KevinR

Thanks for the tip about the compatible version of sysinternals procmon. This place must have been the only site I forgot to search for it on! The version at filehippo is still there and launches nicely on win2k One hint of trouble I did notice about my MPC install was that it included a local copy of D3DX9_41.dll. As this seemed odd, i renamed it to take it out of the picture. It felt as if this improved things but the 0xc0000142 then reappeared. I think it only happens for certain media file type(s) or even certain files. I just tried it with the compatible ProcessExplorer running, and can't find a file to break it at the moment.... Have to see what files I can find. Good tip with the re-registering dlls. Funny how one forgets these old tricks sometimes. I'll try that now too.

on Win2k SP4. = 5.00.2195 Reinstalled an updated media player classic (mpc-hc) 1.2.1008.0 and windows rejects starting the application with error 0xc0000142. I also still have an old mplayer classic 6.4.9 on the system (file dates 2006) and that now gets the same error. I had hoped to get more info via systinternals procmon.exe but cannot find a version of that old enough to run on win2k. (current has orphaned win2k). Using filemon.exe for tracing MPC's last access appears to be to DDRAW.dll. Any suggestions....? For the time being I shall ignore comments about changing OS. This hardware likes win2k.

I just swapped the internals of an old PC running ME, and haven't a more more up to date windows to put on it. I used the "delete the hardware enum" trick to make it recognise the new hardware. That seems quite stable and has even picked up VIA IDE drivers and the USB correctly. Had problems with InstallShield bombing out and solved most of that by renaming the /program files/common/installshield* and /program files/installshield*. It seemed to have retained stuff that clashed with either the installs being run or the system. The thing is trying to install the RealTek sound drivers still gives a problem AFTER the reboot. Setup moves files on the reboot OK but after getting into windows gives an error -5006: 0x80070005 setupdll\setupdll.cpp(1209). I suspect this relates to a slightly broken or confused registry because of the hardware change. Has anyone any thoughts or advice? ccleaner didn't show anything.

Its an Acer Aspire M1610. There are many models. It seems to be the third one = lowest hardware specification + Vista HP. The other loadstone will presumably be the onboard graphics. They did seem to get a good price - £299 including a 19" LCD. Pricing something similar on ebuyer/microdirect etc in a no-name brand base-unit plus a cheap screen came to £345-360 plus delivery. If they really want the new machine I shall probably recommend spending £26 on 2Gb DDR2 from crucial if it works too slowly and sell on their 1Gb (although its only worth about £13 new!). [ aside: amazed how disposable DDR2 now is - DDR1 is getting expensive ]. They only really use email and browser. They could have probably got away with a memory upgrade on their old Win-ME PC. No-one ever asks first.

My brother in law just got tempted by an Acer machine running vista home premium. Sadly this only has a Celeron 430 (1.8MGhz) and 1gb DDR2. Am I correct in thinking that this is going to suck quite a lot. Should he take it back...?!!?

This is only a guess but I am assuming that the 98toME and revolutions confused the install of the bluetooth device. This then (re-)installed some networking executables - possibly even just those from the base win98. This then gave you an invalid mixture of dll's... It is possible that only the dll you mentioned is confused BUT its quite likely that more may be confused. Ideally restoring some or all of windows(/system) from a backup might help - or even comparing it with a backup. You could try and start it in safe mode - uninstall all networking - then reinstall networking from your base 98. Then reapply the upgrade/conversion packs. The risk exists that the reinstall of networking may not like the hybrid windows install and will still be broken. My uninformed guess is that its best to have a real backup of the windows directories on these hybrid installs so as to have a recovery method.

Where do you get that info? The Avira website says something different, that they are going to stop the non-unicode VDF files on 31-12-2007. Just a few weeks to go Sorry that was me with a bad freudian slip. I meant to say that AVAST claim support for 98 which I found out while researching because Avira have stuck two fingers up to their win98 users. Apologies for confusion caused.

I have been researching a/v for 98se. AVAST claim support using their older version and currently say threat lists will continue. (wrong name corrected!) ClamWin (opensource) and its parent ClamAV look good BUT have NO ACTIVE SCANNING. I'm still looking for other alternatives. For firewall I've had a lot of goodluck with Sygate - which Symantec bought and destroyed. You can still download it if you search for it. Win98SE is fine up to 512Mb - using it here with no special settings. Its best to have windows updated (official or a service pack from here). Above 512Mb you can edge up to higher figures (approx 768 enabled) but you have to set a few obscure settings or install fixes to stop win98 confusing itself. The strongest advice is to use a whitelist program that stops unapproved executables running at all. This stops all but script/browser based attacks. I've been steered towards SSM. Have yet to try it. I have a similar thread running at WildersSecurity which had generated a mixture of useful advice and typical win98 derision. None of the detractors offered to buy me a better PC though - I did ask - or explained how to overcome the 20% loss of processing power each windows revision would cost me.

That's what I'd have expected too. Motherboard chipset vendor drivers would give usb2.0 - at least on 98SE. BUT the scanner specifications get all twitchy about usb2.0 on 98. Its weird. eg. They seem to think if the machine ever had win98 on it (without it being wiped by a full install) then you will only get USB1.1. Its freeky or they have encountered weird problems. That's why I asked.

Was looking at some good older scanners and noticed something odd in the specs. One brand says - will run at usb1.1 on win98 and usb2.0 on win2000 onwards. Another says - will run at usb2.0 on factory-installed-win98 and on win2000 onwards. Other win98 at usb1.1 There appears to be a driver/patch issue. Clearly factory installs may have extra patch/hotfixes. I would have hoped that as I have the motherboard drivers for usb2.0 and usb2.0 ports then a device would use it as 2.0. These descriptions imply that there are other issues. Has anyone any experience of this?

Its often the case that the branded PCs like Compaq (dell, hp, etc) use non-standard brackets or rails to support the drive inside the slot. It maybe that these are still on the drive you removed. Eg. DeskPro, Prolinea, Prosignia from compaq all used brackets. Some photos near the bottom left of this page: http://www.thetrayman.net/productCat21253.ctlg Some (usually high-end) PC cases also use brackets/rails and - if you are lucky - come with a supply of their bracket. Sometimes a big manufacturer may fit a special plastic front instead of the standard flat-ish one. Or fit one in a special colour. A bare CD drive is (usually) just a smooth rectangular metal case with a few screw holes in the side and the cable connections and jumpers at the back. That is a standard size. Eg: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/39082

That's what worried me. They appeared while I trying to run the U891711 patch AFTER booting with (a now known to be incompatible) ZoneAlarm 3.7.179 installed. They are not appearing anymore. So either the problem has gone or its installed a rootkit. haha.

HI guys. While looking further into my U891711 issues (see elsewhere) I had the misfortune to run MS-SysInfo and found that I LOADS of processes running from c:\windows\temp. These are all called apXXXX.exe where XXXX is a 4 digit hex number and they are all 407Kb in size. Is this an effect of the U891711/KB891711 patch or have I suffered some sort of attack. (I could not google anything about ap*.exe). Thanks

Finally got a chance to try this. Installed the Kernel Patch - went OK. Installed the U891711 patch (again - previously removed it). Windows ME again hangs during processing of the startup apps (presumably on the 891711 executable). Thanks for trying though. My guess is that there is a conflict somewhere with one of the device drivers or other startup processes. Hmm. I may try reordering the startup so this is earlier/later?!?! SUSSED (aka Solved) This PC came from a family member and had a copy of ZoneAlarm-Free on it. As this dated from the same era as the PC I had not interfered with it in any way; I assumed load sv performance would be OK. While googling for a solution (again) today I found a correlation between the KB891711v2 (official) and various programs - especially firewalls. This included the v3.7.179 of ZoneAlarm (v3.final really). So as not to tax this old machine too hard - or explore the joys of we don't do ME any more I picked v5 of zone alarm which had been reported to work. Now running v5.5.094.000 (= v5.final) of ZoneAlarm and the U891711 patch. I still have the improved kernel files - shown in a post above - installed. Hope this helps anyone else who hits problems. The patches were incompatible with various programs at the time. Thanks for all the help guys.

eidenk: Thanks for the info. It looks like all versions of the exe based patch conflict with something else on this install. I guess a lot of kudos goes to the guy who produced the proper win98 USER correction. I assume retrofitting that to ME would lose to many other official changes fixes. Coincidentally we had the SDBOT worm turn up via MSN this week. I think avira stopped it. Reading up on that one of its first steps can be to download a rootkit that hids it. So its hard to be sure. (One of my daughters friends must have the worm though.) So on a similar note I'm not sure what we'll all do for AV or equivalent next year as most (all?) antivirus makers are dropping all pretense of 98 support next year. I noticed that a lot of other firms are even deleting the downloads for 98 for drivers (eg. HP) and tools (eg. firewalls). This seems crazy as many ordinary users are going to be unable to reinstall after disk crashes etc. Latest thoughts are either to: 1. Run 98 in a VM inside Linux and use (say) Fprot in Linux. 2. Boot a small linux from a live CD or flash an run (say) Fprot in that. 3. Use an exe blocker (white list) tool of some sort. There are some opensource AVs but I worry that they will lack the money/time to generate new detections quickly. That part does seem easier to arrange (fund) in a commercial product.