Sometimes PAD.INF and other system errors INF errors may be related to problems in the Windows registry. Several programs can use the PAD.INF file, but when those programs are removed or changed, "orphaned" (invalid) INF registry entries are sometimes left behind.

Basically, this means that while the actual path to the file may have been changed, its incorrect former location is still recorded in the Windows registry. When Windows tries looking up these incorrect file references (file locations on your PC), PAD.INF errors can occur. In addition, malware infection may have corrupted the registry entries associated with Microsoft Windows for Workgroup Add-on. Therefore, these invalid INF registry entries need to be repaired to fix the root of the problem.

Manually editing the Windows registry to remove invalid PAD.INF keys is not recommended unless you are PC service professional. Mistakes made while editing the registry can render your PC unusable and cause irreparable damage to your operating system. In fact, even a single comma in the wrong place can prevent your computer from booting up!

Because of this risk, we highly recommend using a trusted registry cleaner such as WinThruster (Developed by Microsoft Gold Certified Partner) to scan and repair any PAD.INF-related registry problems. Using a registry cleaner automates the process of finding invalid registry entries, missing file references (like the one causing your PAD.INF error), and broken links within the registry. Before each scan, an automatically created backup copy, which allows you to undo any changes with one click and protects you from possible damage computer. The best part is that fixing registry errors can drastically improve system speed and performance.

Warning: If you are not experienced user PC, we do NOT recommend editing the Windows registry manually. Incorrect use of the Registry Editor can lead to serious problems and require reinstalling Windows. We do not guarantee that problems resulting from misuse of Registry Editor can be resolved. You use the Registry Editor at your own risk.

Before manually restoring Windows registry, you need to create a backup by exporting a part of the registry related to PAD.INF (eg. Microsoft Windows for Workgroups Add-On):

1. Click on the button To begin.
2. Enter " command" in search bar... DO NOT PRESS YET ENTER!
3. Holding keys CTRL-Shift on the keyboard, press ENTER.
4. An access dialog will be displayed.
5. Click Yes.
6. The black box opens with a blinking cursor.
7. Enter " regedit" and press ENTER.
8. In the Registry Editor, select the PAD.INF-related key (eg. Microsoft Windows for Workgroups Add-On) you want to back up.
9. On the menu File select Export.
10. Listed Save to select the folder where you want to save the Microsoft Windows for Workgroups Add-On key backup.
11. In field File name enter a name for the backup file, such as "Microsoft Windows for Workgroups Add-On Backup".
12. Make sure the field Export Range value selected Selected branch.
13. Click Save.
14. The file will be saved with .reg extension.
15. You now have a backup of your PAD.INF-related registry entry.

The next steps for manually editing the registry will not be covered in this article, as they are likely to damage your system. If you would like more information on editing the registry manually, please see the links below.

If you develop programs and present them on your site, then this article is for you. It explains how you can most effectively describe your program in special file, which is called PAD. It is posted on the site, and it contains all the information needed by those who want to know something about your product. If you are an experienced sharer and already use PAD, then you can safely skip the first and second parts of this note, but I highly recommend taking a look at the third - it describes the most common errors associated with creating and using PAD files. And These errors are very common, including among "venerable" programmers...

So, part one. What is PAD?

PAD (Portable Application Description) is an XML file that describes the basic data of your program. The PAD contains information about the author of the program, its name, version, website address, file addresses, supported platforms, and so on - in a word, all that "factual" information that anyone who wants to know (or tell) something needs about your product, in particular, this information is needed by the software archives.

The use of PAD files is convenient for both the author and the archive - the author does not need to enter the same data on each site (previously sorting out the location and meaning of different form fields), and the archive will have to spend less time correcting all kinds of typos by the authors .. In addition, by filling in the PAD, the author sees what information is required and, accordingly, is more likely to provide the archive with all the required information, and not leave half the fields blank, as is often done when manually adding.

PAD turned out to be so convenient that it was quickly adopted by almost all archives and submitters. There are many programs for creating PAD files that greatly simplify and facilitate this process. You can read more about the standard and download a free PAD generator here.

In general, the situation today looks like this: very large archives can afford not to support PAD - they are too important for the developer to fill in something incorrectly. So there you have to do it manually. But the vast majority of medium and small PAD sites understand and welcome. And the benefits of the presence of your program in such archives are quite large - starting with an increase in search engine rankings and ending with the fact that the total traffic from these sites is quite comparable to that generated " monsters...

Part two. Pros and cons of PAD's.

A formalized description of programs allows you to significantly simplify the process of submitting programs to archives. Entering the basic data into the database occurs automatically and quickly, leaving the developer time for, in fact, programming. Significantly reduces the number of typos, incorrect product data and other errors.

It also makes it much easier to update data about a program that has already been published in the archive. Some software sites support pad-pulling, that is, they regularly re-read the PAD lying on your site and, if changes are found, automatically add them to the database (or inform the editor about the program update). Thus, all that is required from the author is to update the PAD file on his site, and everything else will happen by itself. If the site does not reread the PAD automatically, then it is still much easier to go to it and click the "Update" button than to re-enter all the data.

Don't forget to update PAD's

Thus, if you do not forget to update PAD when new versions of the program are released, then its (program) update on a huge pile of archives scattered around the world will take place within a few days and will require almost no effort from you. Agree, this is a very noticeable advantage!

However, like any universal description, PADs also have drawbacks. First of all, here you can point out the shortcomings of the standard itself. For example, in PAD you can specify links for downloading your program, but you cannot give links to additional files(e.g. libraries, language modules). There is no way to give descriptions to links. You cannot specify different files for different languages. And much, much more that I would like to see. This is partly solved by various add-ons, which can also be found on the ASP website and connected to the PAD generator, but there is a suspicion that the number of such plug-ins will grow and grow...

Another drawback of PADs, as often happens, is closely related to its advantage - facilitating automatic data processing. It becomes very easy to create a software site and fill it with information: a couple of days of work - and you're done! Even now, if you want, it's easy to find dozens of similar sites , and I think that over time their number will increase.

On the one hand, it seems to be not scary, but on the other hand, firstly, it will pull visitors away from those sites where programs are selected and reviewed by real people, which will put most of these sites out of business, since they simply stop paying off; secondly, various viruses or trojans will begin to spread through automated sites - far from all of them (sites) will be spent on downloading and checking files, regularly rereading them, and so on; thirdly, the market will be filled with all kinds of imperfections, creating difficulties for developers of really high-quality products - an automatic site will not be able to assess the quality, but it will disguise itself as a living one, more or less randomly giving out all sorts of awards, showing ratings, and so on. I think that many are familiar with similar examples ...

But, nevertheless, today PAD is a very convenient, albeit imperfect tool that makes life much easier for both software developers and software site editors.

Part three. Typical mistakes when working with PADs.

First and foremost. The idea of ​​PAD is that it is on your site, and software archives periodically reread it. Therefore, you do not need to create PAD files containing the version number in the name! If the file address changes (say, when new version program), then the archive, when trying to reread it, will stumble upon a 404 error, and it is possible that it will simply delete your program from the database.

The reference to the "numbered" PAD-file in the field will not help either. Faced with the fact that the "real" address (from which the PAD file was downloaded) does not match the address registered in the PAD itself, the archive will simply replace the original address with a new one (reasonably assuming that the PAD can be copied somewhere, and here the information it contains is correct) and that's all - "numbered" was registered as the main address, and the archive does not notice updates to your program (here I do not take into account the fact that the "correct" archives check not only PAD, but also the date of change and program file size and other subtleties).

The filename should not change when new versions are released.

By the way, about files. Specifying a link to the page where the links are located as Primary_Download_URL is not the most the best solution although it is not explicitly prohibited. Such a link can be put as one of the additional ones, and it is better to refer to the file itself first - this will help those sites that copy files to themselves. And, since we are talking about files, there is no need to register the same address several times as the main and additional ones. Nobody forbids leaving some of the fields blank.

The same applies to screenshots. The favorite pastime of the authors is to specify a picture of the box, logo, icon instead of a screenshot, link to the page, or, at least, edit the screenshot, making it 120x80 pixels in size. And why, you ask?.. After all, a screenshot is needed so that your potential buyer can get acquainted with the program interface! What can you see in a picture the size of postage stamp? Take a normal screenshot 800x600, prepare it for publication on the web (almost any graphics editor can compress pictures) and put it on your website. And the archives will automatically adjust this picture to fit their design. And everyone is happy...

next very typical mistake is to specify the wrong encoding. The header of the PAD file specifies the encoding in which it is written, and the server is guided precisely by this indication when "decrypting" the file. Unfortunately, most programs for creating PADs do not know about the existence of KOI8-R or Windows-1251 and indicate either ISO-8859-1 or Windows-1252 by default. Do I need to say that Russian, for example, text in these encodings looks unreadable?

Specifying the encoding correctly is always useful

By the way, another bug, but a nuisance, is also connected with encodings. There is such a thing - UTF-8. In principle, you can perfectly write Russian (or some other) text in it, but ... Most small sites are written with using PHP. Including, PHP is used to parse PAD "s. PHP even has a function for decoding UTF-8, but the trouble is that it decodes into ISO-8859-1, replacing all incomprehensible characters with question marks, and Russian becomes unreadable again (of course , if the webmaster hasn't spent some time writing his own decoder)...

Another mistake is related to the use of HTML formatting in program descriptions. This, however, is not entirely a mistake - it is clearly not prohibited, but not a single normal webmaster will allow you to insert other people's tags into your pages ... Therefore, carefully placed by you ,

And will only spoil the appearance of the page with a description of your program, but do you need it? It is better to correctly break the text into paragraphs and make it readable.

Very often there are also errors associated with the XML language itself. It, unlike HTML, is much less tolerant of incorrect syntax and will actively resist your attempts to write a document anyhow. Unfortunately, many PAD generators are unaware of this and forget to check the correctness of the document itself, checking only the required fields are filled. Do not leave the first line empty and insert spaces before specifying ...

One of the good ways to check the correctness of your PAD" is to simply open it in a browser (only preferably not in Internet Explorer, which, out of habit, tries to guess what the user meant, but in a more "strict" one - for example, in Mozilla) It makes no sense to use specialized XML validators here, since a completely correct XML document should contain data about the document type, its compliance with certain standards, and other service information that is not needed in PAD.

Don't forget to update the PAD file!

And, finally, something without which PAD "s will lose two-thirds of their functionality - they need to be updated! Unfortunately, many authors forget about this - on my website, for example, I even had to introduce an additional check and check - not it’s just that the version number hasn’t changed, but also to compare where the version is older - on Listsoft or in PAD ... But it’s much easier for an author to spend an extra 10 minutes writing correct information in PAD than for an editor of a software site to view hundreds every day sites of programs suspected of being updated...

And since we are talking about updates, it is worth adding a few words about the versions of your programs. To begin with, when specifying the version in PAD, you do not need to attribute it to the name of the program and do not write "version 1.23" - it is enough to indicate only "1.23". The fact that this is the version is clear from the field in which the value is written and most sites automatically add the word "version" or something similar. By the way, about how you should "number" the releases of your programs, try reading the note "New version" - maybe you will find something useful for yourself...

I really hope that this article will at least slightly reduce the number of error messages sent to me by the server daily in the checked PAD files...

Everyone knows what an iPad is today. Although not many people know what this miracle is - the device differs from an ordinary tablet. Therefore, the question rightly arises - which is better to choose?

In this article, we will clarify the essence of the iPad and identify its differences from similar devices from other manufacturers. To begin with, let's say that an iPad and a tablet are one and the same. Only a product from the "apple" company became the first on the market and to this day is considered the most advanced in terms of technical characteristics.

A tablet is a technical gadget that is more voluminous in size than a smartphone. It is quite thin, and is equipped with a touchscreen display mechanism. The generic name for this product category is tablet.

Devices of this type are controlled by simple touches on the screen, physical keys are not used. It is possible to connect a keyboard, but usually it is not in a simple configuration.

"Tablets" operate on the basis of an operating system capable of supporting lightweight programs. The most common operating systems are Android and iOS. The iPad is based on the latter.

What distinguishes the "apple" tablet from competitors? Which is better to buy - iPad, despite the high price, or a cheaper option? A detailed description of the product from Apple, presented in this article, will help you decide and make the right choice.

This device is the latest format of mobile computers. He made consumers look differently at tablets and become seriously interested in them.

A tablet (tablet) is a medium-sized item, but a full-fledged computer. It is equipped with a display with a touch mechanism, its own operating room and other useful paraphernalia typical of modern gadgets.

iPad can be used to work in office programs, surf the net, download content, play games and many other tasks. In general, the functionality is exactly the same as that of modern PCs / laptops. Briefly, we covered the iPad and what this mysterious device is.

By the way, many people confuse the names iPad and iPod, considering them identical. In fact, the difference between an iPod and a tablet is cardinal. It's just a player with related functions.

History of the iPad

Apple began developing the tablet back in 1983. But then the information was classified, and was leaked to the general public only in 2002.

The consumer was waiting for a miracle, since the concept of the device promised a lot. But the expectations dragged on for another 4 years, when the developer has already officially announced the development of a tablet with a touch screen. The approximate date of entry into the market - 2007 - was also named then. However, the iPad of the first line was released only in 2010. The product was presented by the head of Apple himself.

As expected, the device aroused increased interest. In the first day, more than 300 thousand units of the product were sold, and more than a million programs created for the tablet were downloaded from the store. In just under a month, one million copies were sold.

A year later, the "apple" company presented the second line. Its representatives have become thinner, sleeker, lighter. Sales were up again.

A year later, the release of third-generation tablets followed, and so on.

Today the world has seen such models as mini and Pro - unique in its kind. They are tailored to the specific needs of users - the desire to have a device of small dimensions so that it can be easily carried in a pocket, or to have a gadget with a large display.

So, we hope that now all those who did not know about the iPad, what it is, have resolved this issue for themselves. Almost everyone knows about the iPad today, but few are aware of the differences between this device and Android gadgets.

Advantages of the iPad

The device is stable and easy to use than any other tablet. But its biggest plus is the presence in the store of more than half a million programs available for download. More than half of the software is developed directly for the iPad, the rest is able to function in compatibility mode.

The Apple company individually approves any program before release, making the process of viruses penetrating their gadgets as difficult as possible.

The iOS operating system has an intuitive interface. It is an ideal application development environment because its features are easy to understand. That's why so many audiences/developers like it so much.

iPad cons

Despite the long experience of users, there is a common complaint about one problem, namely the customization limit. But this inconvenience can be circumvented by making your device “jailbroken”.

On the one hand, it's great that any program is checked / approved by Apple before being displayed in the store. However, some useful software does come with the block.

Also, the iPad is not able to expand the memory through a flash drive. Therefore, if the limit is over, there is nothing you can do about it.

Another negative point is the inability to view flash video. Therefore, you can not see the clips online on many resources. Although, today the HTML5 compatibility format is increasingly being used, so the problem can be considered solved.

The iPad is expensive. At the start of sales of the first line, this was a powerful side, but today it is better to purchase a new generation product from any other company. This applies to gadgets with 7-inch displays and excellent power. The cost of such a device will be significantly lower than, for example, iPad mini.

And now let's turn to the characteristics of the main competitors of the iPad - Android tablets.

Android Devices: Pros

The biggest advantage is a wide variety from well-known brands and not so much. Also, devices can be premium and economy class. The customization options are also endless.

The development of the Google store in recent years has reached a large scale. And today there is an extensive selection of programs that are not inferior to those presented in the AppleStore. Although some of them are not yet optimized for tablets. However, the growth in the number of interesting programs provides opportunities for selection based on size / specifics / cost.

The presence of real multitasking is the cardinal difference between Android, which was until recently. But today on iOS, this technology is also implemented. Its essence lies in the fact that when you open one program, the rest can function in the background.

And, finally, a big plus of tablets from any other manufacturers is a much lower price. The cost of such products can be very affordable, and any user can afford the gadget.

Android Tablets: Disadvantages

The operating system is not as simple and understandable in practical application as iOS from the "apple" company. But over time you get used to it.

Although the Google store today offers a huge number of programs, most of them are not optimized for the tablet. Before uploading to the resource, the company does not check the software for this subject. Of course, the risk of catching a virus for users in this case increases.

conclusions

Even after a detailed analysis, it will be difficult to say for sure which tablets are better. In order to somehow limit the selection criteria, we outline the main points:

• A tablet is a generic name for a large number of devices with touchscreen displays from various manufacturers. iPad is the same tablet, but from Apple. Although a survey of Americans showed that not everyone knows about this, believing that the iPad is the common name for all “pills”.
• iPads operate on the basis of the iOS operating system, which has an excellent interface and a colorful display.
• This tablet is easier to use and more stable than the competition.
• "Apple" devices are still in the lead when it comes to useful and affordable applications. So far, Android gadgets cannot boast of a huge amount of software tailored to the needs of tablets. However, things will probably get better with time.
• In terms of hardware, Android is a good choice for those who appreciate a fast processor, powerful cameras and easily expandable memory.

Modern payment systems include various types of equipment that are used in retail outlets and various establishments that provide services. Various payment methods can be used to make payments. PIN-Pad and POS-terminal are equally popular.

PIN pad features

This device is otherwise called a numeric keypad or remote keyboard. It is attached to the POS system for the convenience of the seller and the client. This allows you not to pull out the terminal from behind the counter each time, but simply give the buyer a keyboard that he can use to enter a pin code.

Such remote keyboards can work with any vending machines, it is easy to connect them. The device itself usually does not cause problems, since its design is quite simple. If necessary, the keyboard can be quickly replaced if it suddenly fails.

The process of payment with PIN-Pad goes like this: the buyer gives his card to the seller, he inserts it into the terminal, and the client, using the remote keyboard, enters the PIN code. After that, the funds are debited from the account.

There is a separate type of PIN-Pad, which is something like a hybrid of this device and a POS terminal. The result is a device into which the buyer himself inserts the card, dials the pin code and presses the button to complete the operation. But such a device does not print a receipt and does not have its own communication modules.

POS terminal features

The POS-terminal is, in fact, an independent element that can read information from the card, send data to the system and print out a receipt. A thermal printer is built into the terminal. These devices may be wireless.

There are also mobile POS-terminals that work even easier. They connect to a smartphone or tablet via a connector. There are also devices that use wireless communication technology. To work, nothing is required, except for a special application that is installed on a tablet or smartphone. These devices allow you to accept payments not only at a stationary point of sale, but also anywhere where there is a mobile connection or wireless Internet.

A POS-terminal can also be called a complex system, which includes a special computer with a monitor, a device for reading cards, printing receipts. Usually this designates monoblocks, compact devices that are used in trade and various services as cash equipment.

Device differences

Knowing the features of PIN-Pad and POS-terminals, you can easily understand how they differ from each other:

1. PIN-Pad - in fact, a simple keyboard designed to make it easier to enter pin codes.
2. There are also PIN-Pad options that you can insert cards into immediately, but the functions do not change from this.
3. POS-terminal - a device with communication modules, a built-in printer for printing a receipt.
4. In addition, a POS-terminal can be called a cash system, presented in the form of a monoblock.

Do you need a PIN-Pad in a store or salon? It depends on the location of the commercial equipment. For example, if there is a partition with a small window between the seller and the buyer (this can be found in pharmacies), then it will be inconvenient to pass the terminal each time, and it will be easier to bring a separate PIN-Pad device to the buyer. This will simplify the payment procedure and speed up the process. If there are no special conditions, then it is not necessary to purchase a PIN-Pad, and this remains at the discretion of the business owner.