98 Guy

Wouldn't there have been enough beta versions of Vista in circulation for the past few months for them to already have started showing up those stats? Or are there more Amiga users than Vista-beta users?

What - did someone cut off all your fingers or something? Don't all post at once now...

Well, explain this. This link does list 6xxx products: http://www.nvidia.com/object/81.98_9x_supported.html But the readme file inside (81.98_forceware_win9x_english) doesn't. And answer this: How does Nvidia make a distinction between AGP and PCI-e in those product support lists? Where inside the driver readme or inf files does it say specifically that they are for AGP or PCI-e ? Is it because the name of the inf file (NVAGP.INF) contains "AGP" ?? Do they have another INF called NVPCI.INF and NVPCIe.INF too? "IF you want to make PCI-E run on 98, then it should better be worth it i'd say" I'm not going to buy a $300 PCI-E card unless I have *some* evidence that it will run under 98. That's why I'm trying it first with a $30 card. What is YOUR experience with running win-98 with a PCI-E card?

Worse than that. I don't see any mention of 6xxx chipset support in the 81.98, 71.84 and 66.94 win-98 drivers. I don't see any win-98 NVidia driver that lists 6xxx products. As well, I've downloaded the 81.98, 71.84 and 66.94 and don't see this: VEN_10DE&DEV_0163 In any NVAGP.INF file. Can someone provide a summary of EXACTLY what the story is with NVidia 6200xx win-98 drivers? Did NVidia EVER release win-98 drivers for any 6200xx board? AGP or PCI-x ? If they did, which version of their driver set was it?

My own testing has showed me that a file called "win.com" located ANYWHERE, on ANY partition of a hard drive attached to the system, is enough for the installer to conclude that a previous installation is present and will stop the install. What's worse, the file WIN.COM is not checked for content, for size, checksum, or even if it's really a COM file.

If Vista really was taking some win-98 share, then I'd expect Vista to show up in those stats. I don't see a line-item specifically for Vista. Would Vista be identifiable here as a browser client? Just looking at the stats for Dec/Jan/Feb shows a lot of volatility in the raw numbers. We probably need to see the results to the nearest 0.1% to see if indeed 98 has lost a full percent. Any ideas what the "unknown" is? Robots or spiders maybe? I think your still seeing a lot of corporate use of win-95 and win-98 in europe. A lot of XP growth in the past 3 years has come from the 2K camp. If anyone would know more about which OS's are in use, it would be google. Have they ever published their numbers?

Has anyone been able to get a PCI-Express video card working under windows 98se? This is what I've just been working on: - Asrock 775Dual-VSTA motherboard - http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=775Dual-VSTA - Via PT880 Pro/Ultra northbridge - Via VT8237A southbridge I've gotten win-98 running pretty much 100% on that board, booting off a 160 gb SATA drive, Radeon 7000 video card (PCI). I removed the Radeon and replaced it with a PCI-Express NV-6200LE video card. When I try to install nvidia driver (win-98 downloaded from Nvidia) I get this: ---------- Setup was unable to locate a detected device's PCI ID in NVAGP.INF The installation will be terminated. ------------- So I located a modded Nvidia driver (81.98) as described here: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?p=2111805 (downloaded from here) http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Y6CQH0O2 But I'm not having much success getting the driver to work. This is some off-brand PCI-Express video card (XFX on the box) GeForce 6200LE. Here is more detail on what this is: Standard PCI Graphics Adapter (VGA) [unknown] Chip Vender: NVidia Corp Device: Standard PCI Graphics Adapter (VGA) OEM: Vender Pine Technology Ltd PnpID: VEN_10DE&DEV_0163&SUBSYS_215E1682&REV_A1 OEM Device from Pine Technology Ltd The install seems to work properly, but sometimes when I boot I get no screen. Other times it will boot into standard VGA, and when I try to change resolution, I can only change to 1024 x 768 (max) or when I try to change colors I get (max) 16k colors but even then it says I must restart and it never restarts properly. Can someone here explain the differences between the different NV-6200xx cards, and why the "LE" is not listed in the support list in Nvidia's driver? I also have an AGP version of an NV-6200LE that I will also try soon on the same motherboard. What should I look for to see if the PCI-E bus is being supported properly by the OS?

Asrock 775Dual-VSTA http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=775Dual-VSTA This board has: - Via PT880 Pro/Ultra northbridge - Via VT8237A southbridge - Realtek ALC888 7.1 channel audio codec with high-def - 1 PCI-express slot - 1 AGP slot 4X/8X (supports only 1.5V boards, not 3.3V) Ok, so win-98 installed relatively easily. After messing with various drivers, here's what I get: In Device manager, I'm seeing 2 unknown items under "Other Devices": - item 1 is listed as a PCI card - item 2 is listed as an Unknown Device Using a program called "unknown device identifier" it seems that item 1 is this: - High Definition Audio Controller - Chip Vendor: Via Technologies inc - Device: PCI card - OEM Vendor: ASRock Inc. - PnPID: VEN_1106&DEV_3288&SUBSYS_08881849&REV_10 I have no idea what Item 2 is. There are no resources listed for it in device manager, and the unknown-device-identifier does not list an "unknown device". The joystick driver is also listed as being a problem, and there is also a PCI bus listed with a yellow (!). This is what device manager is saying about this PCI bus entry: "Windows could not load the driver for this device because the computer is reporting two PCI VXD bus types (Code 2)." It's listed as using I/O resource addresses 0CF8 - 0CFF, which apparently can't be changed. This is conflicting with the other PCI bus entry right above it in the device manager list. Would that be the PCI-Express bus slot? I am seeing a "Via Standard PCI to PCIE bridge" entry that appears fine. All other motherboard resources appear to have been found and drivers installed. This includes the USB 2.0 drivers, the AC-97 audio drivers, the on-board NIC, and the SATA drivers (again, the SATA controller appears as a SCSI driver in device manager). So, I take it that there is no high-def win-98 driver for the realtek codec - is there? Anyone know what this PCI problem is, and how I can solve it?

Yes, that was the problem. On the D drive, in addition to the directory where I have the Win98 CD image, I had another directory where I had a copy of all win98 files (inf's, exe, com, inf, ocx, drv, dll, etc). Including all cab's expanded. I have this directory when-ever windows asks for this or that file and I want to point it to a place where it will find it. In that directory, yes, there is a win.com file, and as you say, any file re-named to win.com will result in the SU0168 install message. That is the only file that the setup program seems to look for specifically, since I have all other files there with it. It doesn't even check to see if it's a "real" win.com file.

Rick - I'm not trying to perform an install on top of an existing install. I've posted more details in the win-98 NG, but I've tried several other things and keep getting the SU0168 message. The target install drive DOES NOT have a pre-existing windows directory. In some cases I've formatted a drive with 2 partitions (C and D) and have put the win-98 CD image on the D drive (in a sub-directory) and have nothing on the C drive (not even the dos system files, command.com, etc) and nothing else on the D drive and still the install program throws up the SU0168 message. And even when trying to install from the CD I'm getting that message. Does anyone really know what the installer is looking for, or seeing, when it claims that the system already has an installed operating system? Are there any known issues regarding installing Win98se OEM and: 1) target is a drive prepared with the "newer" version of fdisk vs the older version? 2) target is a large drive - greater than 64 gb? 3) target has been partitioned with lots of un-allocated space? 4) target contains existing non-system directories with win-98 files in them? 5) target drive was "contaminated" by being slaved to win-98 system?

Here's the situation: - fdisk'd and formatted old hard drive (fat-32), made it bootable - slaved it to another win-98 system - copied win-98se CD (from ->MSDN<-) to the slaved drive - moved the slave drive to it's own machine (where it is master) - started system, boots into DOS. Start win-98 setup. - setup already has built-in serial number which I figured out comes from file "msbatch.inf". That file is not present on OEM version of win98se. I do a file compare and see that precopy2.cab is different between the two install CD's. - I check the internet for the MSDN serial, and find that it's well known. (I also find a s***-load of other win-98 serials). - I don't want to install this with a well-known serial. - I abort the install, power down the system, and slave it back to the first machine. - I delete the win-98se MSDN CD image, I delete all files in the root directory, I delete the win directory (had nothing in it anyways) - I copy the contents of a win-98se OEM cd to the slave drive. - I restart the system in DOS, and go into the recycled directory on the slave, and remove (delete) all contents (attrib -s -h -r *.*). - I remove all contents (that I can see) in the recycled directory, but can't remove the directory itself. - from C:, I perform a "sys d:" to make D (the slave) bootable again. Basically, I try to remove all remnants of the previous install attempt, which didn't get very far anyways. - remove the slave and put it back into it's own machine. Start it. - system boots into DOS. Start windows install again. - not very far into the install, I get this: "Your computer already has an operating system installed, which cannot be upgraded by this version of setup. You need to obtain the windows 98 Upgrade. Message SU0168." Internet searches for that error show that indeed it is common when trying to upgrade from, say, 98 to 98se while using a full-install cd (and not an upgrade cd). What I don't get is that I thought I did a good job of removing any trace of the previous attempt. So what is it finding on the drive? Where? What didn't I delete that is giving it the idea that it once had a previous install (which it really didn't) ???

What's the deal with win-98 support/drivers for this: Northbridge: VIA® PT880 Pro/Ultra Southbridge: VIA® VT8237A ???? I'm thinking about this motherboard: http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=775Dual-VSTA I've tended to say away from Via chipsets for the past 5 years because of the stability of their drivers and/or hardware. Maybe they've gotten better? According to this: http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageI...&CatID=1110 Version 5.11A of the Hyperion Pro drivers includes support for win-98 and the PT880Pro northbridge. Comments? Experiences?

Are there any utility programs for the sound component that at least indicates that you have control of 6 separate audio channels? Not sure why you're messing with NTFS for tha SATA drive. I thought you said you had ME? Most motherboards with giga-bit nic's usually show drivers for win-98. Do you have a PCI-express video card? Would be interesting to see if you could get that working under 98.

Well, you've got PCI-express, SATA, 6-channel audio, and firewire (1394). Do any of those work under 98se?

Has anyone looked at the IAA-Raid edition? Apparently, this is what you need for large drive support for the 865 and 875 chipsets (using ICH5/ICH5R). By the way, the "R" in ICH5R stands for Raid. Problem is, even the earliest versions of IAA-Raid (March 2003) don't seem to include win-98 support. http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df...&sType=prev The files the oldest version has are these: iaStor.cat isStor.inf iaStor.sys TXTSETUP.OEM Is there no way I can morph these into a replacement for ESDI_506.PDR?

What - am I the first person to use Win-98 with a SATA drive? If all this is too complicated, then try this: I'm seeing win-98 hang when it tries to load the third instance of ESDI_506.PDR. It's loading it 3 times because if I de-activate the RAID function of the ICH5R, then it maps SATA drives as ATA drives connected on a third controller channel. Apparently Win-98 loads ESDI_506.PDR once for every ATA controller channel. Normally there are only 2 ATA channels (primary and secondary). There is something that just doesn't work right with ESDI_506.PDR and the ICH5R - am I the first to notice this, or has it been mentioned here before? Does ME or 2K have their own ESDI_506.PDR? I know that XP doesn't... You guys were working on that ESDI_506 fix a few months ago - any ideas what the problem is here?

Summary: The Intel ICH5R controller hub contains a SATA controller with limited RAID functionality. I want to understand more about the Win-98 compatibility of this SATA controller and how to obtain the correct functionality of SATA drives running under Win-98. Details: Motherboard is Gigabyte 8KNXP with the following: - Intel 875P chipset (ICH5R controller hub) - IT8712F I/O controller - Silicon Image SATALink SiL3112ACT144 SATA controller - ITE GigaRaid IT8212F There are 2 SATA ports controlled by the ICH5R chip, and 2 more that are controlled by the Silicon Image Sil3112. I have disabled the ITE Giga-raid and the SI SATA controller in the BIOS for now. I have 1 conventional ATA (IDE) drive connected to the standard IDE connector as the primary/master drive. I have 1 SATA drive (160 gb) connected to the ICH5R SATA-0 port. I'm booting from the IDE drive. The ICH5R is also a RAID controller, but only seems to have RAID-0 (striping). According to the gigabyte manual, this RAID-0 capability is only supported in Windows-XP (can anyone confirm this?) There are 2 standard IDE ports controlled by the ICH5R, and 2 more controlled by the GigaRAID IT8212F which can be used in RAID mode, JBOD, or ATA133 (with extended int-13 drive translation on controller onboard bios). My questions (for now) do not pertain to the GigaRAID or Silicon Image controllers. In the BIOS, I have the "On-Chip SATA" set to MANUAL, and SATA PORT-0 configured at SATA PORT-0 (as opposed to some IDE port). I have SATA RAID function set to ENABLED. When windows is starting, before I get the desktop, the Add New Hardware wizard comes up and says that it's detecting a "PCI RAID Controller". I've been trying to point it into a variety of directories but can't find anything it will take. (I get this message even if I disconnect the SATA drive). I've re-installed the version 6.3.0.1008 Intel Chipset drivers, but that doesn't help. It's interesting that the 160 gb SATA drive does appear in explorer as the D drive, but it doesn't appear anywhere in the device manager. Under the performance tab in device manager, it says that the D drive is using MS-DOS compatibility mode. In the BIOS, when I disable the SATA RAID function, windows does not boot (it re-boots itself before it gets to the desktop). In this situation, a look at the very end of the bootlog.txt shows 3 successive instances of initiation esdi_506.pdr. The first 2 are successful, while the bootlog ends right after the third initiation attempt. I belive that by turning off the SATA RAID function, my SATA drive now appears as if it's attached to a third master IDE channel, hence the third instance of esdi_506. I replaced ESDI_506.PDR it with vertion 4.10.2225 dated July 20, 2006, but that did not help (it failed at the same place as indicated by the bootlog). As a last attempt, I removed (renamed) the esdi_506 files so they wouldn't be available during startup, and in this mode the system did come up, and as expected the Primary and Secondary IDE controllers were running in 16-bit compatibility mode. So if I disable the SATA RAID function, I can't operate the system unless all the drives are in DOS compatibility mode. It I enable SATA RAID, Windows is always looking for a RAID driver upon startup, and the ATA drives use real mode drivers while the SATA drive is stuck in DOS compatiblity mode. Should I be seeing a SATA controller in the device manager? So basically I want to understand more about the Win-98 compatibility of this SATA controller that is part of the ICH5R and how to obtain the correct functionality of SATA drives running under Win-98.

From what I can tell, motherboards based on the Intel 915P chipset are probably the most desirable for Windows-98se at this point. That particular chipset does not have integrated video, and it does have DDR-2 support. The next best would be 915PL, followed by the 875. According to the mobot on motherboard.org, Soyo has this board: Soyo SY-P4I915 DRAGON 3 Which I can't find on Soyo's web site nor can I find much about it doing a general web search. Seems that it would make a great win-98 platform. It seems to have ATA-133, which very few boards have. http://www.motherboards.org/mobot/motherbo...28%2BV2.0%2529/ One problem could be finding a PCI-express video card with win-98 drivers. I guess you can always use a PCI video card. There is also the Gigabyte GA-8I915P-D ad\nd the Microstar MSI 915P Neo2. Asus doesn't seem to make a board based on the 915P. All of the 915-based boards that I've looked at all claim that they don't support Win-98, yet in their driver download section there is always support for win-98 for the various components (audio, chipset, ethernet). Can anyone else post their experiences with Win-98 and motherboards based on the i915?

Most of the Intel chipset readme files mentions the ability to incorporate newer INF files into the "setup" directory of a win-98 OEM preload kit as a way to aid in installing 98 on motherboards with newer hardware. I have an OEM win-98se install CD, and there is no such "setup" directory. Instead, I see many hardware inf files in the "win98" directory of the CD. There seems to be very little on-line with regard to this "windows 98se oem preload kit" distribution CD. Does anyone here have any knowledge of it - or how to "build" one from a regular 98 OEM cd? Would this preload kit come as part of the MSDN library (which I have) ? Here are the relavent instructions from the Intel readme file. Again, if anyone knows how to accomplish this with a regular win-98se oem install disk, then please post. Again, I'm trying to see if there's a way to "roll-in" the Intel chipset driver Version: 6.3.0.1008 files into win-98 before starting the install. ************************************************************ * 8A. INSTALLING THE WINDOWS* 98SE/WINDOWS* ME * INF FILES PRIOR TO OS INSTALLATION ************************************************************ NOTE: The Windows* 98SE or Windows* Me OEM Preload Kit distribution CD contains a setup directory with all the base operating system setup files (*.CAB) and the installation program (SETUP.EXE). The name of the directory may vary depending on the distribution CD (e.g., \WIN98SE\). 1. If you are preloading Windows* 98SE, copy the Windows* 98SE INF files from <INF Extract Directory>\XXXX\Win98SE to the setup directory. -or- If you are preloading Windows* Me, copy the Windows* Me INF files from <INF Extract Directory>\XXXX\WinMe to the setup directory. NOTE: XXXX is the directory name for the chipset of interest. Refer to Section 8 for more details. 2. Run SETUP.EXE to install Windows* 98SE or Windows* Me.

"We all need to consider doing *this* as soon as possible." "This" - being upgrading our hardware before the good video cards, sound cards, and motherboards disappears. How about some sort of consensus as to what would constitute a reference AMD/INTEL, NVidia/ATI system? Speaking in terms of Intel, what's the best performing chipset with win-98se support? Was it the 875? or some other 8xx? Just what is the story with 915 support? Would the 6200 be the last best Nvidia card?

That table shows the "max clusters" for FAT-32 to be 4177918. We know that there is nothing intrinsic to Win-98 that corresponds to that limitation other than Fdisk will not (?) create a partition that exceeds that number. NTFS is listed as being "low performance" on small volumes, but high on large. What exactly is a small and large volume, and why wouldn't the "high" performance on large volumes scale down to small volumes and be "high" on them as well? Why is Fault-Tolerance for Fat-12 and Fat-16 "average" but for Fat-32 it's "minimal" ? I have my doubts about the comparison of recoverability. I've recovered files on a fat-32 drive even when the FATs are screwed by using Lost and Found (chain reconstruction).

How do you know if it "slows down the drives/partitions" - you say you haven't experimented with it. ?

How many 800-series boards have socket 775 and 7.1 sound? Is there a win-98 driver for the 7.1 sound yet? If not. then that board appears to have it. If so, then maybe it can be used for 900 series boards?

Simple question - what's the most advanced chipset (intel or AMD) that has support (drivers) for Win-95 (say, SR-2). I don't know much about AMD, but for Intel I'm thinking that Win-95 support ended with ICH2, and if so then the best Intel motherboard with Win-95 drivers will be based on the 845 chipset. Yes? No? (or has anyone gotten ICH4 to work for Win-95?)

Come on people... These responses are lame. Does nobody have any experience with running FAT-32 on large drives with small cluster size? For those of you using the modified ESDI_506.PDR on drives larger than 137 gb, what are you doing? Are you using 64kb cluster size? That's a waste - and even if you are, you're going to be breaking the 4.7m traditional limit for the number of clusters (allocation units) for FAT-32. (Or are you dividing up the drive into multiple partitions?) Is there no knowledge out there as to how well Win-98se handles a FAT that is 2x, 4x, even 16x larger than normal?