herbalist

The top section should be a multiple choice. It depends too much on how you look at the question. From a stability perspective, ME is definitely the worst. This is one OS that can crash or blue screen for no good reason at any time. ME=Multiple Errors. If one looks at exploitability, XP is the worst. It's bad enough that they had to make a regularly scheduled patch day for it. Hundreds of megabytes worth of patches later and there's no letup in the number of "critical vulnerabilities" being found. There's no end to the number of ways it can be compromised. XP=eXtremely Patched. For sheer bloat, resource wasting, unwanted, useless features, and taking control away from the user, it's Vista by far. With MS operating systems, they've all got their unique problems. It's just a matter of which problems you can accept and work with. Given a choice between just the MS operating systems, I'll use 98lite, with several of the unofficial upgrades of course. Rick

True, hydrogen is better viewed as an energy storage/transfer medium. Then again, gasoline and heating oil also fit that definition. They're stored solar energy when you get right down to it. When the electricity to produce hydrogen can be obtained from solar, wind, and other almost unlimited energy sources, efficiency isn't all that important. If efficiency is going to be made an issue, it's hard to find something that's less efficient than an internal combustion engine burning gasoline. Compared to straight electricity, it would be cheaper to send hydrogen through pipelines than electric through wires over long distances. If the distribution lines included storage tanks, that would also solve the problem of storage for periods of heavy usage. With electric, that requires backup generators. I don't see why the existing natural gas pipelines couldn't be used for hydrogen, assuming they're in good shape of course. There are problems that need to be solved for hydrogen to be viable, but that can be said for all the alternatives. There's a huge amount of solar energy hitting the roofs of residences, waiting to be collected. The same applies to the wind that's blowing over our homes, an incredible amount of power waiting to be harnessed. I live in one of the worst areas in the US for solar heating, northern Michigan. For much of the winter, it's cloudy because of the proximity of the great lakes. The average amount of sunshine for the month of December here is 67 hours total. January averages 86 hours of sunshine for the month. Even with the limited solar energy available here, my small solar greenhouse provides about 25% of my heating needs. By the same token, those 2 months are some of the best for wind power here. When one source isn't available, the other is often in abundant supply. Much of the time, the same weather elements that create the energy demand can supply it. When it's way too hot, solar energy is usually abundant. In winter storms, wind energy is available in large quantities. It doesn't get much more convenient than that. This is why a cooperative approach would be so important. When one source isn't available, another is. The hydrogen would be the energy collection, storage and distribution medium for many different energy sources. For a decentralized hydrogen to be viable, it must not be under the control of big oil. Big oil would not allow a cooperative with multiple energy sources because they wouldn't have total control over the supply, and the resulting prices. IMO, they need to be kept out of the picture. There are so many benefits to such a system, so many problems it helps to solve, that it would be worth whatever it costs to make it a reality. There's benefits I haven't listed, such as the production of pure water from burning hydrogen. How useful could that be in drought areas? If we wait for big oil to solve the energy problem, it'll never get solved and we'll lose the best places left on the planet, plus a large percentage of our food growing capacity. Rick

Opening up offshore and protected lands for drilling is a very short term solution with no lasting benefits. All it will do is destroy those areas. The only real solution is an alternate fuel source. Bio fuels produced from farms isn't a good alternative. In a world with people starving and climate changing, taking land out of food production is the wrong decision. Consider what powers the modern farm, fossil fuels. We can't trade topsoil for fuel on a sustainable basis. The only real solution I can see is a decentralized hydrogen system where anyone can be a producer as well as a consumer, a true cooperative. Think of hydrogen as an energy transfer medium instead of the fuel itself. It can be produced by splitting water with electric, making it produceable by solar, wind, water power, most any energy source, even nuclear. All of the required technology already exists, including the distribution network (natural gas pipelines). If hydrogen was the primary fuel source, it would solve the CO² problem as well. Bio fuels do nothing to reduce CO² emmisions. Hydrogen is the only alternative that takes carbon out of the equation. Splitting water into hydrogen can also help with another problem, water pollution. Water pollution is hard to clean because of the quantities of water involved. By splitting water from polluted sources, the pollutants are effectively concentrated, making them easier to collect. The problem with decentralized hydrogen is that it takes the control from the big oil companies so it will be met with severe resistance by them and the governments they control. Fighting big money. There are some problems with hydrogen as a vehicle fuel, primarily refueling difficulties, but this is addressable. An option here is to use that hydrogen to produce electric to charge batteries for electric cars. It is completely viable for heating and industrial uses. It's non-polluting, very abundant and easily produced by any of the methods mentioned above. There's more than enough solar and wind power available that either could supply all our energy. All we have to do is harness it. Rick

I don't see where this is a 98/ME problem. SeaMonkey on 98FE works at that site just fine. Microsoft does the same thing with a lot of their sites, making them so they don't display correctly in Mozilla or Firefox, or using ActiveX to make certain that only IE users can access their sites. What's really odd here is that the site will work with IE6, if Javascript isn't allowed to identify the browser. I used Proxomitron to block a lot of Javascript and to hide the browsers identity. I did have to right click on "refresh" once, but other than that, the site worked in IE6 as long as it couldn't identify that IE6 was the browser. Then again, they might be doing users a favor by preventing them from using such an insecure browser. Rick

I don't have an SE test box ready but have confirmed this problem on 98FE. I'm not sure which app is the cause. Been testing/using SSM since 2004 and never ran into anything like this. MPC will run on 98 with SSM when it's profiled through Dependency Walker. I think DW filters out an unhandled exception but haven't really checked into it fully. When I have time, I'll investigate the problem further. Rick

One of the better sites I've seen for DOS and Windows command line is at Computer Hope. They have separate pages for each command and show the differences in the syntax each one needs for both DOS and Windows NT systems. Some more DOS sites: http://www.ahuka.com/dos/index.html http://dos.rsvs.net/ http://home7.inet.tele.dk/batfiles/batfiles.htm Rick

There's enough differences between 9X and NT systems that batch files written for one probably won't work on the other. I use a lot of batch files on my 98 boxes. None of them worked properly on a Win2K box without a lot of changes. Besides the differences in syntax and in the commands themselves, you also have the problem of long file names, which are common on NT systems but have to be truncated for batch files in DOS. The truncated names used by DOS will cause problems in batch files run on NT systems. All the paths are likely to be completely different as well. On NT systems, the batch files run in windows, which limits what can be done with them compared to those running in pure DOS. I haven't seen an emulator that does what you're asking. Even if one does exist and can handle the differences in the commands, file name length, and the syntax, it wouldn't be able to account for the differences in the paths used in the batch file. You'd still have to edit those manually. It would be easier in the long run just to write separate batch files for each. Rick

Never tried Flashget so I can't compare them. Star Downloader doesn't handle torrents or P2P protocols as far as I know. I use Shareaza for those.

One more for the list. I can't believe I forgot this one. It was a lifesaver when I had dialup. Star Downloader, a download manager, free and pro versions available. Not sure if it's still being developed. If you have an unreliable internet service, it's a gem. Handles all types and sizes of files. I downloaded a 660MB ISO with the free version on dialup over a 2 week period. Built in scheduler. Drag and drop. Pause and resume, hours or days later. Multiple download categories with their own destination folders. AV integration. Switchable browser integration. Too many features to list. Rick

SlugFiller, you said exactly what I meant. M$ deliberately coerces vendors and those who supply hardware to get them to kill older systems. That type of market manipulation and coercement of companies they don't own should be criminal. Unfortunately, big money buys regulations, laws, and other puppets to do their bidding and lets them legally rob users. As a matter of fact, I worked on a slightly older Pontiac last week. All the parts and service info was readily available. As for the rest, there's no need for a PM as it's not worth responding to. It's all far too clear.

Your examples are flawed for one obvious reason. Auto makers for instance tempt people to buy new models with new styles, new features, accessories, etc. They don't try to disable the older models or prevent parts from being available for them in order to force people to buy a new one. That's the big difference. When a company resorts to a policy of forced obsolescence in order to get sales, that tells me that their products can't compete on their own merits, that there's nothing about them that would make someone want them or that they're any better than previous OSs. In a sadistic way, I'm glad to see XP users in the same position we 98 users went through, having to put up with all of the "get with the times" rhetoric, being bombarded with nonsense presented as "facts", the steady diet of "it's vulnerable by design, you must upgrade" based more on lies and bad research than anything else. It's pretty sad when links to legitimate security site are removed just because they contain links to another site that has links something that M$ doesn't like, like the remover for M$ spyware. They should put as much effort into making an OS that people would actually want instead of trying to force upgrades, then worrying about someone pirating it. IMO, Vista and XP aren't worth using, let alone pirating.

Good title for this thread, but I think the number is too low. When used "as installed", XP is more stable, did I say that? Once tuned up and configured properly, the difference isn't nearly as big as some would have you believe. My 98FE box runs for days without restarting, with no problems. So do the 98 units I service and set up for others. 98 is as good as the user makes it. In that respect, 98 is like an older car. Tuning them up was half the fun, especially when you got it "just right." For the typical user with little or no real computer knowledge, XP is probably more stable, but if the user knows how to work with it, 98 can be rock solid. I can't remember the last BSOD I had on my FE box. The SE testbox does see a few but they're not from anything resembling normal usage. Much of 98's alleged instability was caused by the hardware it ran on. Sure, old FE units used to crash on the original hardware, especially if Internet Explorer was used too long on systems with 64MB of RAM. IE was as much as fault for this as the OS. That said, even though 98 would eventually crash on systems with such low specs, XP couldn't run on them at all, so how was that better? When I first got this box, I ran IE6 all the time. I also used NIS 2002, a real resource hog. If I didn't reboot every hour, it would crash. With NIS installed, just starting IE6 put me under 50% available resource. I can't blame the OS when installed software caused the problem. When I replaced NIS with Kerio 2.1.5 and AntiVir free, and started using the Mozilla suite in place of IE6, my system became very stable. Over the years, I've found that the worst thing you can do with a 9X system is to run MS software on it. I'm convinced that they've deliberately made it to run badly on 98 in order to coerce people into upgrading. I can watch my available resources steadily drop when I use IE6, until I reach the point that the OS becomes unstable. When I switched to Mozilla, that problem disappeared. I've had similar experiences with all the "big name" software and 98, enough so that I'm convinced that it's deliberate. In that respect, XP is better. If the installed software was designed with memory management in mind, the performance difference isn't that much. 98 requires the user to make better choices for the apps they're going to use. It's apparently more sensitive to poorly coded programs than XP is. For the average user that doesn't understand memory usage, XP may be the better choice. For a user that does, 98 can give you much more on the same hardware than XP can ever hope to. Which OS is best depends entirely on what's important to the user. I'm not a gamer and I don't do much with video. For me, XP has very little to offer that my 98 boxes can't do just as well. My PC has 4 operating systems installed. The primary is 98FE, my old workhorse. It also has 98SE, primarily a testbox. It has an older linux version which is rarely used. It has Win2000 for those rare tasks that 98 won't do and for testing software that's for NT systems only. For most any task that both 98 and 2K can do, on my hardware 98 will always get it done faster, even though the 2K system has been stripped down with the trial version of XPlite/2000lite. The security scenario is similar. If the user wants to use the latest and greatest, it probably won't run on 98. If the user wants to take control of the OS and secure it with a default-deny policy, enforced with a few good apps, 98 can be almost bulletproof at no monetary cost. There is a time cost with 98. Since security-ware vendors are dropping support, that burden falls to the user. It does cost some time to set up a good security policy, time that the average user might not want to spend this way. If you want security software and its vendors to protect your system, choose XP. If you like doing it yourself, 98 is easy to secure IF the user takes the time to understand his system. A choice between money and time. Rick

Fortunately, 98 doesn't need AVs and AS. It can be secured quite well without them. When there's no AV or security suite bogging it down, an OS that's already fast can fly! Even with a 366mhz processor, my 98SE testbox boots complete in under 45 seconds, with all security apps and other extras in autostart. It's sad that more people weren't aware of the projects and upgrades available here before they "upgraded" from 98. I'd bet a lot of them wouldn't have switched. Fortunately, the older versions of most of those programs work fine with 98. Using the most recent version of software isn't as important with 98 as it is with XP. With internet software for instance, fixing security vulnerabilities is one of the most common reasons for releasing a new version. Much of the time, the vulnerability didn't lead to anything exploitable on 98. There's not much we can do about the big companies that follow Microsofts lead like good little puppets, supporting only what MS supports. Open Source software is another matter. With Open Source software, profit isn't the motive. Often it's the exact opposite, to give people an alternative to the expensive programs sold by MS and others. Those who work on Open Source software don't think there's any real demand for 9X support. Most don't know this place exists and aren't aware of the work being done here. They're much more likely to be responsive to us and continue supporting 9X IF they're aware that there's a demand for it and that there's knowledgeable people willing and able to do the testing. An example of what we need to be doing a lot more of if we want software that runs on 98. At this moment, 204 people have viewed the End of support for Windows 98/ME in OpenOffice.org 3 thread, but there's only 13 votes for keeping 98 support. Since each person can add 2 votes, that tells me that only 7 people cared enough to give a couple of minutes of their time and ask them to keep supporting 98. If they stop supporting 98, we have ourselves to blame. Rick

Why I still use 98. IMO An operating system should run the users software, store the users data, and nothing more. It should not store records of user activities unless it's instructed to by the user/administrator. It should not connect out or send any data unless I tell it to. Once it's set up and configured, it should stay out of the way and be silent unless there's something happening that I need to know about. The user/administrator should have full control over every process and full access to every file. 98 is not ideal by any means, but it comes closer than any other MS operating system. My system has 4 operating systems installed. My primary is still 98FE. I have 98SE installed, but have yet to get the performance from it that FE gives me. It gets used for testing and experiments more than anything else. Win2K is installed, but is only used when it's absolutely necessary, when the same app just won't run on 98. Compared to 98, it's sluggish, slow to boot, and on my hardware, not as stable. I also have one HD with linux installed, but just can't get interested enough in it to really work with it. I'm considering removing it and using that HD for the swap file, temp files, cache, etc. Most of the issues I have with 98 can be dealt with thru DOS. Most of the time batch files will do what I want with no input from me required. There's so much that can be done with 98 using DOS, especially from a security perspective, all of which is impossible on 2K and newer. So true. The biggest issues I have with newer OSs is what they do that the user can't control. Each new version of windows stores more records of user activity than the one before while taking away control from the user at the same time. Vista and XP have way too much in common with spyware for me to consider using. IMO 98 is the last version of Windows over which the user still has enough control to undo its built-in spyware characteristics without needing to hack files. Rick

Regarding Foxit Reader, 2.3 versions. Earlier I stated that the latest versions worked fine with 98fe\se. At the time, I was using version 2.2, which works fine on both FE and SE. Today I found I was several versions behind and installed the latest version. On 98FE, the 2.3 versions use a large amount of memory that increases as you scroll thru the pages of the document. Memory usage info was obtained with Memuse memory and swap file monitor. By the time I'd moved thru 25 pages, over 90% of my memory had been used up. My 98SE testbox is a fresh install of 98lite, not yet completed. Version 2.3 of Foxit did worse here. My memory usage was 14% at bootup. By the time I'd scrolled 18 pages, my memory was 98% consumed. On my 98 boxes, all of the 2.3 versions of Foxit have severe memory usage issues. Versions 2.2 and older work fine on both 98FE and SE. Rick

I'm using version 2.0.8.583 of System Safety Monitor. Very stable on 98 thru XP. Haven't had the time to test their latest one, 585. The last time I tried 584, it had major problems (BSODs). Don't know if it's been fixed. With Proxomitron, version 45J is the last and the one most people use. The filter sets that come with it aren't bad. There's several other filter sets available, some still actively maintained. More on them here. Rick

Here's links to VirusTotal results for those 2 files. http://www.virustotal.com/analisis/c9df38a...be66ff7642fe9ac http://www.virustotal.com/analisis/c4edcd5...c961e732a09596e I understand your concerns about 9/11 and the effect of the resulting paranoia on software. I share it. I don't doubt that it did affect certain types of software, especially encryption software and the OSs themselves, but I doubt that it would have led to the weakening or compromising of firewalls, at least not in 2003. Today, it might be another story. I don't doubt that 9/11 is one of the factors in the push to make 9X systems obsolete. Both big money and the powers that be don't like the user having that much control and the final say over the OS. If I were equipping a PC based solely on suspicions about the aftermath of 9/11, my primary concern would be the OS itself and the dates of the patches/updates. This is one of several reasons I stay with 98. I'd completely avoid security apps/suites made by the big US companies and choose single purpose programs from small vendors and individuals, from overseas whenever possible. I'd heavily favor Open Source. Even if one assumes that the powers that be want a backdoor into every PC, I wouldn't expect them to target security apps or user software. It would involve too many apps and too many people, resulting in a much greater risk of it being discovered. Such a backdoor would be put in the OS itself. IMO, restricting your choices to pre-9/11 software takes away too many good choices and would leave you with a system that's not very useful. How would you open the newer document formats or the newer types of media? I wouldn't want to browse the internet with a pre-9/11 browser either. I understand where you're coming from, but there's only so much you can do. You can monitor the traffic in and out of your system. You can monitor all the changes an app makes to your system. You can regularly check the integrity of your system. You can implement a security policy that won't let anything happen without your approval. You can attack your system with every piece of malware you can find and visit every malicious page on the net. Eventually, you have to trust the software you use and the security package you've set up. With Kerio for instance, I've tested it every way I know how. I've monitored it as much as my old equipment will allow. It has never done anything I'd consider suspicious. Yes, it has some limitations and some weaknesses. Show me a firewall or security app that doesn't. I trust it, but not to the point of expecting it to stand alone. It's part of my security package, a package I trust. The security arguments against using 98 don't hold up. Contrary to what MS and the big security software vendors would have you believe, 98 can be made just as secure as XP or more so, and at little or no cost. Everything needed to secure a 9X system is freely available. The older firewalls are ideal for 9X systems. Out of the newer ones that will run on 9X systems, most are too heavy and contain "features" that are useless on 9X systems. Other security apps that work very well on 98 are Proxomitron and the free version of System Safety Monitor. Proxomitron is the web content filter around. In the hands of a user with knowledge of web content, it's very powerful. System Safety Monitor allows the user to decide what processes are allowed and what each is allowed to do. It's the most powerful whitelisting tool available for 98 that I know of. When combined with a rule based firewall like Kerio, these 3 make an almost bulletproof package. They're all very light. If they have a disadvantage, it's that they require the user to have a fair amount of knowledge to configure them well. While most of the members here are more than knowledgeable enough to handle them, they're generally too much for the typical user. For me, computer security is almost an obsession. Those 3 apps, combined with batch files give me the control I want without slowing down my system or using up my resources. Rick

I didn't think rootkits were possible on 9X either, until I tested a couple of malware files sent to me by another member. When running, the files, process, and registry entries are all hidden to windows and most every app/utility I tried. They're not quite up there with NT rootkits but they get close. Unlike NT rootkits, the files and registry entries are visible in safe mode and can be seen in DOS, but during normal operation it hides very well. 9X systems are safer in that they're not being targeted as much. That said, 9X and NT systems still have many components in common. Attacks that target these are effective against both. Modern malware often targets specific applications instead of the OS itself, and not just Internet Explorer. 9X systems can be just as affected as NT systems by these. Some of the recent vulnerabilities found in Adobe Acrobat reader worked on 9X just as well as on XP. With malware kits like MPack, it's much easier to make malicious pages that detect what OS you're using and automatically adjust the attack to match. 98/ME may not be attacked as much as XP and may not be vulnerable to some of the newer XP exploits, but it is still attacked and is vulnerable to some of what's circulating at any given moment. 9X systems have the advantage of being easier to defend from internet attacks. It can be made just as secure as any XP unit or more so, and at no cost. It's disadvantage is that it's more vulnerable to local attack. From outside, there's far less attack surface. The few ports opened by a default install are easily closed. IMO, its biggest advantage is DOS. Just about anything that can be done to 9X can be undone in DOS. If a user is inclined to do so, this can be automated with batch files that can perform various amounts of system restore at bootup. Some of the best security-ware for 9X systems is free and still available. I see that you don't recommend Kerio 2.1.5. Why? I've used it for years and have installed it on many of my clients PCs, including several XP units. I can't read what you've posted in those 2 quotes, could you translate? From everything I've seen and tested, the problems with Kerio 2.1.5 are minor and easily dealt with if the user understands its limitations. The most controversial one is that it's supposedly vulnerable to fragmented packets. I'm not aware of any examples of this being used successfully. Too much emphasis is placed on vendor support of software, especially security apps. Vendor support is necessary for apps that need regular updating like AVs or apps that are still being developed (buggy). Stable, finished apps don't need supporting. Kerio 2.1.5 is such an app. For 9X systems, it's the best, IMO. Rick

The entry you're thinking of is BootKeys=0 in msdos.sys. This disables the boot keys when booting from the hard drive. I'm not aware of anything you can change that will prevent boot keys from being used with a boot floppy or CD other than changing the boot order in the BIOS. That's only effective if your BIOS has password protection. I'd also suggest that you post questions regarding 98 in the Windows 95/98/98SE/ME of this forum where you'll get far more useful and civilized answers. Rick

Inexpensive DSL, rated 864/160. Only paying $18.95/month, no caps, no ads, no blocked ports. They've been reliable. This is using an old Win98FE box, 366MHZ, equipped with a software firewall and Proxomitron. Running thru an even older PC (P5-133) converted to Smoothwall. With hardware this old, I'm quite happy with the performance. Rick

There's software available for just about everything that runs on 98. See Last Versions of Software for Windows 98SE.

I also take care of a few 98 users. 98 used to be a large percentage of the computers I maintained but now there's only a few. Other than taking over the support for the few we know, there's little we can really do for the majority of 9X users. The people here have put together all kinds of projects that can improve 9X boxes but what's the chances that the common user will ever find out about them? If the common 9X user isn't fortunate enough to find someone to do it for them, they either have to learn to do it themselves or move to an OS that has official support. Sooner or later, they'll realize that a computer is like every other complex piece of equipment. It requires maintenance to keep running. In that respect, 9X units are like older cars. The owner can do it themselves if they'll take the time to learn a few basics. Like an old car, 9X units can get very temperamental if they don't get that care. This does open up possibilities for anyone inclined to do so. There's a wide open market for remote administration of these older units. Rick

Looks like that you haven't read yet this thread : http://www.msfn.org/board/UberKern-t115731.html Sure I did But that's not official support. Latest KernelEx does nice things too. But also very beta and unofficial, no guarantees. Not good for the common user. 9X users fall into 2 categories: 1, Those who use 9X because they want to. 2, Those who don't have a choice. Neither describes the "common user". Most of us here fit the first category. We'll be fine with or without vendor support. Those of us who use Mozilla browsers have no reason to "fear the future" even if 9X support disappears from the next version. Even if Uberkern doesn't work, it's not that big of a problem. The last supported version will work just fine for a long time to come. We're all doing fine without any support for the OS itself. It won't be any different with a browser. The security concerns that come with using an older browser version are not that hard to deal with. 9X users will have to adapt to not having AV support. Rethinking their security strategy as it relates to their browser will have to be part of that. Those who choose to (or have to) keep using 9X have to move beyond being a "common user" and provide their own support and security. Rick

And Opera FTW. Seriously, if you're still a win9x user and don't run IE, then Opera is the best alternative. SeaMonkey is another good option for older systems. Their release notes recommend 98SE or newer but it runs just fine on 98FE. It's a combined suite so it is a bigger download than the "browser only" options, Version 1.1.9 is a 13MB download. On my box, it runs a bit faster than FF. Many of the Firefox extensions work with it. I've tried the other browsers and keep coming back to SeaMonkey. It's comfortable to use and IMO, it just feels right. Rick

I haven't tried the beta versions but the stable releases of Open Office work fine with 98FE and SE. Rick