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WinPT - The Windows Privacy Tray |
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================================ |
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Bugs and Improvements |
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--------------------- |
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I have tried to thoroughly test this program, but if you've found a bug, |
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please send me a message with a full error description or go directly |
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to http://wald.intevation.org and use the WinPT bug tracking system. |
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Please include as much detail as possible including OS version, WinPT |
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version, and GPG version in use. Please summarize your gpg configuration |
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and describe any special programs or configurations on your machine. |
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I try to fix bugs as quickly as possible and will upload all updates to |
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http://wald.intevation.org/projects/winpt |
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Legacy Windows versions |
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----------------------- |
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I know a lot of people still user old versions of WinPT but it is very |
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hard to test the code on all these platforms and thus I decided to |
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obsolete the support for these OS versions: Win95, WinME/98. The code |
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works on 98/ME without known limitations but if you will encounter |
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a serious problem, I doubt I can fix it without having this OS and |
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this is the major problem! It is likewise with older NT based systems |
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like NT4 and, with each new year, Win2K. |
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What is WinPT? |
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-------------- |
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WinPT is a front-end for the GNU Privacy Guard. It just provides |
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a convinient interface to GPG while GPG does the actual (cryptographic) work. |
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GnuPG was written by Werner Koch and is Free Software. GnuPG contains all |
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of the functions WinPT uses for data encrypting, e-signatures and |
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key management. |
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WinPT is a Windows utility that sits on the taskbar. In the Windows |
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Clipboard, you can encrypt, sign, decrypt and verify data. You can also |
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import and export keys to the Clipboard. |
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Practically, WinPT is a taskbar front-end for GnuPG. Without GnuPG, WinPT |
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wouldn't work! Currently not all GnuPG functions are supported. With |
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all its key edit functions and file operations, WinPT is more than just |
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an universal e-mail plugin. Together with the filemanager and the keymanager, |
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it's like a real graphical GPG user interface. |
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Install |
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------- |
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First you should install the GPG binary, version 1.4.x or later. |
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(If you want to use a directory other than the default you must modify |
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the preferences in the WinPT program at Preferences->GPG Preferences). |
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Next, download the WinPT binary package from the Internet. You can find the |
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latest WinPT version at http://wald.intevation.org/projects/winpt. |
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Create a directory and extract all WinPT files from the archive. |
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Keyserver Config File |
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--------------------- |
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Now the keyserver config is read dynamically. That means there is a file |
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which WinPT reads the keyserver from. The name of this file MUST be |
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"keyserver.conf". I added a sample config file with the most common |
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keyservers. Of course it's possible to add own entries. Take a look |
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at the hints inside the file how to format the entries. If there no file, |
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the format can be described like this: 'DNS-Name=IP-Address'. Each line |
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of the file contains such an entry. |
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But it is recommend that you modify the file directly with the keyserver |
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dialog in WinPT to keep this file consistent. |
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Verify the Packet Signature |
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--------------------------- |
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To verify that the source (or the binary) wasn't changed, you should |
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verify the package signature with GnuPG. For the process you will need |
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my OpenPGP public key. If you don't have it, please take a look at |
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http://www.stud.uni-hannover.de/~twoaday/twoaday.asc or fetch it |
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via a keyserver (I suggest subkeys.pgp.net). |
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# gpg --verify winpt-x.x.x-exe.zip.asc |
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# gpg --verify winpt-x.x.x-src.zip.asc |
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gpg should output that the signature was correct and that the signature |
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was created by me. |
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My key ID is 0xBF3DF9B4: 'Timo Schulz <[email protected]>' or |
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0x27F36D14: 'Timo Schulz (Laptop Key) <[email protected]> |
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Native Language Support (NLS) |
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----------------------------- |
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As a new feature WinPT now can handle multiple languages. To activate this |
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do the following: |
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- Create a directory where you want to store the locale files |
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(the .mo files) |
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- Rename your favourite .mo file to winpt.mo |
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- Put all .mo files into this directory |
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(For example the gnupg.mo and the winpt.mo) |
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- Start WinPT and choose the menu entry 'Preferences->GPG Prefs'. |
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Set your locale directory to the directory containing winpt.mo. |
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- Now WinPT runs in the language you have selected. |
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For an overview what languages are supported take a look at |
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Po/LINGUAS. It contains all actively maintained languages. |
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If you are interested in translating WinPT in your native language, please |
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let me know :-). It's not much work and you do NOT need to be a developer! |
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Other Documentation |
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------------------- |
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For those who are inexperienced with GnuPG it makes sense to download the |
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GnuPG guide or a HOWTO. There are many sites for this, but you can start |
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with the GnuPG site. This site is available in many languages. I prefer |
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the GNU Privacy Handbook. It contains background information that makes |
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working with GnuPG more effective. |
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http://www.gnupg.org |
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General questions (look first at the topic point), can be sent to one of the |
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mailing lists. |
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GPG user list [email protected] |
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GPG developer list [email protected] |
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At the moment the only available documentation for WinPT is this file. In |
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future releases I will include HTML documentation. |
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Mailing Lists |
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------------- |
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If you want to get the latest information, reports, or discussions about |
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WinPT you can subscribe to one of the WinPT mailing lists. There is a list |
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for users and one for developers. All lists are in English! To subscribe |
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visit http://wald.intevation.org and go to the WinPT project site. |
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Please, before you send a message to the list take a look at the FAQ, |
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the README files and the list archives. It's possible that your question |
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is already answered there! |
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Hotkey for Common Commands |
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-------------------------- |
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WinPT supports shortcuts, or 'Hotkeys', for the main gpg commands. These |
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keys are registered system wide, so you can use them from any window. If you |
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have some problems with this keys, you can change the hotkeys in the |
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preferences dialog. |
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Encrypt Clipboard CTRL+ALT+e |
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Sign & Encrypt CTRL+ALT+b |
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Decrypt/verify Clipboard CTRL+ALT+d |
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Sign Clipboard CTRL+ALT+s |
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Export Clipboard CTRL+ALT+x |
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Import Clipboard CTRL+ALT+i |
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In case of an error, it's possible that another program already uses |
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some of the hotkeys. WinPT will tell you which hotkey wasn't installed properly |
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so it's easier to figure out which hotkey caused the problem. |
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Current Window Support |
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---------------------- |
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WinPT allows you to use the main operations (sign and encrypt) |
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within the current window. This only works if the current window contains |
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text. For example, a mailer window with the message, a text editor or a |
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simple edit field. There are some kind of windows that are NOT |
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supported. |
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The easiest way to access this feature is using the hotkeys. Note: if |
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you use this feature the text will automatically be cut, encrypted |
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and pasted again in the window. You don't need to do anything manually. |
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Encrypt current window ALT+SHIFT+e |
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Decrypt/verify current window ALT+SHIFT+d |
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Sign current window ALT+SHIFT+s |
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Alternately you can use the WinPT menu for the current window support. |
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Please note, that the mode doesn't work very well if you use the menu |
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entry. I recommend to use it with the hotkeys until I fix this problem. |
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Word Wrapping |
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------------- |
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As a new feature, WinPT can wrap lines at a specific column. You can set |
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the value for this feature in the preferences dialog. If you don't want |
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to use this feature, you only need to set the value to "0". |
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Default keyid for Signing |
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------------------------- |
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There are two ways to set the default keyid. The best solution is to |
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set the "default-key" entry in the GPG options file. |
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The second solution is that you use the Key Manager to set a default |
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key. If no default key was found, WinPT uses the first useable key in |
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the secret key cache. |
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File Manager |
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------------ |
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The filemanager is used to perform GPG operations on files. In further releases |
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I'll add more commands. Currently, encrypt, decrypt, sign and verify |
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is available. To add a file to the list element, you can use drag & drop |
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or use the 'Open' menu entry, like Windows Explorer. |
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Please note that this code is under heavy development, but is should be |
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fairly stable. It possible that some parts don't work as expected, but |
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feel free to mail me about any bugs! |
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Proxy Support |
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-------------- |
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If you are not able to connect directly to the internet, you can |
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use the proxy settings. To enable proxy support, you need to start |
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the keyserver dialog and use the "change" button to set a proxy. |
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Now the keyserver code uses the proxy instead of the direct connection. |
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If your proxy needs some kind of authentification, you can use |
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"proxy_user" and "proxy_pass". Then for each request the data |
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is used. The code was tested with some HTTP/WWW proxies but it's |
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also possible that it does *not* work with some proxies! Please tell |
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me if you've problems with your proxy server. |
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Debug Mode |
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---------- |
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To make the detection of bugs and programming mistakes easier, WinPT |
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contains a built-in debug mode. |
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It can be activated with the '--enable-debug' |
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switch on the command line. Then the WinPT output is more verbose and all |
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steps are logged a in a file with the name "gpgme.dbg". This file is stored |
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in the current directory and ONLY contains GPG related information. If you |
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think it is a WinPT problem, you can find a debug file in c:\windows\temp. |
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The name of this file is "winpt.log". It's possible that this file is very |
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large, so do NOT forget to compress it. |
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After an error has occured, it would be very useful to send this file to me. |
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Which file you'll send depends on the occured error. Don't use the debug |
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mode for your usual work; it slows down both GPG and WinPT. |
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