cannie

You may try these USB2 drivers: http://www.technical-assistance.co.uk/kb/usbmsd98.php I used them to make a "rebel" USB2 pendrive work. The .exe file that you download is in fact a .rar file, so you don't need to install everything if you don't want. It is enough to unzip the file into a new folder, delete every reference to USB in control panel > system and reboot. When the system demands a location for the new drivers you send it to the new folder. Important: save system.dat ant user.dat before doing anything so that you may restore both via DOS in case that this solution doesn't work. HTH

After SP2 and all other improvements that you may find today in this site and many others, all freeware, Windows 98 SE is no more the lame duck that it was in the beginning. No more many of the "troubles" that you found in it long ago. Instead of that, you find very interesting things, like the possibility of using double boot and restore XP from a .rar file from scratch, cloning Windows 98 in several logical units on the extended partition, restoring drive C from scratch by booting the system from any of them etc. It also has the advantage of being "out of fight". I write this post now because just today I found this warning at start: "kernelnt.dll not found". It was a virus installed at System32 folder, and I only had to delete it (I found it easily by comparing C:\windows against D:\Windows using Comparator Pro). This way the OS has worked as an antivirus. And this is not the first time that I find a virus designed for Nt caught in the Windows 98 trap. Well, after saying that, my greatest nightmare with windows 98 happened in february 2007 when I bought an asian USB2 pendrive and loaded the drivers provided with it and designed "for Windows 98". My computer crashed totally at reboot and I thought the HD was dead. After many trials I found that the install program had erased the boot sector, mbr and fat. I wonder if this was a cruel trap of the asian hardware provider to "convince" users to forget Windows 98 and buy a pendrive friendly XP computer: no need of ads.

From all the programs which I have known thanks to mentions made in the precedent posts, many of which are excellent, I would do an special mention of MBRUTILD.EXE. I have downloaded it from here: http://mirror.href.com/thestarman/asm/mbr/BootToolsRefs.htm It is an authentic jewel! Simple and fast, makes MBR backup and restore extremely easy, even for newbies! I don't know why those excellent works are so much ignored. HTH

Very good link. Thank you very much

The command line must be as follows: setup /is No scandisk is executed. You may see all install options using this command line: setup /? HTH

After your excellent explanation, if you allow me it, I suggest it would be very good to summarize in a few lines the sequence of the command lines, first to save the mbr and afterwards to restore it. I think it would help a lot. Thank you very much.

It works perfect. Not recommended for newbies! Thank you again.

I've read in a recent post that Windows 98 was used in the third world countries. Not true: the most used in the third world countries is Xp, pirated edition.

I'll try it. CharlotteTheHarlot, thank you very much for your detailed post.

Windows 2000 was considered a networks only OS, never offered in that year to single users. Its contemporary Windows ME "convinced" users of the need to jump forward, being the worst or MS products until now. This way Windows 98 SE was left behind, being in fact the last good OS without "Administrator" made for ordinary people. After 2001 Microsoft stopped delivering new products in the 9x line, making available NT and its advantages to single users. The lack of privacy of the user, leaving all in the hands of the Administrator thanks to NTFS, is essential to assure control in networks, being normally the Administrator a proffesional. But in the case of single users they are not normally proffesional people, and then the fact of using an NT based OS, being an Administrator of a non existing network, leaves the user totally in the hands of any kind of backdoors. NT in the hands of not proffesionals means a lot of power and money for many people. Windows 98 is the best for you, but not for the software and hardware providers. They want by all means to separe you from your money. Using ads and other means, in a short time people will be convinced of the excellency of cloud computing, the excellency of 64 bits boxes and many other "excellencies". Computing is business in a no laws land.

It is a very useful program. I didn't even know its existence and I would never have reached to use it properly without your help. When you clone Windows 98 to any unit on the extended partition you don't have any problem at all because it keeps booting from C drive or from a floppy. You may restore the drive C boot sector by simply running fdisk/mbr and sys a: c: But if you doubleboot you can't fix a failure this way. You need a backup of the MBR and FAT to restore the bootsector and the files allocation table. And in this point I think this program is an excellent solution. In this moment the remaining users of Windows 98 are not simpleminded newbies lured by anything new only because it is in, but in many cases prepared people who know what they do and had to fight against commercial interests to keep finding compatible hardware and drivers. As a doubleboot install means to have all possibilities in your hand most of them try it. I think it is very interesting your idea of starting a thread specific to this subject. Thank you very much!

I have created this way MBRPLUS.BIN from Windows 98. I use double boot XP/Win98. Are the double boot main partition bootsector and mbr totally included in that size, to avoid using the fixboot and fixmbr commands? To avoid doing things wrong and destroying anything: I think the command line to restore bootsector and mbr using MBRPLUS.BIN must be: FindPart.exe PutSect 1 0 0 1 95 MBRPLUS.BIN noheader. Is this correct? Thank you very much.

I think the real question should be: Why should I have to stop using Windows 98 SE if I like it? Ads and all kind of pressures, including stop delivering spare parts and dr¡vers, have been used by hard/software companies to force you to upgrade. This is a no laws land and everything is allowed. They have this way created a neurotic colective passion against Windows 98 users. It seems we are the enemy. I wonder if there is any obligation, moral duty or legal command to stop using Windows 98. I upgraded and created a double boot system. But I keep using Windows 98 at home almost all the time, and will use it for as long as I may. I know Windows 98 so deeply as you may know a ten years old friend which never plays foul in the benefit of anybody. Windows 98 is so obedient and faithful as my dog. Wow!

I had problems long ago with the memory size, and somebody explained to me that a bug in Windows 98 crops up if you have more than 512MB of memory installed, and for this reason the OS reported the problem saying "There is not enough memory available to run this program. Quit one or more programs, and then try again". I reduced the size to 512MB and left Boostspeed configure the memory the way I explained, and I have not changed anything afterwards. In that time I didn't even know the existence of this forum. Now I see there are other solutions for this problem. Excellent news! Thank you very much, dencorso!

Wrong entry. Please disregard.

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It is a privilege if you have compatible hardware. Only a few people use it any more. I use it in dual boot XP/.Win98, but I normally run only Win98. Each of both may be used to restore the other from a previouly saved .rar copy preserved on a CD. Furthermore I have Win98 cloned in 3 logical units, which may be loaded alternatively by simply booting from different floppies instead of the double boot. I feel at ease because of its simplicity: loading time 30 seconds, switch off 3 seconds. Complete restore from scratch, 4 minutes. No viruses. I love change. At work I have no choice and I must always use XP, then at home I don't need any more complex OS for my simple needs and enjoy it. Windows 98 SE, developed before 2001, was the last product of Microsoft not built for networks: no Administrator at all, no backdoors at all, no activation needs, fair play....

Answering to a precedent question of another member, which I do this way in the belief that it may be useful also to other users, I paste here the content of a .reg file I use to increase the amount of memory of the system cache up to the maximum allowed by Windows 98. You only have to copy/paste in a text file and call it i.e. memory.reg. Then click on it and that's all! REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates] @="Max Cache" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates\Max Cache] @="Max Cache" "NameCache"=hex:00,18,00,00 "PathCache"=hex:c8,00,00,00

I also use Windows 98 SE and 512 mb, which is the maximum memory allowed. This amount is used completely when needed, but it is not recommended to use it all for file cache. I used the program Boostspeed to configure it and it established the following values at System.ini: MinFileCache=0 MaxFileCache=393216 chunksize=512 I have Windows 98/XP in double boot. XP doesn't have resource problems at all, but has other snags instead that make me use rather Windows 98 whenever possible. All NT OS (Windows NT, 2000, Server 2003, XP and Vista) are network OS (there's always an "Administrator"), being Windows 98 SE the last OS created by Microsoft for ordinary "users".

It was just that. Thank you very much you both!

Tried it but no results. No files were changed, it simply stopped working, don't know why. Thank you very much for your help.

I mean compiled Microsoft help files, which open with hh.exe every time you click help on any application automatically.

Don't kow why .chm files don't open now, giving a message: Cannot open the file:mk@MSITSTORE:.....(here the adress of any .chm file). Never had problems with it. hh.exe is correctly configured. Everything else is OK. Any idea about what might have happened? Thank you in advance.

An excellent help program. Thanks.

You may clone so many times as you wish on different drives. As you know it takes less than 5 minutes to create a whole working clone so valid as the original unit, so you may do as many experiments as you like with no risk at all for your OS. In my own comp I have it on four logical units using the same HD. Apart of this I use two external HD for backups, using an IDE-USB card which fastens 40x the transfer speed. Greetings