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Norton Commander 5.5 vs 5.51

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First post, by iulianv

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Hello everyone,

I'm trying to figure out whether the set of floppy images found online as NC 5.51 really are NC 5.51, as there is no mention of "5.51" anywhere after installation. I'm thinking of the "Info" panel - mine says "Version 5.5", while one of the screenshots on Wikipedia shows "5.51" (date is the same, but I've read about this being a sign of version 5.51 being somehow "rushed").

I've also read that (or one of) the difference(s) between 5.5 and 5.51 is the support for long file names and the "Wide" panel option - I'm yet to install it in a Win95 virtual machine to test this.

But I installed what passes as version 5.5 online, for comparison - the "Info" panel is the same and both have the "Wide" panel option, but the sizes of the .EXE files differ by a few tens of bytes.

Does anyone know a way to tell for sure which version is which?

Thank you.

Reply 1 of 3, by elszgensa

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Looking at a couple localized versions claiming to be 5.51, none of them say "5.51" anywhere either. I'm suspecting the screenshot one on Wikipedia might be the odd one out, maybe from some hacked version? Anyways, the installer program, unlike some others, retains file creation dates, so you could guesstimate it - 1998: 5.5, 1999: 5.51. That is, unless someone touched them after the fact, in which case we're back to looking for known file sizes... Too bad DOS MZ executables don't have an internal creation timestamp, unlike Windows PE ones.

Reply 2 of 3, by Warlord

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afaik LFNs are only visible under windows since its uses windows API. 5.5.1 adds a TSR to preserve LFNs while under real mode but it doesn't display them.

If you want to display LFNs under Real Mode in a norton style commander. I reccomend Vokov commander 4.99.08 with one of the DOSLFN TSRs. Oldversion of DOSLFN or newer DOSLFNMS.com works and the language file for your language. English is CP437UNI.TBL

Reply 3 of 3, by iulianv

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Well, I did indeed find the 1998 vs 1999 file timestamp difference; also, "5.50" vs "5.51" are mentioned during installation.

I didn't notice any difference in behavior under Win95, so I'll stick to the one that says which one it is after installation (5.5) 😀...

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