Time for a change

OK, well, so today is my 38th birthday - traditionally a time for gifts. With this in mind I have decided to release the PPJoy source under the GPL license. This is my gift to you :)

I've just come to realise that my priorities have shifted and I don't have the time to spend improving PPjoy and giving it the attention it deserves. It would be great if somebody picks up where I am leaving off...

I hope to have the source up on SourceForge in a couple of weeks.

About signed drivers...

A lot of the problems/issues around PPJoy have centred around driver signing (PPJoy uses test signing certificates which in turn requires Windows to be in Test Mode).

So why not simply sign PPJoy with the proper "real" certificates? Simple answer - they cost a lot of money: see http://www.verisign.com/code-signing/content-signing-certificates/microsoft-authenticode/index.html. $500 per year is downright nasty.

If enough people chip in with donations I will release a properly signed version of PPJoy, possibly as "PPJoyPro". I've been toying with the idea of a non-free PPJoyPro with some extra features (suggestions?)

Unfortunately PayPal does not allow South Africans to receive money - only send money through PayPal. Which means I need to find another way to set up a donate button or similar :-(

And comments/ideas?

New test release...

Hi all - not getting around to do a complete set of tests on the new installer (the driver code is still the same). So here it is if you want to try it:

http://drop.io/ppjoy0846testrelease

This installer will properly check for a 64 bit OS and enable test mode. Note: the drivers are still only test signed and requires the OS to be in test mode. This installer just makes the process a lot easier.

Another one bites the dust

I guess it had to happen... After transitioning my build environment to the Windows 7 DDK PPJoy will no longer support Windows 2000. The installer will refuse to install on Win2K. A word of warning: do not try to manually install the drivers on Win2K - this will cause a nasty bluescreen on reboot.

[Anybody wanting to use PPJoy on Windows 98 or 2000 should use version 0.83 or earlier.]

On a related note: I've now finished a test version of the new installer (which can automatically enable test mode) - now to test it on Win2K, XP, Vista, etc with different configurations to ensure it "does the right thing". Unfortunately this will still take while.

New installer feature

I've been working on incorporating the BCDEDIT functionality into the PPJoy installer itself. The new installer will detect when it is running on a Vista or Win7 x64 machine with test signing disabled and offer you the option to enable test signing or exit the installer. After enabling test signing the installer will prompt you to reboot the machine before running the installer again.

This will hopefully stem the flood of comments about people not able to use PPJoy on a 64 bit OS. The new installer will also ensure that it is executed as an Administrator to prevent permission issues.

As a side note: programming the BCD store using WMI and COM isn't really all that much fun :-)

Doing some work...

Not very glamorous... I've just upgraded my development machine to Windows 7 x64 and modified the PPJoy build environment to use the Windows 7 DDK. Also used the opportunity to clean up the build environment a little (no more hardcoded include paths in individual project files).

A few words on hardware: Gigabyte sucks. Had a GA-EP35-DS4 motherboard die on me after 18 months of the 3 year warranty period. After a month the best they could do (or their South African distributors) was give me a nasty used replacement with bent connectors and glue on the bottom side. Way to treat a good customer - I now buy Asus only.

PPJoy 0.84.5 known issues

(This list will be updated as issues are found)

(2009/11/10)

Issue 1: PPortJoy .sys ("Parallel Port Joystick device" under "Human Interface Devices" in Device Manager) does not install properly when adding a joystick using a terminal server session on Server 2003. This is likely caused by test/unsigned drivers that can't be silently installed.

Workaround: Either set the computer's Driver Signing status to "Ignore" (untested) or open Device Manager and right click on the "Parallel Port Joystick device" with the exclaimation mark icon. Select "Update Driver" and let the sytem find the driver and acknowlegde the driver signing warning.