dencorso

I have not actually seen the patch. RLoew has my complete trust in his ability and expertise. He's one of our most expert coders. I do use various programs written by him. You'd know that, by now, if you had read around more. However, any just developed program, no matter how well tested by the developer, may have an unforeseen behaviour when deployed in a different machine. That's why they are called beta software. If you want 0% risk, you'd better stick to my first advice, keep using 9.0.47.0 and just forget about this matter. I'm sure others will come forward to test this new patch by RLoew. The decision is yours alone.

e-Bay is your friend...

@rilef: He cannot use Flash > 9.0.47.0 because the higher versions need instructions his processor doesn't know. It's that simple. halohalo pointed it out in post # 2. And RLoew developed a program (I imagine it's a VxD) that traps the "unknown instruction" faults and then intelligently substitutes or jumps over those instructions, according to which instruction caused the fault, thus enabling the system to overcome the processor limitations in such a way that it becomes able to run the higher versions of Flash 9 (as well as whatever other program that uses those selfsame missing instructions).

@larryb123456: With all due respect, stop chasing your tail and volunteer to test RLoew's patch, man! He's just solved your problem!!! And did it lightning fast!!! But you're the only one with the proper hardware and software configuration to test it right away. So test it now, I bet it'll get you running 9.0.262.0 in all your browsers, and all you need to do is just install it. Do an effort, restart your brain and get yourself round to do it *right away*! You have the rest of your life to learn as much as you like about the problem in particular and about computer science in general!

No, because you've got the same results with plain vanilla ME on the 10GB HDD. It totally beats me.

That oughtn't happen, not with plain vanilla ME. It beats me as to why it does. Sorry! Enter Device Manager: is the HDD in compatibility mode? How much RAM does the machine have?

To help with school assignments is forbidden by Rule # 2.c... consider yourself warned!

Let's make a test. Create a partition image of your Win 98 boot partition from the 10 GB HDD, format that partition and install just a *plain vanilla* Win ME in it, and let's see how does it behave. You may use this program to create the full disk image: Partition Saving (or you may use any alternative listed in this thread).

Is your current HDD SATA?

The Win 9x default chipset drivers are not nearly as bad as you make them, wsxedcrfv. Then, there's Bearwindows VBEMP(9x) and also Tihiy's tweaked Win3x SVGA drivers for Win9x (which can run in safe mode, too). While it's not perfect, this is sufficient for many users. I think you've made your point, already, wsxedcrfv: there's no need to hammer it down. With more modern boards, there's a limit to what one can do. But some of us can live with it (see, for instance, Sfor's thread on the Eee PC, where there are links to VBEMP(9x), too). @RLoew: If you didn't already know about Tihiy's drivers, you might find them interesting. I do use them for Safe Mode, and I'm quite satisfied with the result.

Netscape scans the disk. The advantage of the scan is not needing to have multiple identical copies of the same file(s) in different places. When disks were small, that was really important. Now it's not anymore. The advantage of having multiple identical copies of the same file(s) in different places is not having to search, so loading is faster. Copying the files of 9.0.262.0 around will not solve the fact it uses instructions your processor don't have. It's hopeless to experiment with any unpatched version of flash above 9.0.47.0. It won't get you anywhere. If RLoew comes up with a dynamical patcher, it sure won't be above your head: it'll be just another program to install and forget. But after installing it, you'll be able to run all versions of flash above 9.0.47.0, which, at the moment, you cannot use, try as you might. It's like trying to sweet-talk a Klingon girl (now, whoever'd want to do that?): unless she speaks English (unlikely) or you Klingon (also unlikely), no matter how sweet your talking, you won't get anywhere! Flash above 9.0.47.0 talks some things in English, but others in Klingon... Now, a dynamical patcher works like an instantanous machine translator (but is way better), so that communication becomes possible.

Welcome to MSFN, fxg! I'm from before the internet, too. Have been on BITNET, and on numerous BBSs, too, before that. I really miss internet news (nntp)... it sure stil exists, but it's not even a pale shadow of what it once were. Times change, the community forums took nntp's place, so here I am. Be sure to visit the Win 9x/ME forum, when you have time. It sure'll give you good recollections. See you around. Cheers! dencorso

There are many ways of doing it, of course. However, I think that Win 7 in one physical HDD and Win XP on another is probably the easiest way of doing it. I can help. But you've not provided much info to go on. So: 1) Was Win 7 working OK, when you removed its HDD? 2) Which flavour of XP did you attempt to install in the newly connected HDD? You say it's Pro. But the media you used for installation contains Gold, SP1, SP2 or SP3? 3) Are the HDDs SATA or IDE (PATA). 4) I suppose you're installing from a CD. Is your CD/DVD player/recorder SATA, IDE (PATA) or USB? 5) Which machine is it (motherboard, processor, ammount of RAM)?

That would be really nice! If you find time to do it, RLoew, I'm sure it'll be a huge help for our users who run 9x/ME on older hardware. From the thread I pointed to in post #5, I guess the dynamical patcher would have to cater for 3 different problems, by patching: PSHUFW to MOVQ NOP; MOVNTQ to MOVQ and all PREFETCH* to NOPs (or simply jump them by advancing the IP). In any case, as no instruction has to be interpreted here, it may prove to be quite fast.

You're welcome! Now, while it clearly *is* possible to make 9.0.262.0 work with a Pentium II, from that link I gave you it's clear it requires a HUGE amount of careful patching with a hexeditor. It's not a simple task. So, for the time being, I'd say you'd better off if you keep using 9.0.47.0...

Well, larryb123456, sure we'll try our best to dispel your doubts. And welcome to MSFN, BTW! But bear in mind that a succession of short posts with just a few questions per post has much more chance of yielding the answers you're looking for than overlong posts with questions galore. Provided you post each and wait for people to answer you before proceeding to the next few questions. Some of us, if striving to answer minutely those long posts, can bury you in so many references that it will be a long time before you can digest all of them. So, in cases like this it's not at all uncommon that one focuses on one specific subject and answers just that in a post. After all, the OP can always re-ask other still unanswered parts of the initial post along the way, as the thread progresses. Easy does it. There is no real risk in doing it. And if it doesn't help, of course all you have to do is delete the copy. And no big problem at all.

What about IrfanView? Does it really work with 9x/ME (it does claim to)? It's free and has a good language support.

Will this do? Flash 9.0.115.0 - Crash with Pentium II

Yeah, well... I think LoneCrusader put it quite aptly: I usually don't think much about how the "average user" will manage to do things around Win 9x/ME simply because I do really doubt nowadays any "average user" really exists that will opt for going Win 9x/ME, instead of one of the NT-family OSes. Hence, in my view, the only 9x/ME users remaining either are already "advanced users" or seriously intend to become such.

Actually, yes, one can, thanks to karyonix (for Win 7 inclusive)! However you'll need a helluva fast pendrive (Corsair Flash Voyager GTR comes to mind) for it to be worth the trouble.

Post a photo (easier) or a screenshot (harder... can it be done?) of the BSOD or copy its text *in full* and post it here. Without all the info available, it's hard to say anything.

Yes. Files > 4 GiB are no-no for 9x/ME. I'd recommend a Linux or OpenSolaris 3rd boot. If you go Linux, grml or TinHat are among the leanest possible alternatives, and can be used as the 3rd boot. Or you can go to a fuller distribution. I find Gentoo the most satisfying, but here YMMV wildly.

Yes. I think that's the most hassle-free way of doing it. Sure. Of course. But you have to think there are two main types of users, nowadays: those installing to a dedicated 9x/ME machine (which should also favor a not too new motherboard and avoid multicore processors, because 9x/ME won't use more than one core, no matter what one does) and those who already have another main OS, usually of the NT-family, already installed and want to add 9x/ME as a second option for booting. It is for the latter that all these my considerations are more useful, since that user already probably has lots of RAM and a more powerful video card, to start with. However, even in this latter case, I'd recommend reducing the ammount of RAM (and perhaps using an onboard, less powerful video adaptor, if present), just for installation purposes. After 9x/ME is installed and running, then the user can more confortably return the RAM to its full value and the video card to the better one (preferably doing it one move at a time), and configure/tweak/add patches. This avoids having to deal with all complications at once. This seems to me to be the case of the OP, so I went along this line of thought. As you can see, we do mostly agree. My main point was 512 MiB or less is easy. > 512 MiB is less easy but still relatively simple (768 MiB lies here), up to about 1088 MiB. Now, above that is way harder, but still feasible, and can lead to perfectly stable machines. @SMCorp: Using just 1 GiB RAM, simply add Xeno86's modded VCache.VxD to the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32 folder (extract it with 7-z from the installer and simply drop it there), and let's see how different the behaviour of your machine becomes.

Don't doublepost! I've deleted your other thread at the Win 7 forum, because here is the proper place to post this question.

Welcome to MSFN, Ruby! I'm sure you'll enjoy participating in it.