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Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] U3 questions/remarks

From: "Graeme Lunt" <graeme.lunt@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007 16:36:01 +0100
Ulf,

> As I'm a proud owner of an U3 stick now, I can test this ;-)

Good news. I think there's only a couple of us using it to date. 
I find it very useful.

> Some minor things I've noticed:
> 
> - All programs I've installed on the stick (OpenOffice, 
> Firefox, Winamp,  ...) either shows only the program name "Winamp", 
> or the suffix "for U3" like in "Mozilla Firefox for U3". Wireshark 
> shows "Wireshark 0.99.5pre2". Should the version number be replaced by 
> "for U3"?

Well of the 5 programs on my U3 device, one is "for U3", one is "U3 Edition"
and the others are just their plain name. Personally I'm not for adding any
"U3" component to the name - as where you stop? Do you change to "About
Wireshark for U3" on the Help menu?

As to the version in the U3 launchpad item, then that should probably go. I
find it very useful as I generally have 3 versions on my USB stick - current
public release, current development build, my personal build. This makes it
easy to see what I have fixed/broken! 8^)

But there are other ways handle the version number than putting it up front
on the GUI in the release build. 

Given the other comments, I think I will add it to the description which
comes up as a tooltip, which is slightly easier than bringing up the
Wireshark properties.

> - After installation, WS was in the "more programs" area 
> (there are only space for 9 programs - and I've installed 
> more) - but it doesn't showed an icon! Other programs didn't 
> had such problems. Has this something to do with the icon 
> problem recently mentioned on the list? 
> Interestingly, after I've moved WS up in the list (into the 
> "normal" area) the icon is shown now. Any ideas?

Well, I've just had a quick look at this and it appears to be because the
Wireshark icon I put into the manifest has more than 256 colours. This is
not a problem for the main launchpad window but it apparently a problem for
the "More Programs" sub menu. To be fair the U3 spec says it should only be
256 colours. So I'll look at updating the makefile to automatically
downgrade the icon for the U3 package.

> - if running under U3, this should be mentioned in the About box 
> (appended to "Running on ...")?

Had thought about this but not come to any decision. Maybe adding something
like:

"... from the <device> U3 device on drive <drive>."

For example,
"Running on Windows XP Service Pack 2, build 2600, without WinPcap, without
AirPcap from the Sandisk Titanium U3 device on drive I:"

?

> WinPcap:
> - if WinPcap was manually uninstalled (without a reboot in the 
> meantime), starting WS from U3 won't ask for a new WinPcap 
> install (the detection logic might better use the uninstall string from 
> the registry)

In your example above, I assume you uninstalled WinPcap after having run
Wireshark once from the U3 device? 

Currently, the U3 packaging only checks for WinPcap the first time you run
Wireshark from the U3 device.
The reason being that if you don't want to install WinPcap, you are not
continually asked each time you run Wireshark. (This is one of my use
cases.) 

The detection does indeed use the uninstall string - I copied the approach
from a master - it just isn't called each time you run Wireshark.

If you think this is a useful feature, it may be better to incorporate into
Wireshark itself - as if you uninstall WinPcap after installing Wireshark
from the NSIS package, you won't be prompted to install it again either.
Maybe ask if you try to "Start" a capture and WinPcap cannot be loaded?

Graeme