Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Don't delete WININIT.EXE

Author: Ratko V Tomic

Date: 22:41:11 11/12/00

Go up one level in this thread


> I got no retaliatory action from deleting the wininit.exe
> or dnetc.exe

Microsoft Knowledge base note Q140570 describes role of wininit.exe, as quoted
below. By removing wininit.exe you defeat uninstall functionality, i.e. the
uninstall won't clean up correctly. Better is to look for file WININIT.INI and
edit that file for lines which control wininit.exe in the undesired ways.

--------------------------
Moving Files in Windows 95

Windows 95 does not implement MoveFileEx(), but does provide an alternate way
for all Win32-based, 16-bit Windows-based, and MS-DOS-based applications to
move, replace, or delete files (but not directories) that are currently in use.
This capability is implemented through the [rename] section of a file named
Wininit.ini. If Wininit.ini is present in the Windows directory, Wininit.exe
processes it when the system boots. Once Wininit.ini has been processed,
Wininit.exe renames it to Wininit.bak.

The syntax of the [rename] section is:

   DestinationFileName=SourceFileName
DestinationFileName and SourceFileName must reside on the same volume and be
short (8.3) file names because Wininit.ini is processed before the protected
mode disk system is loaded, and long file names are only available when the
protected mode disk system is running. Destination and source files specified in
Wininit.ini with long file names are ignored.

The [rename] section can have multiple lines with one file per line. To delete a
file, specify NUL as the DestinationFileName. Here are some entry examples:

   [rename]
   NUL=C:\TEMP.TXT
   C:\NEW_DIR\EXISTING.TXT=C:\EXISTING.TXT
   C:\NEW_DIR\NEWNAME.TXT=C:\OLDNAME.TXT
   C:\EXISTING.TXT=C:\TEMP\NEWFILE.TXT
The first line causes Temp.txt to be deleted. The second causes Existing.txt to
be moved to a new directory. The third causes Oldname.txt to be moved and
renamed. The fourth causes an existing file to be overwritten by Newfile.txt.

Applications should not use WritePrivateProfileString() to write entries to the
[rename] section because there can be multiple lines with the same
DestinationFileName, especially if DestinationFileName is "NUL." Instead, they
should add entries by parsing Wininit.ini and appending the entries to the end
of the [rename] section.

NOTE: Always use a case-insensitive search to parse Wininit.ini because the
title of the [rename] section and the file names inside it may have any
combination of uppercase and lowercase letters.

Applications that use Wininit.ini should check for its existence in the Windows
directory. If Wininit.ini is present, then another application has written to it
since the system was last restarted. Therefore, the application should open it
and add entries to the [rename] section. If Wininit.ini isn't present, the
application should create it and add to the [rename] section. Doing so ensures
that entries from other applications won't be deleted accidentally by your
application.

To undo a file rename operation before the system is rebooted, you must remove
the corresponding line from the [rename] section of the Wininit.ini file.



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.