Unusual IFW.INI Settings

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Muad'Dib
Posts: 110
Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2011 12:23 pm

Unusual IFW.INI Settings

Post by Muad'Dib »

While looking at some IFW.INI files on various computers I noticed some settings have TWO values. For example: PHYLockUseReg=0x0 & PostValidate=0x2

Since I only see these on machines that have been running IFW for many years, I suspect these settings are remnants from an earlier version of the program. However, I couldn't find anything in the documentation (the most recent, and also going back through 02/2016, the earliest doc I could easily find) that explains the purpose of the last two characters of these settings for these parameters.

Can someone here please explain these settings mean? Should I edit the IFW.INI to get rid of the last two characters? Or are they ignored in current program versions?
TeraByte Support
Posts: 3598
Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: Unusual IFW.INI Settings

Post by TeraByte Support »

It's in the manuals, just search.

As far as 0x that means the following number will be a hexadecimal number.

On 2/16/2020 7:34 AM, Muad'Dib wrote:
> While looking at some IFW.INI files on various computers I noticed some settings have TWO values. For example: PHYLockUseReg=0x0 & PostValidate=0x2
>
> Since I only see these on machines that have been running IFW for many years, I suspect these settings are remnants from an earlier version of the program. However, I couldn't find anything in the documentation (the most recent, and also going back through 02/2016, the earliest doc I could easily find) that explains the purpose of the last two characters of these settings for these parameters.
>
> Can someone here please explain these settings mean? Should I edit the IFW.INI to get rid of the last two characters? Or are they ignored in current program versions?
>
>

Muad'Dib
Posts: 110
Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2011 12:23 pm

Re: Unusual IFW.INI Settings

Post by Muad'Dib »

TeraByte Support wrote:
> It's in the manuals, just search.

You think I didn't search? I searched for all occurrences of both PHYLockUseReg & PostValidate (and as I said in the OP, through multiple versions of the manual, in case it was no longer a supported option) and all results only show a single value following each parameter. I also did a search for all occurrences of "0x" and the results were either related to completely different parameters, or they had to do with which partitions to backup, which (as far as I could tell) had nothing to do with the above-mentioned parameters (at least not with my usage of them).

I have bought multiple copies of IFW for both personal use and at work, and MAY continue to do so in the future. The program works well, has many useful features, and after many, many years, I'm very comfortable using it.

HOWEVER, while I used to recommend the program to both friends and co-workers, I stopped doing so several years ago. Partially because the documentation can be overwhelming to the newcomer, but primarily because asking for help in the forum often results in the unhelpful type of response I got today. Telling a user to just RTFM (without offering any additional information) is amazingly irritating. At minimum, show me an example, or tell me a page number to look at.

If you can't offer helpful answers, I would prefer no answer. Then hopefully someone else would be able to provide the answer(s) I'm looking for and/or let me know specifically where I should look for the information.
Bob Coleman
Posts: 785
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 5:58 pm

Re: Unusual IFW.INI Settings

Post by Bob Coleman »

Muad'Dib wrote:
> While looking at some IFW.INI files on various computers I noticed some
> settings have TWO values. For example: PHYLockUseReg=0x0 &
> PostValidate=0x2
>

I don't think I really understand the question here. Regarding "PHYLockUseReg=0x0" are you referring to the two zeros as two values? That's not the case. "0xwhatever" is a notation that indicates that "whatever" is a hexadecimal number, in this case 0.

Of course there is no difference between "0" (decimal) and "0x0" (hexadecimal), but 0x10 would be equivalent to to decimal 2, not decimal 10.

How these values got into your ini file or why IFW uses that notation, I can't say, but if that is actually what you are talking about, 0x0 is not two values.
Brian K
Posts: 2214
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:11 am
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Unusual IFW.INI Settings

Post by Brian K »

Muad'Dib wrote:
>
> Can someone here please explain these settings mean? Should I edit the
> IFW.INI

Muad'Dib,

Try this test. Run through a backup sequence in IFW. On the Backup Options screen, remove the tick from Validate Byte-for-Byte. Click Save Defaults. Have a look in ifw.ini and you will see PostValidate=0x2 has gone.
On the Backup Options screen, tick Validate Byte-for-Byte and also tick Validate. Click Save Defaults. Have a look in ifw.ini and you will see PostValidate=0x3.

Does this help in explaining PostValidate=

PHYLockUseReg=0x0 means the PHYLock settings are in ifw.ini and not in the Registry. I have PHYLockUseReg=0x0
Muad'Dib
Posts: 110
Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2011 12:23 pm

Re: Unusual IFW.INI Settings

Post by Muad'Dib »

Bob and Brian,

Thank you for explaining, most of it now makes sense. Until today, I was unaware that "0x" was a common prefix (not just for IFW) to indicate the following number was in hex. The IFW manual only mentions this hexadecimal indicator in reference to partitions, so I basically ignored it, thinking it wasn't relevant to the parameters where I was seeing it being used.

For the two parameters I was concerned about, the manual only shows PHYLockUseReg=n and PostValidate=n (with n being a single, decimal digit). Not being familiar with the 0x convention, this discrepancy between the doc and my IFW.INI file was causing me to wonder why there was a difference.

What still is a bit confusing is why some of my machines show PHYLockUseReg=0x0 and others show PHYLockUseReg=0. As I said before, because of which machines have which setting, I suspect the 0x0 was originally used in an older version of IFW, and the 0 by itself is now used on machines where the first install was a newer version of IFW, and upgrading an older version to a newer version doesn't change the original representation of that parameter in IFW.INI. Since they both represent a value of zero, I guess it doesn't really matter which one is used.

In contrast, now that I've inspected them again, ALL of my machines use a 0x prefix for the PostValidate parameter in my IFW.INI files (and since I always use Byte-for-Byte, they're all 0x2). I was editing other settings in the top "[Options]" section of the IFW.INI, and that's where the PHYLockUseReg parameter is placed, so that's why I noticed the different format among different machines. The PostValidate parameter is near the bottom of the file, in the "[BACKUP_DEFAULTS]" section, so I didn't even notice the 0x prefix for that parameter until I started drafting my post for the forum (and by then, I no longer was near some of the machines, so at the time of my original post, I didn't realize that parameter was identical for all my machines).

Thanks again. I truly appreciate both of you taking the time to post an explanation!
AGH1965
Posts: 85
Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2016 1:36 pm
Location: Netherlands

Re: Unusual IFW.INI Settings

Post by AGH1965 »

Bob Coleman wrote:
> 0x10 would be equivalent to to decimal 2, not decimal 10.

Not decimal 2, but decimal 16.
TeraByte Support
Posts: 3598
Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: Unusual IFW.INI Settings

Post by TeraByte Support »

Exactly, "binary" it would be 2.

On 2/17/2020 10:24 AM, AGH1965 wrote:
> Bob Coleman wrote:
>> 0x10 would be equivalent to to decimal 2, not decimal 10.
>
> Not decimal 2, but decimal 16.
>
>

TeraByte Support
Posts: 3598
Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: Unusual IFW.INI Settings

Post by TeraByte Support »

On 2/16/2020 10:41 AM, Muad'Dib wrote:
> TeraByte Support wrote:
>> It's in the manuals, just search.
>
> You think I didn't search? I searched for all occurrences of both PHYLockUseReg & PostValidate


In IFW Manual:

PHYlockUseReg is on page 143. (and mentioned on 161)

PostValidate is on page 174 (Backup), 189 (Restore) , and 208 (Copy).

Hex notation is discussed briefly on the /d (pg 167)/sd (pg 201) and /td
(page 202). But everything between 0 and 9 are the same whether 0x is
used or not. However, a prefix of 0 means it octal, in that case only
values 0 to 7 are the same (00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07, there is no 08), 8
decimal in octal would be 010. Not that you'd want to use it, nothing
in the output uses it, only hex or decimal.


Bob Coleman
Posts: 785
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 5:58 pm

Re: Unusual IFW.INI Settings

Post by Bob Coleman »

TeraByte Support wrote:
> Exactly, "binary" it would be 2.
>
> On 2/17/2020 10:24 AM, AGH1965 wrote:
> > Bob Coleman wrote:
> >> 0x10 would be equivalent to to decimal 2, not decimal 10.
> >
> > Not decimal 2, but decimal 16.
> >
> >
Ah, yes, of course. I guess it's been too long since I've thought about hexadecimal numbers.
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