98Guy

> Can anyone provide a full package? First, read this: http://www.slipstick.com/archive/ol/msmail.htm Then read this: Installing Windows Messaging and Microsoft Fax under Windows 98 http://www.slipstick.com/archive/ol/win98_wminstall.htm MS Mail is located on the win-98 CD in the \Tools\Oldwin95\Message folder, in the \Intl or \Us subfolder. And as I said before, MS Mail will not function as an internet e-mail (pop) client. The only thing you can do with ms-mail is to use it as a private mail system on a local LAN (such as a small office or home network) configured as a workgroup. To do this, one machine on the lan will have to act as the workgroup postoffice. This is typically a win-NT machine, but I think that a win-98 machine can also act as the postoffice server. Note that you can add the ms-mail transport facility to Outlook 2K (to allow outlook to pull e-mail from an MS-mail account hosted on the local lan). This option is useful in a SOHO situation where you want to communicate with local users via MS-Mail transport, while still having the ability to communicate with the outside world using SMTP (internet e-mail).

Office software: Microsoft Office 2000. Reason: Does not require authentication upon installation. I have Office 2K Full Premium SR1 installed on all my win-98 systems. Once installed, go to officeupdate.microsoft.com and apply several patches and add-ons (like the ability to open the newest format of office files). Internet e-mail and usenet news client: Netscape Communicator 4.7. Reason: It just works, and works well. Drawing, image manipulation and page layout: Coreldraw 9.0. Not sure if this is the last version that's compatible with win-98 or not. Anti-virus software: Norton Antivirus 2002. Reason: It's lightweight and easy on resource usage, can be easily reinstalled when it's 1-year license expires, can be updated via Symantec Intelligent Updater (updates include new versions of scan engine DLL). Alternative is Symantec corporate anti-virus (version 9 or 10) which never expires.

> Does anyone have a copy of the old Microsoft Mail application > which came with Windows 95? It's a very lightweight (hey, it > has to be to run on 95!) email client, and as a bonus, it uses > the Windows Classic graphic style. If anyone finds it, please > link to it! Thanks! I have it on my win-98 computer at work. I'm scratching my head because I don't see it on my home PC. It doesn't appear to be on the win-98se cd. I'm wondering if I got it from a win-95 CD. It's definately not part of office 2K. I don't think you'd find it too useful, because unless you have an NT-4 server acting as the central post office, you're not going to be able to use the old ms-mail program for internet (pop) mail. If you want to download it, this looks like the place: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/111557

What I find strange in the w3counter stats is that the most common screen resolution is 1024 x 768. Either a lot of people have mis-configured screen resolution, or they're using 10-year-old CRT or 14" first-generation LCD monitors. I would have thought that most displays today would be an even split between 1280 x 1024 (4:3 17" to 19" desktop monitor) and a laptop display (roughly 1400 x 1000). I also would have thought that there would have been some 1600 x 1200, but I don't see any.

2 reasons why Win-xp was "for the home user": 1) M$ retired Win-98/me 2) Hardware driver availability (especially for sound cards) took time to grow for 2K and had matured by the time that XP came out. In reality, there wasn't much difference (under the hood) between 2K and XP-gold. Back in 2000, M$ pointed to various reasons why 2K was not for the home user. But all those reasons mysteriously dissappeared when XP was pushed out into the retail channel as the replacement for 98/me. When you look back even further, M$ really never wanted 98 to be seen as a business OS. In their vision of the business world, you had NT4 servers and win-95 desktop clients. When 98 came out, they did not want 98 to be adopted by business users as a replacement for 95. They wanted 95 users to wait until 2k came out, while 98/me was for home users.

I'm trying to help someone long-distance who started getting the "your installation of XP is not genuine" message last week. Today I told them to ignore the message, and download the XP product key update tool from here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=50346&clcid=0x409 And follow the instructions to install a new product key (brand-new key, never before used). They did that, and the program did not give any error messages. It asked (or wanted) the system to be rebooted, and it was. Upon rebooting, I believe the XP product activation service came up, and asked the user if they wanted to register and validate or just validate the system. User chose validate over the internet. This did not work. It resulted in this message: - 45106 - Activation period has expired I told the user to go to the telephone registration option and select "change key". User typed in new key (again) and it took it, but later still resulted in same message as above. Why does this happen? I've tested the product activation tool on an identical system and it worked (even the product activation step after rebooting). The difference is that the identical system had not triggered or was not in the "your installation of windows may not be genuine" mode. What steps do I need to talk the user through in order to resolve this? Is the complete telephonic registration method more reliable and known to work in these situations? Or do I have to tell them to boot into safe mode and play around with registry keys?

Can nobody here answer the basic question: Does Win-98 implement or use on RPC's the same way as NT-based OS's?

Unlike XP Gold (and possible all versions of XP) the default installation setting of win-98 has file and printer sharing turned off. If netbios ports are _still_ open when file and printer sharing are turned off, well then that might be the case, but even in that case win-98 had no known vulnerabilities to open netbios ports *except* a single known DOS vulnerability (which I don't really consider a threat because there is no advantage for an unknown attacker to waste resources launching a DOS against a random, unknown user). We ran a small office with about a dozen win-98 PC's from 1998 until Dec/2005 where they each had direct, naked, static, routable internet addresses (no NAT router, no firewall). File and printer sharing for all of them was turned on - BUT - bound only to Netbeui. We never had anything (network worms, trojan, virus) attack or infiltrate those systems. Regarding IE6/Win-98, I think the level of paranoia regarding it's current vulnerability status is absurd and off the scale. Even when IE6 patches for win-98 were coming fast and furious several years ago, I've never experienced a malware intrusion caused by an IE6 weakness. Now that might be because I've been running 3'rd party hosts file for years, as well as Spybot and Spyware Blaster innoculations, but those things also strengthen any installed browser. > AVs that work on 98 are getting scarce. NAV 2002, when used with the manually-installed "Symantec Intelligent Updater" package, does still work on win-98. > The majority of the malicious code in circulation doesn't affect 98, but some still does. The biggest issue currently regarding the vulnerability status of Win-98 and the internet is that nobody is *testing* new threats against win-98. So we really don't know if there's much to be worried about, or a lot to be worried about.

> I had Win98 running on Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 last December. > Everything worked fine except for sound. Since I wanted a fully functioning > system, I gave the board away. What hard drive did you have connected to that board? Was it SATA, or IDE? Did you try an SB live or maybe Audigy sound board? I think it's kinda extreme to have given that board away without trying some other sound card. When I get the time to build my Asrock win-98 machine, I intend to install an Audigy 2 (SB0240) sound card. I'll be really p***ed if it doesn't work...

You are crossing a line between the user wanting simple security, and wanting in-depth reporting and monitoring of all apps and programs. You might just as well advise the user to install wireshark too. If someone has never used a software firewall before, then it is a real pain to configure and the cost/benefit in having it is not really good. I've asked everyone I know that runs a firewall (typically on 2K or XP systems) I've asked them if their firewall has ever detected any *real* malware and they've always said no. It's not really about security these days, it's about the technical or "power user" wanting to know every detail about every process or program running on their box. Besides, the firewall consumes system resources and reduces performance. As far as in-bound firewalling - I agree that there are almost no known exploits for win-98 as far as in-bound network connectivity goes, but also remember too that for the past 2.5 years nobody has been testing new exploits for win-98 vulnerability. A NAT-router is cheap cheap cheap, and if your DSL or cable modem is 3 years old or newer then it probably has NAT built in. There's a lot of network junk knocking on your front door, and I'd rather keep it off my local home lan. Given a situation where you have a NAT-router, there is VERY LITTLE left for the software firewall to do, and most of that is just to satisfy the curiosity or the (largely irrational) control needs of the user.

This was the huge security issue that MS released an emergency patch for a few days ago: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/...n/MS08-067.mspx Questions: To what extent does win-9x utilize (and/or impliment) RPC and might be vulnerable to the exploit being addressed in this bulletin? Is DCOM necessary to be installed/running for RPC's to function on win-9x? Must file and print-sharing be turned on for win-9x to be vulnerable to any RPC (port 135/1027/1028) exploits? Can vulnerable systems be exploited simply by having a non-firewalled internet connection or be being exposed to an infected system on a local lan?

> So any MB I can buy for W98 in this year 2008? Yea, this one: Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Mode...%20R2.0&s=n Although I must admit that I have no experience with that board. It's R2.0, and its got SATA2. I have experience with the R1 board, with SATA1. Anyone have this R2 board and win-98?

Why doesn't your motherboard have an AGP slot? 14" CRT monitor? What is that capable of - 800 x 600?

> ... the first thing I have to do is put in a firewall (ZoneAlarm free??) Software firewalls are useless, especially for win-98. If your ADSL or cable modem is NOT also a NAT-router, then get yourself a hardware NAT-router (can be had for as little as $30) and put it between your modem and your PC. Let the router do the firewalling. Software firewalls are a PITA and it's well known that malware will try, and likely will succeed, in turning off your software firewall. Your software firewall will not PREVENT your PC from becoming infected by malware. What it *might* do is prevent the malware from communicating to the outside world (ie communicate with the bot-master). > After that the usual anti-virus, trojan killer, After years of using AV software (I still use NAV 2002 and if I care I will manually download the latest Symantec Intelligent Updater) but I've never been infected and I've visited some pretty weird sites. Some times I've gone out of my way to follow spam links just to get malware samples to investigate. The polymorphic viruses that were circulating a year or two ago pretty much made most AV software useless. And truth is, when an AV software alerts you to something, the problem is that they don't remove it for you and leave you in more of a panic than it's worth. > ad killer, Yea, a hosts file is good - probably the single most effective way to keep malware off your system. I use the MVPS hosts file. The browser innoculation features of Spybot SD and Spyware Blaster is useful. Something to consider is a real-time registry monitor that can detect changes to important registry keys caused by malware. Moosoft's "The Cleaner" has this feature. > Also, exactly where can I find all of the updates put out since > Microsoft stopped doing it that will bring 98 SE's security up to date? Fact is, Win-98 se (out of the box) is / was WAY more secure (internet secure) than win-2k or XP was (XP up until SP2, some might argue even until today). > Also, should I stay with Internet Explorer 5 or use 6 or just use Firefox? If you want to do anything *really useful* with your PC, like on-line banking, or buy stuff on-line like airplane tickets, then you will almost certainly need the most updated version of IE6. There's no harm in having both IE6 and Firefox and switching between them as needed.

It was mentioned today in microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion that Paolo Monti's "GDI32 / WMF Patch" (gdihook.dll) is being flagged with BackDoor.Hupigon4.ADUA trojan by 18 out of 36 AV packages at virus total. Speculation is that it's likely a false positive, but also that it's a target for malware. From the usenet post: --------------- The package is delivered as a single install.exe file. When this file is scanned by Virustotal, Sophos identifies "Sus/Madcode-A" malware. All other antivirus products detect nothing. I notice the following text strings in gdihook.dll: ==================================================================== forbiddenAPIsMutex madCodeHook warning... You've tried to hook one of the following APIs: These APIs are usually hooked in order to hide a process. Of course madCodeHook can do that just fine. But I don't want virus/trojan writers to misuse madCodeHook for illegal purposes. So I've decided to not allow these APIs to be hooked. If you absolutely have to hook these APIs, and if you have a commercial madCodeHook license, you may contact me. ==================================================================== BTW, the subject patch is available here: http://web.archive.org/web/20070203164123/.../wmfpatch11.zip My research leads me to believe that MadCodeHook is a legitimate product that has occasionally been misused by malware writers. It is for this reason that I suspect the WMF patch is being falsely identified as infected. --------------- Update: AVG have replied as follows: ========================================== Unfortunately, the current virus database version may detect the mentioned file as infected. We can confirm that it is a false alarm. We would like to inform you that the false positive will be removed in the next Definitions update. ==========================================

Hypothetically. If I get a message saying my XP might be counterfeit or otherwise not legit. I am given a couple of choices (continue with nagging, or I can resolve it). Can someone explain the on-screen steps that happen if I choose to resolve it? Is a telephone call involved? Is an exchange of personal information involved? PS: If, as part of the resolution process, I have the original windows booklet and windows CD, and the product key sticker is still on the booklet, and -IF- the product key on the sticker does NOT match the installed product key, will I be given a chance to enter the product key on the sticker as part of this resolution? PS: I understand that Microsoft has a "Product Key Update Tool". Can such a tool be used to change the product key of a system that has failed the WGA test? Can such a tool work on a "system builder" version of XP pro?

> I'm gonna soon ask my friend to build me a brand new computer > which will have a dual 98SE/ XP pro boot. You might want to consider formatting your hard drive totally as fat-32. Yes, you can install XP-pro on a FAT-32 drive. If you do, then your win-98 OS will be able to access the entire drive and all partitions. I've built one XP-pro system (a couple of years ago) using a 250 gb SATA hard drive formatted with FAT-32. I used a version of Disk Manager to make the cluster size 4kb so the usage efficiency would be the same as NTFS. FAT-32 is faster than NTFS, and if you need to you can boot a win-98 floppy to gain total access to the drive. Drive recovery tools are more easily available for fat32 vs NTFS (but I've really never experienced a catastrophic drive failure with FAT32 either). Many people claim that NTFS is more stable, but I've never encountered a situation with a FAT32 drive where I needed or would have benefited from that hypothetical stability. I've also run win-98 on a 500 gb SATA hard drive formatted as a single partition with 4 kb cluster size just to see if it worked. PS: I recommend the ASROCK dual or 4-core VSTA motherboard - if it's still being made.

I had a look at the sticky thread here (last software versions for win-98) and it was mentioned that JRE 5 (update 16?) is the last "official version" but that JRE 6 update 7 does install. I went and tried and sure enough, JRE 6up7 does install on win 98se. First time I used it, it updated all the cached java applets (took a few minutes). Seems to work. There appears to be no 6up8 or 6up9. Note this (from Sun): ------------- J2SE 5.0 is in its Java Technology End of Life (EOL) transition period. The EOL transition period began April 8th, 2008 and will complete October 30th, 2009, when J2SE 5.0 will have reached its End of Service Life (EOSL). ------------- I can't find a list of release or build-dates for the various JRE 5 and 6 versions, but 6up7 has files dated June 10/08. Anyone know when 5up16 was released? So at this point either 6up7 or 5up16 is the last, "best" version for win-98, until someone can figure out why 6up10 doesn't like the win-98 installer (or recompile them for win-98).

Does JRE 6 (update 10) work on Win-98? I'm trying to install it, but I'm getting "Error 1721. There is a problem with this Windows Installer package". I've installed "Windows Installer 2.0 Redistributable for Windows 95, 98, and Me" but that doesn't help. Is there a newer Installer that runs under 98?