THE ECDL2K-108 SERVICE CLIENT VERSION 1.1.4 (14th February  2000)

A. CHANGES FROM 1.1.2 (1.1.3 not released)

1. The Windows 9x version no longer crashes if the registry branch required
   does not exist. This is now created if necessary.

2. A rare condition that caused the client to crash on some multi-processor
   Windows NT systems seems to have been overcome (the two systems on which 
   this has behaviour has been reported no longer crash with this version).

B. CHANGES FROM 1.1.2

1. You can now set the priority with which the service runs (as described
   in the ini file). But be careful if you change the default setting!

2. The program state will be saved when the Operating System is closed down 
   (the previous version used the last saved state in this circumstance).

3. Messages in the Event Log are now more meaningful.

4. The program deals with a number of unexpected situations (for example, 
   DNS lookup failures) more effectively. 

C. QUICKSTART

1. Sign up your participation at: http://cristal.inria.fr/bin/ecdldb.

2. If you are using a previous version of the ecdl service client you
   will need to uninstall it using the command 'ecdl -u'. On Windows NT 
   you can stop it running before uninstalling it by using the Services 
   application in the Control Panel. If you are using Windows 95 or 98 
   you will have to reboot your machine after uninstalling ecdl.exe so
   that it can be overwritten with the new version.

3. Place the two files 'ecdl.exe' and ecdl.ini' into their own directory
   (create this if necessary). Any files generated by the program will 
   also be placed in this directory. The file 'ecdl.log' records a log of 
   the actions taken by the program. This can be deleted periodically if 
   you wish. The file (or files) 'state.x.bin', where x is a digit, record
   the program's progress and should not be interfered with.

4. Edit the file 'ecdl.ini' to include your own details as described
   within the file.

5. Run ecdl using the run command with the command line 'ecdl -i' to
   install the 'ECDL_Service' (it can be uninstalled using 'ecdl -u'). 
   Alternatively you can issue these commands using a command prompt.

6. If you are running Windows NT, select 'Services' in the Windows 
   Control Panel, find and select the 'ECDL_Service' and start it using
   the start button (it will start automatically on the next machine 
   restart if you do not do this).  If you are  running Windows 95/98, 
   you will need to reboot the computer to start the ecdl service running 
   in the background. 

7. The program places details of the points it finds in a file named 
   'dist.points'.  If running in batch mode, rename this file every few 
   days to dist.points.nov.25 (but with the current date at the end rather
   than Nov.25) and email this renamed file to the following address: 
   'ecdl2K-108@pauillac.inria.fr'

8. New points will be put in a new dist.points file so step 7 can be
   repeated every few days.

If you wish to run ecdl as a conventional program rather than a service, 
you can do this using the command 'ecdl -r'. The program will then run 
until terminated manually using Control-C (or by a computer restart). 
Other commands are:

  'ecdl -h' :  provide a summary of ecdl commands
  'ecdl -v' :  display version info and install status

This is a port of Robert Harley's ecdl2K-108 program implemented for use on 
either Windows 9x or Windows NT systems as a system service. It will take 
advantage of MMX capabilities as well as multiprocessors (if present) on 
Windows NT systems.  

When the priority set in the ini file is Low (i.e. the priority code starts
with 'L') the program will only uses idle processor time and should not 
interfere in any way with other activities running on the same system. You
can give it a higher priority of Normal ('N') or High ('H') but you are 
very strongly advised NOT to set a priority above 'N'. That is, you should
use one of the values: 'L--', 'L-', 'L', 'L+', 'L++', 'N--', 'N-' or 'N'.

It has been implemented by Brian Gladman (brian.gladman@btinternet.com) and 
Jeff Gilchrist (jeff.gilchrist@entrust.com).