When I first started using Linux four years ago, one of the most useful features I discovered was circular scrolling on touchpads. (For those that don't know, this allows you to scroll up and down by moving your finger in a circle.) Traditional scrolling now feels very clumsy, and I find it awkward when using a laptop which doesn't have this feature (such as those running Windows). According to the changelog for the XOrg/XFree86 Synaptics driver, this feature was added in February 2004.

I happened to come across the news today that Synaptics have added a feature called ChiralTouch Technology to the latest version of their Windows drivers. This so-called "technology" provides "the ability to scroll continuously with a circular motion." This basically means that they have finally gotten round to implementing a very useful feature which Linux users have had for over four years.

In some respects proprietary software is way behind FOSS in terms of features and usability, and this example also shows how proprietary software uses ideas which were first implemented in FOSS.

Unfortunately Windows is still a necessary evil sometimes: I keep a Windows virtual machine for times when it's absolutely necessary, and I still give my friends Windows tech support. I still like to do things properly, and so I wanted to create a Windows XP install CD with Service Pack 3 slipstreamed in¹. I had two CDs to do, and slipstreamed the first one using a Windows VM, but then got curious and wondered if I could do it without Windows.

The answer is that it is possible using Wine to run the service pack installer. I followed this blog post (which was interesting since it's in French), but I then found another blog post which explains it in English. The steps are as follows:

1. Copy contents of original CD to harddrive.
2. Extract the service pack using cabextract.

3. Use Wine to run the service pack installer.

   wine ~/sp3/i386/update/update.exe /integrate:~/xp/
   

4. Use geteltorito to extract the bootloader from the original CD

5. Make sure that all the filenames are upper case.

   convmv -r --upper --notest ~/xp/*
   

6. Create the new CD image. I did this in K3b with the following settings.

   • Boot emulation: none
   • Boot load segment: 0x7c0
   • Boot load size: 0x4
   • Generate Joilet extensions
   • Omit version numbers in ISO9660 filenames (nothing else enabled under "ISO9660 Settings"
   • ISO Level 1
7. Test in a virtual machine

It seems to be quite particular about the ISO9660 settings and the upper case filenames, so if it doesn't boot check the settings.