dencorso

And KernexEx on top of an unstable install? Now, with all due respect, that's really a big mess, Alex! So, let's try to start again from scratch your bare metal intallation, in case you're really, really, really, sure you want to do it. And if so, consider you'll almost certainly need at least some of RLoew's patches, which ain't free. While you decide, tell me one more thing: which motherboard is it, exactly, and which processor is installed on it?

If run exclusively in a VM, by careful hiding and exposing hardware, it may be possible for 98FE to run thinking it's on a 768 kiB or 1 GiB RAM machine with a 64 kiB S3 video card, a single small IDE HDD and CD-player or whatever, with no patches. I've read about VM wizards doing that but never really cared about it enough to try and find out whether that's true or not. If not on bare metal, that's not for me. But, of course, one's MMV. But, at the end of the day, if on VM, even if stable, it's not for the list.

So. Like Tripredacus just said, you've got to phone MS for them to help you reactivate it. You must. There's no other way. But it'll get activated after they annoy you some. Now, ain't MS great or what?

@RLoew: Canal's IDE HDD and CDD (just a reader? or is it a burner? just CD or CD/DVD? and if so, super-multi?) at first sight do not require patches (yours or LLXX's) for 48-bit LBA. But then he mentions there are SATA II and SATA III controllers (populated with disks? of which sizes?)... It's all very tersely described, but the fact he can get to the desktop out of Safe Mode only when removing ESDI_506.PDR, and the fact his system does not respond at all to changes in MaxFileCache, both point out to the fact he's found a very unstable seeting that seems to be stable. Probably the RAM Limitation Patch, the SATA Patch and the 48-bit Patch will be needed together to create a usable setup. Then again, even all that may not be enough.

FE is more blorked than SE. There really is no advantage in running it. No, the 1st (and only) stable 98FE machine in the list is RLoew's machine # 5.

@Alex: Yes. The 1 GiB of your vido card (you guessed right! sorry I some words were lost on converting my thoughts into text... ) they go into the System Arena. Do read the KB125691 and then Igor Leyko's article. There are pointers to them on the 1st post. Do create a backup of your current install, then install RLoew's RAM Limitation Patch demo, and let's see whether it does get you to the desktop without Safe Mode or not! BTW, it patches the real-mode part of VMM32.VxD VxD-combo, VCache.VxD and VMM.VxD (this latter in many places). It fixes the many blorks MS never fixed in the very innermost workings of 9x's memory management, and related things. And, yes, installing without ACPI may help, but won't be enough in your case, AFAIK.

No: in fact no value of vcache you've tested works for you, and that's one reason for your only being able to run in Safe Mode. Try: MaxFileCache=16384. If that's not enough for you to be able to get to the desktop out of Safe Mode, then take out one of the memory sticks (just for testing, of course!) and try again. I'm sure then you'll be able to get to the desktop. With 2 GiB or more of RAM, one needs a ridiculously small VCache to be able to reach desktop (do read Andy Aronoff post #5). And notice there's now a .pdf version of Andy's full thread downloadable from the 1st post of the current thread. Yes: Xeno's VCache is intended for 98SE only, but you don't need it: Usher's method should be enough for you... But if it isn't, then Xeno's VCache wouldn't do either... you'd need RLoew's patch. Look again at the list, and you'll see that just a handful of people were ever able to get Win 9x to work above 2 GiB without the RAM Limitation Patch. Moreover your 1 GiB video card may be enough to prevent your system from ever working out of Safe Mode... Now a question: you said your machine has just one IDE controller. Good. Now tell me: what's the size of the HDD you have on it (is it an HDD, SSD, or what?)? Is it set as master or slave? Welcome to MSFN!

Probably it's somewhat easier for speakers of Portuguese to understand spoken Spanish, because Portuguese has more sounds (mainly vowels, but some consonants, too) than Spanish, so that almost all sounds from Spanish are readly recognizable to the ear of a speaker of Portuguese, but not vice versa. As for reading, I think it's the same in both directions.

Pleased to see you can read Portuguese! And yes, I do agree a diskette icon remains the most expressive and unambiguous representation of "save".

Grub4DOS can solve *all* your multibooting needs. OTOH, your prospective new key seems a little too cheap, so be careful.

MaxFileCache=20000. Note I wrote 20000, not 200000. Does it make any difference at all?

But... but... but... doesn't ImportPatcher apply just for 9x/ME? Would it work also for 2k? Would you perhaps elaborate some more, please?

This batch can set those values to 5.0 for you, provided you have the linker from MSVS 6 (I used v. 6.0.8447.0, from MSVC6 SP3).. @echo offif %1sz==sz goto erroucopy %1 %1_oriren *.*_ori *.oriLINK /EDIT %1 /SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS,5.00 /OSVERSION:5.00 /VERSION:5.00goto finis:errouecho usage: 44460 filename.extecho.:finisOf course, there'll be many possible improvements to the above batch.

Great news! I was about to ask about it, when you posted.

This info applies to running 9x/ME in 2k/XP, so it's probably not related. As you can see, "Not a valid Win32 Application", may not actually mean literally that. I doubt you error is caused by the same issues described in the link I jus gave you. But, at the moment, it's the best I can offer. HTH

Sounds like a good plan. Is the monitor connected? What do you see on it when you power on? And after connecting the optical drive (with no disc in it), what do you see? Now give it a live linux disc, say, the current stable Porteus (or whichever you fancy). Does the machine go all the way to the linux desktop?

Check the 220V/110V switch on the PSU to ensure it's set correctly. Then, with the PSU switched off and not connected to the wall outlet, make all connections inside the machine, as discussed. THen connect the cable to the PSU, then plug it into the wall. Turn the PSU switch on, cross your fingers, then press the power on button on the case. Does the machine start?

Brand PSUs like Corsairs have usually 120 mm fans, suck air from the side you see the fan inside and blow it out the side that has the power cord connector (and usually a power switch) on.

I think ACPI is hopeless, up until someone creates a proper ACPI driver for 2k on Haswell.

The old PSU had a two black two yellow cables 2x2 connector and the new one has just one like that too. The other 2x2 bears one each of a red, a yellow, an orange and a black cable and is connected together with the longer, 20 connectors plug, forming a 24 cable plug assembly... it is put n the side of the 20 connectors which does not have two orange cables side-by-side. If the 20 connectors and the correct 4 connectors plugs are aligned to plug them in, the red cable in the smaller connector will be beside a red cable in the bigger one and a yellow cable on one will be beside a yellow one on the other. Moreover, when that pair of connectors is assembled correctly, the latch will be roughly in the middle of the assembly. Look carefully at the picture below... the 20 cables connector is at the left and the 4 connectors is to the right of the observer. Also read again the ATX PSU part of this Wikipedia entry.

Thanks a lot! @jumper: great tool! Thanks for providing it!

minf? As in "Minimize INFs"? And where can that be found, please?

Zip ties? You mean... tie wraps? For the definitive install, of course! For the testing phase, not necessarily. If unavoidable, thrash bag ties (see pic below: what do you all call them?) will do fine, and then they can be reused.

Yes. What we suggested was that. More specifically, we suggested that you should plug connectors from the new PSU in place of all the connectors you unplug from de old PSU, except for the HDDs' connectors (which you should leave unconnected), so that, if the problem was really the PSU, then the computer will turn on, but will not boot, because the HDDs are not connected, so you can turn it off without having to wait for the boot to finish and then having to shut down the system. After you start the machine successfuly some two or three times, and let it stay on for a minute or two each time, to ensure the board is stable and all the fans are working, then you might consider performing the more tiresome work of actually removing the old PSU and replacing it by the new one for good.

I said it before, in some other thread here at MSFN, but let's say it again: Win 7 SP1 goes EoS only on Jan 14, 2020 (and POSReady 2009 goes EoS just a little earlier: Apr 09, 2019)... so we can wait and see what happens till then. The probability of MS coming out with something great till then is non-null, even if it seems to tend to zero. Of course the probability of MS moving into the fertilizer business before that seems to be somewhat greater than that of its coming out with something great till then... Then again, Win 7 SP1 FPP will just be getting cheaper and cheaper on eBay, meanwhile.