MOPEKS Guide to Startup

MOPEKS^® Guide to Startup

Introduction

This section, in brown italic font, appears in many places on this website for completeness - so you can skip it in future!

The purpose of this Guide is to show you how to actually use the computer program MOPEKS. If you are not a computer programmer, please read 'Guide ⇨ Basic Principles' first.

If you are a computer programmer, please read 'Guide ⇨ Key Concepts' followed by 'Guide ⇨ How it Works'. You could even buy and read 'The Book' but that may be a step too far.

You can then experiment by actually running the program MOPEKS.

Firstly, download and install MOPEKS as explained in 'Downloads ⇨ MOPEKS Program'.

Then start it up! When you encounter the Advice form (see 'FAQ ⇨ List of Forms ⇨ Form Advice') please read what it has to say. If it has any "red" content then there is a problem and you will have to do your best to solve it with the help of the 'Troubleshooting' section. By all means send me the error log if that happens - see 'Guide ⇨ Quality Control'

End of brown italic section!

Continue

Start up takes only a few seconds and during this period you will see a message, as below, informing you that MOPEKS is checking Methods, Objects, Properties and Environments for errors and inconsistencies.

Left click on image for a full size shot in a new tab or window. Press F11 for a full screen, if you wish. Then F11 again to return

If it finds such an error it will stop and ask you to correct it. This should not happen if you are running MOPEKS for the first time - if it does please send me an Email and the error log file (see 'FAQ --> Troubleshooting')

Next it will carry out the following checks in sequence

Read Office values from the Registry

You can see these values by clicking on "Office" when you reach Reception. If you know your way around the Registry you can check and change these values directly but this is a really, really bad idea.

Deal with File Associations

If you have opened MOPEKS for the first time you will be asked if you wish to make File Associations. Press 'Yes' unless you have good reasons not to.

If you press 'No' or 'Cancel' MOPEKS will function perfectly well but files will not open when you click on them. You will be given further opportunities to make these File Associations. Or you can use the Registry Tools - see 'Downloads --> MOPEKS Tools'

File Associations and File Extensions and are explained in much greater detail in 'FAQ --> General --> Q6'.

Left click on image for a full size shot in a new tab or window. Press F11 for a full screen, if you wish. Then F11 again to return

If you Clicked

If you have made these File Associations and have opened MOPEKS by clicking on a file with the extension ".mpkt", ".msct", ".mtxt or .mthd", MOPEKS will ask whether you wish to examine the file itself or actually run the appropriate program associated with that File Extension:

Typically, it will look like this:

Left click on image for a full size shot in a new tab or window. Press F11 for a full screen, if you wish. Then F11 again to return

Set up the Random Number Generator

MOPEKS uses hundreds of billions of random numbers during the mutation and breeding process and it is essential that the stream does not repeat itself. It uses three separate seeds set from the Timer, the Cryptography Key (a Microsoft computed value read from the Registry) and the the Tick Count (via the API GetTickCount).

This means that even if MOPEKS runs dozens of copies of itself (if you have a multiple core processor), they should all be using different random numbers. For this reason, multiple copies start at intervals which are deliberately delayed by a random time of up to 500 miiliseconds (half a second) so that Timer and Tick Count have both moved on. The Microsoft Cryptography Key changes each time you read it.

Sometimes, you will see that different copies of MOPEKS have arrived at suspiciously similar results but this is because (I hope) certain problems have similar steps along the way to solution and several copies may find these steps.

Ensure Required Folders and Files are present

MOPEKS places a large number of files and folders on your C drive - all under the master folder:

C:\MOPEKS

This is unavoidable as the program uses and generates a lot of output which the user needs to be able to examine easily. The layout is explained in much greater detail in 'FAQ --> General --> Q5'.

Cope with Multiple Copies Running

Once you have run MOPEKS for a while you will realise that looking for "Methods" may take anywhere from a few seconds up to weeks or even longer.

This parallels human experience of problem solving - the answer may come in a few seconds or it may take you years to see it. Once you have the solution (or Method in the case of MOPEKS) it is easy to apply it in the future. It is the search through "solution space" that takes all the time.

For this reason, when you run MOPEKS to find a method it will count the number of cores in your processor and suggest that you run a matching number of copies. There is more on this here 'Guide --> Office --> Step 4'.

If you elect to run say four copies, MOPEKS will generate a further three copies of itself and run the appropriate script to drive itself to find the method that you are looking for. Each time a further copy is generated it will go through a modified start up procedure. Resist the urge to interfere while this is happening!