dencorso

I have images of them all, by now! Most were created with WinImage v. 8.10.8100 (or the previous version of it). Some, like the formats used by DOS 1.x, WinImage cannot handle, because it needs a BPB (which hadn't been invented yet, in DOS 1.x times!) to find out what the floppy format is. For those I used the excellent freeware DiskImage, by Mike Brutman (the whole of his PC Jr site is worthy of a visit too...). In all cases, I've favoured raw images (.IMA files), which I can browse with WinHex and boot from with grub4dos if I'm in the mood. After I learned how to boot from raw images, I have had little use for my oddly formatted diskettes, but I decided to keep them, just to see how long they would hold their strange formats. I have one MD2HD (5.25") formatted to 160 kB and 20+ MF2HD (3.5") formatted strangely, and they are now 2 years old or more and counting, and remain perfect. Isn't that great? I had always read everywhere that high-density floppies formatted to low density formats wouldn't hold the format for long... Now, these floppies were, all of them, new media, never used before. With used media I've had mixed results: they do not necessarily format perfectly, and bad sectors are a common finding. Later edit: for what it's worth, here's also a working direct download link to the trusty old Rundegren's Freeware Floppy Image 1.5.2.0 for Win (which, however, only supports 3.5" floppies).

That's what the FDFORMAT.DOC says. But I've found out that it depends on the BIOS and the controller your computer has. With my ASUS K7V600-X, which FDD controler is inbuilt in its 8237A southbridge, I've never needed to use FDREAD.EXE, and have been able to read even the strangest formats directly, both in DOS and in Win 98SE!!! I have formatted MD2-HD 5.25" from 1.44 MB DS to 160 kB SS and have done the same to MF2-HD 3.5" floppies, from 1.78 MB DS to 160 kB SS, and they still work after more than two years! However, to be able to format MF2-HD 3.5" floppies to 760 kB or less, I found out it's necessary to close their high-density hole with any common adhesive sticker. Now, while those floppies can be read and written even by Win 98SE, I only succeeded at formatting them with the help of FDFormat (without FDRead, in my case).

Try with Chris Hochstätter's freeware FDFORMAT, from true DOS. If the media is OK, I'm positive it'll be able to format it to 1.2 MB and even to 1.44 MB. I've done it on the first attempt with some MD2-HD 5.25" Maxcell flopies I still have, by using FDFormat.

You can report freely your results regarding the patching of System Internals utilities. What you cannot do (Rule 1.b) is to actually redistribute the patched binaries (nor the unpatched binaries, but, for them, you can provide links to the original software provider/vendor site, if you so want).

Can't stand the stuff. You mean: 1)dark chocolate ice-cream 2)dark chocolate 3)chocolate in general

O cour ! An sol hal th prob ...

A thin slice of toast, lavishly covered by apricot jam, topped with a generous slab of dark chocolate ice-cream

Whatever your question, from the half of it you posted, I think there's a good chance you'll find your answer in this thread: Day-to-day running Win 9x/ME with more than 1 GiB RAM If you want a more precise answer, you should actually use the post area of your first post to do it, instead of trying to cram the question in the title of an otherwise void first post. Especially when the actual question gets truncated by the title lenght limit: half questions have no answers.

Note is being taken, rest assured. We won't have any other flame war here, no way!

I use a RAMDISK of precisely 1.5 GiB in my main Win 98SE for the same reason.

Same here both with IE7/Win XP SP3 and with IE6/Win 98SE. I was not aware Firefox is unaffected, though. AFAIK, xper is presently trying to sort this out, so it ought to be solved soon.

The general idea behind the version change is to help the user confirm, at a later time, whether his/her file is already patched or not. Some patches are less obvious in their effects than this one, so it's a good practice. Just that.

Acrobat.ori is a backup of the unpatched original Acrobat.exe. You should save it just to be on the safe side, should you ever need it for some reason in the future. I call it playing it safe. But after you test the patched Acrobat.exe and confirm it's working OK, you may delete Acrobat.ori if you so wish. I just don't recommend it, because I think it safer to keep it, just in case. And yes, I trust the patch will do away with the nag message, both in 9x/ME and in XP. But don't forget to report your experience, because, AFAIK, you're the first to actually use it in XP, OK?

Hi, Ken! I've just done that in XP and it works all right. So, let's go about it, step by step. This steps can be done using windows explorer: i)Since you've created a C:\Windows\Command folder, let's work in it. i.1) Start with an empty C:\Windows\Command folder; i.2) Add to it a copy of Acrobat.exe i.3) Rename it Acrobat.ori ii)Now there is just one file in the C:\Windows\Command folder, and that's Acrobat.ori ii.1) Add the unzipped Acrofull.pat file to C:\Windows\Command folder ii.2) Add the unzipped Patch.exe file to C:\Windows\Command folder Check that now there are just three files in the C:\Windows\Command folder, and they are: Acrobat.ori Acrofull.pat Patch.exe Now open a windows dos box. Now you have to work in it. iii)It'll be in the C:\Documents and Settings\User folder or something like it, so issue the following commands: iii.1) cd \Windows\Command <enter> iii.2) patch -p Acrobat.ori acrofull.pat Acrobat.exe <enter> iii.3) exit <enter> The dos box closes by itself. Check that now there are four files in the C:\Windows\Command folder, and they are: Acrobat.ori Acrofull.pat Patch.exe Acrobat.exe (this is the patched file) This steps can be done using windows explorer: Copy Acrobat.exe and Acrobat.ori back to the C:\Program files\Adobe\Acrobat6.0\ folder, and say yes when windows explorer asks you about overwriting Acrobat.exe. Still in the \Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\ folder, right-click on Acrobat.exe, choose Properties, and set the read-only attribute. Do the same with Acrobat.ori. Start Acrobat normally, and enjoy your patched Acrobat. BTW, why do you want to use the patched Acrobat 6.0.6 in Win XP?

8-22-2009 Added under "Supported Software, Games + Hardware": * SDHC & micro-SDHC card readers for Windows 98: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=123109 * Reordered some links for easier reference. Enjoy.

Xeno86, you're not banned from MSFN. But all Poland IP's are, for the time being. This is a necessary and unavoidable mesure, at the moment. None of this is directed at you, don't take it personally. Please do not go away, you're a most valued member of our community. I'm sure Tihiy can host KernelEX from Russia, which would solve the present problem in an acceptable way.

Go to RLoew's Software Homepage and visit the Prerelease and Beta Section. HTH

Is there any way to debug it you can think of? I'm certainly willing to pursue it, but I don't know how. What I know is: 1) It doesn't happen most of the time. 2) It doesn't happen twice between any given boot and shutdown (i.e. after the system recovers it doesn't repeat). 3) In Win 98SE with IE6SP1 it can happen very often, almost on every boot, if shdocvw.dll is higher than 6.0.2800.1933 (but that's a scenario unsupported by MS). I don't have any Win 2k rig where I could test it in a supported scenario. 4) It also happens with either IE6 or IE7, in Win XP SP3. 5) When it happens, its usually early after the boot.

I've seen this issue with IE6 in Win 98SE and with IE7 in Win XP SP3. After an intensive seach of the internet, the only report of an analogous issue I was able to find is reported in a brief thread over at techtalkz, where it remains unsolved and seems to have been forgotten already: Curious behavior. IE 7, Vista Business, from which I quote the first post below: To this description, which is very apt, the only info I can add is the following:If, after pasting to IE address bar results in it getting blanked, I return ot notepad (or open another notepad instance) and paste (either with the mouse or with <Shift>-<Ins>), the text gets pasted to notepad all right. I then paste it once again, highlight it and copy it again. I, then return to IE and try to paste it to the address bar. Nothing happens. After I repeat this procedure twice or three times, eventually the text gets pasted normally, and the unusual behaviour disappears, copy and paste working normally until shutdown. But after reboot the strange behaviour reappears. I've known this bug for about two years already. I thought it'd eventually be solved silently by one of the numerous IE updates MS continuously releases. But, by now, it sure seems to me to be here to stay...

Main Threads ========== Unofficial nVidia Drivers 82.69 nVidia Forceware 77.72 Official Drivers nVidia Video Driver Shutdown Fix Other Threads of Interest ================== Windows 98SE XFX7950GT nVidia No supported Geforce 6800 drivers for Windows 98? Will nvidia 8600/9600GT 256MB work under W98? Test, please! nVidia 7600GS won't hold resolution Best Graphics Card With Win98SE Drivers? %5BSolved%5D ForceWare driver question and Win98SE Latest Video Cards For Windows 95? I don't intend to list every last thread ever created here about nVidia and Win 9x/ME, just those containing useful info. Suggestions for inclusion are welcome, send them to me by PM, please.

Aimee Allen - I'd start a Revolution (if I could get up in the morning).

I'd simply find somewhere else to go.It's complicated... There's no place else to go, anymore. And, with the last antivirus software dropping 9x/ME by the end of this year I believe the user-base will start shrinking even faster than it already is, so it's highly improbable there will ever again be enough of us to keep a wiki going or to start a 9x/ME subforum elsewhere.

The ideia of using a floppy is to trap the 1st and 2nd reboots. For that to work in your case, you must: 0) set the boot order to 1: FDD 2: HDD 1) create a DOS bootable floppy and add EDIT.COM to it. 1) make your HDD bootable in DOS 2) copy the win 98 install to a directory named, say, INSTALL (I do it on a second partition, too) 3) create the C:\windows dir at the root of the HDD partition you're installing win 98 to. It'll become %windir%. 4) boot the HDD and start the install by running setup.exe from C:\INSTALL 5) get a USB FDD, insert the floppy on it, and connect it only after you've already booted from the HDD, and before running setup Now setup will got to the 1st reboot, but when it reboots it'll end on the floppy. Then you run EDIT.COM and create the special dummy system.ini. Then you remove the floppy and reboot from the HDD, setup resumes and you insert the floppy back. Setup reaches the 2nd reboot and ends up on the floppy. Now you correct the MaxFileCache and MaxPhysPage again, now in the real system.ini created by setup. Then you remove the floppy and reboot from the HDD, setup resumes and you remove the USB HDD. Setup finishes and the system reboots in Win 98. There you are... This covers steps 1-4 of cannies tutorial, adapted for your case, but do read cannies steps 1-4 again, after reading this post, and I hope then you'll find they make sense (bear in mind it's been some time since I've last done this and I'm writing from my recollections, so some small detail may be missing). PS: I, personally favor using MaxFileCache=393216, instead of MaxFileCache=524288. In any case the values for MaxFileCache and MaxPhysPage you use here are for the purpose of installation only, they may and should be tunned after the system is installed and booting reliably. But that's a subject to be discussed only when you actually have the system installed and booting reliably, right?

@soporific: Glad to see you here again! Hope you can now be around more. @pixturesk: In my opinion, the double-boot config is the way to go. And I do favor a set up using Grub4DOS, which permits both set-ups to be fully independent. What I like to do is: set up 98SE in the first active partitition of the master HDD, with all other drives disconnected, image it and remove it. Then set up XP on FAT-32, again in the first active partitition of the master HDD, also with all other drives disconnected. Deploy the previously saved image of 98SE on the first active partitition of the slave HDD. Set the machine to boot from slave. It'll boot 98SE as C:. Add Grub4DOS to the config.sys, in a [menu] item for it alone. Use Grub4DOS to invert the HDDs and launch XP from the menu.lst. So my machine always boots to DOS as C:, then jumps to XP as C:, if I let it alone. But I can have it boot to 98SE (as C:) from the Grub4DOS menu. If you're interested in this I can give you a more detailed walkthrough. And don't forget about cannie's double-boot tutorial for other good ways of double-booting.

Thanks to both of you for your replies. You set me thinking and I've come with a workaround: I've installed NirSoft's WinExp 1.30 in XP and it lets me bring forth any window in a few clicks, which is much better, actually, than delving in to get at it. Yet, in Win 98SE with IE6, I'm used to see the properties window appear on top... Do you perhaps know of some utility to alter the z-order in even less clicks than needed with WinExp?