Extension Pack: 82870 vs 82870a

[spaceman]

Hi all


I have an old installer for VirtualBox v4.2.6, the file is called:
VirtualBox-4.2.6-82870-Win.exe

Along with it I have the Extension Pack file,
which is called:
Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.2.6-82870.vbox-extpack

I went today to VirtualBox'es Download page for older versions
( https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloa ... _4_2_pre20 )
and out of curiosity, I did a Binary Compare (FC.EXE/B) on the Installer (.EXE file) that I have, vs the same version one Downloaded from the website today,
and the Installer files are identical.

But the Extension Pack files do not seem to be identical.
they also slightly differ by name, see:
Mine: Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.2.6-82870.vbox-extpack
DLed: Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.2.6-82870a.vbox-extpack


The current one is called 82870a, instead of 82870.

What is the difference between the one without the "a" and the newer one with it?


Thank you

[mpack]

It's very optimistic of you to expect a detailed version breakdown of a secondary file in software released in 2012. Even if the original devs were here to answer the question, I doubt they would bother, as the software in question has been out of support since 2015.

I expect it was something minor, like double signing the executables. But, I'm not inclined to do any research on this.

[scottgus1]

If you unpack the EP (it's a gzip file renamed, if I rememeber correctly) and FC the internal files, are they different?

Like Mpack, I wouldn't know the difference, nor is it likely anyone here would know. Could be an update from a long time ago, check the file timestamps. Or they needed to rename something in the archives and forgot to name it back. All surmises, of course.

[spaceman]

It's very optimistic of you to expect a detailed version breakdown of a secondary file in software released in 2012.

Actually they added the "a" to the build vesion of many other versions of VirtualBox, it seems that it's not just a 4.2.6-82870 thing..

Maybe it's some critical security update, that was applied to all past versions, in case someone downloads them..

If you unpack the EP (it's a gzip file renamed, if I rememeber correctly) and FC the internal files, are they different?

Nice to know what the real file type behind the .vbox-extpack extension is..
This is a good idea, I will test it on another computer (that can open gzip), and then update here

[spaceman]

OK there are results.


After renaming both files's extension to .gzip,
and then extracting them,
each resulted in a file with the same name, and no extension,
and which is 3 times bigger than the compressed one:

v1.PNG (4.32 KiB) Viewed 2903 times

Since the output frm each gzip was a single file, with no extension,
I guessed that newly extracted file is a .tar file.
So I renamed each to .tar, and then tried to extract again..

Indeed it was a .tar.

Here are the results of opening the 2 .tar files:

v2.PNG (27.47 KiB) Viewed 2903 times

The left one is without the a, and The right one is with the a.


It seems that the only thing changed is the License,
the binary files seem to have not changed.
(I didn't run a recursive compare, I just checked the folder sizes)

[scottgus1]

You'll notice that the images did not come through. IMG tags only work for images that have been previously uploaded with Upload Attachment to the forum servers. You can see your previously-uploaded attachments in your forum User Control Panel, Overview tab, Manage Attachments subtab.

On Windows, 7-zip can open gzips and other typically-Linux-ish zip types and archives.

It seems that the only thing changed is the License,

This makes sense. The EP license changed within the last some years to further restrict running a business on an EP-enhanced Virtualbox VM.

[spaceman]

You'll notice that the images did not come through.
IMG tags only work for images that have been previously uploaded with Upload Attachment to the forum servers.

Right! I noticed that, and didn't understand why..
I didn't know if it's just for me or for everyone,
but in any case decided to add a link below each IMG tag, so if the problem is for everyone, then other people can override this..

So there's no way to show an image If it's hosted on another server?

It's either 1 of these 2 options?
1) Upload to an external server, and put here a link to the image instead of have the image shown inline in the post
2) Upload the image using the "Upload Attachment" tab which is below the Post's textbox, and then use the IMG tag and have the image shown inline in the post


Edit:
Even after uploading the Images to the forum,
the IMG tag didn't work with them, it did not show the image, and instead showed the filename, as text..

On the other hand the ATTACHMENT tag does show the images, as can be seen above (I edited that earlier post),
they are shown without the need to click them..

So the IMG tag cannot be used?
Morelikely I have not yet completely figured it out..

[scottgus1]

Upload the image using the "Upload Attachment" tab

This is all that's needed, as you found in your edits.

You can go to your attachments as instructed above, and put the Virtualbox server link for your previously-Upload-Attachment-ed image between IMG tags, then the image will show again without having to re-upload it.

Option 1 is not recommended, since offsite images can go away, making the forum topic lose its understandability. And third-party picture posting sites can put up whatever smut they want as a supposed "recommendation" to view, and I don't care to go down that path, so I don't look at 3rd-party image site links.

[spaceman]

You can go to your attachments as instructed above, and put the Virtualbox server link for your previously-Upload-Attachment-ed image between IMG tags, then the image will show again without having to re-upload it.

I edited the post again, and this time used the IMG tags, and deleted the ATTACHMENT tags.

Tho a weird thing happened:
The system detected that the 2 files that I attached, are not anymore shown using an ATTACHMENT tag inline the post message,
(because I used IMG tags)
so the forum system automatically added the 2 attachments at the end of the post.

So now, because I switched to IMG, the images are shown twice:
First, Inline, where I placed the IMG tags,
and Second, at the end, automatically by the system.

Is there any chance that I as the user can fix that?

Option 1 is not recommended, since offsite images can go away, making the forum topic lose its understandability.

You're right. It happened to me in the past, on other forums.
I'll upload here from now on.


Edit:
I wanted to add that there's a small shortcut that can be done, when adding images:
Instead of going to the User ControlPanel to take the link to the uploaded images,
it's possible to take it right here, right after uploading them as attachments..

They appear as Links in the "Posted Attachments" block, right below the Post's big Textbox:

PostedAttachments_Links.PNG (11.87 KiB) Viewed 2901 times

The problem:
Links from the location that I gave don't work in the IMG tag, since they are not in the same format as the links from the User ControlPanel.

The link from User ControlPanel: download/file.php?id=45162
The link from the "Posted Attachments" block: download/file.php?mode=view&id=45162

So the only way to get the link to an uploaded image, is what you said, via the User ControlPanel..