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I was able to "attempt" to play it in Firefox. After the BSOD dissolved, there was a screen saying "press space to skip", then a scrolling title was displayed. The game was a platformer with Windows windows as floors and burning recycle bins and damaged my-computers (as if taken from Artificial Intelligence (2001) and the Office assistant Clipp-It as monsters. The whole thing ran at an unplayable speed on my decent 1.8 GHz CPU (considering that the application is a platformer game). This apparently is the "cloudy" future, with crippled PCs where the whole OS lives inside the web browser, and the simplest of games fully tax the CPU. Escape! Running such applications in IE can be hazardous for the health of my PC. I would never consider it. They are not dissing Trinitron too, are they?

I am going to use Windows XP while my computers in the ideal performance range for this system, with memory between 1 GB and 4 GB, remain in working condition. I expect that new software (games, large productivity suites) will stop being compatible with XP, but will also have increased resource consumption, and wouldn't load at an acceptable speed even if a newer OS was installed. So I am going to stay with the old OS, and old programs. I find it best practice to pick software released several years before the hardware. Security updates do not concern me at all, because I am successfully using XP SP1, last updated in 2002. Installing separate updates on top if it never made sense, because I cannot tell how they will interact with modded components or registry tweaks that I have on my system. (I expect they would assume Microsoft defaults, or partially rever to them.) Likewise I never update my SP3 installations, which required even more mods to be useful (like the TCP patch), and my two systems all contain files as they were integrated in the ISOs, a few years older than this End of Life date. They are also functioning normally.

This report is suprising. I wonder if it occurs only on USB drives, or maybe on multi-core CPUs. Not long ago I did defragment my FAT32 "applications" partition connected via SATA by moving files out of it and back in, and got the expected result: got rid of unmovable directory entries and general fragmentation. I used Mini-XP to move the files out and Total Commander (in it's own buffered copy mode) to move the files back in. I haven't noticed slow performance when doing copying in Explorer either. The slow speed and any seeking noise might be an indication that the process is multi threaded for some reason, when it shouldn't be. I would follow Bphlpt's advice and use other programs to see if they make a difference.

I use Win98 to access legacy sound card functions, rarely ancient Nokia cellphone utilities that communicate via a COM port, and to play older games. Win98 also in my view includes DOS in itself, and this kind of DOS is perfectly capable of running Yamaha/AdLib sound utilities that don't run well under Windows, as well as play even older games... This is strictly stuff that can't be done on a modern computer. Emulation isn't serious. For Web browsing I use Opera 10.63 and Flash 10. I'm accustomed to running a web search every now and then to solve random problems. Opera 10 is the latest version that officially supported 9x and Flash 10 with KernelEx works better than 9, which hung my PC... Last time I checked, Flash 10 played YouTube vids. It may stop working any time, as they decide. I have not a single time watched NetFlix, nor seen other people browsing it. I see that this is an unpleasant online technology, which in principle locks the user into an upgrade cycle, and into sort of dependancy from it. Neither yor computer, nor any single operating system will permanently work with that evil system. Maybe time comes and it will require some kind of DRM path and what not. Win9x can play full quality movies, assuming your CPU is fast enough, using ffdshow and Haali components (primarily). These are movies that are fully in your ownership, which nobody can take away. I see that as the main goal, and NetFlix is just one path to reach it. The security related support and updates of a Microsoft system are indeed mostly irrelevant. Sadly, whenever Windows becomes "unsupported", drivers also stop being developed and offered for download. The only good thing I noticed about Me, is that I no longer needed to disable the network adapter to apply new IP configuration. The hidden DOS, the system restore and file protection that must be removed, the superficial XP features like more various "My" directories, only get in the way. Since 98SE has been the most supported OS version here (driver-wise), that is my choice to run on the old gear.

The sarcastic statements semeed perfectly plausible to me in the exponentially expanding Microsoft universe. What is the size on disk after installation (minus swap and hybernation files)? Does NT6 grow back to normal size again while in use, provided one doesn't apply Windows Updates? Serious question.

It does seem like a truly essential system process is crashing. If a BSOD occurs to somebody else here, it might not necessarily be the end of life for a hardware part as it is suggested. Despite not wanting to, the FileZilla thread did offer me "support" informing about other users with this issue. Thank you, Tim "Botg" Kosse.

SMART viewers differ in the number of fields they can interpret (sometimes specific to the manufacturer, who may store two or three values in one field). Good software will show all fields reported by the drive as well as the raw value of each, which you can examine yourself. The Current/Worst/Threshold normalized values are interpreted and set by the drive, the raw values are interpreted by the program. CrystalDiskInfo shows all atributes, and on standard drives the temperature is in the least significant byte. Software that always converts the raw to decimal can be less useful (in CDI you can choose the number format). For quick checks I like to use the less thorough HDTune, because it is quicker to load. CrystalDiskInfo won't work from MiniPE at all due to its heavy web-ish GUI. If you can reboot the computer where the hard disk is connected to, you can also use HDAT2 from a boot CD / DOS to get the most information from the drive, as well as configure and test it if needed. Wikipedia has the a table for standard attributes to help identify any Unknowns reported by your software. Read Error Rate attribute in Seagate drives as researched by Fzabkar (sample of how to read custom fields). Some versions of HDAT2 can also do this and show the separate decimal values. Edit: Fixed hyperlink

Why not spend the reward money on getting a discrete, passively cooled PCI-E video adapter that works under XP, such as the nVidia GT 610 or the nVidia GT 630? This gets more value for you because the videocard later be re-used in another build. That is unless you know that the Intel offers more features for your legacy software and can be sure that the drivers, which do not install, have them enabled.

I'll try this later to see if these programs work without winlogon. I tried minlogon a few years ago, but couldn't accept the loss of the Lock Computer screen, which is useful to escape hung programs (when the system is still working). The present computer, where the error occurred, has never been modified in this regard, nor have I logged in as System, etc. Edit: Tried to repeat launching FileZilla 3.7.4.1 without SMSS and WinLogon running. The blue screen still occurred. Looks like there are more causes for it than winlogon, and in this case the message mentioned "Windows SybSystem" process (and not Winlogon at all). This thread indicates that the status code means a memory exception. I ran a memtest without errors...

First of all, I expect that Windows XP SP1 will not be dismissed as a valid, working operating system just because a more recent version exists. Granted it is made obsolete. But people here are running Win2K and Win98 too, which have even less compatibility. Apparently, recently released software can crash XP SP1 to a BSOD. As I posted earlier when discussing FTP client software, FileZilla Client caused a blue screen of death for me. Just now I tried the latest Media Player Classic Homecinema. It started up fine after I applied the patch for the DecodePointer function, but crashed my computer when I tried to call up the File Open dialog. MPC-HC Version 1.6.6.6957, which also initially requires XP SP2, is known to work fine. (The last two numbers vary.) This looks like a compiler thing since unrelated software products cause the same crash. The fatal system crash in FileZilla has occured for at least one other user of SP1. https://forum.filezilla-project.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=32090 According to Microsoft, Stop C000021A means that I know for a fact that Windows can run without Winlogon, because it can be replaced with minlogon. Just saying. My observation here is that a potentially "security" related change has made Service Pack 1 incompatible with applications compiled with this "change".

Yes, that is correct. The issue is new to XP, which switched from an icon to one or two buttons. I'd forgo the secondary layout button, if that moved the language icon back into the tray. I want to have the icon visible, because when I use shortcuts to switch, they often don't register (pressing Alt sometimes activates a menu).

Is that the life of the user or some other life, like the life of the product? What if somebody young becomes a user of XP now?

I am running Lighttpd from the WLMP project on Windows XP for personal use. The HTTP server is considerably slower than FileZilla Server, which is also running on the same machine and also Windows SMB network. This occurs on all connections: lighty is always slower relative to expected throughput. Version 1.4.19.1 (old) achieves about 4 MB/s to another host on LAN via Fast Ethernet, and 16 MB/s on LAN via Gigabit Ethernet, transferring a single file. FileZilla speeds are 10 MB/s and 90 MB/s respectively. Network Neighborhood is 8 MB/s and 60 MB/s. These computers are connected via a gigabit switch. In attempt to fix the problem I decided to upgrade to the latest version (from WLMP package) 1.4.32.1. The speed to the same Fast Ethernet host was 560 kB/s!! I got minimum amount of modules loaded, and very basic configuration. Server was restarted a few times. I downgraded back, and speeds returned to the previous values, which are still not optimal, especially since SMB, which is sensitive to latency, is performing better. I suspect it is a socket buffer issue, but I see no parameters in Lighttpd relating to this. The documentation mentions adjusting these settings under Linux only, which do not apply to me. Since running a server under Windows is not considered serious, there aren't any recommendations. My settings under Windows XP, which enable all other services to function fast. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters]"TcpWindowSize"=dword:0003ebc0"GlobalMaxTcpWindowSize"=dword:000faf00"EnablePMTUDiscovery"=dword:00000001"EnablePMTUBHDetect"=dword:00000000"SackOpts"=dword:00000001"DefaultTTL"=dword:00000080"TcpMaxDupAcks"=dword:00000002"Tcp1323Opts"=dword:00000001"DisableTaskOffload"=dword:00000000[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\AFD\Parameters]"DefaultSendWindow"=dword:00060000"DefaultReceiveWindow"=dword:00040000"BufferMultiplier"=dword:00000400"EnableDynamicBacklog"=dword:00000001The listening socket in TCPView is listed in a weird fashion (non-existent process), unlike normal programs, which I suspect is relating to the server running from with "cygwin". It still is connectible, except slow. <non-existent>:4040 TCP 0.0.0.0:80 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENINGFileZilla server.exe:1776 TCP 0.0.0.0:14147 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENINGHow do I troubleshoot the issue further? Are there any better Web servers for Windows with vhost support, good stability and reasonable memory footprint?Edit: I found an curious little web server, which I hadn't heard of before, the HTTP File Server (HFS). HFS doesn't have the Vhost function despite offering several advanced features like file uploading and a (single) virtual file system, and caps out at 22 MB/s in the my environment, but is able to deliver full 10 MB/s over Fast Ethernet. This server's Windows native GUI is similar to FileZilla, as is the selection of shared directories into the Virtual File System, which doesn't require that files are moved or symlinked on disk to organize them in the server. The program also supports Windows 98 and is very small.

I wanted a TV card too because I was misled by advertising that suggested that it was possible to receive multiple channels simultaneously with one basic card. When I got one (bt787), its reception quality was disappointing (bands on screen, noise in SECAM mode), and it took about a second to tune to another channel in the bundled software to realize the multi-channel mosaic view. If there were any good cards around, I lost interest to look for them. Decent computer hardware was always hiding in professional stores here. And all common TV cards were about the same quality than consumer routers or integrated sound. I still have the TV card, which I use to receive FM radio, which is usable. The card's only decent application is that it can quickly (only the bundled software imposed the wait time) tune across all the VHF and UHF spectrum, but sensitivity is still disappointing, even with a long antenna, for interesting transmissions like Taxi. Of course the bundled software only allowed some pre-defined "channels". This is material for a good rant in another place. Borg TV worked with this card very well. It has a neat, responsive GUI. A curious thing with this program is that it could apply some video effects without loading the CPU, and data going directly to the video adapter, like color adjustments and averaging in time for noise reduction. (The CPU was still 400 MHz and couldn't do it.) As far as I know, modern Pixel Shaders came much later. Had this card been more solid, it would have made a decent receiver. Motherboars indeed may seem rather boring. Also because they are so standartized. Back when my PC was made, the mobo power connectors could be inserted in two ways, and so could USB (it does have usb 1), with disastrous consequences. Decent sound cards and LAN cards are still hiding. The motherboard stuff is very consumer oriented, offering bling and "experience". From an add-in card I would expect some unlocked, hidden functionality, such as recording S/PDIF streams in any sampling rate, advanced signal routing.

i440 LX / ATI 1250 / G965 / B75 Mendocino / Yonah-1M / Conroe-L / Ivy Bridge-DT Intel 740 / ATI RS600M / nVidia GF119 A trans-atlantic speed test on the 400 MHz machine with 160 MB of RAM. My motherboard and video adapter has a 'huge' pullable BIOS chip like that one above. All these components are on the low end, but why not when their absolute speed has increased so many times.

I find that everytime someone uses the word "death" in this context, the are helping Microsoft do the burying for free. I didn't see a Server 2003 option in the poll, which is another option to make a system with lots of memory. I am going to build a new system like that because this XP system, which will certainly keep running, doesn't quite cut it. The size of any NT6 system is completely ridiculous. That was an excellent article in the Inquirer. I'm pretty sure one can survive without an antivirus and still do banking from an XP system as long as the installed browser version is supported at their bank.

Are there any utilities for reporting GPU capabilities from Windows 98 where these old video adapters are working. What is the compatibility level of Intel HD Graphics with old 3D games? I am quite pleased with how modern "budget" nVidia cards can render Direct3D 8, 9 and OpenGL titles with full antialiasing and fanless, but they won't run any DX6 era titles at all (crashes, picture full of artifacts). I don't own a HD Graphics and would like to know how it compares.

The icons inside the system tray are from AIDA64/Everest, which I launched to demonstrate what happens if any new icon are added there. Next to it is the keyboard layout and language indicator. Indeed, if it is hidden, the taskbar behaves normally: A click on the lowest pixel moves the pointer up by two and whichever button is there is activated.

I have recently switched over to using the Windows language bar from a custom utility to switch keyboard layouts. The utility leaked GDI objects and was often too chatty. The built-in bar replaces it, and also allows to pick from several keyboards for the same language. Turns out windows hardly needs any localization add-ons at all. I recall the old language bar in Windows 98 could only switch languages and it was possible to have only one keyboard per language. But this also made the single icon more compact than the bar is. Whenever I have the language bar showing it increases the height of the taskbar by 2 pixels. This means that if move the mouse pointer to the bottom left corner of the screen, it is no longer over the Start button, and clicking doesn't bring up the Start menu. When a new icon is added to the systray (notification area) the language bar also becomes partially obstructed by the systray, and I must run "adjust the language band position" from its menu to realign it. This occurs in the classic theme on WinXP SP1 and SP3, with the menu font at both standard 8pt as well as 10pt. Is it possible to either stop the Language Bar from resizing the taskbar or as a last resort return to the basic single icon mode from Win98?

I was unable to reproduce the crash on Win2k or XP SP2 or SP3 (all slower and with less memory), where 3.7.4.1 loaded and seemed fully functional. I very mouch doubt that it was a coincidence, because my PC had been up for about 20 days before that and had no issues launching old FZ. Lately, I rarely use the Client at all, and am doing my transfers in Total Commander, which supports FTP implicit SSL as well and, since version 7, is now complete with the latest extensions such as UTF-8 and MLSD directory listing. Total Commander works very well for short sessions, because it doesn't have the ability to resume. It can easily initiate 2 streams by starting another backgroud transfer. Over LAN I can transfer any files using just Total Commander. TC connected to FileZilla Server over SSL and showing configration options I find that FileZilla is the best method to transfer files between different Windows versions, which have problems connecting over SMB, and at higher speed than possible over Neighborhood. Edit: I was confused about the different kinds of Secure file transfer protocols. After research I found that Total Commander supports FTP over SSL internally (used with FileZilla Server and similar), and SFTP (used with Linux boxes) with this plugin. Both protocols need encryption DLLs on the system. They can be shared by several programs. Both protols are well integrated into the file manager, and in case of the SFTP(SSH) plugin, one can even extract compressed files directly onto a remote server. The interface needs some getting used to (sites/servers are configured via TC's "Network Neighborhood" which is a catch all place for foreign file systems). SFTP appears to be faster and more reliable when sending many small files. I was able to initiate a background transfer and keep working in the file manager more fluently than with FTP.

I am afraid that in this case support means more than usual. I just tried the latest FileZilla Client and it caused a BSOD on my XP (SP1) computer! Have they jumped on an XP hater bandwagon!? The only other program that did this was Process Explorer, where it might be justified by the fact that it is a system utility with a driver. But in the FileZilla Client!??? I am quite pissed at this point, because I tried the program on my main computer never expecting this. And have difficulty finding praising remarks about the program, or concentrate on researching the reason of the crash. Well, the FTP protocol is along with the security extensions is quite mature to say the least, FileZilla is feature rich, and has implemented features that make FTP work well on modern connections already (such as large socket buffers). So which ever version is working on your computer (3.0.9.2 on mine), will continue to work well for the foreseeable future. I'm not sure how interesting an FTP server would be to hackers if there were security vulnerabilities. This development is quite puzzling. Server was working on Win98 up until version 0.9.12c from 2005. The changelog claims that Win95 is working. I still have the management UI here which I used to connect to old computers. I've not followed the development of the Client, mainly because even version 2 did everything I needed from it and had no problems. Geez, a blue screen....

Yes, I am aware of the setting. In older OS the default was to reboot, and a warning was shown the first time on-the-fly resolution change was attempted. But this state here is "dynamic"; the setting in display properties isn't being changed, no it is possible to override the choice to reboot. Perhaps this is acceptable, and I'm just too reluctant to reboot.

I reckon this is mostly software or driver problem, and not hardware, because it is cured by a reboot. The issue here is that sometimes I can't change the screen resolution without a reboot. If I reboot I can again change resolutions for a while, until I do "something" with the computer. After that resolution changes are no longer possible. I can't determine what this something is; it might a badly written program that leaves the video driver in an "open" state. If I go to display properties to set the resolution, I'm informed that I need to reboot. If I launch a game, which switches screen mode, the game either crashes (most of them) or it handles the case and switches to a compatibility windowed mode. I'm seeing this under Windows XP with both nVidia and ATI cards. Has anybody encountered this problem?

Could it be related to the audio driver, and only inderectly to the kernel mixer? Have you tried to remove and reinstall the driver? I once had a weird problem where the audio driver crashed due to ATI Tray Tools (which was for video)... Perhaps you recently installed another system driver, such as one coming with a system monitor or something similar?

I would vote for FileZilla too. I use both the Server and the Client. They are stable products that feel native and accessible under Windows. FileZilla has support for both methods of Secure FTP, as well as the SSH protocol, which I haven't used myself though.