First, a new decison of name was fallen. Sorry about that. It is because the CkTool won’t be an operating system itself but a layer between applications in Microsoft Windows.

You might read Kumando alike Cummandoe also fine as i invented that name as i’m german. It stands for  Commander.

Now we have an unique name! With it, all is alright!

Nevertheless you may wonder you don’t see any code process.

The time is going and going on, and only old-fashioned software?

No updates but much texting here? Now sourceforge sites and even nothing there? Readers, please be patient… It’s going on!

CkTool32 has now the right and best direction of development! It will aim as an application that does basic controlling, the modifying (also advanced), remote controlling of Server features – and of course also – installing the new Customize Kernel 64-Bit Operating System.

This is implemented by embedding multiple user interfaces in the application. It uses for connection with the new operating system a special own scriptable application interface. Thus it embeds a scipt engine which runs together with it’s scripting counterpart of the Ck64OS.

Due to fail in administration in Sourceforge of the Ck64Krnl, that is broken

So the name in this Blog and on Sourceforge is changed But there is something special issue

Due to the Sourceforge “Unixname” of the CK64OS its internal name is “CkOS” -> http://ckos.sourceforge.net !

This is the first dismantling of the future!

It is an open source solution with integrated virtualization layers. Compatible to common applications also to the most used under windows. Although it’s boot code needs integrating as an MS-DOS into a virtual machine early version will be compatible to the Windows Server 2003 x64 architecture.

Until the fun of testing begins i need to code some…

You may read or subscribe to the project at sourceforge, see the link in the menu.

Hello folks!

Did you ever expected how powerful it would be if you have a Windows application compatible alternative operating system? This is the future! Don’t believe i am foolish about this! “Just” hard work… For now i ”may” give you as fast the development details as i am programming it…

The software layers of it will be based on the AMD_X64 architecture but it should be also tested on other 64-Bit as from Intel platforms if any binary is out (will be found here, and at Sourceforge of course).

The scripting language of this system will be based on an XML variant as already presented before…

CKTOOL Version 1

Old system orientated app does support only one platform very rarely used! Due of this and the lack of possiblity compiling it without some rewriting, i decide to make it open source with GPL2 ! During this week the source going public , the documentation of the source as standard .txt (e.g. src_doc.txt) and an information file how i created it that you can recompile it hopely yourself. BUT, you will need Borland Delphi 1.0!

CKTOOL Version 2

The new application will i compile with VS2010 / C++ !  I will try to get (a bit) downwords compability but its main goal will be the actual software platform “6″ (Windows Vista??? Windows 7, in future also Windows

These CkTool UI handlers are planned:

• Ck Icon with task ring around where all features are able to call
• Explorer view of all features => an own control panel
• Fourth button upper right of each Window which either opens menu bar or a button list
• System menu entry “CkTool” where all is able to call
• Own Taskbar handler which enables an own Explorer solution

These features are guessed:

• Start menu support based on the standard Windows folders
• Task Manager with simple and advanced view
• CkTool Explorer which can be configured to reduced or expanded related to standard
• Configuration with an own Control panel applet

Actually it is not planned to make the new system application open source, maybe it will be able to sell licence to business in far future?

Due of time the other invention was not possible.

Quite easier is the other goal, to patch the classsic Cktool into a new level.

Only few changes but…

See my poll in the Windows Projects Community: http://winprj.net/board/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=978

Upcoming development will give testers a download in the early monday of my program CK1T.

The Old-fashioned interface and its compability support starting my new CkTool branch is needed because the idea i had months before, XML User Interface Designer that will create files for the XML Interpreter Driven Executive i will create!

CkWant (ck1t) is to be inteded as a modifier of MS-DOS and Windows 3.1x, i may also work with Windows 9x/ 98.

CkTool (ck2l) will be making the legacy Windows as fresh as possible, but also as slim as useful.

CkDream (ck3m) is the future when i have  multi touch display enabled PC with Windows 8! Or it will try partly that features for Windows 7 (and lower?).

Today you get first pictures of the new app and a video at evening.

Maybe i could give a version of the app for testers? Get a member (e.g. Supporter or Author) getting it/them…

This picture shows the initial alpha of CkrossMediaBar.

Please be aware of your own data files you are very depended of!

Thats because of the core of the CK-Tools. Althoough they normally don not tocuh your system in a unusal way – if you don’t really be patent or aware of system orientated applications you should use a virtual machine if any not final or even stable beta is released.

If there is any testing alpha available that will be only avaible for testers case of issues of legal warranty.

CKTOOL’s command line interpreter application is kmd.

The version ending with .com is not a real 16-bit real mode application like old-fashioned versions of command.com of course – think of 4DOS file structure instead. Maybe even with a lot driven in asm/c/c++ we can’t yet promise replacing command support with it.  Of course it is compatible with MS-DOS versions which are able of running Windows 3.1x

The scripting files of CKTOOL used by the software itself aren’t bypassed to the command line. The library ckmd16.dll is the 16-Bit interpreter file loaded if kmd.com was started before Windows 3.1x. It will be dropped by ckmw16.dll after successful loading the legacy OS. The last one is also loaded by kmd from within Windows.

The key feature of CKTOOL, enabling different visual options for Windows, is described earlier.

Now you see the name of the first alternative user interface it will do! Due of legal rights the developer of the first XrossMediaBar implementation we cannot use that name.

Another problem is that due of hardware and software problems the development is delayed…

We decided not to use a native DOS installation on hard disk but as a VM in purchased VMware Workstation!

One of the best features of the CkrossMediaBar interface it is usable mouseless via easy keyboard access. We will also bring an own CkrossMediaBar control panel usable per keys for changing the key mappings!

Meanwhile CKTOOL will bring the XrossMediaBar it will not be limited to that. This interface doesn’t need a pointing device but how about a Java based mobile edition?

Think about installing CkTool.jad or CKXMB.jad on mobile or the bigger one .jar for other devices… It will then use the keypad functionality of Java!

For development purposes installed old operating system made my system configuration very strange.

Unfortunately lost “some” data. Okay the Music are on not protected Audio-CDs or DVDs and on stick of phone. But there were some Data (only older Revision Backup available) and a directory “Downloads” which contained some important files of fully registrated Software!

EDIT:

The registration data files i have recovered from my small SATA files also normal Data, Pictures and Music. Also some software are on DVD+R or -RW! Only the download history will be more historical

Coding is hard

Rungholt alpha has no installer, its only:

• Command Line Interpreter kc.com : DOS based interpreter DPMI
• ckwmapi1.dll : Windows messaging calling queue holder
• cktool1.dll : 16-Bit Windows interpreter engine
• ckernel1.dll 16-Bit loader of Windows API functions
• autoexec.ckl : Script file used for init and other purposes

While i can code the DLLs with Delphi (but the apart IDE doesn’t help much) kc.com will be coded with the help of the MS-DOS protected mode suport of Borland Pascal 7!

The alpha comes between during of March.

The alpha downloadlink won’t be directly on this site. Early testing is available to members of  Windows Projects Community if they are registered as Testers.

<!CKTOOL “/cktool/cktool1.dll” “/cktool/kc.com”>
<WindowsAPI:Recall>ckmgapi.dll</WindowsAPI:Recall>
<Application:Command>kc -k ‘winver -r’</Application:Command>
<WindowsAPI:InLoad>ckernel.dll</WindowsAPI:InLoad>
<Application:cklegacy>ck.exe /winexit</Application:cklegacy>

The kmd executable contains the interpreter of CKTOOL. The CKTOOL libraries needed for the Microsoft Windows interaction and contains the Windows part of CKTOOL 1.6. The MS-DOS compatible interpreter kmd might be usable independent of Windows but it doesnt support replacing command.com  because it uses the 286 CPU compatible Protected Mode support of the Borland RTM / RTMRES software using 1 MB XMS Memory.

Related to the new programming is the idea of replacing command.com with a Dos-compiled variant of CkTool, ckdos.exe

Good idea, mh?

CkTool 1.6 and higher use a set of built-in commands. These are few, from basic and pascal. Programming rules are simplified of course.

Executing the command ‘?’ lists whats built in:

CkTool built in language:
? address beginn call char cmd copy debug define del dec dos dosapi ende endfunction endsub exec fake function gosub goto help hex inc input int intern label list load mem more move output param programm prompt read ren string use winapi write

The Youtube channel “TheCKTOOL” contains a snapshot video of a running copy of CkTool 1.2:

You must open that video by clicking this link, direct embedding is inconvenient for low-band

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTfLrtT3D_0

There exist fun: The Kuhlmann.

What do you think about an Open DR-DOS derivate from
us?
It would be use a password protection, the Task-Manager, and as a special Task an option to debug Software!

We will enable the registration in the blog, and regularly post.

This is a version supporting the Win16 platform. The town of Rungholt is an area of North Frysland few under the sea level.

CK-Tool 1.6 will support Windows 3.1x, Windows NT 3.x/ 4.0 and Windows 95/ 98/ Me.

It’s main goal is enabling the XrossMediaBar interface for small Windows versions.

Used development environment and compiler is the old-fashioned Borland Delphi 1.0!

In 1995 Christian Kuhlmann bought the Borland Delphi 1.0 in a shop as an original version.

Using that compiler few time later creating inital CK-TOOL 1.0  today we have since it was out Delphi 2007 by the company as shown above. The existing version 2010 with best possiblities is out of financial possibilities. It might be possible buying that if donations will bring enough income.

CK-Tool 2, coding has begun!

As a standard Win32 application software suite based of some libraries:

• ckcallin.dll
• ckintptr.dll
• ckernel.dll
• ckwinapi.dll
• ckstmize.dll
• ckcomdlg.dll
• ckfildlg.dll
• cktskmgr.dll
• ckprgman.dll
• ckorbmen.dll

.. and these executables:

• ckinit.exe
• ckcmd.exe
• ckoshell.exe
• cklogon.exe
• ckgina.exe
• ckernel.exe
• ckoskrnl.exe
• ckntkrnl.exe
• cktskmgr.exe
• ckrogman.exe
• kxplorer.exe
• ckustomz.exe

These much files are needed because our application should be able to replace as much as possible of Microsoft Windows.

First we need to create the command line processor  ckcmd.exe  our task manager cktskmgr.exe  the library function calls from within Windows  ckcallin.dll  the runtime interpreter of the scripts  ckintptr.dll  our own runtime  ckernel.dll  the importing facility of Windows functions  ckwinapi.dll .

The CK-Tool Edition 2010  will be compatible with Windows XP and higher.

Starting point of its code is the dynamic link library cklib.dll an interpreter of my own coding language. That uses scriptlets as known of Powershell but my software don’t uses .NET!

Basic interface a command line as known by command prompt but customizing and controlling facility of Windows via the commands and scripting of my interpreter which aware of  Windows version enables the code of  Windows programming application interface for using with it.

The graphically interface is an orb like the one of start menu in Windows Vista and higher which opens CK-Tool menu.

This is the first real 32-Bit edition of CK-Tool, codename Frysland. The area Frysland is the North Sea coast of Northern Netherlands, Germany and Denmark.

Christian Kuhlmann uses Visual C++ creating this software which will be very good usable whith modern Windows versions.

The alpha version will be available for testers of  Windows Projects Community.

Welcome to the site of the growing project Customize Kuhl Tool. The developer Christian Kuhlmann documents here the progress of this alternative graphical user interface which might replace much counterparts of Microsoft Windows in future.