LoneCrusader

I'm not an expert on Open Source licensing either, but apparently someone here is going to have to become one... This whole business is ridiculous. I would prefer to see the great "dispute" settled as well, because it IS in everyone's best interests to NOT be fighting each other, BUT - NOT by simply giving in to the constant threats/intimidation coming down from "on high." I don't speak for anyone but myself, but if it were up to me I would not lift a finger to conform to any "demand" until some degree of mutual respect is established. The first step of which must include "them" putting a stop to the constant disparaging of the "XP (and Vista ) community" and "our" choices - as if anyone here needs "their" approval to use any given OS, or gives one iota what "they" think about our choice of that OS. That being said, I figured the "branding" problem would be simple enough.. just revert that particular change. While "they" will surely be very angry about it, in the end, (AS FAR AS I KNOW) they cannot force the change "retroactive" on already released code/versions/files. Even if they wanted to take the time and go through all of those old versions, and push out another update for each with the change, it would not erase what has already been made public, and is already covered under the "previous" existing license/redistribution conditions. These "private" repository issues are another aspect which we must figure out with regard to the licensing conditions. I see this "behavior" as simply an attempt to create more hassle for anyone who wishes to build the code for themselves.. which most certainly violates the "spirit" of Open Source, and may violate the actual licensing, depending on which licenses are applicable to different parts of the code. The MPL 2.0 (which to my knowledge governs the Firefox code that PM is developed from) contains some interesting specific statements that would seem to be relevant here: "All distribution of Covered Software in Source Code Form, including any Modifications that You create or to which You contribute, must be under the terms of this License." "You may not attempt to alter or restrict the recipients’ rights in the Source Code Form." "...Covered Software must also be made available in Source Code Form, as described in Section 3.1, and You must inform recipients of the Executable Form how they can obtain a copy of such Source Code Form by reasonable means in a timely manner..." "You may distribute such Executable Form under the terms of this License, or sublicense it under different terms, provided that the license for the Executable Form does not attempt to limit or alter the recipients’ rights in the Source Code Form under this License." ... so, I see it as a question of whether or not these statements are to be "understood" at face value. If so, then I'm not so certain that "private" repositories and "hoops to jump through" to obtain sources are not in direct violation of this.

I've heard that this does indeed happen, but I don't have any experience with it. I'm a CRT monitor die-hard, lol. I have a few LCD monitors in my collection but I never use them. (Of course with a laptop you're stuck with it...)

I assume this amount is for them to actively recover the data for you, not just for some recovery software? Is the price contingent upon them successfully recovering everything? Of course it also depends on just how "irreplaceable" the data is; or how hard it would be to "recreate" the lost items... If you have PayPal, some of us might be able to contribute a few dollars toward helping you... (for reference, if the conversion I'm getting is right this amounts to approximately $400 to $900 USD; seems a very wide price margin!)

One year ago today... Rudy, you are sorely missed!

I believe I read it on a website somewhere, not on a forum... I thought it was MDGx's site, but I think I was unable to find any such reference there whenever I last checked (but I no longer remember when that was, or how thorough my search was...); possibly it came from a site linked from his?? Interesting about VBEMP... I suppose experiments with .SYS video drivers might be in order if anyone has the time and hardware to experiment... a good first experiment might be to attempt to use a Win2K-compatible .SYS driver for a video card that we already know works under 9x with the proper 9x driver... such as a Radeon 9xxx series or an nVidia 5xxx/6xxx series card.

It's been a long time since I did any research into this, but previously I settled on the HP ZD8000 (or Compaq NX9600) for my own attempt at a high-end 9x laptop. It features a high-end P4 CPU, uses a desktop chipset so is capable of >2GB of RAM* (*3GB visible to OS with a BIOS mod; search for my name and "ZD8000" over at BIOS Mods), and has an ATI Mobility Radeon X600 graphics chip and AC'97 audio that can be made to work with available 9x drivers. These laptops have their quirks however, and it took me many failed attempts to achieve anything close to success. When I last worked on it, I had 98SE up and running without any major issues left to solve, but I just haven't had time to spend on it... Too many projects; too many real-life responsibilities; too little time.

Short answer; No. Despite the fact that some WDM (.SYS) drivers are supported under 9x, as far as I know, video drivers MUST be .VXD type drivers under 9x. I read that somewhere years ago, but I no longer remember the source. However; to be perfectly honest I don't know if it has ever been tried. We worked on HDAudio and USB3 drivers without any success, but never video. This is a very deep rabbit hole... I don't recommend such an experiment for most average users. For the record however, so that anyone else who ends up reading this will know: first (UNDER 9x, NOT NT!) run Walter Oney's WDMCHECK utility or rloew's DISPPE32 on the 2K/XP driver you wish to load and see which WDM functions are missing. Then you must load WDMEX and repeat the same process again to see if all functions are satisfied. If they are, then there may be hope, and one must proceed to INF modification. If not, then you're probably out of luck unless someone else who knows how to expand WDMEX comes along. ... And if you're already lost, or can't figure out how to use those two tools, then you're in over your head.

I've not had any direct experience with mobile nVidia cards... I bought a laptop some time ago that has one but I've not been able to find the time to do any experimenting with it; I had plans to try and use it with Windows 9x, but it has HD Audio, and rloew and I never managed to get HDAudio working under 9x. So, the only experience I have with mobile video cards and 9x comes from my HP ZD8000 (ATI Mobility Radeon X600) experiments. I do know that some 7xxx series desktop cards were supported by the last "official" 9x release, (81.98 I believe), but not (IIRC) the higher-end 78xx/79xx cards. These cards do work when using the last released "beta" driver, which is 82.69, and which I believe you have tried. (Note, not all of the cards included in the unofficial 82.69 INF, including but not limited to any 8xxx/9xxx series cards, do NOT work with this driver.) The only other thing I can add to this discussion that may be relevant is that the "actual memory size" and "reported memory size" of any VRAM must match under 9x, or problems will occur. rloew and I did extensive testing in relation to this in order to find out why some people reported success with 512MB cards, and why some did not. Hence the NVSIZE patch... For example; newer cards with large amounts of RAM may report 256MB of RAM to Reserved Memory/MMIO to minimize the >3GB memory "reduction" to x86 systems and use a "memory banking" method to access all VRAM (reserved resources are doubled, so a 512MB card that reports 512MB of RAM will automatically cause 1GB of RAM to disappear from an x86 system with 4GB of RAM, so you're already down to 3GB reported to the OS). However, the 9x driver does not know how to handle this memory banking, and expects the reported VRAM to match the actual VRAM. Cards that report 256MB when actually using more will cause crashes... TL;DR; I had a 512MB 7200GS card that reported 512MB. It didn't crash under 9x with the 82.69 driver. I had a 512MB 7950GT card that reported 256MB and used banking. It caused crashes. Patching the card BIOS to report 512MB corrected the problem. I hope I've explained this well enough; it's been some time since I worked with these issues, and sometimes I struggle to remember the exact terminology rloew used in context... So, to make use of this... you need to figure out how much VRAM is reported under XP, and how much system RAM is reported on the Control Panel/System tab. Then we must figure out if the correct total VRAM size is being reported by the card BIOS. Since actual system memory is being used, and not dedicated VRAM, I don't know if this can be fixed or not...

Glad you got things running, (partially at least).. DLLHOOK is an API redirector; it's used to fool programs into thinking an API is present where the program expects it, when in reality it may exist in a different place or not exist at all under 9x. This can help you bypass missing exports/etc when programs are run. For Example; some programs expect a function in KERNEL32.DLL "IsDebuggerPresent"; this function does not exist under Windows 95. Using DLLHOOK, you can redirect this call to a different call (in a different DLL if necessary), thus circumventing the error, and allowing the program to run (provided the function you redirect to provides a "compatible" return value!).

There's always room for improvement. I don't like some of the decisions the PM team have made, but they're far ahead of the other "main" choices. Was just throwing out an opinion, since everyone else was doing so...lol

Forget the system.ini tweaking game and install RLoew's RAM Limitation Patch. I would use the /M option with your setup. No more tweaking or jumping through hoops necessary.

Chrome is trash. Firefox is now following said trash. Pale Moon is the last, best hope... (If only they weren't such an arrogant bunch...)

Ah yes, as usual it's always someone else's fault when Tobin goes on a rampage. And I love how MC tries to make it sound like there's some kind of "opening" for everyone to work together.. - what a load of rubbish. Anyone but a fool or the willfully ignorant can see the way they have behaved toward anything they don't approve of or consider to be beneath them. With them it's more like "conform and obey, or die." Who would want to "work with" such an arrogant, self important bunch of jerks? Love this. Yes, a dislike button would be a nice wake up call for a lot of people in today's society, methinks.

Ugh, now I feel even older. But aside from that, it's a weird coincidence but I had just been attempting to pick back up my 95 slipstream project from where it got left 4 years ago for various reasons. Never realized the significance of the date.. but it seems fitting now. I remember my second computer, a Windows 95 OSR2 machine circa 1997. I'd had an earlier DOS6/Win 3.1 system before, but the new Windows 95 machine was there when I first discovered the Internet and online gaming. When it died on me a few years later in high school it caused me to have to learn more about building computers and setting up software.. and forever put me on the path, lol. Also enjoyed your story about issues with 98 that didn't exist on 95 - 98FE was garbage. A friend of mine had a computer with virtually identical specs to my 95 OSR2 machine that came with 98FE. He was constantly battling weird problems that I never encountered. Eventually later on I had to use 98FE on a system for a while, and I experienced several flaky issues that didn't happen under 95 (or 98SE). At one point I decided I wanted a CD burner.. thought I would get one of those new fangled external ones. Went to Office Depot and bought a HP USB burner, since my machine was HP and had a USB port. When I got home and figured out that it would not work with Windows 95, I took it back to exchange it for a different model/brand that connected via parallel port. The guy at Office Depot acted like I was crazy, and kept asking "Why don't you upgrade your operating system?!?!?" The parallel burner worked very well.. still have it, but haven't used it in ages. Eventually I went on to build a new system, with a 3.06GHz P4 processor. My beloved 95 crashed, and I couldn't figure it out at the time. Had to move to 98SE. Years later here I would discover the solution through trial and error installing any and all updates I could lay my hands on until it suddenly worked. And, total vindication at last. With @rloew's help, eventually helped to create a USB Storage driver for 95 that would run that d@mn HP burner.. if I still had it!

I believe you may have assumed more from my reply than was intended. I have NOT used MULTCORE, nor do I have a copy unfortunately. It may or may not work with Windows 95; it is most likely untested in that environment unless Rudy made any tests in the past few years (most of his software was originally designed with only 98/ME in mind; only after I became closer to him and began helping test and debug things [and requesting 95 support specifically] did he spend much time on 95). Let me also clarify; any "application" you wish to use in this context would have to actually be compiled !WITH! the MULTCORE SDK. An application generically designed to use multiple processors, say on a later NT-based OS, will NOT use multiple processors under 9x without being REcompiled MULTCORE-aware. AFAIK, MULTCORE is a unique 9x-specific implementation, NOT a 9x-port of some existing NT capability. I've never had any issues whatsoever with HyperThreading. Never had to disable it to make 9x run either.

PCI-E cards work as well.

Yes to both.

Well... sort of.

Ah yes, have several of those. Loved the cases. I used to buy them just to get the cases and use them for building newer machines.

Do you mean that you have NO USB ports at all from the beginning, or you DO have them BEFORE you install NUSB? AFAIK the X99 chipset boards do not have USB1 controllers, only USB2/USB3. This can lead to a situation where USBD.SYS is not copied to \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS during installation. The USB2 drivers depend on it, but do not force it to be copied, expecting it to already be there because of the USB1 install routine. Try copying USBD.SYS to the correct location if it isn't there (but I think NUSB does that anyway... ) If the latest NUSB, using a WinME file, required another WinME file, don't you think it would have been included? Why would you install a VIA hardware-specific USB2 driver on a system that (as far as we know, and most likely, being Intel-chipset-based) does not have a VIA USB2 controller?

It's been a long time since I worked with ATI cards and Windows 95, other than some experiments with an XP-era laptop (Mobility Radeon) which produced very weird results and I never solved the issues. As someone else pointed out above, I know for a fact that the Radeon 8500 does work fine under 95; I have the drivers CDROM that came with one and have used it. IIRC, the 9250 had a working package as well. Since the last 98 driver is of course still a VXD, then theoretically it should work under 95 as well, and thus theoretically all the same cards working under 98 should work under 95. There may be other incompatibilities or dependencies though. The Control Panels/SysTray shortcuts and such will definitely not work under 95.

As others pointed out, I don't think Windows 9x can use WDM graphics drivers. I read somewhere years ago that video drivers must be VXD, but I no longer remember the source. We were able to load the HD Audio BUS driver (HDAUDBUS.SYS) that enumerates the actual HDA audio output device, but none of the actual HDA device drivers (Microsoft/Realtek/Sigmatel tested) would load, despite the fact that all required WDM functions were satisfied. Either the system would boot to the desktop and no sound was produced (MS driver on originally supported hardware), or the system would die in BSOD's and never reach the desktop (Realtek,Sigmatel). We were unable to debug these crashes. Work was also done on loading USB3 drivers under 9x. No success here either; Rudy commented that these crashes appeared to be the result of "Initialization has already failed and the Driver is cleaning up." From my understanding of MULTCORE, any program you wish to use it with must be compiled with "awareness" of MULTCORE in order for it to actually use multiple cores. (i.e.; You can't just install MULTCORE to your machine and expect any program(s) to simply automatically USE multiple cores. You must have the sources for, and be able to recompile, any programs you wish to use it.)

Officially compatible/supported - no. However Windows 95 (OSR2.5 + FIX95CPU + XUSBSUPP) seems to run just fine on various Socket 775 boards. Your issue will be a lack of drivers for USB2 controllers, integrated HD Audio, and possibly integrated LAN depending on the chipset used. If you're prepared to use add-in cards instead of onboard, then you may bypass most of these issues. The unofficial NVidia drivers do work on 95, minus the control panels and such. These can be used with early PCI-E video cards, although extensive testing has not been done on the stability of such a setup.

Funny you should mention this, it reminded me that Rudy once mentioned that I had made some DOS-scripted thing I was working on (FIX95CPU maybe..?) written less readable by changing the default color from Red to Blue.. After reading your post and looking at the page for a while, I wasn't really happy with the blue (or dark purple visited links) myself. ...So, the "readability" fix is in. Just for you, jaclaz. Had to dig deep back (20 years! ) into my old Starfleet Academy "Romulan" days to find a more suitable shade of blue that we used back then on our page. Not a fan of amber myself, but it may show up somewhere later, simply for the fact that it is viewer-friendly.

A heads up for those who are interested; I have uploaded a few more pieces of Rudy's work to my site. These are mostly things that weren't advertised or well known.