RetroOS

Hi dencorso, I attempted earlier in the year to patch the Windows Me VMM.VXD 4.90.0.3003 to work in 98SE... I got all the version checks sorted and also the VMM DOS loader version report to IO.SYS sorted... Nine code changes in all. The problem is that Me VMM.VXD does not like 98SE V86MMGR.VXD... So I patched Me V86MMGR.VXD 4.90.0.3000 to work in 98SE with three code changes... But... 98SE just does not want to work with Me V86MMGR.VXD. It fails with an exception. Probably something to do with IO.SYS I expect. I could not get past the V86MMGR.VXD exception, so I shelved it.

Yeah, not the best wording... I must have got caught up in the happiness of the moment! I should have said that the updated binaries from KB944533 are really stable... Anyway, I'm sure by now that most readers know that MS have not released an official IE6 SP1 update for 9x for ages... Thanks for clearing up my ambiguous wording. And, thanks MDGx for more updates!

Nice! xrayer, does this also let you boot into Safe Mode? This was always a problem with 1.5GB or more of RAM since the SYSTEM.INI memory settings are ignored in Safe Mode. I wonder if by limiting RAM at the XMS manager level, it might be possible to get more RAM available to Windows than the current maximum 1152MB? 1280MB? Something to look at!

Hi rfsapiens, Have you tried using your original settings without XMSDSK? DOS sessions (Virtual Machines) use address space in the 3GB-4GB range along with the Windows Kernel Ring 0 code. AFAIK, XMSDSK also uses some of this space for index tables. To add to this, PCI cards use mapped address space here and also AGP cards. Since your mobo uses AGP, you should reduce the AGP Aperture size. With 2GB of RAM, you might have to use a 64MB Aperture. Some mobos go as high as 512MB which would consume half of the System Arena (3GB-4GB). Try halving the AGP Aperture size, for example, 256MB>128MB, 128MB>64MB, however, do not go below 32MB since most AGP cards will fail at 16MB. You can find the AGP Aperture size in the BIOS settings. Put simply, your DOS VM errors mean that the Windows System Arena is full. Please post your results. Also, do read the topic that dencorso referred to in the previous post. I used posted information on MSFN to reliably get 1.5GB working with Windows 98SE (1.125GB usable in Windows)

Any MAME fans out there using Windows 9x may have noticed that the latest ClrMamePro DAT format has been updated. Also Generic XML format DATs have been added. The problem is that these updated formats are not compatible with this last 9x compatible ClrMamePro... Any DATs that do not work will need converting. Use Logiqx's DatUtil (current version 2.35 works) from http://www.logiqx.com/Tools/DatUtil/ to convert newer DATs to a usable format for us 9x'ers. Use the following command line, replacing [your dat file] with the file name of the DAT in question: datutil -k [your dat file] This will output a datutil.dat file (-k converts all information - rename this output file) that will work under ClrMamePro 3.109a. Happy emulating 9x'ers! B) NEW STUFF: Avast! 4.8 has been released - as usual, it supports every version of Windows from 95 onwards and includes some new protection features!

I was wondering if newer Intel INFs would work. Maybe someone can use the 9x Intel Chipset INF Installer and modify with the latest INFs?

Hey soporific, Two new updates to test/add. See MDGx's topic post and then my response: http://www.msfn.org/board/98-FE-98-SE-upda...225#entry744225 (posts 1031 and 1032) Still going well, in fact Windows 98SE has not gone so well before! It actually seems faster... Maybe it's just in my head?

Cool! I'll check if the latest BROWSEUI.DLL has the same problem with the Windows Me Explorer as the previous version did... Also, Sun Java 6.0 Update 5 is out. I have not tested it yet though... I'll post the results... EDIT: KB944533 looks good so far... Java 6.0u5 looks good so far... EDIT2: It's been 12 days and all is good! KB944533 must be the best IE6 SP1 update pack that MS have released. No problems. Not a sausage. Zilch. Java 6u5 is just as stable. Sweet as!

See this post: http://www.msfn.org/board/NVidia-drivers-8...571#entry740571 What you need is Coolbits enabled! 82.69 customised drivers already have these settings enabled during install. Copy the following text into a text file called, for example, coolbits.reg. REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\NVTweak] "Coolbits"=dword:ffffffff "NvCplEnableAGPSettingsPage"=dword:00000001 "NvCplEnableAdditionalInfoPage"=dword:00000001 Then run the file to add the advanced settings to the registry. You can use this on most, and all new, nVidia driver versions.

If someone modified the 6.2 ATI drivers install INF with the X1000 series PCI IDs then they could be tested with these video cards... I guess the easiest way of getting that list of IDs, would be from the latest XP drivers INFs... I'll take a look some time...

What you downloaded is the Software Developer Kit (SDK). Unless you are a programmer who uses DirectX, this will not be any use to you...

Welcome to MSFN - Especially the Windows 9x Forum! Do you mean the Product Key when you say activation code? The Product Key should be on a small Welcome to Windows 98 book... When you say you currently have it installed from the CD, this sounds like you already have the Product Key? If it is installed already, then there is no further 'activation' required with Windows 98. Perhaps you are referring to an Internet dial-up password? Can you answer the following questions: 1. Can you start up your PC into Windows 98, have you successfully installed Windows 98? 2. Are you stuck at a login box when you start Windows or does the Desktop appear? 3. Did/do you have a connection to the Internet, is it connecting?

Go to this page: http://www.bfgtech.com/bfgr78256gsoc.aspx Select the Support tab, and there is a Windows 9x driver link. It's the only one on the entire site! I found it just after you posted your upload. This one is for the 7800 GS OC 256MB AGP, but even other BFG AGP cards do not have this link! BTW, see this older topic for some discussion about 82.16 drivers: http://www.msfn.org/board/Nvidia-Driver-Wi...8SE-t87082.html

Here's the official BFG 82.16 driver pack download: http://www.bfgtech.com/CMDocs/BFGTech/NVID...x(82_16)int.zip

The last cards that works officially with Catalyst 6.2 are Radeon X850 series. Hi Xeno86, you are of course correct! Catalyst 6.2 drivers fully supported up to Radeon 9800 but also added Beta support for Radeon X300, X550, X600, X800, and X850. I have not had any reports of anyone actually using 9x with a Radeon X-series card... That brings me to the next point: If 6.2 drivers have support, however good or not, for Radeon X-series, then could the Installer/INFs be adapted to test with Radeon X1000 series cards? I knew of a 82.12 nVidia driver released for Windows XP, but not the 82.16 9x ones! That would explain the 10 month gap between 81.98 last officially posted drivers and the leaked beta release of 82.69. It looks like 82.16 9x drivers were never posted, only released to OEMs... It's interesting to note, that by September 2006 when the 82.69 9x drivers were built, that the last 91 series (91.47) driver for Windows 2000/XP were released just before the 92 series came out... It's like nVidia took the last source code they had for 9x, built the drivers, and 'leaked' the files... Or maybe they were a final request from a video card manufacturer... If someone actually has 82.69 9x drivers on a drivers CD with a video card, then the last point would be proven. It would be good to compare the 82.16 and 82.69 drivers and also to give 82.16 as another option for some cards that might have problems with 82.69...

I am not aware of any newer 9x drivers for ATI cards. Radeon 9800 series is the last that works with 6.2. So... nVidia cards are a better option for 9x since the 82.69 unofficial customised drivers support up to series 7 and probably series 8 cards. Still no reports of GeForce 8000 results with 82.69...

It's not a matter of having newer drivers... nVidia have the source code and they have ceased releasing new drivers for 9x. (Just imagine if they released the 9x source code to the public domain... As if...) 81.98 was the last official release. The 82.69 drivers were a leaked beta release that nVidia never released officially. They are the very last 9x drivers ever to be seen from nVidia... Contributors have made some Installer and INF customisations, but the driver files remain as they were 'leaked' from nVidia. That's all folks! I will however say that I have not had a single problem, only improvements, using 82.69 and a nVidia GeForce FX5200 AGP card. Having said that, YMMV depending of the model of card...

Hi Rockeh, You have to install Windows 98 onto a different partition or hard drive than Windows XP. However... Windows 98 should be installed before XP... See this Microsoft KB including resolving 98 after XP: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/293089

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I think Eck's right. People need choices. Some like using KernelEx or RP7 and so on. Some don't. Some like IE6, some like IE5... I think the Windows 9x Member Projects stickies list do the job. For those interested, Market Share publish OS share information (from Internet accesses). Here are the stats for the last two years: Windows 98/98SE: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.asp...=85&qpnp=25 Windows Me: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.asp...=85&qpnp=25 Windows 95: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.asp...=85&qpnp=25 Combined Windows 9x for January 2008: 0.66+0.36+0.02 = 1.04% Their sources are from http://www.netapplications.com/ which Market Share are part of. Obviously this does not include 'offline' PCs that do not browse the Internet. I'm also not sure of their coverage although other tracking sites show similar stats. Here is another stats site: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp W3Counter stats show Windows 9x at 1.49% (1.09+0.40): http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php It looks like Windows 9x Internet presence has been dropping by about 50% per year for at least five years. It's safe to say that Internet connected Windows 9x PCs for 2008 will probably sit around 1 to 1.5% of all Internet connected OSs. According to this site, there are over 1 billion Internet users (already out of date!): http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933606.html So, that means that there are over 15 million Internet connected Windows 9x PCs... My understanding was that there are over 50 million PCs still running Windows 9x... Who's counting?

It's like a good cheese - One never wants it to end! That's why I have both 98SE and XP on my PC - the memories go on. BTW, A big welcome to MSFN!

MaxPhysPage=30000 has to be under the [386Enh] section of SYSTEM.INI. You will need to put MaxFileCache=65536 under the [vcache] section in SYSTEM.INI. If there is no [vcache] section then just add it to the end of the file. After Windows has installed, you can experiment with these values to find optimal maximums. You can get to a 98SE command prompt by holding the Ctrl key as Windows starts. You may need to hold the Ctrl key just after the computer beeps after the POST. The Microsoft Windows 98 Startup Menu will appear. Select Safe mode command prompt only. This can also be used when you are testing values of the above and Windows does not start. From the command prompt, type edit c:\windows\system.ini Use the Alt key to bring up the Edit menu.

I'm running Windows 98SE as my primary OS and dual booting with XP on my second HDD. I have a nVidia GeForce FX 5200 video card and have been using the unofficial 82.69 video drivers for the last eight months with no problems. They are slightly faster than the official 81.98 drivers. Have a look here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=97140

Hi soporific, Did you ever compile the system tweaks, specifically the caching and RAM limit tweaks, that you established from the VCACHE topic? Also, look at my post regarding settings for 1.5GB of RAM - these have been working flawlessly ever since. I know that the AP settings are currently wrong for 1.5GB of RAM...

Hey Xeno86, It's great to see you around! See Offler's topic here: http://www.msfn.org/board/Vcredist-x86-t112725.html He has identified three post-9x API calls being made to KERNEL32.DLL from VS2008 library DLLs. Also there is Windows version checking happening.