stuck

OK, thanks for the clarification. stuck

I cleaned up an old ME box by using the OEM system restore option. Having done so I thought I'd got to Windows Update and get all the patches but as the PC only has IE 5.5 on it Windows Update won't work. In fact it appears I'd need at least IE 8 if I wanted to do this but that's not ME compatible. Is there a way round this? stuck

No, .NET stuff has never been part of XP service packs, you need to download then and install them as required. Note too that .NET 2.0 does not supersede .NET 1.1, it is a whole new beastie. stuck

I run XP MCE fully patched and it runs GIMP & Paint.NET just fine. Why do you say your set p won't run these applications? Do the installations fail? If so what error messages do you get. If they install OK what happens when you try to use them? stuck

Bundled with my Netgear DG834g router was a WG111 Netgear wireless adapter. The software for the WG111 is 98SE compatible and it allows my ancient IBM ThinkPad 390 laptop to connect to my WPA encrypted home network. Does this help? stuck

I beg to differ about no one doing extended songs any more. it's nothing like Bob Dylan but try Porcupine Tree - Anesthetize, all 17:42 of it. On the album Fear of a Blank Planet stuck

Try reading this thread stuck

My main home PC is still 98FE and it still uses dial-up (56K) but I'm in the process of going ADSL with an XP box. As part of that process I bought a Netgear DG834G wireless router. Bundled with it was a W111 wireless USB thingy. I tried adding the wireless gizmo to the 98FE PC but it choked big time. However, when I installed it on an old IBM 390 Thinkpad laptop that runs 98SE it was perfectly happy and joined the home network that that router was providing to my XP box and two other laptops (one Vista Gold, the other XP). So, yes 98SE can do wireless networking and from what I've seen so far there is no reason why 98SE couldn't handle an ADSL connection to the internet. Perhaps when you say companies told you 98 isn't supported they meant the modems they supply as part of their ADSL package won't work. In which case don't take the modem they offer. Go shopping and find one that is 98SE compatible. My experience is the Netgear DG834G works with 98SE but your mileage may vary. stuck

I'm sorry but you don't seem to have read the bit where I said: >(no, it's not as simple as the router is not broadcasting the network name) That's the whole point, the 'broadcast SSID is ticked'. The network 'disappeared' when I changed only one setting on the router, namely selecting WPA. No matter, it is working now. I wish I could give a clear explanation of what I did to correct the problem but it involved: a) on the laptop, with wireless turned off - clearing out every reference to any network I could find - rebooting several times - then turning on the wierless asking it to find and connect to the router, unsecured - disconnecting - clearing out every ref to any network - rebooting - asking it to connect to the network, WPA secured B) on the router, performing a 'hard' reset every time I rebooted the laptop Eventually, the laptop found the network. Connecting was then trivial, I just gave it the WPA key and away it went. What ever was at fault, it was definitely something to do with the HP laptop because throughout all of this messing around an Acer laptop running Vista would connect to the network every time. stuck edited: Hmm, the forum software insists on replacing the letter b followed by a ) with a smilie

I have inherited a HP 510 notebook PC. It's only ever been connected to the web via dial-up so its OS has never been patched but it declares itself to be XP SP2, which MS tells me is WPA compatible. The wireless in it is an Intel PRO 2200bg, that to is supposed to be WPA compatible. Device manager says the driver is provide by intel, v9.0.4.17. Intel's website says the latest is v9.0.4.39. That doesn't strike me as very big difference or at least not one suggesting the latest version adds WPA. If I set my Netgear 834g router to completely open. The laptop happily finds an unsecured network. If I choose WEP, the laptop sees a secured network. If I select WPA or WP2 or WPA/WPA2 mixed mode the laptop tells me there is no network at all (no, it's not as simple as the router is not broadcasting the network name). Any ideas why the network vanishes when I choose WPA/WPA2 when I apparently have WPA compatible hardware, driver and OS? (beyond the obvious answer that clearly one of these three components is not WPA ready ) stuck

...late again. My excuse is I didn't get an email notification from this thread so it slipped my mind, anyway... From your description I have the old version of the Jessops card reader so I'm afraod can't help after all. stuck

i realise I'm very late to join this thread and that it has moved on considerably form the original post about getting a Jessops card reader to work with Win 98 but if it helps I have the card reader you refer to and also the Win 98 driver. It works under Win98FE. I can supply it if you need it. stuck (but probably not until Monday as I'm going home now and my home PC is off-line at the moment)

Like I said in my original post: >The stick is fine, it works perfectly in at least two other PC, one running Win98SE and another running Win2K I've not got any other USB devices to try out but given that, as I said in my original post: >4) The nuclear option, delete the primary partition and reinstall Win 98 from scratch (no big deal really because all the data & key application profiles are on a separate partition), similar effect to removing the USB controller, i.e. Win98 detects the USB ports and installs the controller, the dedicated driver installs with no error but the USB stick still doesn’t work. I don't think it is a driver issue Do USB ports have fuses? IF so would a blown fuse give this sort of behaviour, where Windows finds the hardware but nothing works when you plug it in? I'm going to do more Googling.... stuck

A while ago one of the two USB ports on my ancient (1998, self built) PC stopped working, i.e. if I plugged my USB stick into it nothing happened but if I used the other one everything was OK. I put this down to yet another one of the many quirks of this PC (It runs Win98FE plus all the patches plus various other unofficial tweaks picked up via this forum) and didn’t investigate. Yesterday the second USB port stopped working, so now I can’t use my USB stick at all. The stick is fine, it works perfectly in at least two other PC, one running Win98SE and another running Win2K. I doubt very much it is bad connections within the USB ports because the ports are on the back of the box so there is an extension cable plugged in. The cable is OK, it works fine on other PCs. Also, the extension was not frequently pulled in & out of either port, it stayed plugged into one (until it failed) and then it was moved to the other. Nor was the connection to either of the USB ports strained, pulled or bent in any way. My repair attempts so far have been: 1) Reinstall the dedicated driver for the USB stick, no luck. 2) Remove the dedicated driver and try a generic driver USB driver for Win98FE, no luck. 3) Remove the USB controller (in Device Manager), some luck. Win98 ‘found new hardware’ and reinstalled the USB controller, implying the hardware is not at fault since Win98 could ‘see’ it but although the dedicated driver then installs with no error, the USB stick still doesn’t work. 4) The nuclear option, delete the primary partition and reinstall Win 98 from scratch (no big deal really because all the data & key application profiles are on a separate partition), similar effect to removing the USB controller, i.e. Win98 detects the USB ports and installs the controller, the dedicated driver installs with no error but the USB stick still doesn’t work. Is it possible for USB ports to fail like that? Work at a low level such that Win98 can detect them but not at a higher level that allows to actually function? stuck

Success and much sooner than I expected! I spent my lunch time trawling the Lenovo site and eventually found a page showing wht the default Device Manager listing should be. Took a print out home and easily worked out that the UD related to the Neomagic audio. About two mins later all was well. Thanks again for the hints (un)stuck

Thanks for the pointers. 1) I've downloaded a copy of UnknownDeviceIdentifier. 2) I knew about the page at Lenovo Support and I think I've already got everything off that site but I will recheck. The stuff there is helpful for configuring the video and sound correctly on the laptop but it didn't make the unknown device issue go away. It may take me a few days before I can find some spare time to tinker with this again so I might not be able to report back any success/failure until early next week. Thanks again, stuck

I have an old IBM Thinkpad 390 laptop (it has a Swiss German/French keyboard). When I install Win98SE (plain vanilla, no patches, no service packs) the process goes smoothly enough but at the end of it Device Manager includes an unknown device. I can remove this item from Device Manager (just click Remove and it's gone) but as soon I reboot, Windows says it's found new hardware, which it fails to identify so it offers me the chance to install a driver but how am I supposed to know which bit of hardware is triggering this? Any suggestions gratefully received... stuck

Thanks for the confirmation about NUSB, that's what I thought it was designed to do stuck

Maybe I did choose the wrong brand but using it with an old Win 98 laptop was an afterthought. As I said, it's fine with XP and was utterly painless to set up, I just plugged it in and it worked. I'll try NUSB when I get a chance but I thought it was designed primarily to enable generic support for mass storage devices. stuck

I recently bought a Logilink USB midi interface cable. It came without software of any description, it relies on the native XP driver but I have no complaints, it works a treat with my XP laptop and digital piano. However... I have an old Win 98 laptop sitting doing nothing so I wondered if there was such a thing as a Win 98 driver out there somewhere. I'm not hopeful because Logilink have already told me that the device is XP/Vista/Mac only but I just wondered if any one here knew of a third party / generic driver that might be worth trying. stuck

Just to let you know that ccleaner didn't find the rougue lin ein the registry so I deleted it manually. Laptop boots with out incident again. Now I not stuck! Except I am but you know what I mean. stuck

Thanks for the feedback and sorry for my delay in responding, I was expecting an email notification of replies but haven't had any. Yes, I installed and ran Avira and it found and quarantined 2 instances of an autorun worm. It didn't fix the registry though. Yes again, I found a line in the registry and it is under current_user. I've not deleted it yet but I will. I'm going to run a ccleaner scan first to see what it picks up. Yes again, the infection came via a USB stick (not my fault, someone else to blame!), that's been sorted too.

ACER laptop running Vista Gold. Never been patched because it is a stand alone machine with no connection to anything (no network, no internet - nothing). Using OpenOffice 3, which crashed. On re-booting a series of three dialogs appeared, as 'OK' (the only option) is clicked on each: 1) Could not load or run 'C:\User\name\Local' specified in the registry. Make sure the file exists on your computer or remove the reference in the registry. 2) Could not load or run 'Settings\Application' specified in the registry. Make sure the file exists on your computer or remove the reference in the registry. 3) Could not load or run 'Data\asdlfj3\services.exe' specified in the registry. Make sure the file exists on your computer or remove the reference in the registry. The laptop finished booting. The sidebar was missing but apart form losing a note from the notepad, it seems OK on re-opening it. OpenOffice seems OK as well. If I log in as another user the laptop is fine, no errors. A Google search on 'asdlfj3 services.exe' doesn't turn up much. Any wisdom here? stuck

You may have to look a bit harder to find the correct driver if the add new hardware wizard can't find the right one amongst the stuf you've already downloaded. As for which port to use try connecting it to a serial port COM1 / COM3, that's where my modem is on my win 98 box. stuck

Thank you for your advice. I've been browsing around here over that last couple of days and found another thread (starting here) that is a similar sort of question to mine. The suggested order there is: 1) Win98 (+winzip or equiv. in case needed to unpack drivers) 2) hardware drivers 3) update of core stuff like IE, DirectX 4) security patches 5) apps 6) maybe reinstall any drivers that fail after applying the security patches If as you say the order isn't really that critical then I'll follow the above. It seems a logical sequence of putting the foundations (hardware) in first, then adding the walls (IE etc) , then putting the roof on (security) before finally fitting out (apps) the house. stuck