RetroOS

I have a strange one! Background: On the odd occasion Windows becomes unstable, maybe from an unstable app or driver, or exhausted resources. So, I have to use Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart, or worse, the reset button if I have an unrecoverable BSOD. This happens more often if I am testing various software and especially if testing additional XP software with KernelEx. BTW, this is not the problem yet... Here's the problem: After restarting, ClearType is mostly off - when I say mostly off, it is not on the Desktop, Start Menu, Explorer, and some apps... But not all. To get it back, I have to use RPConfig to turn off Use ClearType, Apply, turn on Use ClearType, Apply, and then restart. If I don't restart, then nothing has changed. If I don't toggle the state of ClearType before restarting, then also nothing changes... If I do a normal shutdown/restart, then all is fine. As far as I can recall, it has reacted this way since the first RP9 versions.

And the SSM Free Edition Release Notes if someone wants them.

I'm using gdiplus.dll 5.1.3102.5581 from MS08-052 (954593) - Windows XP SP3 version. It's never had a problem.

ldb, this problem would be best posted in the KernelEx topic: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=130936 You need to supply more information: - What version of Windows do you have? - Do you have any older version of KernelEx already installed? If so, was/did it uninstall correctly? If you are running Windows 98SE: - Do you have an older version of Revolutions Pack 7 or earlier installed? - Do you have MDGx's 98SE2ME installed? - Do you have the unofficial service pack 2 or 3 installed? - Have you installed soporific's Auto-Patcher 98SE? Please post version and date of following files: kernel32.dll shell32.dll gdi32.dll gdi.exe explorer.exe Thanks.

Yeah, they're all here on MSFN (hehe). I don't know anyone where I am who is using anything less than Windows XP now!!! I feel like the Lone Ranger of Operating System Land! Why do people collect old stamps, coins, books? Why do people take an old car and do it up to working again? Why do people repair old houses, buildings, boats? Why do people collect music from the 60's? Why do people keep old operating systems going? My PC runs Windows XP fine, but I rarely work in it. I like Windows 98SE! Kids today don't know what a command prompt is, or have ever seen DOS. When Windows 98SE was all the rage, they were playing in their sand boxes... Times change, but not everyone changes with it... Well, maybe this year is going to be the last gasps of Windows 9x? It's funny though - My Windows 98SE doesn't have an expiry!

Hey starcraftmaster, can you post here all the codes and info on the big black chip on the card that has CREATIVE on it? Thanks.

Yep! A dying breed... Holding on by our finger nails! According to Market Share, the entire Windows 9x (March 2009) usage is: Windows 95 = 0.01% Windows 98 = 0.19% Windows Me = 0.12% So, Windows 9x = 0.32% Dying, but not dead!

Well, the first thing I can tell is that it's not part of the Sound Blaster Live! family... All the Live! cards have a PCI ID starting with PCI\VEN_1102&DEV_0002. The one you have starts with PCI\VEN_1102&DEV_0006. I would say at first glance that the Live! drivers will probably never work on this card... I could be wrong though... It all depends on whether it has an EMU10K1 chipset... The Audigy family has an EMU10K2 chipset.

An RTM! Nice! Everything is operationally okay. I do have a really small cosmetic issue. In Display Properties, Effects, the Desktop icons box is not using alpha masking... I'm using a nVidia GeForce FX 5500. No big deal. Keep up the good work!

A good sign from VIA regarding Windows 9x is that they have now put the Windows 9x VIAStor IDE driver back into their latest Hyperion Pro 5.20A. This now means that 5.20A contains all the VIA chipset drivers in one package again and there is no need to install 5.11A first. I'm a happy camper. So... ONGD - FREE - VIA Hyperion Pro (5.20A with 9x VIAStor IDE driver) --- http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageI...&CatID=1110 I would therefore think that it also contains all VIA 9x SATA drivers as well... (I don't have SATA so I cannot confirm) Well, would you believe it! VIA have dropped the Windows 9x VIAStor IDE driver again!!! As of 5.22a, the Windows 9x VIAStor IDE driver is no longer bundled... So, you will need to install 5.21a first: http://www.viaarena.com/Driver/via_hyperionpro_v521a.zip Then install the current VIA Hyperion Pro version. So... Chipset Drivers ONGD - FREE - VIA Hyperion Pro (5.23A) without Windows 9x VIAStor IDE driver --- http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageI...&CatID=1110 LAST - FREE - VIA Hyperion Pro 5.21A with Windows 9x VIAStor IDE driver --- http://www.viaarena.com/Driver/via_hyperionpro_v521a.zip * Install VIA Hyperion Pro 5.21A followed by the latest version to get the VIAStor IDE driver and also the latest other drivers/infs. Sophos Antivirus 9x (already in list) is set to End-Of-Life of December 31, 2010. See here: http://www.sophos.com/support/lifecycle/ Already in list but now last version: Windows Utilities LAST - FREE - Easy Duplicate Finder 1.4.4 --- http://www.easyduplicatefinder.com/files/e...setup_win9x.exe Already in list but now last version: Internet Browsers LAST - FREE - Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.20 --- http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html Already in list but now last version: Office Programs LAST - FREE - OpenOffice.org 2.4.2 --- http://download.openoffice.org/2.4.2/index.html Already in list but now: Internet Plugins + Utilities LAST - FREE - Java Runtime Environment 5.0 Update 18 (6.0 Update 7 works) --- http://www.java.com Some new stuff: Windows Utilities ONGD - FREE - Eraser (secure file erase/move) --- http://sourceforge.net/projects/eraser Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) LAST - FREE - APC PowerChute plus 5.0.2 (for Smart-UPS)--- ftp://ftp.apcc.com/apc/public/software/wi...2/pcplus502.exe LAST - FREE - APC PowerChute Personal Edition 1.5.0 (for Back-UPS) --- ftp://ftp.apcc.com/apc/public/software/wi...onalEdition.exe LAST - FREE - Powercom UPSMON 2.743 --- http://www.pcmups.com.tw/download/Download/upsmon2_743.zip BTW galahs, your URLs are messed up in the Office Programs section... The messed up lines should look like this: LAST - FREE - Microsoft Office Converter Pack 97-2003 --- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;DisplayLang=en LAST - FREE - Microsoft Word 97 Viewer (97-2003) --- http://downloads.pcworld.com/pub/new/busin...s/wd97vwr32.exe LAST - FREE - Microsoft Excel 97 Viewer (97-2003) --- http://downloads.pcworld.com/pub/new/busin...es/xlviewer.exe LAST - FREE - Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 Viewer (97-2003) --- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;DisplayLang=en LAST - FREE - Microsoft Visio 2002 Viewer (5-2002) --- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;DisplayLang=en

I've tested the recent release of MSXML 4.0 Service Pack 3... It installs but does not work. Any app that uses MSXML 4.0 just closes. It appears that Microsoft have dropped ANSI support in Service Pack 3... The last version of MSXML 4.0 Service Pack 2 that works on 9x is still: 954430 (MS08-069 955218) Service Pack 2 has these three files on 9x: msxml4.dll msxml4a.dll msxml4r.dll Service Pack 3 has these two files on 9x: msxml4.dll msxml4r.dll SP3 is missing the ANSI resource file msxml4a.dll... I tried using the SP2 file, but it made no difference...

There's this topic: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=120479

10 years? It's just reaching maturity!

As mentioned previously, Creative are hiding the information I need related to the model number... The only way currently is to actually have the card in the PC and read what Windows has got from the card... Even then, I'm not sure what we can get working with these latest cards. But we'll try...

starcraftmaster, if you have the card installed in your PC, can you please post the PCI ID of the card here. See the instructions under the card list in the First Post I'm not able to get the PCI ID information from the latest drivers since Creative now encrypt this information(!) - as if it's really secret! Anyone can find it if they have the card.

Yes it does! I delayed posting results until I had thrashed out Windows 98SE+98SE2ME+Me Explorer/Shell/UI with both RP 9.0.10 refresh and KEx 4.0.12 (RC2). I've been running since a couple of hours after the 9.0.10 refresh was posted. I loaded and rendered many Blender 3D models, played around with some Blender 3D games, ran Firefox 3.0.8, and many other apps including XP only ones. I was actually surprised at how long 98SE ran before finally, after many hours, crashing because I exhausted the USER resources! RP9 (and KEx4) Rock! And... Tihiy, you ROCK too! Thanks so much for this latest fix! Now I'm cooking with gas! Happy camper!

My kernel32.dll is version 4.10.0.2226 If it helps, krnl386.exe is version 4.10.0.2000 I'm running Windows 98SE with 98SE2ME (including Option 3) and all current 98SE updates.

The problem with 512MiB of Video RAM occurs when there is 1GiB or more of system RAM. It would appear, at least with AGP cards, that the entire video RAM is mapped as a frame buffer into the top 1GiB of address space. This space is also used for the AGP aperture, and the VCache among other functions. Also in this space is the VMM page table - this grows proportional to the amount of system RAM. Obviously the AGP Aperture and VCache must be reduced, but somewhere at or over 1GiB of system RAM, there is no more address space for 512MiB of video RAM... I'm not sure how a PCIe card would compare here since they don't use the AGP Aperture...

As of 9.0.9, all nVidia problems are gone! 32-bit icons just work and alpha masks just work. As of RP9, I was getting small icons (with white surround) missing the middle icon - masked so the desktop appeared. This problem is gone in 9.0.9. Also, I was getting certain app icons that looked like 4-bit colour, like the Acrobat 6 icon. This problem appears to be gone now with 9.0.9. RP9/KEx4 Me/98SE2ME conflict fixed as of RP 9.0.10 refresh! However... I still have my RP9/KEx4 conflict... Strangely, when I first installed 9.0.9, rebooted, and then installed KEx4 RC2, Windows crashed when attempting to restart... I had to hit the reset button since nothing else worked. After this, everything worked great! RPConfig worked, I could launch Firefox 3... Then suddenly ClearType disabled - almost - not on Desktop, Start Menu, and most apps, but Firefox 3 was using ClearType!!!. I used RPConfig to turn ClearType off and on again several times, but I could not get it to work. After restarting Windows, I was back to the old conflict again... When I get an invalid page fault, it is in module <unknown>, and at the same address: 0000:BFE51496... If I run RPConfig, I get an invalid page fault in RPCONFIG at address 0000:00000000, and all the registers are also zero... Straight after this, I get the previously posted Access Violation in RPCONFIG at BFE50496, and the same address 0000:BFE51496 as above. I removed and reinstalled RP9 and KEx4 in different orders, but I could not get them to work together again... So... I'm back to alternating between them to test... Not so bad I suppose, but a pain all the same...

Hmm, not Skype 4.0, correct? I think 3.8 was the last one to work. See here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...st&p=848952

Tricky... C-Media have pulled all their old drivers from their website... Google gets lots of hits... I'll have a dig around.

OAKCDROM.SYS is in Windows 98SE BASE5.CAB. Use your extractor of choice or use the command line extract tool: extract [path\]base5.cab oakcdrom.sys

I've got Skype 4.0.0.224 starting in Windows 98SE with KernelEx 4.0 RC2... (Skype 2.x and 3.x ran without KernelEx) The installer downloads the MSI file and then does nothing. The MSI file can be run from the current Temp folder (Skype.msi). Video doesn't work properly (never has in 9x). However, I get frequent message boxes every time a window shows or focus changes, saying: A call to an OS function failed These appear to be related to the window top bar controls. Revolutions Pack is not installed during this time. Edit 1: InterVideo MediaOne Gallery 2.0 installs but fails to run without KernelEx. But with KernelEx 4.0 RC2, it appears to run correctly. Edit 2: Blender 2.48a is working with KernelEx - for all those 3D rendering and animation buffs out there! Blender requires Python 2.5.x which is 9x compatible anyway. It also requires the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable. When the redist install is run, it will fail, but it has already copied the following files into %windir%\SYSTEM32. msvcm90.dll msvcp90.dll msvcr90.dll Simply copy these three files into %windir%\SYSTEM.

No it wasn't your icon pack... I have not used your pack (yet). Well, at least it prompted you to improve it

Hmm... As I understood it, Windows Me was good up to 2GiB of RAM... Apparently this is not the case... It is at least higher than Windows 98SE... Does anyone actually know the addressable limit for Windows Me? (with no VMM patches)