dencorso

Hence, we gotta "use the Force, Luke!" Seriously, now: where there is no source, one has to: repeat begin Formulate Hypoteses; Test 'em; end; until (it works!). So it's all the more challenging, and lots more of fun (and of frustration). And it takes a long time... But every new success shows it can be done, and this forum has lots of good examples of it. So let's cheer up, please!

Every form of help really helps. And there are so many aspects of Win 9x/ME that are undocumented that careful testing and investigation helps a lot in the developing of any needed patches. And the testing of the patches that are eventually created is also fundamental to ensure they perform as they should. Your own contribution in the Win 9x/ME topics regarding more than 512 MB of RAM are a good example of helpful material. I, for one, have no doubts that you are continuously contributing to keep Win 9x/ME alive and kicking!

Well, the last resort is to try rloew's RAM Limitation Patch. It's not for free, though. But the demo is, so you can test and see whether it solves your problem. HTH.

Hey, welcome back, Petr! Your presence has been sorely missed! Even if you've lost interest in Win 9x/ME (I sure hope you have not, though), please do visit us more often... Your presence and your knowledgeable contributions are very important for us. You do rock! Best wishes! Den.

I have it in my system. It came with GoogleEarth 4.0.2416.0 (beta). Hence, it's freely available. But to make it easy for you, since GoogleEarth is a way too big download to do for just one file, I have uploaded it here: ATL71.DLL version 7.10.3077.0 (ANSI). It is the latest existing version of this file, AFAIK. And ShadeTreeLee is right: in its properties, it says it is part of MS Visual Studio .NET, although it does not depend on any files from the .NET framework. HTH

It is possible to do it. Read this old post of mine. Andy Aronoff's post at techarena seems not to exist anymore, so I reproduce it here. AFAIK, Andy was the first to describe how to do it. As it turns out, what was keeping the PC from booting was the MaxFileCache value. I was able to boot with MaxPhysPage=38000 and MaxFileCache=30000. If MaxFileCache was above 200000, the PC wouldn't boot. Below 200000, it would boot, but running an MS-DOS program would throw the error, "There is not enough memory available to run this program." The error occurred at 40000 but not at 30000. I'm now able to boot into W98 SE and run MS-DOS programs. That's exactly what I wanted. regards, Andy If that's not enough, be sure to read thoroughly all that's been posted about "Win 9x/ME with more than 512MB" (and follow the links therein), including the present thread from the begining and also these others: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=105373 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=99263 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=79756 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=59765 Good luck!

4GB is a no-no for Win 9x/ME.

Well, you can just rename the USBSTOR.INF from NUSB 2.4 to, say, USBSTOR.024 and copy the USBSTOR.INF from NUSB 3.3 to the %windir%\INF dir, and then either delete USBSTOR.024 or just let it lie there, without ever leaving windows. Provided you never ever plug an USB Floppy Disk Drive, this will work just fine. And add a lot more definitions to your system, so it can potentially recognize even more devices. HTH.

Well first of all, not 2 bytes twice but 20 bytes. If I changed 2 bytes I would completely limit maximum cache size setting, while this fix leaves you the freedom and flexibility to set it to whatever value you want (max 800M). It only affects default (automatic) value. Secondly, what kind of fix did you expect for this particular issue? I'm open for ideas and discussion. If you can do better - prove it It's certainly better than the "workaround" advised by Microsoft ... and it can be easily slipstreamed into Windows installation CD. Hi, Xeno86! I now have had time to analyze your patch, and I have to strongly disagree with Tihiy: You patch is concise, elegant and to the point. And far better than the classic "two bytes twice" aproach, because it alters only the default value, while allowing for "MaxFileCache" values both above an below the default, provided they are not above 800 MB. My compliments! Keep on the great work! You rock!

Hi, risk_reversal! 1.) Yes, but NUSB v. 3.3 also has some additional important files. See below. 2) Yes, I've done that without problems, but USBSTOR.INF by itself is not enough. So, if you install NUSB 2.4, you should substitute its USBSTOR.INF by that in NUSB 3.3, AND also substitute, at least, DISKTSD.VXD and CDVSD.VXD from your %windir%\system\vmm32 directory by those found in NUSB 3.3. DISKTSD.VXD is fundamental for using USB Floppy Disk Drives without getting a BSOD. Both VxDs are the last versions compatible with Win 9x, so they improve overall performance by preventing crashes. 3) I think you can upgrade flawlessly. But I never had the opportunity to test this approach, because the two machines having NUSB 2.4 that I have worked on had no USB 2.0 hardware, so I did what I described above, instead of doing a full upgrade. HTH. Best wishes.

@thydreamwalker, bristols, barbarien, Eck, the_guy: Lots of thanks to all of you for answering so promptly. You all rock! So Shockwave 10.2.0.23 is the way to go (and even Adobe recognized it!!! ).

@barbarien & bristols: Thanks a lot for the download sites and the cool Shockwave test. You rock! @bristols: Are you actually using 10.2.0.23? Whats your experience with it? After the sad experience I had with 10.3.0.24 I'm wary of upgrading Shockwave, but I reckon that maybe 10.2.0.23 is the last fully working version for Win 9x. Please advise.

Hi, Eck! I had the same results with Shockwave 10.3.0.24. It is not good for Win 9x+IE6. But Shockwave 10.2.0.22 works fine on my system. However, I cannot find where I saved a copy of its full installer. I'd appreciate very much if someone were able to upload it somewhere and post a link to it. That someone happens to be me. I guess my reply elsewhere was more categoric than it should have been. What I meant was that Norton Utilities 2001 is not compatible with 48bit LBA. And that I know for sure that System Works 2003 is compatible, and that NDD for DOS 2002 is compatible as well. I don't know for a fact that the windows applications in Norton Utilities 2002 are not compatible with 48bit LBA, because I don't have Norton Utilities 2002. Sorry if my message was misleading. Please do some testing, because it may be compatible after all. I know first hand about NU 2000 (which is not compatible with 48bit LBA) and about the NU and Ghost in System Works 2003, which are compatible. And about NDD for DOS 2002 because it is the one that comes with System Works 2003 (2002 is the last version for the Norton DOS utilities). I've also read about NU 2001 not being compatible on various places, but I've never read anything about NU 2002. If you have it, please do test it and tell us your results. Good luck!

You need at least the Norton Disk Doctor 2003, which comes with Norton System Works 2003. It also contains Norton Disk Doctor 2002 ..10E for DOS. I bought mine (2003 Professional Edition) used really cheap on eBay... As for your questions: A) Probably. But testing your partitions along the lines described by LLXX wouldn't hurt. See the theads on 48bit LBA (one started by LLXX, the other by Petr) here on MSFN. B) v. 2001 maybe. v. 2002 for DOS or 2003 for Win should be safe.

See my original post. I will be adding an example image shortly. Sure. I missed the link. Sorry. Guess I was too sleepy at the time. Then again, it seems to me your posted link already brings the solution you seek: well down below in the page it says, rather tersely: Erwin Ried has a similar solution as well here. The link in "here" points to Ewin Ried's page, in spanish. In that page there is a download link for Erwin's alternate solution, and as he himself stated on the response part of the page you indicated: "My solution runs as a service. Is not the optimal solution, is a bit lighter than yours (is in VB6 not .Net)". So, try Erwin's solution. It does not use .Net but the patcher is in spanish. It may work with english versions, but it also may not. Anyway you should test it. In the case it's not compatible with english versions, try contacting Erwin Ried. He is fluent in english, and probably will be glad to provide an english version of his patch. HTH. BTW, try as I might, I am unable to reproduce that bug in my own system (Win 98SE + 98SE2ME, with all available updates, but no .Net). Ain't it a NT/2k/XP/2k3 bug only? Are you sure?

I use Adaptec ASPI v4.71.2, for a long time already, and I never had any problems because of it. The BSOD on ejecting a removable storage medium with files open is, the normal behaviour (i.e.: "by design"). It's not a bug and patching CDTSD.VxD to override it will entail data loss sooner or later. I strongly advise against it.

It sure helped me! Thanks a lot. You rock!

Now I know the problems (random system-wide lock-ups) fastlanephil and I were experiencing were due to the now known incompatibility between CONTROL.EXE v4.10.1999 and 98SE2ME. Now I'm using v.4.90.0.3001 without any problems (Thanks erpdude8 and MDGx!). But I think I should write this to dispel any doubts I may have caused: CONTROL.EXE v4.10.1999 is perfectly safe for Win 98FE. Keep on the great work!

What is the infamous 10+ year-old tooltip bug, please?

Hi Offler, I ran Dependency Walker on my Explorer.exe and got the same missing exports in delay-load dependent modules of shlwapi.dll. The file is part of Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1 (it shows how embedded IE is into Windows!). It is part of the Cumulative Update for IE6 SP1. Because of this, the file (and others in IE) are designed for all OSs from 98 to XP. Therefore, it will check the OS and available DLL exports and run accordingly. In this case I would not be concerned by DW's report. Hi, Offler and RetroOS! As RetroOS explained, there are files designed to work both in the 9x/ME family AND in the NT/XP family. These files do have missing dependencies, when used in the 9x/ME family, which can be safely ignored. They can be, AFAIK: i) For DLLs: these missing DLLs APPHELP.DLL USERENV.DLL UXTHEME.DLL and these missing imports CoWaitForMultipleHandles in OLE32.DLL SHBindToParent in SHELL32.DLL SHPathPrepareForWriteW in SHELL32.DLL ii) For SYSs and MPDs (WDM files): NTOSKRNL.EXE HAL.DLL As long as only these dependencies are missing, you usually are on the safe side. Of course, a note saying so ought ideally to accompany Dependency Walker, but things are usually far from perfect, as you well know...

Hi, RetroOS! Welcome to the more than 1GB RAM world... I'm glad to see our previous discussions were of help. But do read carefully Igor Leyko's article, kindly translated from the Russian for us by GreyPhound. I believe it answers some of your questions. If you can afford the time, do read that thread entirely, it is worthwhile. I believe you'll be able to set a XMSDSK ramdisk of just under 200 MB on your remaining RAM, but you won't be able to use all of it, because if you do you won't be able to launch even a single DOS box... If you don't have time for the whole thread, be sure not to miss at least this landmark post by diskless. Cheers!

interesting. might be worth a try. This will not help because there is no protected-mode version of XMSDSK to replace the 16-bit version (no xmsdsk.vxd). Would it be possible to have an xmsdsk.vxd? I don't know, but there isn't one and the RAM drive is still very fast in compatibility mode. Yes, diskless, of course! I do stand corrected! It would be necessary to have some 32-bit acess compliant VxD to take over processing from XMSDSK, while using the FAT-16 virtual disk structures created by it. That's precisely what VMM.VxD does with HIMEM.SYS: it substitutes HIMEM'S code by its own, but uses the Handles table and other data structures created by HIMEM, instead of creating its own data structures. Yea, I know, I ought to think some more before posting... @Offler: Win 98SE will recognize up to 1160 MB without any patching, as we know from last years' discussions. But that is as far as it can go, so any extra memory should be used as a XMSDSK ramdrive. But that means a ramdrive no bigger than 512 MB, so I contend there is no sense in using 32 kB clusters, when one can use 16 kB (as I do) or even 8 kb. The smaller the cluster, the more efficient the disk usage, AFAIK. Then again, YMMV... But do take a look at this interesting document, by Shrishail Rana, that I found I don't remember where on the internet. In particular, look at the Average Cluster Efficiency table on page 6. Update: I am now using 8kB clusters, since I replaced the "/c32" switch by "/c1", which instructs XMSDSK to use the smallest possible clusters automatically. Fat32___File_Systems_Guide.pdf

Norton Disk Doctor (from Norton Utilities 2002 rev 10E) should work, as well as ndd32, from within Win98SE.To format it I'd use GDISK or GDISK32 from Symantec Ghost. When RPM can't do the job, it's my preferred alternative. But there's plenty of free altenatives to it, that I never tried...

IMHO, Auto-Patcher for Windows 98 SE (English) what you're searching for! But wait for the December 2007 version, which is due for release quite soon.

Hi dencorso, I did some searching around to find reputable sources for these two files (because the 3dMark2003 download suggest by Offler is too large for me). Hopefully I have found some: MSVCP70.DLL: http://paradroid.sourceforge.net/msvcp70.dll IJL15.DLL, contained within the Intel JPEG Library Video Codec 1.0: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Vi...deo-Codec.shtml HTH. Hi, bristols and Offler: Thanks a whole lot! You do rock, both of you! @bristols: Yes! The links you found are much more convenient, for sure.