What was the problem with the shortcut in the startup folder? If you
could send me the code, I'd like to take another look and see if I can
see what the problem was. The first strcat in the registry code should
be strcpy, otherwise it would fail intermittently. If the same code was
in the shortcut one, maybe that was the problem.
mmalmi@cc.hut.fi wrote:
> I made a Windows installer for the latest version of Bitcoin, which
> includes the autostart and minimize to tray features. The installer
> makes a start menu shortcut and a startup registry entry. I first
> implemented the autostart with a shortcut to the startup folder, but I
> found out that it doesn't always work by default and ended up doing it
> with a registry entry. The registry entry is removed by the
> uninstaller and can be also disabled from the options menu, so I don't
> think it's such a big menace to the user after all.
mmalmi@cc.hut.fito Satoshi Nakamoto <satoshin@gmx.com> · · original
Well, the code worked and made a shortcut in the startup folder. For
some reason it didn't automatically start when booting, but worked
fine when you clicked on it in the menu. Now I tried making a shortcut
manually, and this time it works on autostart, don't know why. I could
try again with the older code.
I got it, I see you checked in the startup folder code before changing
it to registry. I don't see any visible problems in the code. I guess
it depends what exactly the problem was with it not always working by
default. Was there a Vista/UAC security problem?
Satoshi Nakamoto wrote:
> What was the problem with the shortcut in the startup folder? If
> you could send me the code, I'd like to take another look and see
> if I can see what the problem was. The first strcat in the
> registry code should be strcpy, otherwise it would fail
> intermittently. If the same code was in the shortcut one, maybe
> that was the problem.
>
> mmalmi@cc.hut.fi wrote:
>> I made a Windows installer for the latest version of Bitcoin,
>> which includes the autostart and minimize to tray features. The
>> installer makes a start menu shortcut and a startup registry
>> entry. I first implemented the autostart with a shortcut to the
>> startup folder, but I found out that it doesn't always work by
>> default and ended up doing it with a registry entry. The registry
>> entry is removed by the uninstaller and can be also disabled from
>> the options menu, so I don't think it's such a big menace to the
>> user after all.
It's possible Bitcoin ran and bailed out because something was wrong.
debug.log should tell something if that was the case. What OS are you
using? I wonder if we need Admin privilege and don't realize it. Stuff
that requires Admin can't start on startup on Vista.
Program shortcuts have multiple tabs of settings with lots of little
details. I'll try the startup folder code and see if I can reproduce
the problem. Every other systray icon on my computer is in the startup
folder, and it makes it easy for users to manage all their autoruns in
one place. The things in the registry key tend to be devious hidden
bloatware.
I implemented the code to flush wallet.dat whenever it's closed so we'll
be able to tell users they only need to backup wallet.dat. You can
restore just wallet.dat and it'll re-download the rest. I'll have to do
another stress test before release.
mmalmi@cc.hut.fi wrote:
Well, the code worked and made a shortcut in the startup folder. For
some reason it didn't automatically start when booting, but worked fine
when you clicked on it in the menu. Now I tried making a shortcut
manually, and this time it works on autostart, don't know why. I could
try again with the older code.
> I got it, I see you checked in the startup folder code before changing
> it to registry. I don't see any visible problems in the code. I guess
> it depends what exactly the problem was with it not always working by
> default. Was there a Vista/UAC security problem?
>
> Satoshi Nakamoto wrote:
>> What was the problem with the shortcut in the startup folder? If
>> you could send me the code, I'd like to take another look and see
>> if I can see what the problem was. The first strcat in the
>> registry code should be strcpy, otherwise it would fail
>> intermittently. If the same code was in the shortcut one, maybe
>> that was the problem.
>>
>> mmalmi@cc.hut.fi wrote:
>>> I made a Windows installer for the latest version of Bitcoin,
>>> which includes the autostart and minimize to tray features. The
>>> installer makes a start menu shortcut and a startup registry
>>> entry. I first implemented the autostart with a shortcut to the
>>> startup folder, but I found out that it doesn't always work by
>>> default and ended up doing it with a registry entry. The registry
>>> entry is removed by the uninstaller and can be also disabled from
>>> the options menu, so I don't think it's such a big menace to the
>>> user after all.
mmalmi@cc.hut.fito Satoshi Nakamoto <satoshin@gmx.com> · · original
It's possible Bitcoin ran and bailed out because something was wrong.
debug.log should tell something if that was the case. What OS are you
using? I wonder if we need Admin privilege and don't realize it.
Stuff that requires Admin can't start on startup on Vista.
I'm using XP. I recompiled the older revision and this time the
startup shortcut works. It also works when testing on Vista
(non-admin). Maybe I just missed something the previous time.
Program shortcuts have multiple tabs of settings with lots of little
details. I'll try the startup folder code and see if I can reproduce
the problem. Every other systray icon on my computer is in the startup
folder, and it makes it easy for users to manage all their autoruns in
one place. The things in the registry key tend to be devious hidden
bloatware.
Here it's the other way around, I have all my startup programs in the
registry. But maybe the shortcut method is nicer for the user, if it
works just as well
Yeah, I put back your startup folder shortcut code and it started fine
for me too on XP and Vista. For good measure, I changed it to make the
shortcut settings look identical to one I manually created. I set the
working directory to where the EXE is since that's where debug.log is
created, otherwise windows puts it in some weird directory. I didn't
change the setup script yet.
I checked everything in to SVN (thanks for setting that up)
- multi-proc generate
- flush wallet.dat after every change so the DB doesn't leave that stuff
in the transaction logs
- view menu checkbox to hide all generated coins so you can see just
your payment transactions
- disabled transaction fee option
- made the minimize to tray options similar to Firefox's MinimizeToTray
- bunch of other misc changes since the 0.1.5 release
I made it not show non-accepted generated coins. It won't show
generated coins until they have at least one confirmation (one block
linked after it), so usually they'll just never be seen. Occasionally a
generated coin that was displayed might disappear because it became not
accepted later. I don't think anyone would notice the occasional
non-accepteds if we didn't point them out in the UI. People have told
me they find it annoying to have to look at them, as they're permanently
displayed in the transaction record.
I still have more testing to do. I guess we gotta test Windows 7 now.
mmalmi@cc.hut.fi wrote:
> It's possible Bitcoin ran and bailed out because something was wrong.
> debug.log should tell something if that was the case. What OS are you
> using? I wonder if we need Admin privilege and don't realize it.
> Stuff that requires Admin can't start on startup on Vista.
I'm using XP. I recompiled the older revision and this time the startup
shortcut works. It also works when testing on Vista (non-admin). Maybe I
just missed something the previous time.
> Program shortcuts have multiple tabs of settings with lots of little
> details. I'll try the startup folder code and see if I can reproduce
> the problem. Every other systray icon on my computer is in the startup
> folder, and it makes it easy for users to manage all their autoruns in
> one place. The things in the registry key tend to be devious hidden
> bloatware.
Here it's the other way around, I have all my startup programs in the
registry. But maybe the shortcut method is nicer for the user, if it
works just as well
