herbalist

vmm32.vxd is in the system directory. The batch file replaces my original with the empty. All other vxds are in the system\vmm32 directory. First few lines copied from getvxd.bat: @echo off C: cd \windows\system extract /a /y C:\98setup\base4.cab vmm32.vxd cd \windows\system\vmm32 extract /a /y C:\98setup\base4.cab vdd.vxd extract /a /y C:\98setup\base4.cab vflatd.vxd First few lines copied from wininit.ini: [SetupOptions] Combine=1 [CombineVxDs] c:\windows\system\vmm32\vdd.vxd=c:\windows\system\vmm32.vxd c:\windows\system\vmm32\vflatd.vxd=c:\windows\system\vmm32.vxd C:\98setup is where 98lite puts all the cabs. Any ideas what I'm missing? If it matters, the setup was done with 98lite, no Internet Explorer or Windows Update, 98SE SP beta 1. Very stripped down OS. Rick

I've made several attempts to compile an updated VMM32.VXD for my 98SE testbox by following the procedure in the link posted by "PassingBy" without success. On the first attempt, I made a copy of getvxd.bat that matched the listing in [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\VMM32Files] and edited out the lines for files for which newer versions existed in the vmm32 folder. 41 files were listed. The VMM32 folder contained newer versions for 12 of them. The WININIT.INI file included the new versions. Ran the batch file and rebooted. After seeing the message about updating files, I got an error message saying, VMM32.TMP integrity check failed, recovering. The system finished booting after which I had all the separate files in the VMM32 folder and the shell for VMM32.VXD in the system folder. I made several more attempts using fewer of the updated VxDs, thinking that one or more of them couldn't be included in vmm32.vxd, with no success. Same error message. On the last attempt, I extracted all the files listed and attempted to make a copy of the existing VMM32.VDX using only files from the cabs. Same result. Integrity check failed. I've checked and rechecked getvxd.bat and wininit.ini and can't see any errors. All the editing was done using Notepad++. The batch file works fine. I'm at a loss why this won't work. Rick

Could you post a list of the included files and what version numbers you used? Rick

I run Shareaza on both 98FE and SE, with no problems. Have had over 25 downloads running at once with no issues. That's with a 366mhz Celeron. Rick

One of the most commonly overlooked items that can interfere with the defragmenter is a screen saver. Is that still running? Rick

The 16bit colors are much better with the present version. Very usable. I still can't get 32bit to work. When I change settings without rebooting, it stays at the previous setting. When I switch to 32 and reboot, the display falls back to 16 color. Rick

I'm not too surprised by the 20% figure. There's a lot of people who can't afford a new PC and are using 98 because they have to. A lot of the PCs I service are older 98 boxes. Most of them haven't seen windows update in years and are adware/trojan infested, with AVs that expired years ago. What's sad is that a lot of users attitudes about 98 are from using units in that condition, barely limping along. From what I can tell, a lot of users look at a PCs performance the same as they would a car, that it slows down just from age and wear. Most of them have never seen a well tuned 98 box that isn't bogged down by useless vendor software. They're stunned to see their old 98 box go from shut off to online in under a minute, and to see it go as fast or faster than much newer XP units. I'm not familiar with the requirements for editing pages on Wikipedia. Is there a way to tell if it's the site administrators or just some "newer is better" fanatic that's removing 98 info? I wonder if those who profit from newer OSs and software are responsible for this? Other than replacing the Wikipedia data or setting up some kind of 9X info site, what options do we have to deal with this problem? It is confusing when you look thru the projects to figure out what is the best to use. There's a lot of overlap between them. I'd like to see a combined service pack that updates the OS components and gives the user the options to update IE, WMP, and other Windows software separately or to remove them entirely (like IEradicator). Getting everything combined into one service pack with enough options to satisfy the power user is one thing. Making it easy for the average user to choose what they need will be harder. Choosing what 3rd party software should be installed on the typical users PC is where it gets complicated. Maybe some form of auto-detection that updates 3rd party software only if an earlier version is detected. The legal implications of distributing 3rd party software could be another issue. The bigger companies might see a service pack that improves an "unsupported OS" as cutting into their profits if it ever became popular. IMO, the 3rd party applications should be Open Source whenever possible. With so much to update, I'm not sure a "one size fits all" option is really possible. Rick

I regularly use live malware to test security apps. I get about one per week in a webmail account that most of the scanners at VT will not detect. Detection based on identification is getting very unreliable, thanks to tools like MPack. I am concerned about those who think that an AV or standard security suite is all they need. Signature based detection misses too much and can't respond as fast as botnets can spread malware. My biggest concern is the hacking of sites people trust, sites people add to their trusted zones or allow scripting/activeX to run on, and using them to deliver malware. The "common sense" advice that says don't visit these, don't open those, don't install that, etc, is no longer sufficient. With reputable sites and servers being hacked, there's no such thing as a trusted site or a downloaded file that a user can be certain is clean. IMO, the only way to be certain that your system will remain clean is to establish a default-deny security policy and stick to it. Whitelist the executables you use, limit their activities to only what is necessary, especially parent-child dependencies, and block everything else. Do the same with internet content and traffic. Limit internet access to only the apps that need it and only allow them the specific access they need, especially system components. Filter unwanted content such as scripts, ads, etc from the allowed internet traffic. As much as possible open internet content (media files, PDFs, etc) locally instead of integrating apps into the browser. It's less convenient but neutralizes a lot of potential exploits. I stopped using an AV a couple years ago. For the last 2 years, I've relied on Kerio 2.1.5, SSM free, and Proxomitron, all tightly configured to enforce a default-deny policy. The combination has worked very well and is much lighter than any AV. Rick

Set up a webmail account and post the address in various places like discussion groups and porn/warez websites. Spambots will harvest it quick enough. Yahoo webmail works well for this as their AV is easy to bypass, allowing you to download infected attachments. The main disadvantage is that you'll have to sort thru a lot of spam in order to get a few infected e-mail. If you want trojans, use a P2P app and shut down any filtering for bogus and non-matching files. Download a good ad/malware hosts file and visit the links it contains. Rick

On a university network, I'd be more concerned about other users on the network trying to gain access to your PC. In that situation, I'd consider installing a software firewall. Rule based firewalls like Kerio 2.1.5 are extremely light, even on 9X systems that are using the original hardware. If nothing else, close the NETBIOS ports by unbinding TCP/IP from the network services. Instructions for doing this can be found here. 98 can be safely used without an AV, especially if you're careful and use an alternate browser. There are more effective ways to protect a PC from malicious code that are much lighter than any AV. You can set up a default-deny security policy that allows only the system processes and user apps you specify to run. A default-deny policy is best suited to systems that are finished, equipped the way the user wants it. It's an ideal security policy for users who know their systems well, what the processes do, which are necessary for the tasks you perform, etc. Default-deny is less effective on systems that are changing often or when users like to try out new software regularly. It's not a good choice for users who aren't knowlegable about their systems. The average 98 box has about 50 executables that get used during normal operation. It takes far less processor power, disk space, memory, etc to set up a policy that allows the necessary activities of those 50 or so necessary processes than it does to use an AV to check every accessed file, process, etc against a database of about a half a million identified pieces of malicious code, many of which don't affect 9X systems. Rick

The 98FESP2 version 2.40 contains the 6.10.9848.0 version of msvcrt.dll. It also contains: Atl.dll - 3.00.9782 Mfc42.dll - 6.02.4131.0 Msvcirt.dll - 6.10.9845.0 msvcp60.dll - 6.02.3104.0 msvcrt.dll - 6.10.9848.0 Rick

I've never noticed any real difference in internet speeds between 98, 98SE, and ME. For tuning the connection, I use the Java tweak tool at Broadband Reports. The settings it recommends are pretty good. I usually set the RWIN at the upper limit of their recommendation or even a bit higher. My DSL's rated speed is 864/160. Before tuning, most of the 98/98SE/ME boxes I've dealt with had average speeds of 550-600Kbps download and 100-130Kbps upload. After tuning, download speeds average 650-710Kbps, upload speeds 120-135Kbps. If WinME is faster than 98/98SE, it isn't showing it here with the service I have. Might be different on the higher speed services. Strange as it may sound, a well configured firewall can speed up your internet service slightly. By preventing system components that don't actually need internet access from using up your bandwidth, a bit more will be available to your browser. One of the best tools for getting the most out of your bandwidth is Proxomitron. It can be set up to block banner ads, flash ads, and bandwidth wasting scripts. Rick

I'm setting up a 98SE test box made with 98lite preview to remove Internet Explorer and Windows Update. Upgraded USB, added drivers for network card and external hardware. Windows Installer 2.0.2600.2 and vcredist 4.71.1015.0 were installed next, then my security apps (SSM free, Kerio 2, Proxomitron), SeaMonkey, Java, Xsetup, and basic tools. Installed the SE SP 3.0 alpha 3 to this package. No problems with the install. So far, everything works properly. Performance is good considering the hardware specs. I haven't finished installing what I need yet and haven't checked what else needs updating, but so far, so good. Seems to work well on units without Internet Explorer installed. Rick

That's because the industry has been bombarding the users with that propaganda for years. Their primary motivation is to get users to part with their money. 98 is nowhere near as obsolete as they'd like you to believe. I have 98 first edition, 98SE, and Win2K-SP4. 98 first edition is my workhorse and the one I use most often. Rick

The USB that comes with 98FE does work. It's just slow when used with USB 2.0 compatible devices. My old HP had 2 USB ports which left me in the position of having to switch cables to use different devices. That became impossible when I added an external hard drive. The external hard drive worked on the factory USB ports but was very slow. The external hard drive was primarily for backups and data storage, so using USB 1.1 was not a major problem for me, just a slow annoyance. To make a long story short, not being able to use my other devices and the slowness of USB 1.1 convinced me to add a 5 port USB 2.0 card. The package said that 98SE was required but I installed it anyway and forced the install of the drivers. Turns out that USB 2.0 works just fine on 98FE, at least on my hardware. Many times faster than the factory USB ports. This was done before I learned of this site and the unofficial upgrades. Unless something I upgraded earlier made this work, I can only conclude that USB 2.0 can be made to work on 98FE. From my 98FE box: Regarding drivers, you may need specific ones for the USB devices you want to use. Most of the time, the vendor includes them with the device. I'm using a USB 56K Faxmodem, the WD external hard drive, a USB mouse, and a webcam. Except for the webcam and mouse, all of the USB devices including the USB card "required" 98SE or newer, according to the packages, CDs, read me files, etc. I had to extract the drivers for the WD hard drive and install them manually, but they all work properly on my 98FE box. Microsoft, software vendors, and hardware distributors alike exaggerate 98s obsolescense. Some just put it on the packaging or in the documentation. Others add the "incompatibility" to the installers, like Microsoft did with WMP-9 to keep it from installing on 98. One thing is clear. 98 first edition works well with more with newer hardware (and a lot of software) than the vendors tell you. The only way to know for sure is to try it, but if a piece of hardware says it needs at least 98SE (or WinME), there's a very good chance that it will work on 98FE as well. It really makes me wonder why they're trying so hard to steer users away from 98FE. Rick

I can't duplicate the cut off tool tip on 98FE or SE, no matter what I do. I don't recall ever seeing that on any of my 9X boxes. Rick

It worked very well. I wonder just how many other updates and installers are "incompatible with 98" for the same reason. Regarding the WM891122 update, I see it described as: Based on that description, this looks more like something I'd want to remove, not install. What does this update do that's of benefit to the users themselves? WMP gets very little usage here. I rarely watch videos or streaming media, and audio is played by an old version of WinAmp.

I installed WMP-9 on 98FE using the modified control.xml method. Works fine. Don't have access to Win95 to attempt it. Hacking the registry to make it install on 98FE may work, but it could have unforseen consequences with other installers/updates. Removing the artificial incompatibility that was put in the installer won't cause any other problems. It definitely tells you something about 98 when M$ feels it's necessary to fake incompatibilities in order to coerce people into "upgrading" to a newer OS. Rick

I'm setting up a very low spec PC (166mhz, 80MB RAM) as a gateway/traffic monitor. It's a lite PC install of 98SE with IE removed. I'll be adding WinPcap and a packet analyzer along with other tools once it's ready. This will be strictly a test unit, as bare bones as possible, no eye candy. At most, I'll add a browser, probably SeaMonkey. Which of the unofficial update/service packs here would be best suited for such a unit? It doesn't have windows update ot Internet Explorer. Rick

There is no 2000 ME. Windows ME and Windows 2000 are 2 completely different operating systems with very little in common. WinME is a 9X system, similar in many ways to 98 and 98SE. Win2000 is an NT system that has more in common with XP than with 98. There's no official service pack for WinME. For Win2000 or 2K as it's also known, there's SP4. There's unofficial updates available for both. Rick

I guess you are "blind" to see it. My cousin's Win2k system NEVER crashed with a BSOD message, with or without any updates applied to it. I get a few BSOD errors using Win98se, even with all of the 98se updates installed.On my primary PC, a dual boot 98FE/Win2K, 98 never crashes. It runs day after day, no problems at all. The Win2k OS has given me a few BSODs, has had shutdown issues, and is much slower than my 98FE box when performing the same tasks. Except for testing, I rarely ever use it. If my equipment was newer, the results might be different, but on my hardware, 2K has no performance or stability advantage. 2K does run some apps that my 98 box can't, most of which I either don't need or have found 9X compatible alternatives for. In all fairness, this 98 box wasn't this fast or stable "out of the box". It's taken a few years of tweaking, tuning, and modifying to get it this good. I picked up 2K only a few months ago. If I compared them "as installed", the speed is much closer. I don't know what to say about the stability. When I first got this PC, it had some stability issues, but they were a result of adware and spyware combined with having just 64MB of RAM. Other than that, this PC has never had a stability problem. I can't remember the last time it gave me a BSOD. I'm not blind to it. There's no instability to see. The only BSODs I ever see are on my test units, which are stripped down copies of my regular system. They're caused by the projects I'm running on them, not the fault of the operating system. Rick

This needs a lot of work to get it usable. Unloading and re-enabling the driver usually results in a BSOD. On more than one occasion, a crash corrupted security.ini. The read and write permissions seem to behave pretty well. I couldn't access anything in folders with "read" unchecked. With "write" disabled, I couldn't add, delete, or rename files or shortcuts. Execution permission works very erratically if at all, and not always on the correct folder. At times, it didn't seem to take effect until the system is rebooted. As a test, I gave the desktop and command folders "read" and "write" permission but unchecked "execute" for both. All other folders had execute permission. Even though the "C" drive and all of the folders in "program files" had "execute" permission, I couldn't launch SeaMonkey. The shortcut to the copy of command.com that's located in the command folder worked part of the time, but everything else in the command folder launched normally, as did executables on my desktop. All of those should have been blocked. If I'm reading the page at SourceForge correctly, this project hasn't been developed in over 3 years. I'm not a coder, so I have no hope of fixing these problems. Maybe someone here can. Rick

98 is still my OS of choice. I'm going to keep using it as long as it's able to do what I need. Thanks to sites like this one, 98 is more stable and functional than it's ever been. Rick

It's pretty buggy but this has some potential. Lots of blue screens. Permissions applied to a drive or folder seem to extend to all subfolders. Managed to make the entire "C" drive read only by mistake. Fortunately, it's easy to kill. Haven't got the configuration file figured out yet. I'm not certain that this is the right way to install it, but it seems to be working on mine. I created a folder on my "C" drive named Fatsec and unzipped the file into it. I copied "fatsec.vxd" to the system folder. The shortcut in C:\fatsec\SecMgr\Debug needs to be edited to the location of secmgr.exe and needs to include the location of security.ini. Clicking on secmgr.exe will show the syntax. Rick

The last time I saw error messages like that from Scandisk, the drive was on its last legs. The problem came on with very little warning. By the time I realized I had a problem, I'd already lost data. Managed to recover about 80% of the data by installing the drive as a slave and copying data a few folders at a time. Have you tried Spinrite? I haven't used it but it's reputed to be good for data recovery and fixing errors. Rick