So, like all current Eve Online subscribers, I updated and installed the new Trinity patch that was released today. it installed without a hitch and the liquid smooth new client worked swimmingly. Eve looks bette rthan ever , and plays better to boot.

Unbeknownst to me, CCP let a huge bug in their installer go through int heir rush to get out the patch. It didn’t affect me (and honestly if it did, I would have just booted into Linux and fixed it) but it affected quite a few subscribers as evidenced by a lot of shocked threads by people who could no longer boot into windows. Apparently, the patcher changes to you root directory and deletes the boot.ini file. In their wisdom, CCP also has a boot.ini in the Eve folder, which is the one they were intending to delete/replace. See, if they had named it something else, anything else, this wouldn’t have even caused a problem.

Anyways, if you have already run the patcher but have not rebooted, yet, try to right-click on My Computer and go to Properties. Click the Advanced tab and click Settings under the Startup and Recovery section. Click the button saying “Edit”. This will bring up your boot.ini and you can save a backup of it, just in case. But if you already ran the updater, and you didn’t get an error, you’re probably in the clear (as I was).

If you got an error or need to fix your boot.ini:

Open notepad.

copy in:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=”Microsoft Windows XP Professional” /fastdetect

with whatever os you have.

go to “save as” and make sure you change it to all files (otherwise you end up with boot.ini.txt) and save as c:\boot.ini.

go to start->run->cmd

enter “attrib +s +h +a boot.ini” when at the c:\ prompt

to verify, go to start->run->msconfig and there should be a tab for boot.ini

If you can’t boot at all after the patch:

Boot from your OS cd. and follow the directions to start Recovery Console. Choose the corresponding number asked of you for your OS is on, normally its #1 Then type:

Attrib -H -R -S C:\Boot.ini
DEL C:\Boot.ini
BootCfg /Rebuild
Fixboot

Godspeed!

Wordpress has an upgrade out, and drzy has been updated to the new version. Apparently this is a pretty major release including many new features, RPC calls, and bug fixes.

As usual, let me know if any weirdness occurs.

Microsoft unleashed a suite of critical patches today for Windows XP and Office. Four for the former and two for the latter. They fix some potentially nasty security vulnerabilities. Probably ones that weren’t widely known about, but that everyone knows about now. So patch up people, and keep your system from becoming a zombie box.

If you are a non-IE user (like me), a great way to patch is to use WindizUpdate. Yeah, it sounds kinda hokey and the site almost makes it look like a bait for virii, but I’ve heard enough about the site to feel reasonably safe about using it (although, I accept no responsibility for anyone that chooses to use it). They have a small plugin you download and then you can use their site to download all the windows updates and install them automagically. This also allows you to ignore Microsoft WGA stuffs that borders on spyware.