Multibooter

Hi jaclaz, I looked at the docu . Maybe strong language, but System Commander has worked fine for me, and equally important, I'm kind of stuck, getting rid of a boot manager looks to me like a major operation, it's the basis of all my installed operating systems. I once tried out PowerQuest Bootmagic, with System Commander still installed (which I should have uninstalled before but didn't dare to), never again, it was a big mess, that's why I said I wouldn't touch any other boot manager. How easy/difficult would it be for an expert to migrate from one boot manager to another, if you have already 6 opsys installed? BTW I have seen somewhere that System Commander can also boot into CP/M, any comments on that?

Use a good tool like System Commander. I have been using it for the past 13 years and have purchased 4 versions over the years. I wouldn't touch any other boot manager.

Be careful when you use Partition Table Doctor, it's one of the 20 programs most useful to me, but you have to know what you are doing. Here a quote from the System Commander user manual, maybe it helps:"Limitations of DOS: When your system has more than one primary FAT partition, the inactive primary partitions might not be visible. This DOS bug will occur when either: - an extended partition exists without any logical drives defined - the extended partition has no FAT logical partitions defined."

I've been using Kaspersky for the past 12 years. Even in 1996 Avast was a close 2nd choice. Too bad that one can't have 2 virus scannning software packages installed under the same operating system selection. One reason for multibooting into a 2nd opsys selection with another virus scanner.

I have further tested PassingBy's generic USB ejector. Except for a bug in its device selection menu, it works fine for SDHC card readers with US Best chips in them (e.g. single-slot card reader hama 55310 v3, multi-card reader hama 55350 SN 32822630800 [sN 02822630600 has a Genesys chip inside]). http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...st&p=813314 After using PassingBy's generic USB ejector for a longer time, I may include it in my Toolbox for SDHC cards I hope PassingBy will still actively participate here.

This program looks interesting. I have posted my comment at http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...mp;#entry813314

I have made some preliminary tests of the safely-remove-utility EjectUSB_0108b with SDHC card readers and have up to now a positive impression. I have tested EjectUSB_0108b together with 4 manufacturer-provided Win98SE drivers for SDHC card readers (for Genesys, Myson Century, Alcor and US Best chips). 2 of these drivers (Genesys and Myson Century) come with their own safely-eject-utilities, and 2 don't (Alcor and US Best). EjectUSB_0108b works fine (except for Bug 2, see below) under Win98SE as safely-remove-utility for SDHC card readers with US Best chips. EjectUSB_0108b works fine together with other safely-remove-icons in the system tray (i.e. with safely-remove-utilities of drivers of USB mass storage devices which install their own safely-remove-utility): EjectUSB_0108b only added a USB mass storage device to its menu list if that device didn't have its own safely-remove-utility. I have tested this with altogether 4 safely-remove-icons in the system tray: the Genesys icon (USB card reader, USB HDD and USB CD/DVD drive), the Systray.exe icon (used by a Myson Century card reader), the JMicron icon (used by a switchable eSATA-USB enclosure for external 750GB HDD with 4 partitions) and the icon of EjectUSB_0108b (used by a US Best single-card reader and a US Best multi-card reader at the same time). BUG 1: EjectUSB_0108b did not work for an SDHC card reader with an Alcor chip inside, EjectUSB_0108b just didn't add the Alcor card reader to its removal menu. Whether this is the fault of EjectUSB_0108b or of the Alcor driver, I don't know. BUG 2: When a multi-card reader (4 slots) with a US Best chip inside is connected, the removal menu of the icon in the system tray displays 4 selectable entries: Disconnect [i.e. without a drive letter] Disconnect Disconnect N: [=last slot/drive letter of multi-card reader] Disconnect while an SDHC card was inserted into L:, for example. No cards were inserted in the other slots K,M,N. Clicking on one of the 3 selections without a drive letter will produce the msg: "Usb storage device cannot be removed". Clicking on the selection "Disconnect N:" works ok, with the msg: "Usb storage device successfully removed". For multi-card readers there should be only a single menu selection, like "Disconnect K,L,M,N", as the Genesys safely-remove-utility has (but Genesys has a problem of multiple-drive-letters with multi-card readers). nusb 3.3 has a very inconvenient menu for multi-card readers: there are 4 entries, one for each slot, and you have to go thru the remove cycle 4 times before you can safely remove a multi-card reader. BUG 3: EjectUSB_0108b does not work properly when an SDHC card with multiple partitions is inserted in the card reader: The partitions of the SDHC appear, for example, as K: and L: in My Computer, but the removal menu of EjectUSB_0108b only displays one partition (Disconnect K:) [Disconnect K:,L: would have been correct]. Upon trying to safely-remove K: a msg appears: "Usb storage device cannot be removed" I hope PassingBy will continue to develop this program ; this is the only detached safely-remove-utility for Win98 I know of, for WinXP there are lots.

I would start with checking the USB HDD with Partition Table Doctor v3.5.

Before you get going make a good backup of your system (at least of \Windows\ and \Program Files\) and keep it for 3 months. This is a system update, not just a driver installation, without a backup it is difficult to go back where your system was before the installation of nusb.I am using a USB WLAN stick, and followed the instructions and uninstalled Orangeware. BTW could someone explain how exactly Orangeware can be uninstalled? I just renamed all files/directories of Orangeware and removed USB controllers from Device Manager, but are there still entries related to Orangeware left behind in the registry? Is there an uninstaller for Orangeware? After removing Orangeware I got scared, when the Internet and local network access were gone, so I quickly restored my system backup. nusb 3.3 worked fine on my machine WITHOUT uninstalling the Orangeware USB controller and hub driver. You should uninstall, however, all your USB mass storage device drivers (e.g. ext.HDD, ext.CD/DVD, other sticks/ card readers, camera, mp3 player) before installing nusb.

Hi Rick, Perhaps you had already a generic USB driver like nusb 3.3 installed. A previous installation of nusb 3.3, for example, adds the key [HKLM]\Enum\USBREADER to the registry. Also, the picture http://www.sakar.com/p-1966.aspx?categoryid=141 does not show that the reader is SDHC compatible (cards >=4GB). Another description at http://www.bestpriceaudiovideo.com/catalog/69/5394/ doesn't show SDHC compatibility either, although some devices not described as SDHC-compatible may contain firmware/newer chips which work with SDHC cards. The multi-card reader by MSI can also read SIM cards, is SDHC-compatible and uses up only 1 drive letter.

Thanks dencorso, I'll check it out, maybe it helps to increase eMule uptime also with my hardware.

Very good research jaclaz Interesting case. The download page of the chipset driver http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss...ocid=MIGR-50636 says Win98, but then a footnote to all the models, dated March 8, 2005, says: "(*1) Only Microsoft Windows 2000/XP are supported". I would give it a try according to step 4/4B in ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/oss305ww.txt Maybe it works and IBM just didn't want to support an opsys which it had not pre-installed.

ebay didn't come up with anything useful for the search string "thinkpad R51 98", so probably this laptop is not compatible with Win98. I remember getting the same error message when I tried to install Win98 on a new Quad Core desktop, which the ebay seller had advertised as compatible with Win98. I returned it after fiddling around with it for a day.

I would rather rephrase it to "... programs that aren't very thoughtful about them [resource-usage issues, i.e. inefficient programming] CRASH and HANG Win98 more than the others.To the list I would also add Norton SystemWorks (but not Norton Disk Doctor standalone, which is excellent). My uninstall notes had the comment: "the system [Win98] seems much crisper without it". Symantec gave up Win98 long before Microsoft: NSW2006, out in 2005, did not support Win98 anymore. The more lines of code there are in a program, the more bugs it may have. This could explain why big fat, inefficient programs would cause eMule to crash more often. Maybe just coincidence: Firefox v2.0.0.17 setup.exe: 5.908kB, Opera v9.60 setup.exe 4.922kB. When running Opera together with eMule, Win98 will usually not hang, in contrast to Firefox.

Yes, eMule is fully compatible with Win98. The right setup though is tricky (router, Control Panel -> Network settings, firewall settings, not getting low IDs). For good performance, running eMule on a dedicated computer helps, even if it's an old box, also 512MB of RAM, and a direct cable connection to your router (no WLAN, if you have an old router/WLAN-card).eMule is actually my tool of choice to identfy the Win98 compatibility of OTHER programs: if, after running another program, eMule crashes within the next 2 hours, it means to me that this OTHER program has serious Win98 compatibility issues. Good examples are Acrobat 5 or Firefox 2. With eMule you can also predict whether Win98 support of a piece of software is about to stop: if eMule hangs or crashes quickly with another program, it may indicate that this other program had too many Win98 bugs for their programmers to handle, so they just give up, no more new release for Win98. Good examples are again Acrobat 5 and Firefox 2

Here are 2 example links to Solid State Disks (SSD), with 6 slots for SDHC cards (4-32GBs): http://www.sharkoon.com/html/produkte/spei...s/index_en.html http://www.markstechnologynews.com/2008/08...w-cost-ssd.html These devices seem to function like an multi-card reader which can read 6 SDHC cards simultaneously and has disk-spanning firmware and a SATA interface. Hopefully an external device, with switchable USB interface and a Win98 driver, will eventually become available. This Addonics Quad CF PCI adapter for 4 Compact Flash cards claims compatibility with Win98: http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-to-Buil...rds-69054.shtml I have built myself a somewhat comparable device, using a Belkin 7-port USB hub plus various SDHC card readers connected to it. This arrangement works fine under Win98. Another self-built device, a hama 55745 multi-card reader with 3 built-in USB ports and 3 single-card readers plugged into it, has been working fine for me under Win98, as a download station for eMule with altogether 4 SDHC cards. My build-your-own devices connect via USB, the devices listed above require eSATA. Also, my 4 card readers have different drive letters, just like partitions of a HDD, there is no drive-spanning. The main advantage of the SDHC cards over a HDD is their fast access speed, about 25x faster than a HDD. HDDs, however, have a much higher read/write speed than SDHC cards. Here a very good benchmark: http://www.tabletpcreview.com/default.asp?newsID=1096 The fast access speed of SDHC cards may be useful for applications like eMule, which has many threads reading and writing simultaneously at slow speeds all over the hard disk, but it doesn't read/write very much data per second. Other applications which might benefit from SDHC cards may possibly be identified by asking: Which of my applications performs substantially faster when the HDD is well defragmentated? Has anybody in the forum experience with Solid State Disks (SSD) or drive-spanning under Win98?

On my old laptop with over 100 apps, installed during the past 7 years, the Win98 registry has 9MB as an exported .reg; System.dat is 6.3MB, User.dat 1.1MB. I usually don't fiddle around with the registry, so I am amazed that it is so much smaller than yours. Besides that Kodak stuff, did you identify any other hogs?

The v82.69 driver has also caused problems with my ViewSonic 1600x1200 monitor when connected via DVI, it often/randomly remained black while booting. I had no DVI problems with the driver v77.72. The shutdown and DVI problems were the reasons I rejected any version for Win98 above v77.72

I speculate that the underlying cause may be the GeForce 82.69 driver you were using; maybe Opera will not crash with v77.72.

1) Use Driver Cleaner v1.5 to uninstall a previous installation of the NVIDIA GeForce driver (Add/Remove doesn't work for this driver)2) extract 77.72_win9x_english.exe (or 77.72_win9x_international.exe) to a driver directory. 3) add 3 lines to update the original v77.72 .inf files, for the bfg GeForce 7800 GS card: nvagp.inf (=English version) or nvaml.inf (Multi-language version) - comment line near beginning ;updated for bfg GeForce 7800 GS card - before the last line in section [strings]: NVIDIA&DEV_00F5.DeviceDesc="NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GS" - at end of[Mfg] section: %NVIDIA&DEV_00F5.DeviceDesc% = NV30, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_00F5 4) From that driver directory install the GeForce v77.72 driver via Device Manager, NOT via Setup.exe I has worked fine for this specific card; whether it works for other 7000 cards, I don't know. To find the device id strings for other cards, you should look at the .inf in the extracted latest version driver files for WinXP. After installation of the card I manually created a modified NVTweaks.reg, based on Nv8269.txt, the docu file of Tweaked Unofficial NVIDIA Display Driver 82.69, which I downloaded from http://www.mdgx.com/files/nv8269.php Good luck.

SDHC card readers under Linux Here a little-OT note for those who multi-boot into Win98, WinXP and Linux: The Paragon Partion Manager 9.0 RecoveryCD boots into Linux 2.6.18.2-34-paragon. This version of Linux, unlike Win98SE, did not need special drivers for my USB mass storage devices, incl. SDHC cards and external USB HDDs. The bootable CD handled properly under Linux a quite complicated hardware configuration. The following devices were connected to a Dell Inspiron 7500 laptop of the year 2000, which had no BIOS settings for USB devices, all at the same time: - an MSI card reader connected to the internal USB 1.1 port - a USB 2.0 PCCard inserted into the PCMCIA slot - a Wintech (=Genesys chip) single-card reader, connected to Port 1 of the PCCard - a hama multi-card reader 55745 with a built-in 3-port-USB hub, connected to port 2 of the PCCard; an SD card with 3 partitions (FAT-16, FAT32 and NTSF) was inserted - a switchable Thermaltake Combo USB/SATA HDD enclosure, connected to the built-in hub of the hama multi-card reader; the Thermaltake had a 750GB SATA HDD inside So SDHC card readers seem to work under newer Linux without a manufacturer-provided driver, even if the box usually does not list Linux among compatible operating systems.

First of all, I have to correct my previous posting: Replacing cfgmg32.dll with the newer WinME version does NOT fix/change the device detection sequence of devices connected to USB 2.0 PCCards. The error in my previous posting was due to my having used in the first series of experiments the hama mult-card reader 55745, which has a built-in 3-port hub, and in the second series of experiments the hama multi-card reader 55350, which doesn't have a built-in hub. When using the multi-card reader WITHOUT the built-in hub on port 1 of the PCCard, and the single-card reader on port2, then there is no multiple drive letter problem. When, however, using the multi-card reader WITH the built-in hub in port 1, instead of the one without the built-in hub, then there is a multiple-drive-letter-problem. So this "2nd bug" has something to do with the handling of USB hubs. I have corrected my postings accordingly. @dencorso: I have manually deleted the 3 entries in HKLM\Enum\SCSI\GENERIC_STORAGE_DEVICE__9\ of the phoney drive letters (SCSILUN 1,2 and 3). Upon rebooting I got again multiple drive letters by clicking Device Manager -> Refresh, and the previously deleted entries were back again in the registry. It didn't make any difference, the multiple-drive-letters came back. There is only 1 entry for the single-card reader, no multiple entries. Here is the key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\USB\VID_05E3&PID_0723\000000009451] "Capabilities"=hex:14,00,00,00 "HardwareID"="USB\\VID_05E3&PID_0723&REV_9451,USB\\VID_05E3&PID_0723" "CompatibleIDs"="USB\\CLASS_08&SUBCLASS_06&PROT_50,USB\\CLASS_08&SUBCLASS_06,USB\\CLASS_08" "DeviceDesc"="Wintech2 Card Reader" "Class"="USB" "Driver"="USB\\0012" "Mfg"="General" "ClassGUID"="{36FC9E60-C465-11CF-8056-444553540000}" "ConfigFlags"=hex:00,00,00,00 "Serial"=hex:22,00,00,00,00,00,00,00 "SymbolicName"="\\DosDevices\\0000000000000022#{a5dcbf10-6530-11d2-901f-00c04fb951ed}" I was wrong about cfgmgr32.dll, nevertheless I also tried ntldll.dll of WinME, but still the same multiple-drive-letter-problem as before. I don't have USBNTMAP.SYS under Win98SE, since nusb is not installed.I guess this multiple-drive-letter problem will remain unresolved. Manufacturer-provided drivers vs nusb The main reason I dug so deep into the Genesys driver was to become more knowledgeable about the quality of manufacturer-provided Win98 drivers vs nusb for SDHC card readers. A work-around was found for this special multiple-drive-letter problem, so using manufacturer-provided Win98 drivers for SDHC card readers is still my preference, mainly because: - there is no need to uninstall drivers for all existing mass storage devices, drivers which have worked well in the past ("don't touch a working system", just for getting a card reader to work) - there is no need to re-detect your USB mass storage devices and customize again their settings (disable auto-run, assign drive letters, etc.) - the Genesys driver has nice 2-state-icons for removable media devices, which indicate whether media is inserted or not. 2-state-icons are particularly useful with multi-card readers. - you can customize the menu entry, with a meaningful name, of each device displayed by the safely-remove-icon (via the device list in the .inf file of the device) But nusb has many appealing features: - it works fine with devices for which there is no manufacturer-provided Win98 driver (i.e. no headache "Where can I buy a device with a Win98 driver") - a single safely-remove-icon in the system tray for all USB mass storage devices - no messing around with various drivers - a safely-remove-utility that works well - only one program monitoring usb (systray.exe) I don't like the either-or situation of nusb; I would like to keep my old working drivers AND use nusb for some new hardware, at my choice. If only nusb could be made to co-exist with other drivers, without requiring their previous uninstall!

It looks like Windows 98/Me support has been discontinued for Shareaza as of 1-Oct-2008 http://shareaza.sourceforge.net/ Last version for Win98/ME seems to be v2.3.1.0 http://shareaza.sourceforge.net/?id=download Is v2.3.1.0 the best version for Win98?

Hi chromatic47, Sorry I can't help you any more. I gave up on the newer GeForce drivers after I got the bfg 7800 cards working with the older driver. I actually called up customer service/technical department of bfg in April 2008, asking about the shutdown and monitor problems under Win98, especially since Win98 was printed as system requirement on the box and GeForce v82.16 was on the accompanying CD as driver for Win98. They offered a refund right way, so they must have known. I said: "Hey, I don't want a refund, I want a working card." But they couldn't come up with a solution. 2 weeks later I received a letter from bfg with a RMA number (=Return Material Authorization), for getting a refund, even if I hadn't asked for one. I didn't return the cards, I liked them (except for the noise), they work fine with the older driver.

My comment was about my configuration with the 7800 card; with the PNY GeForce FX 5200 card versions > 77.72 worked fine on my configuration, if I remember right.I'll be back at my desktop in December/January. The selections Shut down, Restart and Restart in MS-DOS mode in the Shut Down Windows menu were ok; I don't know about the Standby selection since I don't use it. Also a very nasty monitor-on/off problem of a ViewSonic VP2030b connected via DVI-D was resolved by reverting to the older driver v77.72 (The monitor would sometimes remain black until Win98 comes up - but how could I use the System Commander boot manager or change the BIOS settings on a black screen? There was no such problem when the monitor was connected at the VGA connector, but the VP2030b has a very poor display quality when connected via the VGA connector)