dencorso

Great news, erpdude8! And mystery solved: Gape wasn't referring to Q329128 in a roundabout way after all! There really IS a Q301453 Win98 FE and SE hotfix!!! So, then, that's whence Gape got those files, after all, just as he said!!! Gape, I tend you my apologies. Say, erpdude8, have you already asked for the Win ME version of Q301453, or should I?

Well, here is a version history for CDVSD.VXD: LENOVO Windows 95/98 installation supplement files - ThinkPad 390, 172x 12/04/1998 04:47p 4.10.0.2001 30,395 CDVSD.VXD Windows 98 FE KB242534 Computer Hangs When Removing DVD-ROM Drive From Bay 12/03/1999 04:47p 4.10.0.2184 31,931 CDVSD.VXD Windows 98 FE 12/06/1999 12:46p 4.10.0.2223 32,443 CDVSD.VXD Windows 98 SE KB265314 Error Message "No Valid Drive/Disc Found" Playing Audio CD After Using Data CD-ROM 06/21/2000 12:47pm 4.10.0.2185 31,931 Cdvsd.vxd Windows 98 FE 06/21/2000 12:33pm 4.10.0.2224 32,443 Cdvsd.vxd Windows 98 SE KB265405 Problems Resuming After Suspend While MPEG Is Playing 06/28/2000 10:00am 4.10.0.2225 32,443 Cdvsd.vxd Windows 98 SE KB274370 Error Message on a Blue Screen When You Try to Play Digital CD Audio 09/28/2000 10:26p 4.10.0.2186 32,443 Cdvsd.vxd Windows 98 FE 09/28/2000 10:05p 4.10.0.2226 32,443 Cdvsd.vxd Windows 98 SE 09/28/2000 10:08p 4.90.0.3002 41,643 Cdvsd.vxd Windows Me KB304708 Your Computer May Stop Responding with IEEE 1394 DVD and USB Storage Drives 08/09/2001 7:08a 4.90.0.3003 41,643 Cdvsd.vxd Windows Me Many of us are using CDVSD.VXD v. 4.10.0.2224, kindly posted by ElectricString, since Xeno86 found out that CDVSD.VXD v. 4.10.0.2226 is buggy, as reported here. CDVSD.VXD v. 4.10.0.2225 has not surfaced up to know, so it is unavailable for testing. The version history I presented above shows that Win ME CDVSD.VXD v 4.90.0.3002 is equivalent to Win 98SE CDVSD.VXD v 4.10.0.2226. This makes Win ME CDVSD.VXD v 4.90.0.3003 the most updated version of that VXD, up to the present, thus presumably incorporating all the previous hotfixes. Yet, unpatched Win ME CDVSD.VXD cannot run under Win 98SE. But the selfsame version patch that I applied to USB FDD DiskTSD.VxD 4.90.0.3000 Patch, allows Win ME CDVSD.VXD v 4.90.0.3003 to run flawlessy under Win 98SE. I have been using it since Oct 31st in my system, without any problem, so I can affirm it works OK and has not the bug Xeno86 found on v. 4.10.0.2226. So here I offer you the patched version of Win ME CDVSD.VXD v 4.90.0.3003, renumbered as 4.90.0.3004 to reflect the fact it has been patched and runs OK under Win 98SE and FE (but not anymore under Win ME!). Download-link: CDVSD.VXD v. 4.90.0.3004 for Win 98 SE (and FE) or at uploaded to As always, the standard disclaimer applies: It works great for me, but YMMV and I can guarantee nothing whatsoever about this patch, and about the use you make of it. By deciding to use it you fully accept that anything you do is of YOUR SOLE RESPONSIBILITY... Moreover, modding files voids the EULA, of course. You have been warned.

If you are, perchance, loading EMM386.EXE, remove it, windows does not need it. And I think you should also remove ACPI and APM altogether from Win 98SE, as I said above. I have 1.5GB of memory in my machine and manage to use conditions much less stringent than those you found to work. After I removed ACPI and APM, my system became stable enough to run for more than 4 days without reboot. And all my periodic "Windows Protection Errors disappeared"!!! See my post above and the links on it.

Well, eidenk, it's not so good: I've removed .NET, because it caused the seach bug, at least in my system, and I don't have many applications that use .NET (the few I have I can run on Win XP, in the rare occasions I need them). I think I did a good job at removing .NET, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is still some junk in the registry left by it that has eluded me up to now. But I shall shortly attack this problem and, of course, will keep you posted. Thanks for all the valuable info/tips/pointers-to-applications. You rock! Now let me point you to a program I have found very useful: Registry Viewer 4.2, by General Paul Lee (a russian programmer). It is a DOS program, able to directly modify (not add) registry settings from DOS!!! The only bug I ever found in it is that it should let you select interactively the registry file you want to open, when called without any parameter in the command line, but that doesn't work. But calling it as "regview <drive>:\<path>\<filename>.dat" always works OK. Hope you too find it useful.

Way to go, PassingBy! Now, thanks to you, Win 98 FE is also fully covered by NUSB! Keep on the great work!

Lecco, you have my sympathy. Now, tell us your brand new 500GB WD drive, is it PATA or SATA? Because, if it IS SATA, then LLXX 48bit LBA oughtn't help you in any way (read older posts in this thread, and you'll confirm this). Then your problem is getting the right VSATAVSD.VXD and related files, that is the right SATA driver for Win 98SE. The downside is that, AFAIK, only Via provides one, and I do not know whether it is a generic driver masquerading as product specific, or if not. HTH

Hi, eidenk! As always, you bring us good news and wonderful tools! I shall try the method you described shortly. Of the UserAssist issue I was aware. There is lots of info in a page by Helamonster and his handy, dependable and quite funny named little utility, UserAss, that does a pretty good job at eliminating UserAssist from the registry once and forevermore. The downside is that UserAssist exists in USER.DAT, so that eliminating it srinks the registry but does not shrink SYSTEM.DAT, which, in my system, is already at 8.2 MB, after running Registry Concentrator (thanks a lot for it, BTW). So my next priority is to shrink it asap.

Hi, maximus-decim! While poring over an .INF provided by Mitsumi for their USB FDD, I believe I found another brand of USB FDD that is not yet included in NUSB: the "EKE USB Floppy", which has VID_049f&PID_0054. The .INF file in question is attached for you to check whether I'm right or not, since you're much more knowledgeable about .INFs than myself. NUSB rules! Keep on the great work! PUSBSTSM.INF

Workaround for faster emptying of the Recycle Bin: 1) Get NIRCMD.EXE (you'll find it at the NirSoft site); 2) Put it in %windir%\COMMAND; 3) Create a shotcut on the desktop. Right-clic it and in the Properties -> Shortcut tab give it the following Target: START /m nircmd emptybin and set it to Run Minimized. Click Apply, then OK. Name it, say, "Flush Bin". From now on, instead of right-clicking on the Recycle Bin and selecting Empty Recycle Bin, you just double-click Flush Bin. HTH

Yea, those were my thoghts also. I've searched for scrubber and found it here. While there is no version for Win 9x/ME, Avid offers two different versions, one for 2k and the other for XP. The accompanying documentation (entitled "Scrubber Utility for Avid Unity Products", let's call it SUAUP) provides some more tidbits of information, so now I think I do see a thread. Of course, by kernel they must be referring to all fundamental system components, not just krnl386.exe + kernel32.dll. And it makes sense that those files got bigger and bigger with every new version of windows. That said, the limits for system.dat seem to be: 12.5MB for Win 9x/ME (your finding) 11 MB for Win 2k (plain vanilla) (from SUAUP for 2k) 10.3 MB for Win 2k Server (from KB277222) 8MB for win XP (from SUAUP for XP) SUAUP for 2k states, clearly, "If this file reaches approximately 11 MB in size under Windows 2000, the system may fail to boot and need to be rebuilt", which parallels quite nicely your own statement of the issue, on the first post. It remains to be seen whether any of the scrubbers can be made to work with Win 9x/ME. And investigate every registry cleaner and/or compactor to be able to deal with this issue as best as we can.

Get and install WINTOP (you'll find it at MDGx's site) and let's find out which process is using all that CPU time. HTH

To allow you to force a new IRQ on the SATA driver at the SCSI tab in the Device Manager. Disabling also NVRAM/ESCD Updates (in the System Devices -> Plug and Play Bios tab) might also be of help. I don't know for a fact whether it will work or not in your particular case. But I'd give it a try. If it doesn't help, you can undo it quite fast.

Why don't you try the USB 2.0 drivers in PassingBy's NUSB 3.12 for Win 98FE? They are the only option I see left. You'll find them in the NUSB thread, and I'm sure PassingBy will be glad to help you if you have any problem installing them. Good luck! HTH BTW, did you disable IRQ Steering in My Computer -> Properties -> Device Manager -> System Devices -> PCI Bus -> Properties -> IRQ Steering ? It might help.

You'll find them in the .CABs inside the Danish version of MSIE401SP2.EXE, possibly also inside older versions of Internet Explorer 4. advpack.dll 4.72.3612.1700 is inside ACTSETUP.CAB explorer.exe 4.72.3612.1700 is inside IE4SHL95.CAB or, if you want the NT version, inside IE4SHLNT.CAB BTW, you'll also find the same version of explorer.exe in all versions of Internet Explorer 5, up to IE55SP2.EXE, but, then, the version of advpack.dll to be found will be higher than the one you asked. HTH

BTW, does anyone have any info on Real Alternative? If so, please, do tell us! Text added 4th November 2007 - 04:22 PM: In view of the next post, let me just say: Thanks a lot, Philco! You rock!

Way to go, PassingBy! regarding your questions: 4 and 5. The patched DISKTSD.VXD (4.90.3000) ought to work OK in Win 98FE. I think no other driver will be required, besides the NUSB files and DISKTSD.VXD. If not, consider, as the first step, adding CDVSD.VXD 4.90.0.3003, previously patched by the same method to change version. I know it works OK in Win 98SE. I'm using both right now. 6. I think so, yes. Keep on the great work!

Hi, oscardog! I do appreciate your point: loosing llxx was really bad. No argument here. But splitting the thread will allow for easier and more convenient discussion of the two sub-topics in question, whitout resulting in the end of this thread per se. So I insist it ought to be done.

Please read the thread VCACHE fix attempt, at least from post #7 to post #38, and do follow the links therein. If that doen't solve your problem, do also remove ACPI and APM altogether from Win 98SE, here's how. But since yours is a double boot machine, you should let APIC and ACPI activated in BIOS (that is, skip item 1 in my procedure), for the benefit of Win 2k, unless you decide to remove them also from Win 2k, which I think is unnecessary... Good luck and keep me posted. HTH

Well, PassingBy, MS usbhub20.sys is a WDM driver (hence a PE executable), so it's a totally different animal than a VxD... By looking into it with eXeScope, you'll find out it asks for win 4.0 (= win 95) everywhere, so I think version checks are not the problem. But if VIA usbhub20.sys works, you should compare both usbhub20.sys's with eXeScope, MiTeC EXE Explorer, and PEDUMP.EXE by Matt Pietrek, to see what you find. A quick look with dependency walker shows them to have the same dependencies, which is good for a start. Good luck! Do keep us posted on your progresses. And... Keep on the great work!

Thanks a whole lot, MDGx! You really do rock! Text added 1st November 2007, 06:09 PM Well, in view of the next post, let me say: Way to go, maximus-decim! You too rock, you know!

Not so. If you'd taken the trouble to actually *read* the thread, you'd have found PassingBy's NUSB 3.11 Alpha for W98FE

Mightn't KB277222 be relevant to this issue? I'm fully aware it refers to Win 2k, but...

Precisely so! At DDK_Version and at SDK_Version. But, in DOS, a guest program asked the OS for its version, while, in Win, AFAIK, the guest program informs the OS which Win version it was meant for. But, at the end of the day, it has the same result. Go for it! I do believe it may work im many cases. As it was back then, programmers still today have the habit of implementing unnecessarily over-restrictive version checking. No, we don't. The version numbers are unchanged in the VS_FIXEDFILEINFO Structure. That should be enough, don't you agree? It's us that need to know which file is which. Windows must not, or it won't work! Best wishes.

Hi, MDGx! Now that you're back, let me please direct your attention to two subjects I believe will interest you. 1)Random occasional lock-ups due to CNTRL98 (updated Win 98 SE CONTROL.EXE v4.10.0.1999) update: see this post by fastlanephil and the second post following it, by myself. I believe CONTROL.EXE v4.10.0.1999 needs revision. But, unfortunately, all I can report about the lock-ups is that they are haphazard and occur for no apparent reason. 2) My own USB FDD DiskTSD.VxD 4.90.0.3000 Patch, to allow NUSB to work with FDDs without eliciting a BSOD! Petr's findings (as quoted in my post) indicate there might be problems in incorporating it to 98SE3ME, so, please, do test it in this context. Also, the principle underlying this patch is pretty general, and might allow the use of other Win ME VxDs in Win 98SE. But among those that always crashed Win 98SE, which do you think would be the most worthy of investigation? Please advise. bristols words also represent my own feelings exactly, so: Added on October 31st, 2007 - 01:09 AM: I confirm that the selfsame patching strategy applies to other files, as it has enabled me to have the following Win ME files running on my Win 98SE system, up to now without any detectable problems: DISKTSD.VXD v. 4.90.0.3000 DISKVSD.VXD v. 4.90.0.3001 CDTSD.VXD v. 4.90.0.3000 CDVSD.VXD v. 4.90.0.3003 SMARTVSD.VXD v. 4.90.0.3000 and with a slightly modificated version patching VNETBIOS.VXD v. 4.90.3000 (since Nov 10th 2007)

Yes.It makes no sense. IE5.5.is outdated and 98/ME/NT4 are able to run IE6. Oops!... Ain't that the Chewbacca Defense???