weres the Network Neighbourhood

[JFAC THeta]

I installed a plugin i think its called VirtualDIsk it allows u to mount ISO images. It wanted me to ainstall some stuff to the registry wwhich i did. No for me to be able to mount ISO images i need to go in to the \\Network Neighbourhood can somebody tell me how u get to that
heres the readme:

Virtual Disk, Version 1.3 beta 3
FS-plugin for Total Commander that allows to mount disk images as
additional virtual drives in system.

Author of the plugin: Konstantin Vlasov, 2006
Homepage: http://flint-inc.ru/
E-mail: support@flint_inc.ru

The driver is based on the open-source project FileDisk by Bo Branten, 2004
Homepage: http://www.insidewindows.info/
E-mail: bosse@acc.umu.se


Description
-----------

This plugin allows to mount disk images as additional drives. It works only under
Windows 2000 and Windows XP/2003 32/64-bit.
When an image is mounted, there is a new drive appears in the system. Its letter
is specified earlier, and the new drive contains all the content of the image file.
The following three modes are available:
1. HDD - emulation of local hard disk drive. In this mode one can mount images of
single partitions of hard drives formatted in FAT or NTFS system, and also images
of floppy diskettes and flash-drives with the FAT file system.
2. FDD - emulation of floppy drive. This mode allows to mount all the same images as
in HDD mode, except the NTFS partitions (Windows does not allow to use NTFS on
floppies).
3. CD/DVD - CD-drive emulation (there is no difference between CD and DVD in the system).
This mode is used for mounting CD- and DVD-disk images. One can use ISO format and
some of the BIN- and NRG-images. (Unfortunately, the exact information, in which cases
BIN- and NRG-images can be mounted, is absent.)

Also there is the "Read only" modifier that allows to disable modifying of the image
mounted. CD-drive emulation is always performed in Read-Only mode.


Installing
----------

Before installing the plugin, it is necessary to install disk driver. Call the context
menu for the file vd_filedisk.inf in the VD_Driver subfolder and select the "Install"
command. The system will then install the driver vd_filedisk.sys and ask to reboot the
computer. Note that rebooting is necessary for the driver (and hence the plugin) to work!

If you don't have the "Install" command in the context menu of the INF-file, you can
use the old methode of installing the driver: copy the vd_filedisk.sys file in the
Windows\System32\Drivers\ folder, then import the file vd_filedisk.reg into the registry
by double-clicking it, and restart the computer.

IMPORTANT!!!
In 64-bit Windows versions all the operations described above on installing the driver
must be performed only from Windows Explorer! If one performs them from Total Commander,
the driver will not be installed! This happens because TC is a 32-bit application and in
64-bit Windows it works in the 32-bit environment emulation mode.

Then you can install the plugin VirtualDisk.wfx itself by usual way: go to Configuration
dialog, select Operation, then press FS-Plugins button, in the dialog appeared press Add
and then select WFX-file of the plugin. Also you can use the automatic plugin installation
feature that was added in Total Commander 6.50: in this case the plugin will be installed
automatically when you open the archive with the plugin.
But note that in any case you need to install the driver manually, as described above!


Work with plugin
----------------

After installing a new folder appears in Total Commander's Network Neighbourhood -
"Virtual Disks". In this folder a list of image files is present. At first this list
is empty. To add images just copy image file in plugin's folder. The image is not
copied itself, plugin just remembers a link on it. To exclude the image from the list,
simply delete it by usual way - original file will not be corrupted or deleted.

For customizing the image parameters, press Enter or Alt+Enter, or just select "Properties"
from right-click context menu. The Settings dialog will appear. In this dialog you can
see full path to the image file, its status (mounted/unmounted), and also you can select
drive letter and mounting mode (HDD/FDD/CD).
To mount image press Mount button. If the image is mounted, this button is changed
to Unmount.

On rebooting the computer all mounted images become unmounted. There is an option "Mount
on reboot" that allows to remount the necessary images back: if the image was mounted just
before the reboot it is mounted again, else it remains unmounted.
If some errors occur during this auto-remount process, they are written into log file
VirtualDisk.log that is present in the plugin's folder.


IMPORTANT NOTES for work with plugin:
-------------------------------------

1. It is undesirable to mount/unmount images in different instances of Total Commander.
There can be a situation when one copy of TC says the image is mounted, and another one
says, that it is unmounted. At present many of such situations are automatically resolved
but there can be unaccounted situations.
For those who likes experiments I have a suggestion - please, test this plugin: how does
it work in several copies of TC simultaneously? I cannot find all the bad situations by
myself, you can help me find them.
For bad situations there is an additional button on Settings dialog - "Toggle state".
This button just toggles the software flag of mounting and it does not affect real mounting.
2. CD-images can be mounted only in CD-mode, FAT-images in HDD and FDD modes, and NTFS-images
only in HDD mode. Otherwise the image will be mounted, the virtual disk will appear, but
on trying to access it you will get the error that the drive is not formatted.
3. The new drive is not visible for programs that get drives list from list of system devices. This
is so, because this new drive is not a system device but just a logical drive. In future versions
I'll try to add creation of the appropriate system device.


Just in case, I write here this WARNING:
----------------------------------------

My plugin works with low-level Windows functions, and this is not safe. I cannot guarantee that
the program works absolutely correctly (and what is more, this programming branch is new for me).
So, I distribute this plugin "as is", without any guarantees and promises. Use it on your own risk.
I just want to add, that as much as I can I will try to correct all bugs found. After all, I use
this plugin myself, and I'm interested in its safe work...


Future plans:
-------------

* Correct work from several instances of TC.
* Adding new drive in the list of system devices.
* Show which images are mounted. (Currently impossible.)
* Support for non-standard image formats.
* Automatic driver installation.

[Sticky]

Hi JFAC THeta,
And welcome!

To answer your question, the network neighborhood is at the bottom of the drive pulldown list. You can access it by pushing ALT + F1 (or F2) and then pushing the backslash (\).

Hope that helps.

[Jungle]

As i understand u can't enter the Network Neighbourhood within TC? Here's one of the ways to do it: go to the settings and enable option 'show drive buttons' (here u can also enable 2 separate drive button bars over each file panel). After that drive button will appear and the last of them is NN button. Click it to access the NN. The plugin will be displayed there if installed properly.

[Sheepdog]

you may also use in the commandline of TC:

Code: Select all

cd \\

or put the cursor on the '..' two dots in the filepane, then press [shift]+[F6] what will place the cursor in the 'current path' field above the file pane and type two backslashes "\\" end press [enter] to confirm.

sheepdog

[JFAC THeta]

thank u guys alot, this program is so cool, just got another quick question how can u add it to button bar section like for easy access. THanks

[Sheepdog]

Do you mean Quickstart-bar?

For win XP you could switch in one panel to:

Code: Select all

cd "%Appdata%\microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\" 

then [TAB] to activate the opposite panel and

Code: Select all

cd %Commander_path%

then place the cursor on the file totalcmd.exe and press [Ctrl]]+[Shift]+[F5].

That will create a link to TC in the quickstart bar.

sheepdog

[Jungle]

just got another quick question how can u add it to button bar section like for easy access. THanks

If u mean quick access to the plugin via TC's toolbar,
go to the toolbar settings, add a button, then in 'command' field type 'cd \\\ [plugin name]', where [plugin name] is the exact name of the plugin shown in the NN (case sensitive).
P.S. I haven't access to TC now, so sorry if smth is wrong.