Monday, 20 March 2017

Feedback from E2B users wanted on the QRUN 'auto-suggest' feature

For E2B v1.91, I am thinking of changing the default action (i.e. when you do not press any key and let it time-out or you press the ENTER key) for the E2B QRUN 'auto-suggest' prompt from 'No' (do not use suggested file extension) as shown below...



QRUN current default action = N
so that the new default option would be 'Yes' (i.e. use the suggested file extension).

So in the above screenshot, if the user does nothing (for timeout) or presses [ENTER] or presses N or any key except Y, then it will boot using the .iso file extension (and in this case not work correctly as Hirens requires a .isowinvh file extension).

I would like some feedback on if you think that changing the default action to 'Yes' would be a good idea. It would help the new user to be more successful without them needing to read the text and then either answer Y or change the file extension.

Or, to put it another way...
Has QRUN.g4b ever suggested a file extension which did not work when the actual file extension  (usually .iso) did work OK?

P.S. Please give the **exact** filename that you are using if you are reporting a problem with a certain payload file.

How 'auto-suggest' works

The suggestion for an alternative file extension is made by the code in QRUN.g4b looking at the characters in the name of the file and the current file extension.

For instance, if the file ends in '.img' and the name contains the characters 'konboot' (in upper or lower case) then QRUN.g4b will suggest a file extension of .imgfdhd01.

If you want to see how it does this, then look at the grub4dos code at approx. lines #146 to #233 in \_ISO\e2b\grub\QRUN.g4b.

Please leave a comment below or use the Contact Me methods on this page (the Anonymous Suggestions link is really quick to use and no login, etc. is required).

P.S. Unfortunately, grub4dos is not able to rename an NTFS file, so I am not able to also rename the file for you.

Stop Press!!!

I have had some feedback indicating that changing the default to 'Yes' may cause some issues, so my latest thoughts are to leave it as it is, but make it configurable using a TSUG variable as follows:

If you set the TSUG variable (suggested timeout in seconds) in your \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file, you can change the timeout (default=6 sec) or behaviour of Auto-Suggest. Here are some examples...

# No timeout - auto-suggest will always wait for the user to press a key
set TSUG=0

# Change auto-suggest timeout (1-989)  - e.g. 10 = wait 10 seconds
set TSUG=10

# use default timeout of 3 seconds, but if user does not press a key, always use the suggested file extension (if not .isoask), valid range = 990 to 999
set TSUG=993

# No timeout, always ask - if user presses just the ENTER key only, the suggested file extension will be used instead of the current file extension
set TSUG=990

E2B v1.91d is available now with these changes.

Note that as well as Y or N, other valid single-character key responses are I=isoask or A=abort.

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