georg

Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Modems See that your modem is highlighted On the General tab, Click the Properties button Click on the Connection tab Click the Port Settings button (lower left)

Quote (Slugfiller) "The 1% that use computers as part of their business, that is, companies, already use linux" http://www.informationweek.com/news/intern...cleID=201807072 By Alexander Wolfe, InformationWeek, 19 Sep 2007 According to Gartner's figures, 67.1% of servers shipping during the second quarter of 2007 were fitted with a Microsoft OS; 22.8% had Linux. Interestingly, that was down slightly from the 23.1% share Linux had in the year-earlier period. According to the W3Counter Web stat site, Linux recently achieved a 1.37% share to inch past Windows 98 (Windows 98!). Perhaps the best reality check I found comes via an N.C. State University survey of users of ResNet, the residential network for students, which found that "Windows usage has consistently been over 90%. Linux usage was at its highest in 1998 at 2.47%. It dropped to less than 1% in 2003 and plateaued [in 2006] around 1.5%." Quote (BenoitRen) "The Linux computers at Walmart have been selling like hot cakes" http://www.desktoplinux.com/ By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, 13 Mar 2008 On March 10, Wal-Mart spokesperson Melissa O'Brien told the Associated Press that Wal-Mart had decided not to restock its in-store gOS Linux-powered Everex Green gPC TC2502. "This really wasn't what our customers were looking for," O'Brien said. I decided to do a little old-fashioned reporting to see if I could get to the bottom of why Wal-Mart will no longer be carrying cheap Linux systems in its stores...so I visited several of my local Wal-Marts. Here's what I found out. Customers did want to buy the computer, but they, and all too often the workers, were thoroughly confused because the PCs came with Linux and not Windows. The word "clueless" comes quickly to mind. The one technically adept customer service representative I met told me, "These are the same people who really can't tell the difference between the computer and its software. At best, they know they need Windows to run Quicken, Office and games. That's it." ...all too often, "They thought it was a normal -- read, Windows -- PC and they exchanged it." Qoute (Fredledingue) "install only what is relevant to your...needs...update only the parts which you had installed" http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/mo...s-will-suck.ars By Peter Bright, Ars Technica, 5 Apr 2008 "modular Windows will suck for Microsoft and suck for you" (long article with many responding in forum) Comment by Uatu in forum: "If you're a big fan of modularization, you can already roll your own with nLite, which can strip an XP iso to under 100MB (around 250MB install on HDD, 35MB Ram utilization with all optional services stopped). Or W2K to 70MB, less than 200MB on HDD, 30MB Ram, which is in the ball park of **** Small Linux. You can strip IE and Media player entirely, including the Html libraries and the DirectShow framework etc, and Firefox and VLC still work. Of course, most of your other software and hardware won't work, because they were written with the assumptions that tons of components are present. You can then add component by component to find out the dependencies of the software. And after you've added them all to ensure a broad range of compatibility, you're more or less where you started with a standard XP install. And if MS were to do this modularization thing, that task will be shifted to software writers instead of geeks playing with nLite for fun. So I basically agree with the article conclusion. Modularization has minimal benefits and lots of drawbacks for consumers and software vendors, and probably even MS itself in the long term. It might be beneficial for very specialized applications, but MS already offers XP Embedded (basically an MS sanctioned nLite) for that."

Quote (fredledlingue) "My idea about OS is this: Modular Windows. I'm surprised there was no more comment" I've read that editions of Windows without things like Windows Media Player and Windows Movie Maker were sold in Europe and they have been unpopular. The trend is back to bundle. Is Windows Media Edition an operating system or an application? The market share reports posted by Tarun and Crahak show the XP replacement rate is irrelevant. Vista is clobbering Apple and Linux. As high end apps and drivers are rewritten, new systems with Vista will get steadily faster and better. There is no competition for Vista except XP, and price is about the same. Microsoft makes money either way.

Quote (slugfiller) "People use whatever comes. An OS isn't something for which average Joe browses." If you run a middle range business, bigger than the ones where the owner buys everything on a personal VISA and smaller than the ones with an IT department, you have a wide range of combinations of hardware, operating systems, apps and employee skill sets. You see good and bad. Some apps have transaction royalties, or at least an annual maintenance agreement. They support old stuff because there is a revenue stream. When they adopt a new operating system you know there is a benefit, and the bugs have been worked out. Earl, your top salesman, gets any new toy he wants, for he generates revenue and has other places to go if he gets unhappy. When he sticks in his thumb and pulls out a plum, he shows it off, generating secondary demand among other employees and third level demand when Nell in Marketing likes her new system at work so much she buys one for Mom at Christmas. When Earl gets bit, he tells everybody he knows, including everyone at the professional society meetings and trade shows he attends, everybody that comes to his big annual Bar-B-Que, and every single sales prospect he meets for the next two years. Ruth in accounting will change, given enough notice and two weeks of training at the vendor home office, but only on January 1, and she will still be running the old stuff in parallel until the books are closed, the taxes are filed and the auditor's issues are resolved. Some apps you love enough to buy incremental releases, so that when they finally drop support for 98 you have already bought versions that support XP or Vista, and switching over is no pain. Once in a while there is a good year, and many new things are bought from those you perceive have dealt fairly over the lean years. Fairness is not an absolute value, but rather a recognition of difference, that the goals were mostly good ones, the mistakes mostly honest ones, and the vendor is a survivor that will be there in the future in case you have to live with their product a long time. You change when a choice is offered at an opportune moment by a trusted source, you have the money, and you see a benefit.

Quote: (herbalist, yesterday) "IMO, Vista and XP aren't worth using, let alone pirating." Microsoft is a marketing company, and they dominate because they understand the market. There are tens of millions of people who use XP and Vista. All the XP fanboys that come over here to post are testimony that people don't just use XP, they love it. In deciding what to do, I looked carefully at Vista. The word from those whose technical ability I respect, who are actually using it, is good, especially for those using Verizon FIOS and Vista Ultimate as an upgraded media center edition. I just can't afford the computer to run it, or the new media devices it excels in managing. Win9x operating systems have been my choice because I'm retired on a fixed income. One step behind the cutting edge has gotten me good value for money. Here's a quote from the Vista Annoyances forum today, posted by Charlie Hadden (487 messages posted) "Many of my friends have Macs with Vista as their OS of choice. Now that Macs are just another brand of PC there is little reason not to, If you don't mind the price...Bill G. was the smartest when he bailed Applesauce out of bankruptcy. I mean controlling your competition! WOW" Microsoft is a hard driving organization with excellent people and it has made a hell of a lot of people besides Bill Gates very very wealthy. You are fooling yourself if you think their success is all due to "market manipulation and coercement". One marketing organization offered this analysis: "Organization may be the most important key to Microsoft's success. Microsoft designs its teams to be overworked. Project managers calculate the number of staff members needed to accomplish a task, then reduce it. This results in a team that has to scramble immediately or be overwhelmed. Microsoft also takes great care to choose the "right" people. A company built on dominating via improvisation and high-energy needs high-energy problem solvers who don't mind working 72 hours straight. Although this type of employee seems difficult to find, somehow Microsoft keeps finding them." I go back a long way, to the IBM 1401 and wiring boards for card interpreters. I still have two Osbornes. I liked PICK. Years of my life were spent coaxing a peer to peer network of WFW3.11 and Win95 machines. Crahak wrote: "No one's forcing you to upgrade at all ...keep using that 386SX 20". My 386SX20 was bought off the sidewalk for $50 and only the death of the clock module ended its usefullness. It brought me live pictures of the first Mars lander.

Facing the Microsoft stated deadline of June 30, my choice was to buy two new barebones running XP Home, with dual core procs and 2GB DDR667 RAM. There is a benefit from the added horsepower, a wide variety of compatible hardware, I can use my favorite old programs, and I can buy something new. First tried a used P3 933 with 512MB PC100 RAM loaded with XP Pro SP2. It ran my old software just fine, was not slow, and all my newbie mistakes were made using it as a sandbox. However, it had been a client to an office server, and parts of the operating system were crippled. XP squirrels away personal info in many nooks and crannies, and the photos of the last user's toddler and home interior kept reappearing, along with artifacts from the business where she worked. My attempts to repair the install nullified product activation. I could reinstall the Ghost image, but couldn't really fix it, and my posts to the XP forum got no reply. I finally wiped the drive, put on 98SE with SP 2.0.1 obtained from this forum, and got a fast stable machine after a trouble free install. I still use my old Celeron 667 box on the side as my reference library. Things like encyclopedias run faster from the hard drives and I'm still on dial-up. Can't say I've grown to love XP, with its product activation, user profiles, permissions, patches, and the general level of complexity which seems to serve no useful purpose except to obscure how the OS works. I don't feel confident in my ability to rebuild the boxes from scratch and find myself using system restore a lot, especially before trying anything new. It feels like 2003 before I dumped Millenium Edition and went back to 98. Still, this was the correct choice for me, as Vista is the things I don't like in XP carried forward to a greater degree, and the choices from staying with W98 are now too limited.

Update2: Defrag is fixed. Copied missing registry key from XP Home Edition system. My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg

Update: system restore now fixed. pchshell.dll was missing from the PC Health binaries folder.

I have XP Pro SP2 running on a 933 P3 with 512MB RAM. It is a used machine that used to be part of a domain in a medical office. No CD. Originally was Win98 system and drive is formatted FAT32. App software installs and runs well, but there are problems with the operating system itself which I would like to understand, and fix if posssible. Restore points are saved but the user interface in system tools does not run, so cannot restore. SFC does not run and no CD or files to check against, except DLL cache. System information does not run, but apps like Belarc or PC Wizard run fine. The XP Defrag does not run. Says "cannot create a required resource". Auslogics runs and completes OK. Any attempt to export the registry produces a system halt due to "registry_error". Same result if registry is searched. The help system services run but help will not run. MS Office XP 10.0 uninstaller would not complete. There are artifacts that still try to load after a brute force removal. I foolishly removed the machine from the domain and can't seem to rejoin it, or log on to the former user accounts. Registry cleaners complete OK, except for the Eusing cleaner which bombs if HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE is checked. No passwords and I log on as Administrator. Also tried logging on as Administrator in Safe Mode. Regedit runs and I can manually edit the registry. I have tried enabling all services, and also have tried copying the services config from an XP Home Edition machine where everything works. I uninstalled all updates hoping key files might be restored. This is not my primary machine. It is used to try out freeware and tweaking suggestions and runs well enough for that purpose, but ignorance and lack of control over the machine irritate me. Suggestions and/or comments will be appreciated.

Lots of info re hh.exe at this site: www.helpware.net/htmlhelp/hh_info.htm I am running 98SE with 5.2.3644 dated 10 Jun 2002. Works OK. Original was 4.72.7266 dated 17 Nov 1997 related files: itss.dll, itircl.dll, hhctrl.ocx, hhctrlui.dll

I have these .dll files on my 98SE system, Rev's are older than your list, but newer than original install. The Zamaan's Software site says Browser Hijack Retaliator supports 98. If you trust Zamaan's, and the site you used for the download, then newer .dll versions don't seem worrisome to me, although it would be wise to archive copies of your versions in a .zip file before you do the install so you can go back. If you don't completely trust Zamaan's then it is wiser not to install BHR even if the .dll's matched your own.

Reply to carebear: Your kind comments are much appreciated. Reply to eidenk: My opinion is that you are correct that WMI services are not vital. In the spirit of inquiry, however, I offer some data: NTDLL.DLL is used by MSGSRV32.EXE, DDHELP.EXE, EXPLORER.EXE and SYSTRAY.EXE WMIEXE.EXE Process Information : Type : 32-bit Priority : Normal Usage : 4 Threads : 3 Started by: SYSTRAY.EXE Thread 0xFFFB646D : Priority Normal Thread 0xFFFB7341 : Priority Normal Thread 0xFFFBAC09 : Priority Normal Associated Module : WMIEXE.EXE (Memory Occupation : 16 KB) Associated Module : WMICORE.DLL (Memory Occupation : 56 KB) Associated Module : RPCRT4.DLL (Memory Occupation : 328 KB) Associated Module : USER32.DLL (Memory Occupation : 68 KB) Associated Module : GDI32.DLL (Memory Occupation : 152 KB) Associated Module : ADVAPI32.DLL (Memory Occupation : 64 KB) Associated Module : MSVCRT.DLL (Memory Occupation : 280 KB) Associated Module : KERNEL32.DLL (Memory Occupation : 460 KB) Memory Occupation : 1424 KB on 1574 MB A quote from a 2000 article in Smart Computing mag on Win98SE: "...run Microsoft System Information (Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Information.) On the MS-info screen, in the left pane, double-click Software Environment, then Running Tasks. That'll show you a list of background tasks, including some not in the task list. Generally, these are things you shouldn't shut down. (Some of these things include Kernel32.dll, Mstask.exe, and Wmiexe.exe.)" Googling wmiexe +systray yielded 113,000 hits. In amongst the hijackthis logs and file listings are many posts by people who feel wmiexe and/or systray slows a 98SE system. I use headphones, and find the Volume Control utility useful. Some say PNP devices are affected, including firewire and webcams, but it isn't always clear what the OS is, and I am unable to tie WMI services to specific devices on my machines. wmiexe is always running in the background on 98SE and it is not on the 98 machine with SP1. There are no normally connected USB devices on the 98 machine, and it does not run Volume Control, but if I turn off VC on the SE machine, wmiexe is still started.

Not sure the definition of "native" but the files are on the CD wmicore.dll is in Win98_44.cab wmiexe.exe is in Win98_47.cab

wmicore.dll is related to wmiexe.exe It is in c:\windows\system\ in both my 98 and 98SE machines, and is apparently a registered Microsoft system file in 98/98SE/Me/2000/XP, although the location may vary. The following explanation is from www.auditmypc.com/process/wmiexe.asp "The wmiexe.exe process will attempt to detect when a plug-and-play device is plugged into your computer, and automatically load the appropriate drivers required to run the device. This process is required for your computer to work correctly and so should not be terminated. wmiexe.exe is flagged as a system process and does not appear to be a security risk. However, removing Windows management instrumentation may adversly impact your system.The Process Server database currently registers wmiexe.exe to Microsoft.This is part of Microsoft Windows."

wmicore.dll goes in C:\windows\system\

There is an interesting article, last updated 1/24/2007, about using the driver for "an older SanDisk USB device" with the newer Cruzer series to work with: Windows 95 OSR/2.1 ("B" version with USB or later) Windows 98 with a USB port that is already recognized by the system. His solution was to "modify the the Plug-And-Play ID numbers to match the one being sent by the Cruzer..." Working links are provided to download both the modified and unmodified drivers. http://toastytech.com/files/cruzerwin95.html

See thread at www.computing.net/windows31/wwwboard/forum/11765.html Date: September 10, 2005, OS: WFW 3.11 "...running dos 6.22/windows 3.11 on 1 half and windows 98se on the other ...can NOT find a driver...I am on..VGA...with 16 Colors. I just want to get 256 Colors...640x480 or 800x600...ATI Radeon 7000 PCI Video Card." Response #23 www.michaelv.org/computers/guides/win31.php#svga Driver download at www.michaelv.org/computers/guides/svga256.drv The link is still good. Driver file size is 117,440 bytes Poster says you can get SVGA modes (256 colors). No word if it worked.

(supplementing my earlier post on the PQI USB Flash Disk) Note unit has to be plugged in for entries to appear in Device Manager "Standard disk drives" 5-11-1998 on the FE machine In Device Manager, under Hard disk controllers, appears as "USB Flash Drive" Device type: Hard disk controllers Manufacturer: Generic under Driver Tab, Provider: Generic Date: 2-24-2006 Clicking on Driver file details, \SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\SKUMSS.SYS file date is 11-17-04 \SYSTEM\VMM32.VXD (ntkern.vxd) file date is 5-19-99 (SE is 12-26-03) \SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS\SKPDR.PDR file date is 11-17-04 Provider: Microsoft Corporation File Version: 5.00.1868.1

The PQI brand sold by Fry's works very well for me on both Win98FE and SE. A comparable 512MB model sells for about $15. It would be interesting to know if the PQI software will work with other brands. It is a 309K self executing .exe file. I did not try the separate utility pkg. PQI = Power Quotient International, Inc., Tel +886-2-82265288, Fax +886-2-82265268 www.pqi.com/tw www.pqi.com/tw/download.asp The one I use is listed as BB53 series, U230 Traveling Disk 512MB Once installed, the flash drive appears in Device Manager under Hard Drives as "Generic USB Flash Disk" "Standard disk 4-23-1999 no driver required Int13 unit" "Driver free" "No driver files are required or have been loaded for this device" 498 cylinders 64 heads 32 sectors per track / cluster 512 bytes per sector

BenoitRen, in resonse to "Windows actually is the most secure OS." "Best joke I've heard all day." www.informationweek.com/software/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=198701907&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_News "Microsoft was first alerted to the .ANI vulnerability back in December...Mark Miller, director of the Microsoft Security Response Center, said...that slightly less than 100 Microsoft technicians have been working "around the clock"...and said it has taken the company more than three months to come up with a patch for the bug because it's simply a long, complicated process...Where it is in Windows, it is a core area. The time line is longer because you have to deal with this core area." Internet Explorer is the main attack vector for the exploits. http://redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=8386 "...attacks have been limited to Web surfing with Internet Explorer versions 6 or 7. Firefox, the open-source browser from Mozilla, does not yet seem vulnerable..." said Craig Schmugar, a virus researcher for McAfee Avert Labs. Source: www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2007/200704/20070403/article_311244.htm "The worm author's objective seems to be money-oriented as a sentence found in the source code read: "I will by (buy) one BMW this year." The full list of affected operating systems includes, according to eWeek.com: Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 Microsoft Windows XP 64-Bit Edition Version 2003 (Itanium) Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 for Itanium-based Systems Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with SP1 for Itanium-based Systems Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Vista

Anybody want to argue that SE may be less secure than FE? With SE came active desktop, web integration, active x controls, direct x, and the idea that the computer should be accepting commands from the web even while suspended. SE added only a few new features: Improved USB and DVD support Multiple computer modem sharing Multiple monitor support Web TV SE bug fixes and improvements were added to FE with Service Pack 1. The security fixes are needed because of the SE changes listed above. Neither OS is truly more reliable or secure. The FE machine with anti-virus, firewall, tea timer, and spyware blaster is on the web every day browsing with firefox. Several novels were written on it, a lot of image editing, a genealogy database of over 22,000 people, a ton of e-mail, utilities and stuff like elf bowling and Saddam blaster downloaded from the web, multimedia encyclopedias and language programs, etc. I wouldn't do my banking with it, but it does venture onto myspace and craigslist. Laptops are sold with a package of programs that work together. Upgrade the OS on an old machine and you may find you have broken something else. Some of the system file protection ideas that made ME infamous began with SE. Machines tend to run best with the software that is on them when they ship. Many hours of my life have been spent fixing problems that piggybacked into a machine on an upgrade, and downgrades are worse.

rov - apologies if this is beside the point, but what is it that you expect 98SE will do for your son that can't be done with 98FE? I have one machine with FE and one with SE, and there isn't any difference in what each will do except that the SE machine has the free space bug and the FE one does not. I've been told that SE is necessary to collect music and burn to CD's, etc. but the hardware capabilities of your laptop are limited for that sort of thing anyway.

Answer to post #17 by Ponch: Per AMD the Am5x86-133 is a 32-bit SL Enhanced CPU which runs on a 33MHz bus with 16KB internal cache w/write back and write through. Pin-out is same as the AMD Am486®DX4 Enhanced (SV8B family). Part numbers are AMD-X5-133ADW (168-pin PGA package, 3.45 volt, 55C case temp.) AMD-X5-133ADZ (168-pin PGA package, 3.45 volt, 85C case temp.) CPU multiplies the input clock by 4. On the old Hurricane Discover benchmark, it comes in at 78% of a Pentium 100. AMD shows benchmarks for a Gigabyte GA486AM/256KB L2 cache (15nS), 16MB DRAM (70nS), Diamond Stealth 2 MB VRAM video card: Winstone '96 (Units) 44.4; WinBench '96 CPUMark16 145.0; WinBench '96 CPUMark32 151.0 Wikipedia says the chip was introduced in November 1995, and was used in consumer PC's until 1999. They say it is still in production for use in embedded controllers, and the core used in the Élan SC520 family of microcontrollers marketed by AMD is a derivative. It was also used on the Acorn RiscPC "PC card" second processors. The 5x86 was first-ever use of the PR rating. Because the 5x86 was the equal of a Pentium 75 MHz processor in benchmarks, AMD later marketed the chip as "AM5x86-P75". Wiki says a 150 MHz-rated part may have also been released by AMD, and the 133 part was commonly overclocked to 160 MHz.

I run 95 on an AMD 486-133. The OS is from an upgrade CD, & IE 4.0 came on a separate CD, so did not install it. 95 plug and play rescues old hardware, as the drivers match. Have software and business records back to 1982 on 5.25 disks, and they seem to last better than 3.5's, so use this machine to access them. It works well in DOS and Windows, and runs just about any program that 98FE does. Don't use it on the internet - just pull downloaded files from other machines across the network if needed. It is fast and responsive, up to date for DST. Cel633/98SE/512RAM/40G;80G/MX400/CD-RW/DVD/3.5;5.25 Cel366/98FE/256RAM/3G/intATI/CD/3.5 486DX133/95/20RAM/425M/S3/CD/3.5;5.25

Making WU work is good, a great benefit, and preferred road for the majority. I admire those who go the extra mile, and solve the problem. However, products and services decline and disappear. There may be a few who stubbornly refuse most updates, who wish to be able to reliably recreate what they already have, who for reasons of their own have parted company with Internet Explorer.