ShadeTreeLee

UDMA is Ultra DMA which is what most drives are using these days but still calling it just DMA. UDMA will be defined for you by your POST (Power On, Self Test) screens as each drive is listed there using information supplied to the BIOS by the drive itself. According to the Knowledge Base article if you want to instruct the drive to use mode 2 DMA you send it the number 22 on the second line of the script as outlined in the article. If the drive is actually UDMA mode 2 capable you need to make that number a 42 instead. DMA mode 5 would then be 25 and UDMA mode 5 would be 45. The article descibes how to write a debug script to "set" your hard drives into higher modes of DMA transfer so as to speed up your computer's disk access times. Often this is the cause of not having the DMA checkboxes remain checked and you still haven't stated that yours actually are checked or not in so many words. I can't begin to guess what a "Fs9 config file" is but I'm still glad you got it worked out.

FirstOff, don't ignore the above very good advice - do it and report back the results. You are looking for the devices to have checks in the "Use DMA" checkbox for each drive. That would be under Properties|Settings tab, just in case you don't know where to look. Then reboot and make sure again as many checked DMA boxes do not survive a reboot and in that case you need to take extra measures to get them to "stick". DMA Check Box Does Not Remain Checked http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=159560 Further info - substitue 2x (DMA) modes as follows UDMA mode 0 is 40 UDMA mode 1 is 41, etc. Also double check that you even have a DMA buffer set aside with this line in your [386Enh] section of your System.ini file. DMABufferSize=64 Seeing only 511 Mb of RAM available (missing 1 meg), it would seem you do have 64k reserved for DMA transfers but it can't hurt to double check. Checking my own check boxes right now in order to post correct location info I see that I have work to do as well - can't turn around some days without trouble developing somewhere. I'm off to follow RetroOS's good advice.

I'm not sure I even understand that you have a problem here but it sounds like to me that if your tray opens you are BSOD locked up. I'm also not sure that your ASPI layer is to blame there but what I wanted to contribute is this much:I have found that any ASPI layer other than 4.60 is NOT for 98 and always leads to the making of many coasters from my blank CDs. I don't know how and I don't know why, I just know. Good luck.

It's pretty straight forward, the line: 4.10.2222 Comes from one entry in the registry which got changed when your 98se files got put on your machine, yours is not the first time I've come across this either but I still don't know exactly which update does this or what happened to cause this. Yours should read [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion] "VersionNumber"="4.10.1998" The "A" comes from another entry under the same key "SubVersionNumber"=" A " And this is the value on my 98se box. Notice the spaces around the "A" above. "Second Edition" is NOT a value in my registry and I suspect that text as shown has been written into the System Properties display dohicky. Which is further proof that you really are 98 Gold. Mine says: System: Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition 4.10.2222 A Registered to: Lee 5057x-xxx-xxxxxxxx-xxxxx Computer: AuthenticAMD AMD-K6tm w/ mutimedia extensions 125.0MB RAM If you run the 2004 Security CD from MS it will alter your SubVersionNumber to reflect the fact that the CD's security updates have been installed. IIRC it places an A onto 98 Gold Version number line and makes the A on the same line of 98se into a B. And this is done by simply writing those values to the registry. Just change yours to what it should be manually.

I'm not having the problem but I wonder if you have the folder C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\dcom98? If not, you might look at the DCOM site. On 98 speaking in general, installing IE 5 also installs DCOM95 by default and I've not seen much of a real difference between DCOM95 and DCOM98 before this but from the given site one can download 1.3 version of the DCOM98 installer. That's the one that gave me my dcom98 folder. The problem seems to be with version 1.0 of DCOM and I have to wonder if version 1.3 DCOM98 would then be fixed? I don't have an ESLogs folder so of course there is nothing in there..?

I would say that something caused 98se files to be installed on your 98 system and that's what knocked out the CDROM most likely to begin with. I would stick with the 98 Gold files so the answer to the first question is no, do not "revert back" to the 98se files. You might be able to reset the Version Conflict manager by reinstalling 98 Gold once again perhaps getting the was and now files to show 98 versions? Win98 Service Pack 1 was not on your OEM 98 installation CD, it was on another separate CD probably no longer available from MS. The local shop probably let their copy spin for a while in your tray while they had it. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/234437/en-us But it is available from our moderator's website. http://www.mdgx.com/web.htm#981 Let that one load completely without any early scrolling by you and it will open to the exact spot where that service pack is. Yes, the Service Pack should have been reinstalled and yet again if you take my advice to reinstall 98 twice to clear the Version Conflict Manager. I would reinstall 98 first and then apply the SP, but it probably really doesn't matter. Please don't call it 98 Standard Edition, it was always 98 Gold Edition or just plain 98 and it always will be. Don't make MS's mistake and start calling it something so similar to 98se that really bad mistakes can get made. Don't ask me how MS could start doing such a thing considering that the use of the word Gold was their custom to begin with for denoting the first edition release of their software.

I don't have any comments on the switch given as I've never heard of it before nor do I know exactly in what manner it is to be used but a "universal" Windows installation was always possible if one were to delete everything under the ENUM key in the registry and then one makes an image before rebooting. This would in effect remove all hardware and force Windows to find and install every item listed in the Device Mangler. This trick used to be done for quick installs by swaping out hard drives, but adding the imaging twist should be just another way to do the same thing. Items to delete are under this key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum] Of course this would not work unless the CAB files were also included in the image from which Windows would then install the hardware specific to the machine it found itself on. Could it be possible that your switch tells setup.exe to do something similar?

You couldn't be more wrong there if you tried real hard. Errors like: the prodedure SHCreateDirectoryExW could not be located in the DLL Shell32.dll should give you the calling file by name which is the one with the real problem - that is the one that doesn't belong on your system as in, it is from XP or somesuch and is not a 98 file at all. Your shell32.dll is probably just fine or at least it was until you started messing with it? So a discussion about replacing your shell32.dll file should be a moot point entirely. But please do get the right one properly installed. Version 4.72.3812.600 shell32.dll is inside update 313828 also known as the March 7, 2002 update that can be found at the Windows Update Catalog site. You should be able to just re-apply the update to have version 4.72.3812.600 shell32.dll properly placed for you after a reboot. You can use Dependency Walker to hunt down the various procedures in your own files and verify their versions according to the list given in your Windows\INF folder under the layout.inf series of files which will give you the CAB number for each Windows file you have. Things will work a lot better as soon as you quit replacing the wrong file(s) and do the right ones instead.

A more common error message when dealing with real floppies is the one where it asks for a location of the command interpreter and it is looking for a valid full path to the command.com file such as A:\command.com. This error indicates that the command.com file on the floppy is damaged somehow but enough of it still got on board to ask for a good copy of the file. Your error doesn't seem quite like that one, so I'm assuming some damage to your laptop's CD drivers has occured and this is the basis for your error. Quite a few laptops have their CDROM drivers on a hidden partition on the hard drive which also contains some BIOS code, all of which a new hard drive WON'T have on it. Typically laptops come with a Restore CD that will boot the computer and place the hidden partition, BIOS code and CDROM drivers on the hard drive for you. Get that disk. Compaq, Dell and a few others do this same method with full sized desktop computers as well so you might want to tell us the make and model of the computer that is having troubles or take it upon yourself to go to the makers website to loacate any such Restore CDs for the exact model if they are still available. Post a link to the madboot disk or tell us where you got it from. I've never heard of it before and would like to see what others have found and are trying to use.

Since I have never seen a registry "tip" illustrating such a change, and also because each version of Windows seems to have a different place for storing it, I would assume it was hard coded into an essential core IE file such as Urlmon.dll until further notice. Which means one would have to rewrite that file in order to change the location of the HOST file. I've no clue on how to begin to do that. Why would you want to change the location of the HOST file?

What I would do is to make a cab file containing all the files called for in the driver inf. I would then include the custom "MyVideo.cab" file containing all the driver files in the same folder with all the other Windows installation cab files. And then add these two sections into the driver.inf file that names the needed files in the Source file list and names the cab file that they are inside of in the Disk name section. [SourceDisksNames] 55="All in Wonder 128 Driver Disk","MyVideo.cab",0 [SourceDisksFiles] vspdx.dll=55 vspp2.dll=55 vspp7.dll=55 vspp97.dll=55 55 is a totally arbitrary number often used commonly in inf files - you must use the same number in both sections however. If Windows needs these files it will always ask for the All in Wonder 128 Driver Disk to get those files from. This is how some very confusing prompts get foisted onto the system at times, it's also ripe for the application of humor but that's really going a long way to get a laugh. Can I take a look at your "how to write an INF" guide and the driver installation package just to be sure the above mod will work out for you? My limited inf knowledge is available via PM if you need but sometimes I don't log on for a week or so. See the CAB SDK for in-depth makecab documentation. I'm thinking the 98 DDK had some info on INF files but I can't find it right now to verify that part at all.

I'm pretty sure you already knew this but just in case... To make it do your own "Intro to Windows UBCD" text messages, you don't have to go "into" the precopy2.cab file and adjust anything, just supply your own version of the win95bb.ini file in the installation cab files folder and setup should use your version by default instead of extracting and then using the win95bb.ini file inside of the precopy2.cab file. Ditto for the renamed bitmap files. All you really have to watch out for is to use their exact file names. It should work gangbusters and really dazzle 'em good and proper. Good on both of you, nice find.

You are quite welcome. Not that I'm aware of since it's mostly a matter of opinion of what that "basic" state would be. The most minor "update" I can think of would be Microsoft's own Security CD from Feb 04. But it will still update you to IE6 if you don't have it already, Media Player 9, MDAC 2.8, and DirectX 9b all without any say so about any of it from you and with several reboots thrown in. Your only choice is to not start the update process. You then get an odd dozen critical security updates applied, some of which have been outdated and replaced at the WinUP site so you need to go there when done anyway. An .iso of the Security CD can be found here under the name of windowsUpdate2004.iso (460 meg) Menno Hershberger's Utilities Back then, plenty of people had all kinds of troubles just following the directions and getting the CD to apply itself properly. If you've got a flaky machine, you'll have troubles with any set of updates I would assume. And the only way I've been able to avoid a flaky machine is to install Windows from the Hard drive "clean" and set a big honker of a minimum swap file size with no maximum, but then I've only got 128 meg of RAM and run a 233MHz AMD-K6. I started at 32 megs RAM with a 133 MHz MMx Pentium, of all the hardware upgrades I've done, the only thing that really made her sit up and bark so I could notice it was the 300 megabyte minimum swap file setting. Your current pop up box troubles almost sounds like an old Java prompt as if you might be running dangerous MS Java of lesser than 3810 build which is an open invitation to every Trojan out there. I don't think any update packages deals with such issues, and so you'll have to install MSJava 3810 and/or the latest Sun Java on your own if you want the barest minimum in protection from malware while running Windows. Even the MS Security CD doesn't address this Java situation, no doubt due to the Sun Java/Microsoft lawsuit which Sun won and forbids such things from happening, but that is no help at all for someone looking for basic security protection. And there's that word again - basic. Java Tester Sandi's All about Java I would also still reinstall IE6 since it don't cost nothing but 5 minutes.

IMO the symptom(s) is one of an incomplete IE6 installation which is a fairly common aliment. I would reinstall IE6 right away but I would do it from a hard drive which for some reason seems to work better just like installing/reinstalling Windows from a hard drive works better than the same operation done from a CD for example. If you have the IE6 installation files on CD then just copy the entire folder to your hard drive and double click on ie6setup.exe in that folder once the files are in place. You can delete the files when done giving you some 80 megs of space back as well.Further and this is the most important part, one has to select the Custom choice and manually re-check each and every box that was checked before in order that the item desired to be installed then gets extracted from the cab files and then reinstalled properly. There is a misleading prompt that can state that you have reinstalled all the files when you haven't done that at all, so be careful of that lying aspect of ie6setup.exe file. You can only get IE reinstalled when you have manually checked the boxes or launched the wizard with the proper switches. Unfortunately the switch method gets pretty cumbersome after two or three items of reinstallation and I have no desire to test the limit of that method when manually checking works for a total reinstall of IE6. IE6 can be reinstalled at any time with no penalties other than needing a revist to WinUP site for the redoing of a compliment of security updates. Internet Explorer Batch Mode Setup Switches I probably would have installed IE6 first and then done the http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html update. That would then leave the http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html files as the last men standing as it were. You can still start all over before you get any further settled into this particular invocation of Win98se. The first sign of real buggyness sends me right to drastic measures - I've been there before and I didn't like it very much/lost some real good stuff that way. But I don't consider just needing a reinstallation of IE a very big bug that needs drastic measures such as a clean reinstall of Windows, all that is called for as far as I can tell is an IE6 reinstallation. Five minutes, a reboot and you are done. Hi and welcome. I'm pretty new around here myself.

No. As you pointed out, MRU list is for drop down suggestion list only - they are also cleared by use of Start|Settings|Taskbar and Start Menu|Start Menu Programs Tab|Clear Documents Menu button, also clearing History in Internet Options depending on your exact IE version. The only permanent and automatic location is found at HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup|SourcePath value in the registry. And by automatic I mean Windows will just go get the file needed without asking where it might be from you. If yours is not doing this then the path of that registry value has a tailing backslash, other syntax error, or your cab files are not there such that the auto thing isn't so auto at all. Just because you are complaining about it, I know your value at that registry key is not right somehow. And to that end, I offer this just to get you going in the right direction for sure. REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup] "SourcePath"="C:\\Win98" The above is a reg file to be merged so it has double backslashes to represent a single backslash as would be found in a DOS path statement. Do not add on a trailing backslash as doing so will often cause Windows to ignore the given path totally and/or keep asking for the exact path that it already has. Windows will always ask for the CD-ROM because that text is included in the Layout.inf series of files that Windows uses to "know" where to find it's own installation files in the first place (which cab for example). If you want it to ask for a skinny crack whore instead I suppose one could do that by altering a few text lines in those files. There is no reason to assume that any intelligence is actually in charge here. What is really going on is a fumble inside a Windows dohicky that wasn't written to be absolutely bullet proof under all conditions. When you add in unknown about registry manipulations changing your SourcePath value to the standard Windows\Options\Cabs value, more than just "looking good" has to be considered. Several CRITICAL updates store their files in that "default" location for the precise reason that those files will be used from now on instead of the original and vunerable ones. The System File Checker (SFC) is written to do this also, such that when you use C:\Win98 folder you are making a particularly unique mess of things. Previously mentioned CRITICAL updates will make the Windows\Options\Cabs folder if it doesn't already exist and begin to use it even if you delete it. It's a fact of life - that folder is more than just a psudeo-default grab bag. SFC and inf files will always use the already expanded file in a folder first rather than go inside of a cab file to get the same named file even if the cab file is there, valid and pointed to by the layout.inf series of files. This is the method by which the updates are guaranteed to be able to use their files instead of the vunerable versions stored inside the original cab files. Therefore, I would move my cab files to Windows\Options\Cabs folder, set the default value in the registry under the key shown, let the CRITICAL updates do their thing, then delete and forget about the C:\Win98 folder. It just makes more sense to comply with it's use than to constantly fight it and lose out anyway.

Just an observation you might be able to take advantage of here, but at times I've left an old removed modem's inf file in the Windows\INF\Other folder and had Windows keep reinstalling it silently without prompting anything. I thought I was losing my mind! The fifth reboot and I still had a five time removed from the device mangler modem, convinced me to take another look around, I found the Other folder and nuked the offending inf file in there and then Windows started asking me for a different modem installation location which I happily pointed it to. But, modem files do go to the INF\Other folder normally or so I've thought for a long time now, mine also currently holds a sound card inf file. I don't understand a great deal of how Windows detects a new piece of hardware or gathers matching inf files for it and then installs the proper one. Each process is a complete mystery to me so I won't be much further help.

Caution is advised using the delete IsShortCut method because now you may have a doubled right click Context Menus but only when right clicking some items. It is very unnerving to see double your choices, double your fun. I almost expected the Wrigley twins to dance their way into the room and offer me some Doublemint gum when it happened to me. It wasn't a problem until I actually had to select one of those choices and then I thought - which one do I use? I don't remember my choice. Second major side effect is that you loose all user set Function Key ability just in case anyone has taken advantage of that aspect of Windows. If it's a shortcut and you've assigned it a function key (hot key), it will no longer work. Other broken aspects of shortcuts after the IsShortCut "fix", I really don't know about nor do I want to go there. As soon as I heard about the fix talked about below in the Windows 98 Update segment I tried it and it works great with no side effects that I know about. shortcut arrows@regedit.com The March 7, 2000, shell32.dll update otherwise known as 313829 is persistant in that even after an "over the top" windows reinstall you still have the file but WinUP site wants you to install it again anyway, so DanielFlorida may have applied the update a very long time ago. One fix was to reduce the size of your icons via right click desktop properties|appearance Tab|Item:Icon Size=xx and make the value <31, but that was before the days of the update and I have never tried it myself. And you can edit the arrow icon file itself in shell32.dll to be transparent. Zero based number is Icon 29 as shown by Resource Hacker for example. Of course you'll need to do that with an Icon editor of your choice since one does not come with Windows 98. And there used to be another registry fix that was a duplicate to how TweakUI got them to go away but that method broke just like TweakUI did with the new shell32.dll file. That registry entry is the one shown at the above regedit.com link, but to my knowledge it can't possibly work because the new shell32.dll doesn't read that key any more.

plonkeroo, I believe your problem may be this: Floppy Drive Is Accessed When You Open My Computer It's explained over here but only kinda: How to Test Autorun.inf Files What is going on despite MS-DOS Compatiablilty mode is that the drives are being tested to see if they contain an Autorun.inf file that needs to be running. But there is a failure on some level within the article as the value 95 equates to 5f hex or 01011111 binary - and bit 7 is NOT set but the article states plainly that it is, which confuses me no small part. 223 or df hex (11011111) possibly doesn't work any better than 95 because the bit 7 device hasn't been defined yet which makes it all a moot point anyway but why cause the confusion in the first place? We aren't having enough fun as it is? At any rate, the value 95 is supposed to turn off autorun for all drives except CDROM, give it a try. I found mine messed up and driving me nutso (empty A: drive) a couple of weeks ago, and I still don't how it happened to be altered like that. Only advice I have to avoid MS-DOS Compatiablity mode is to load the drives with media so that Windows can access them at boot up and determine actual access speeds. If they can operate above MS-DOS speeds, I'm thinking Windows will give them the green light for 32 bit speed and good things will then happen. I don't believe I caught the media types for your drives e and f, zip?. @submix8c Windows will check recent documents quite often and if a shortcut to any of the removable drives is in there, all manner of buzzing might be likely. Run Box history might cause it too. Start Menu|Settings|Taskbar & Start Menu|Start Menu Programs tab, clear the Documents Menu button for this relief. Lee

NOT!! As is typical even this advice from an MS KB article on how to refresh Windows Installer files is so wrong in that doing so will only renew the msi.dll file and there are a dozen or so other files still in need of refreshing. I revisited this very issue just a couple of days ago and found a "new" switch for use with the msi installer. Only to find that it did not replace all files as was touted, I shouldn't be surprised with that result after so many similar results by now. Finding the switch for msi packages wasn't hard at all, I just installed the SDK kit for msi and went looking through the help files. HINT, it's not called a switch (sssh), it's a command line option (sssh). Anyway it's supposed to work like this, drop your InstMsiA.exe file into the root of your C:\ drive so we can find it to do the work on with and then copy/paste this into the Run Box as one long line: C:\InstMsiA.exe /q:a /r:n /c:"msiexec.exe /i instmsi.msi REINSTALLMODE=amus REBOOT=ReallySuppress /q" Now that is set up to run as quietly as possible which then makes it not work - go figure. Remove the trailing /q and REBOOT=ReallySuppress to make it work but then there will be some dialog boxes and a reboot and it STILL DOESN'T WORK completely to renew all files. I could not get the msimain.sdb file to be replaced whether is was missing, mangled or fine. So... The only way to renew ALL your Windows Installer files is to delete them all and then replace them. Put this into a batch file and run it from a Windows DOS box: c:\windows\system\regsvr32 /u /s c:\windows\system\msihnd.dll c:\windows\system\regsvr32 /u /s c:\windows\system\msi.dll c:\windows\system\regsvr32 /u /s c:\windows\system\msisip.dll del c:\windows\system\imagehlp.dll del c:\windows\system\msiexec.exe del c:\windows\system\msihnd.dll deltree /y C:\WINDOWS\AppPatch del c:\windows\system\msimsg.dll del c:\windows\system\msisip.dll del c:\windows\system\msls31.dll del c:\windows\system\mspatcha.dll del c:\windows\system\sdbapi.dll del c:\windows\system\usp10.dll echo.[rename]>c:\windows\wininit.ini echo.NUL=c:\windows\system\msi.dll>>c:\windows\wininit.ini echo.NUL=c:\windows\system\msihnd.dll>>c:\windows\wininit.ini echo.NUL=c:\windows\system\msisip.dll>>c:\windows\wininit.ini echo off cls Reboot and reinstall InstMsiA.exe Version 2 is the highest version that Windows98 can use, so programs calling for any higher versions of the Windows Installer were not meant for 98. Get Version 2 Windows Installer here.

How big is your C:\Windows\System.dat and C:\Windows\User.dat files? Might be important as I've heard of problems with massive registry files around 9 megs before. Mine are 5,537K and 1,285K with no problems here.

I once had a sound card's files do that to me when the entries for that card in the offending autoexec.bat file were not first and second items in that batch file. In other words, when I moved the lines around to where I wanted them - zapp!! It was only by suspicion that I was able to confirm this action as I recently installed the sound card with it's drivers and then I had the problem as soon as I moved the card's lines in the autoexec.bat file. The sound card's driver read the autoexec.bat file at shutdown and if it wasn't right, the old one got erased and a new blank one with only the sound card's lines were found. I seem to remember a lot of mispellings combined with a few just plain blank autoexec.bat files like what ever was doing it wasn't written very well. Crazy. I think I wound up disabling the sound card's driver as it wasn't really needed but for to clobber autoexec.bat files... Extra crazy. So perhaps you've installed something recently that has a 'driver' like the one I disabled? Type msconfig into the Run Box and look at the startup tab for programs that run when Windows starts up. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to see running apps and strive to identify all of them. You may need to use a 3rd party process viewer http://www.teamcti.com/pview/prcview.htm to view all apps running in order to find the culprit. I don't suspect a virus or trojan for if one of those had control of your system, a lot more damaging things could be done than to just aggravate you by blanking your autoexec.bat file randomly. Is your blanked autoexec.bat file a zero byte file? In other words, does it have any size to it at all as shown under Properties? What size, if not a zero byte file? Sometimes such an app would make a backup file of your current autoexec.bat file, have you seen any such files? I've got c:\autoexec.fm and c:\config.bak just for real world examples. Common sense and what have you done recently may be your best bets.

Is there any truth in that ? None what so ever. Big rumor going around is that 9x is 'DOS based' when it actually is a 32 bit OS which simply runs a DOS emulator when you see a Windows' DOS box and not a whole lot unlike NT's command.com and cmd.exe emulators. Vastly better DOS emulator on 9x but we then lack the real utility in batch files that NT's cmd.exe has - how odd a situation can it get? In NT batch, it seems all things are possible but that certainly doesn't apply to 9x batch at all. Win9x is sure enough loaded into memory from 'true' DOS mode, but once the 32 bit system is all loaded in, DOS is abandoned totally and is never to be seen again usually. We are not standing on a DOS base so much as we were just drop kicked by DOS early in the boot process - that's a vastly different scenario. NT then just left out the DOS mode beginning and went straight for the 32 bit drop kicker at boot up. Win3.1 was DOS based however, - the true, so-called "enhanced GUI for DOS".

I was afraid that was just exactly what you wanted. Other than re-writing Windows files, I don't think it can be done exactly as desired. You will notice that the Start Menu has three areas divided by thin lines. Each section is under the control of a specific file, usually a dll and if you want a new choice or function within that division, one then has to re-write the dll to do exactly that. In this case, I'm thinking one would have to re-write Explorer.exe file but I'm probably wrong, it might be shell32.dll file. Last I knew, that's how it's done, at least that's what I've been able to gather so far. Other options include what I've posted already in combination perhaps with BenoitRen's tip about ALT+F4 when desktop has the focus keypresses and/or Windows Scripting Host using vbs to "send keys" behind the scenes to both launch the shutdown box and auto choose it so that you don't run without a ShellIconCache file update. Using vbs one can also run batch files invisibly such that the user is NOT aware that any are running or have run. CreateObject("Wscript.Shell").Run """" & WScript.Arguments(0) & """", 0, False Copy, Paste and Save the above as hide.vbs and then call it like so: wscript.exe ".\hide.vbs" ".\Dosomething.bat" Unless you've got obvious screen settings to the contrary, the user won't see the batch file run nor will he see the vbs script launch so much as an icon in the taskbar. Above paths are set for the root of a CDROM drive so your mileage will probably vary. I don't know a thing about Sentinel, sorry. But it does sound like you want to remain in Windows to do last minute file deletions which would be best with Windows' DOS box's long filename support. Don't forget that there are plenty of free shutdown apps that would allow you to have it your way, http://www.simtel.net/ being one that would have several to choose from.

All to often that's the same story here, but it's real nice when that dongle actually does do what it says!!I was in a similar pickle a long time ago when I noticed that the refresh rate for my monitor had been changed from where I knew it was to start with. I've no idea how it got changed but my setup very much liked Adapter Default setting instead of the Optimum choice it selected for itself in the Adapter tab of the Advanced section of the Settings tab of Display Properties. Once I set it back to Adapter Default, I was then allowed to alter my resolution settings once again. I'm running a 'barely there' 233 Mhz system myself, so hang tough. Any joy?

One "media descriptor" byte that I do know about is actually the default fill byte used in each sector to denote an empty sector. Atari 8bit machines use double goose eggs (truely empty), msdos floppies use Byte F7 IIRC, FAT 16 and FAT 32 hard drives use something else and no doubt NTFS hard drives use yet another byte pattern for the purpose. It's hardly cause to stop the world when they don't match what they are supposed to be, but what can be done about it from here? It looks like you lucked onto a real sweet fix - I'd run with it... I'm not sure my "media descriptor" is the same thing you've been talking about in the first place, but I'm sure I don't have a clue how 'it' could get ruined by a visit with XP.