herbalist

No one else here ATM so I can finally shut that d@mn TV off and hear something good. Keys to Ascension, Yes. Time to blow the cobwebs out of the speakers.

That fixed it. Thanks for the quick response.

Forgot to mention that Kernel EX was installed on lite98SE with IE removed.

At the moment I decide to try 4.0RC1, RC2 is released. I have good and bad news. All of the 3.x versions conflicted with SSM free, which prevented me from seriously considering using Kernel EX. I'm happy to report that so far, 4.0RC1 and SSM free are getting along. I have a lot more testing to do but so far it's very encouraging. Now for the bad news. I uninstalled RC1, rebooted, then installed RC2. After what appeared to be a normal install, the system rebooted, during which I got the following error message: MPREXE caused an invalid page fault in module KERNELEX.DLL at 016f:bfa07b7f. Registers: EAX=00000000 CS=016f EIP=bfa07b7f EFLGS=00010246 EBX=81791cf0 SS=0177 ESP=0072fb80 EBP=0072fb94 ECX=00000000 DS=0177 ESI=bfa00000 FS=1cef EDX=00000000 ES=0177 EDI=00000000 GS=0000 Bytes at CS:EIP: 66 8b 48 10 8b 55 f8 8b 04 8a 83 c0 2a 89 45 ec Stack dump: 0072fb88 817931a6 00000000 81799e64 828dc10c 0072fbac bfa0cfd0 bfa00000 00000001 00000000 00000000 0072fbc4 bfa07859 bfa00000 00000001 00000000 I've switched back to RC1 so I can check further into how well KernelEX and SSM are going to work together. Rick

I did. It had no effect at all.

I decided to give RP9 a try on my lite98SE testbox, a copy of my VirtualPC testbox. I installed GDIPlus first. With RP9, I installed just the configuration program. The testbox has 3 toolbars of shortcuts located on the taskbar. After installing RP9, the toolbars can't be moved or resized anymore. Before. After. This testbox doesn't have Internet Explorer, used IEradicator. Very stripped down box. Rick

You could also remove the hard drive, install it into a working PC, then copy the 98CD contents to it. Put it back in the laptop, boot from a floppy, then run the setup program. Rick

ASPI 4.71 can be installed over 4.60. From its readme file: Run INSTALL.BAT with the target operating system command line option specified: X86 ( for Windows 98/ME/NT/2000 ) XP32 ( for Windows XP 32-bit ) XP64 ( for Windows XP 64-bit ) e.g. "INSTALL.BAT X86" After installing 4.71 over 4.60, ASPICHK.exe will complain about the unmatched files. As long as the correct pairs of files are the same version as shown below, disregard the warning. I've also run into a few WinME boxes like that, unstable and unpredictable, especially when drivers are involved. Win2000 would work very well and would probably be much faster than XP on that box. 98SE would be a more stable option than ME as well. 98SE does most everything ME does without all the strange problems. Rick

Do you have these files on your system? If so, what version number is each file? ASPIENUM.VXD WINASPI.DLL APIX.VXD WNASPI32.DLL Each of the above pairs of files must be the same version number. Rick

98 needs to be optimized to take full advantage of broadband. If you have Java installed, DSLReports has a java based tweak test that will evaluate several settings and a utility called DRTCP you can download to adjust them. Their java based speed tests work better on 9X systems than most of the flash based tests, IMO. I don't have XP to compare to, but both of my 98 systems get the same speeds as my Win2000 system. You can find links to these and more tools at http://www.dslreports.com/tools Rick

I don't have that much file capacity so I can't vouch for Windows Explorer's ability to move much more than a few gigabytes at a time. That said, I'd offer a couple of suggestions. Don't use the "move" option. Copy the data instead. Before deleting the original files, use WinMerge to compare the copies to the originals. It can check both the files and the copied file system. Rick

The Wilders forum does have a nice thread regarding rulesets for Kerio 2.1.5. How to Optimize Security in Kerio 2.1.5 -Learning Thread 3. The thread is primarily targeting 2K thru XP users but all the basics still apply. It's actually a lot easier to make rules for a 9X system. The OS complains very little when it's components aren't given internet access and you don't have to deal with all those services. I'll attempt to do that as soon as I have the time in a separate thread. Rick

Kerio 2.1.5 is one of the best firewalls for 9X systems. I'm running it on 98FE, 98SE, and 2K. Even on my 366MHZ Celeron powered unit, there's no slowdown. Software firewalls don't get much lighter than Kerio. Regarding AVs, most have already dropped 98/ME support or will be shortly. There are no AVs that won't affect the performance of 98/ME. I don't run an AV either so I can't comment on whether any one is better than another. There's better ways to secure an OS. Rick

You have to hear it to believe it. The ultimate practical joke on a telemarketer recorded. http://www.mediafire.com/?ig9w9ljfycy Direct link to wmv. Rick

I realize that it hasn't been updated in years, but MRUBlaster cleans a lot of junk out of the registry, including those UserAssist mentioned in the first post. It is still very worthwhile on 98 systems. My 98FE unit has more installed than it needs, but the system.dat is 6521KB and user.dat is 389KB. My 98SE box is cleaner with system.dat at 3573KB and user.dat at 229KB. MRU blaster did most of the cleaning. In this registry thread, another member (Eidenk) linked to a couple of excellent registry tools, available here. One of them, Regcon does an excellent job of compacting the registry files and is the other utility responsible for the small file sizes. Batch files that save and overwrite the existing system and user.dat files with the cleaned, compressed, and optimized copies during bootup keeps them that size. Rick

A couple more thoughts. You mentioned that it may be underclocked. Check your jumper positions against the manuals submix linked to. Any unusual entries in autoexec.bat or config.sys? You mentioned the logo is there for a very long time. It's possible it may be hiding error messages. Also look at msdos.sys and see if there's a long boot delay specified. The windows logo can be taken out of the way by adding this line to msdos.sys: Logo=0 Rick

Copied from the manual for your board (linked to by submix8c): Unless I'm misreading this, the info contradicts. The top half says (2) 128MB and (1) 64MB the lower section says (1) 128MB and (2) 64MB I'd try running with one stick at a time, starting with the 64MB. Save the 133MHZ until last. 64MB is more than sufficient for testing. Limiting to one stick at a time will rule out problems caused by more than one size/speed. If necessary, try each one individually. Mixed sizes aren't always a problem. I'm running a 128MB and a 32MB with no problems. Forgot that MS ruined the 9X compatibility of those utilities. Here's links to 9X compatible versions. Autoruns. Process Explorer. Rick

Go to C:\WINDOWS\Start Menu\Programs\Accessories\System Tools\system information. Expand the selections on the left and click on "problem devices". Anything showing up there? Try booting into safe mode and see if explorer runs a normal speed there. Also try booting to step by step confirmation and report any errors or long delays you see. That unit should go much faster. I'm running a 366MHZ Celeron and 160MB RAM. Bootup takes under a minute from off to internet ready. Go to sysinternals and pick up autoruns and process explorer. Post a list of what's running and look through the autostart entries for anything unusual. What software is installed on this PC? Rick

To change the icon for a type of file. Start menu>settings>folder options. Select "file types" tab. Browse to the file extension you want to change. Select it. Click "Edit". On the next screen, select "change icon". Browse to the file that contains the icons you want to use. Choose icon. Click "OK". "Close". "Apply". The original icons for many of the image files are in Iexplore.exe.

IrfanView, one of the best.

When I added an external hard drive, I found the built in USB to be incredibly slow. My hardware is old, an HP Pavilion 4463 that came with 98FE. I installed NUSB for 98FE but there wasn't much improvement. I installed a Stratitec USB 2.0 upgrade card from the local WalMart. It's very similar to this one. It came with Orangeware drivers, which are used by many of these cards. I've since upgraded them to version 2.3, which seems to be the best ones for my hardware. I haven't tried USB sticks as I don't need them, but everything else I've plugged in works just fine. There's an initial delay of a couple seconds when I first access the external drive, but after that it seems almost as fast as the internal drives. Adding the card didn't have any noticeable effect on my bootup times. I didn't have to make any changes to BIOS settings. The external hard drive is completely accessible from DOS if you have the right drivers loaded. Rick

Versions 2.3 and upward have that problem. 2.2 works fine on 98. Pick up a copy of MemUse and let it run while you try 2.3. You'll see the problem.

I've checked my 98FE and SE systems and ran a search through all the Inctrl5 install records I have, about 300 of them. I don't have any of the keys mentioned in this thread or any that are remotely similar. Nothing I've installed on 9X (software, updates, patches, etc) has made any similar keys.

How difficult would it be to add "enable/disable" to the context menu and make it the default selection? Being able to disable and re-enable the network connection with a single click would be quite handy. Rick

May you explain it further on the ways for securing it please? The 'no-cost' idea is tempting! The primary reason that Windows is so vulnerable to malware, exploit code, etc is the operational policy it's designed around to start with, default-permit. In its simplest terms, it translates: Anything not specifically blocked is permitted. This applies to the users, installed software, and the operating system itself. It includes running processes/applications, interprocess activity, network/internet access, and active content. AVs are an extension of this default-permit policy, comparing accessed files and processes against a database identifying about half a million bits of malicious code (blacklist). Anything that matches is blocked, quarantined, deleted, whatever the AVs behavior is set to. Any code the AV doesn't recognize is allowed. Heuristics added behavior checking to the equation. The behavior or activity of the code or process checked for actions considered to be malicious or questionable. Like signature based detection, it's effectiveness is limited. The most effective way to secure Windows is to implement the exact opposite of its normal default-permit policy. Block everything by default, then allow only what is necessary for normal operations as exceptions. Instead of having AVs, ATs, anti-spyware, etc trying to keep up with an almost infinite quantity of malicious code pieces and almost as many questionable behaviors, aka a 10MB+ blacklist that's never complete or completely up to date, use a whitelist approach, a much smaller database of the allowed processes, user applications, and system components on your PC. Another big "as installed" weaknesses in 98 is the lack of separation between user and system administrator. Define a clear line between user and administrator functions and configure the system so that administrative functions are not accessible in user mode. Make all installing, updating, and altering of all settings administrative tasks. The system policy editor is very useful for both of the above. It's on the 98 install CD but is not installed by default. It can be found at "\tools\reskit\netadmin\poledit" for both 98FE and SE. It can be run from the CD or installed. The policy editor works by changing system settings, most of which are stored in the registry. It can be used to make a whitelist of permitted user apps. Use Poledit.exe to open the registry, then select: local user>Windows 98 system>restrictions>only run allowed windows applications. Click "show", then use the "add" dialog to add the applications you want to allow. Use the actual filenames such as seamonkey.exe, poledit.exe, etc. I strongly suggest that you make a registry backupand make certain that you can boot to DOS and successfully use that restore before starting your whitelist. You can also use TestRun to make a duplicate test registry you can experiment on while protecting your true registry. While you're building the whitelist, make sure to include poledit.exe in it or you'll lock yourself out of your whitelist. The 98 system policy editor is not as powerful as its NT counterparts. It has weaknesses, starting with not checking the signature of the applications it's allowing or its location in the file system. It can be defeated by renaming an executable with the name of an allowed process. This used to be a common tactic of malware that's not seen much anymore. The newer security apps and operating systems check for this. Even so, the policy editor is still very useful, especially when you consider that the majority of infections are the result of something the user clicked on, opened, etc. If you want a more powerful option that checks the integrity and location of the applications, one that can control the activities of individual applications and system components, an application firewall or HIPS will give you that control. Unfortunately, I only know of one that will run on 98, the free version of System Safety Monitor. It's also the only method/application I know of that enables the user to choose what other apps/executables each application is allowed to launch on a 9X system. That level of control enables the user to apply a default-deny policy to each individual process, allowing each one only the access to other processes/system components that's required for them to function normally, no more. The Win98 operating system is not targeted as much by malicious code as the newer systems. That said, code that targets the user applications is increasing. Apps other than Internet Explorer are being targeted. The list includes any application, extension, or plugin that opens external and internet content. Code that exploits user apps often makes use of their integration with each other and with the operating system, eg opening media files, PDFs, etc in a browser. When the browser is part of the operating system (Internet Explorer), a vulnerability in a BHO or plugin becomes an OS vulnerability. Configuring the operating system and applications to work separately often prevents code that compromises an individual application from compromising the entire system. The system policy editor and an application firewall can have roles here as well. Malicious code on the internet can be filtered out, either before it gets to the browser or at it. Applying default-deny here can filter out all additional content, JS, java, activeX, media, ads, etc, then allow it when needed as exceptions. Browser plug-ins such as NoScript and Adblock perform much of this. If you want more control that works for all browsers, look into Proxomitron. The default-deny policy can be applied to internet traffic as well using a firewall. Except for DNS, the 98 operating system itself doesn't need internet access and shouldn't have it. Most would call this setup overkill. Implementing an effective default-deny policy does take some time. It does require that the user understands their system well enough to know what is and isn't necessary for the way they will be using it. When well implemented, it makes a system almost bulletproof. If default-deny is something you'd like to try, we can cover the details in a separate thread. Rick