LoneCrusader

First of all, motherboard chipset drivers are 99% of the time nothing but plain text INF files that specifically identify devices by name. They are not even necessary for a system to run in 99% of cases. Go unpack the last 98SE compatible Intel Chipset INF Utility and tell me what you find inside. Nothing but a bunch of text INF files and their security catalogs, which serve no real purpose. And this remains true even up the last XP compatible version and beyond. My Unofficial Intel Chipset Driver package will properly name all 9xx and later devices if not having them properly named worries you. The PCI/PCI-E bus "driver" is the same standard one that comes with 98SE, whether you're running a Pentium 1 machine, or an 8xx chipset board or a 9xx chipset board or the X58 chipset for that matter. Not one single true "driver" (.SYS/.VXD/.PDR/etc) is contained in an Intel chipset INF package. And yes, you CAN do a full shut down from either ACPI or Plug and Play BIOS PROVIDED you find a board with an AWARD BIOS as I previously stated. ACPI works better on some boards than others, but if you install 98SE using "SETUP /P I" it will force 98SE to not use ACPI and avoid the problem to start with. This particular issue along with the "Yellow Exclamation Marks" is totally dependent upon the type of BIOS the board uses, NOT the chipset the board uses. Hence why I said use boards that use AWARD and avoid others, particularly Intel proprietary. What makes you think you would need to add a USB card when a board already has onboard USB? This is really going off the deep end... The Intel provided USB2 driver doesn't work with these later systems because it was artificially limited to certain chipsets, but why would you use it anyway when all you need to circumvent this is NUSB or specifically the Win2K USB2 stack? Obviously there are no 9x drivers for USB 3.0, but that certainly doesn't keep you from using USB 2.0. How would you be stuck with 16-bit VGA colors if you are using a 98SE compatible PCI-E video card? Once again you make no sense and apparently haven't read what I posted before. Onboard video is useless and has no drivers as I previously pointed out, but why would anyone want a board with onboard video for a performance system anyway? Use a GeForce 7950GT PCI-E + the 82.69 driver and no more problem. Also, most third-party Intel boards DO have an IDE connector. Just because Intel dropped it on their own boards (which should be avoided anyway because of the BIOS) does not mean that everyone else did. My Gigabyte X58 board not only has an IDE connector, but has a FLOPPY connector! And just what exactly do these driver packages contain? Most likely nothing but text INF files just like the Intel ones. Links please. Graphics cards work with or without any chipset drivers. I usually see ONE Yellow Exclamation Mark on my later Intel systems using AWARD BIOS, and this one can even be eliminated by installing using "SETUP /P I" to disable ACPI. In contrast if I try to set up the same system on an Intel-BIOS board I usually see 4 or more. This is why BIOS type matters.

-Reserved for future use if necessary.-

KernelEx Unified Topics + Links Index Original topics by the original developer Xeno86: KernelEx 4.5.2 >> - Last Full Version completed by Xeno86 KernelEx - Call for support >> - Xeno86 leaves the project, calls for developers KernelEx Reborn - jumper takes over development: KernelEx 4.5.2015.11 updates >> - jumper provides updates to core KernelEx DLL's Applied KernelEx - discussion of compatible programs: KernelEx Apps Compatibility List (New) >> - The most up to date discussion of compatible programs New workaround: Printing with Firefox 3.x & KernelEx! >> Fireshot extension for Firefox 3; print with KernelEx in Win98SE >> Printing with KernelEx 4.5.1 >> Opera, KernelEx and related matters >> K-Lite Codec Pack and ffdshow with KernelEX and Kext >> KernelEx Supplements - auxiliary DLL's, stubs, and associated add-ons: Kext: DIY KernelEx extensions >> - jumper's extenders and stubs KernelEx Auxiliary DLL Updates >> - jumper's list of external DLLs for use with KernelEx ImportPatcher.41 >> - jumper's tool to find and fix dependencies KernelEx In-Depth threads - information for programmers and developers: KernelEx -- On building, debugging and related matters... >> For any and all of you who are actively working on, testing, or running KernelEx: I have created this "Pinned" thread that will contain links to all of the previously pinned threads and links to all of the diverse KernelEx related/auxiliary/extender threads in one place. This became necessary due to the number of different KernelEx threads out there and the fact that the list of Pinned threads needed to be cleaned up. While I follow the topics about it from time to time I'm not very familiar with using KernelEx myself, so I would appreciate input from you guys regarding threads that should be linked in this index. It's easy to lose track of threads that don't get frequent posts, so give me some feedback and links. This thread is NOT for discussion of any specific KernelEx issue and is meant to be an index. Once complete and organized it will be locked. Please post issues in their appropriate threads.

In the end this comes down to nothing but personal preference. I still don't see any reason to choose this VIA board over any "equivalent" Intel based system. So it uses 1066FSB... some Intel based boards with even faster FSB work. So it uses DDR2... some Intel based boards that work use DDR3. So it uses a Core2 Duo processor... I have two Intel based systems currently running 98SE that are using a Core2 Quad Q9400 and a Core i7 930 respectively; not that multiple cores matter for Windows 9x anyway. See the Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6 and the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5. Yes, they have the HD Audio problem, but you say the VIA board has HD Audio as well. Now, as for meeting the "criteria" in this thread, many of these newer boards DO meet it if you accept the conditions I stated in my earlier post. Namely "accept that you will need to add an Audio card and buy the SATA patch" - once these things are accepted as necessary, then in many cases the rest of the drivers are available. My Chipset INF package handles the chipset devices and some of the popular onboard Gigabit Network cards have a 9x driver. So provided one chooses an Intel-based board based on these points and compares it to your VIA board we're back to the only point this VIA board has in it's favor - a free SATA driver. I'm sure there are plenty of good VIA boards out there. I just don't see anything special about them that would make me choose VIA over Intel. But everyone has their own preferences. I would recommend VIA as a second choice though, as NForce/ATI have major bugs under 9x.

DFI LanParty 875P-T(and 865PE-T) along with the MSI 865PE Neo3-F come close to that, although they're still DDR1 and 800FSB. However I would be willing to wager that these boards with a build maxed for performance would still outperform the VIA boards you mentioned in a raw performance matchup. I like the idea of an AGP slot, but let's face it, there isn't any advantage to the AGP slot at this point because no "later, more 9x compatible" cards exist for AGP than do for PCI-E. The last compatible cards for both slots, both ATI and NVidia, are the same cards. From what you said, it looks to me like the one and only "advantage" one would get from such a board is a manufacturer provided SATA driver. With the Intel chipset boards one can usually set Legacy IDE mode or spend a measly $10 on rloew's SATA patch and poof, there goes any advantage whatsoever to a VIA board out the window, and opens up a far greater range of newer Intel-based boards.

The 6800 Ultra 256MB is the last card officially supported under 9x by nVidia. However it may or may not also suffer from the same shutdown bug as the 7xxx cards, I don't know. Technically, the 7800GS WAS officailly supported, because BFG provided a 9x driver for it (82.16). So long as you keep the RAM under 256MB the 7xxx cards only have the shutdown bug, which is fixed by a free patch. The ATI cards I named have drivers in the last official ATI package, although ATI only claims support up to the 9800 XT.

Last/newest working cards for 9x without help from rloew: AGP: nVidia GeForce 7950GT 256MB (if you can find them, EXTREMELY rare) or GeForce 7800GS 256MB, ATI X850 XT PE 256MB (has issues with some DOS games) PCI-E: nVidia GeForce 7950GT 256MB, ATI X850 XT PE 256MB (has issues with some DOS games). 256MB and smaller cards will work without patches. The fact your card is 512MB is most likely causing the problem; only a handful of 98 machines will successfully load the driver for a 512MB card without issues. Some will, some won't, and there doesn't seem to be any logic or pattern to it. It has something to do with how the motherboard handles MMIO, but a discussion of that is way over my head.

That's an interesting way to see it. In my experience, nothing that is made today lasts, or is even designed to. I have systems from 1993 with their original hard drives, still humming away. Today, manufacturers build junk that ensures you have to keep filling their coffers (and their shareholders coffers) on a regular basis. You made a good point here; newer is not always better. I can think of one reason to prefer a newer board in this case however. Many of the last 9x compatible Pentium 4 boards were made during the height of the "Great Capacitor Plague" and develop problems as such. I have a stockpile of SOYO P4-I875P Dragon 2 Platinum's for building 9x gaming machines, and ALL of them develop bad capacitors sooner or later. This seems to have been corrected in later systems.

I don't have much experience with VIA, but VIA also seems rather "unimpressive" so to speak. Why should it be any better than Intel? I believe Intel chipsets much newer than the VIA ones you specify are usable with 9x given the conditions I already listed above. More input from VIA users on the subject would be good though... Good catch on noticing the AMI BIOS Josey It appears to have an AMD chipset. This may or may not cause issues; I have no experience with AMD chipsets but I would definitely wait for input from someone who does and who has run 9x successfully on a board that uses one. I have a much older board (Intel D102GGC2) with an ATI (which was purchased later by AMD) chipset that is HORRIBLY bugged when trying to run Windows 9x (rloew can attest to this, I sent him one of the boards just to see if he had any better luck). I assume (hope) that the later AMD chipsets do not have these problems, but it's something to keep in mind. Chipset and BIOS seem to be the essential deciding factors in whether or not a board gets along well with 9x. All cards based on the 7950GT should work fine. 256MB versions will all work without glitches; 512MB versions may require rloew's nVidia patch to work properly and access all 512MB of RAM (some systems will still boot and load the driver with a 512MB card, some don't. In both cases only 256MB is accessible without the patch). The 7950GX2 1GB (dual 512 7950GT's mounted together in SLI) card (last of the 7xxx series) remains in a gray area, but getting it working fully under 9x doesn't look promising. I got a system up and running with it, and had a driver loaded, but only one of the dual parts of the card was working (so only 1GPU and 512MB works) and the other part reported errors. If no other issues are present, then this card might be nice in a dual-boot system with XP since XP can use the full card, but it would also cause available system memory to be reduced from 3GB to 2GB, which is a really bad tradeoff with no benefit to 9x. I haven't looked into the issue for many years as I haven't got around to actually setting up an everyday use system on a board with HD Audio yet, but in my older system builds (in the days when you could still get a motherboard without a bunch of onboard junk built in) I always used the Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer cards. These should still be a very powerful card for Windows 9x. Welcome, as always. I've been there and seen that on other forums myself. It always boils my blood, especially when they start asking you WHY you want to do this or do that, as if it were any of their business or as if you don't have a legitimate reason (in their mind) for using your computer as you see fit.

DOS itself is not affected by having 4GB of RAM, but certain DOS programs may not run with more than 2GB of RAM. Drive Image 2002 (PQDI.EXE) and the DOS4GW.EXE DOS extender that is packaged with many DOS applications and games (WarCraft, WarCraft II, etc) come to mind, I had issues with them. There are solutions available, including a "limiter" driver for CONFIG.SYS from rloew for running in pure DOS and a special addition to the RAM patch for DOS programs running inside a Windows DOS box (DPMI). DOS programs would need to be checked on an individual basis for the issue but these solutions are universal. I'm not aware of any issues with the 945. I've only tested one board in that family though, the Intel D945GCCR. It required rloew's SATA patch and an extra patch to EDSI_506.PDR if I tried to use a CDROM as the first drive on the IDE channel (SATA HDD on SATA1, IDE DVDROM) which violates some archaic limitation set my Microsoft. I personally would choose the GA-965P-DQ6. I have one of these boards with partially set-up 95C OSR2.5 and 98SE systems on it. I have both OS'es up and running with all chipset devices identified, rloew's RAM patch and SATA patch, running a 512MB 7950GT PCI-E video card using the 82.69 driver and rloew's NVidia patch. I set this machine up to test my chipset driver and to help rloew test the NVidia issues, so I haven't proceeded further with trying to install other drivers or cards, but it seems to get along fine with 9x. No USB3 for 9x, sorry. But it may work under 2K using blackwingcat's projects and should work under XP if you need/want to dual boot these systems with your 9x. That's pretty much got it covered. Onboard video is useless on a newer board so you don't need a board that has it, but I don't guess it hurts anything if you just disable it. No problem. You're welcome!

Parallel ports are handled by the built in Windows 98SE drivers, same as PS/2 ports or Serial ports or USB1 ports.

Wrong, i915 has 98SE/ME drivers. Technically yes, a 9x INF does exist for the i915 chipset in the last official Intel package but it does NOT cover any other 9xx chipset (not even the 925). Also, Intel did not provide a working USB 2.0 driver for Windows 9x on ICH6/9xx chipsets or provide a working SATA port driver for 9x, so it seems more of an oversight that a 915 INF was included rather than a real attempt at support. Garbage AMI BIOS, there's one strike for starters. Why would the onboard USB2 be limited to 1.1? Makes no sense unless you try to use the chipset-limited OrangeWare driver rather than the 2K drivers from NUSB. I have run 9x tests on both an Intel D915GAG an a MSI 925 Platinum board. Both I would label as "undesirable" for 9x; the Intel board has ACPI issues and does strange things with RAM allocation while the MSI board has the same issues and only allows 2.75GB of RAM to the OS, even with 4GB installed. If you want "all 9x compatible," go with an 865 or 875 chipset board. If you want something newer, there's no reason to choose something below the 965 chipset.

You may have some good possibilities there, but I have very little experience with AMD over the past 10 years or so. The last time I built and preferred AMD systems over Intel was back in the K6-II Super Socket 7 days. Since the P4 I've only used Intel except in some rare situations for testing purposes. If you chose to run an AMD machine, I'm afraid I can't be of much help when it comes to chipset compatibility knowledge. rloew and others will be of more help in this area. I would advise staying away from NForce chipsets though; every one I have tested with has had some problem/bug or another when trying to run Windows 9x. Finding a new"er" board with a FDD connector isn't that hard really. Most third-party manufacturers added a FDD connector to their boards for backward compatibility; only Intel really pushed for its removal. It seems to have vanished now from "current" systems, but many fairly recent systems still have it. There are plenty of Intel based systems to fit the bill as well. Here are some examples; you'll need to see if you can find sources to buy them if you're looking to find them still "new." MSI 875P Neo-LSR Gigabyte GA-G1975X Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3LR MSI 975X Platinum MSI P965 Neo-F There are many more like these, you just have to dig around the manufacturer's websites for other boards in the chipset families you're looking for. DFI also made good boards although I'm not as familiar with them since the old AMD Socket 7 days I mentioned before. The MOBOT motherboard database is sometimes useful as well if you know how to get it to produce the results you want.

Motherboard chipset drivers are not absolutely necessary for a system to run. They are just text files that identify motherboard components by the specific manufacturer's names. Having them can reduce the number of "unknown devices" in the Device Manager and reduce the number of devices given "generic" names, but other than this they don't do much. My unofficial Intel Chipset driver package should handle all Intel chipsets up to at least the X79, so you're covered on this. As far as everything else working "fully," the answer is yes so long as it has a 9x compatible driver. In order to use SATA ports instead of PATA you will most likely need rloew's SATA patch. On some boards it is possible to set the SATA ports to operate in "Legacy IDE" mode, but not all support this and it is not 100% guaranteed that it will make all of the ports/drives work under 9x, and if the setting gets changed for whatever reason it can lead to crashes. There are no 9x drivers for any HD Audio device, so any of these devices will not work. Some onboard gigabit network cards have 9x drivers, some don't. If it's a RealTek or Marvell chip then you have some hope; if it's Intel forget it. The main thing to look for is a third-party (Gigabyte/MSI/DFI/etc) board based on an Intel chipset that uses an AWARD BIOS and doesn't have too many onboard devices or anything too fancy added on. Onboard video is useless so I would rule out boards that have it. Be sure it has at least two available PCI slots, one for a sound card and another for network just in case. More PCI slots if you use/need other addon cards for whatever reason. If possible look for a board that uses a RealTek or Marvell Yukon network chip, as these have 9x drivers and may save you from having to add a card. Order rloew's RAM patch to enjoy up to 4GB of RAM under 9x. Install 98SE using "SETUP /p i" if you have problems with ACPI (usually shows up as crashes during SETUP or onboard devices not working properly). That's about as far as I can take you until you choose a board or start your project. Debatable on that front; I wouldn't recommend the USP to someone unless they were familiar with backing up their system before attempting it and subsequently knowing how to verify that everything still works as expected once it's installed. I'm not trying to start an argument here, but some of the files contained in it do not work as intended with all systems; the later versions of the 2K USB2 stack drivers in particular.

The Intel 9xx series boards do NOT have Windows 9x drivers. The motherboard chipset devices can be handled by my unofficial Intel Chipset driver package, but there are no Windows 9x drivers for any of the onboard hardware such as Video, HD Audio, or the Network card. The Intel D875PBZ is the LAST Intel-branded board and the 875 is the LAST Intel chipset that carries official 9x support. I have a lot of experience with 9x on "post-9x" Intel boards and if at all possible I would advise you to AVOID Intel-branded motherboards later than the D875PBZ for Windows 9x systems at all costs. The proprietary Intel BIOS tends to not get along well with Windows 9x and is worthelss for actual customization of any important settings. Third party boards based on Intel chipsets are OK, but look for those that use AWARD BIOS preferably. If you want "everything" to have 9x support out of the box, then I suggest you find a motherboard based on the Intel 875 (or 865) chipset. It will however limit you to AGP for a video card. ATI X850 XT PE/NVidia 7800GS are the last compatible cards. The ATI X8xx series has issues with some old DOS games. If you accept that some tweaking, trial-and-error, and some non-free third party patches may be required, then you can look for a newer board. Accept that you will need rloew's SATA patch and RAM patch, along with a 9x-compatible PCI add-in sound card and you will be able to use a much larger variety of hardware. Many newer boards will work using these, but you will need to carefully select a board that has a Network card with 9x drivers (unless you want to use a PCI card for this as well) and preferably uses AWARD BIOS. NVidia 7950GT is the last confirmed working PCI-E video card. These come in 256MB and 512MB versions; the latter models may require another patch from rloew.

@AnX Just wondering if you ever tried what I suggested here to fix the media metadata issue? (Quoted below to keep info together in this thread.) Try this. Windows Imaging Component (64-bit) A little piece of the OS that was left out of x64 for whatever reason. I had to add it to my XP x64 "MediaPC/HTPC" that I built recently. I don't know if it directly addresses the problem you mentioned but I had to add it for something I needed... Ugh I must be getting old lol my memory is fuzzy!

Apparently it doesn't show up under XP x86 because SP3 adds SHA-256 capability. Since there was no SP3 for XP x64, then it must be manually added by HotFix. Thanks to sdfox7 in this thread I was able to Google-fu a solution. Google is now working on IE8 under XP x64, and my game that depends on it is no longer choking out on the white loading screen. It may be very interesting to play around with the files from the two HotFixes I listed there that cured the problem. They are available in x86 versions as well, and I don't know whether or not older versions of Internet Explorer may be able to benefit from them as well... Possibilities, anyone? A very interesting idea if one only had the time to devote to experimentation with it. Reminds me of when I considered setting up a web server for the sole purpose of running SquirrelMail to access my Yahoo Mail to avoid the new forced interface. It seemed possible but I never had the time to get around to it.

Thanks for the info; now that I knew some specific issues to Google for it led me to a solution. But no, not all of these sites will remain broken now. XP x64 users should install KB2868626/MS13-095 and KB3072630/MS15-074. The latter may entirely supersede the former but I installed both and now Google is working on IE8 under XP x64. It also fixed the other issue I had which got discussed elsewhere in an unrelated thread. I don't know whether older versions of Internet Explorer might also benefit from these updates... possibilities anyone? These updates are also available in x86 versions. EDIT: It may or may not be relevant that I had previously spoofed the IE User Agent to IE9 on this system. If the two updates I listed don't fix the issue this tweak may also be required.

do in USBSTOR.inf? On other USB Mass Storage drivers for 98SE, this registry key is missing. The flashdrives work correctly with and without this registry, so why it is there? That entry (along with USBSTOR CB and USBSTOR CBI if present) is to be used for specific Mass Storage Devices that do not correctly report which Mass Storage Protocol they are using. This is most likely a non-issue for any modern device and only a leftover form when the protocol was being developed. I don't know of any devices that actually require it. You will also find these sections along with a short description of them inside my XUSBSUPP for Windows 95.

Google does NOT work on IE8 under XP x64 for some reason, while it does work for others under XP x86. I noticed this during a separate issue I was working on. Very strange and annoying.

The onboard Marvell Gigabit LAN chip has a provided 9x driver according to the Gigabyte page for the board. Some boards of this era have Audio chips that are supposedly switchable between HD Audio and AC'97, I have a board that claims this, but have never tried to use the Audio on it yet. Check the manual and the BIOS settings to see what's available.

While I would love to see this happen I highly doubt it would even be given any serious consideration. We just had a battle with the PaleMoon developers over the ins-and-outs of Windows XP support, which they have all but threatened to drop (again) if too many people using a "hack" they disapprove of try to get support. Also I read a post over at their forum once by someone who wanted to run PaleMoon on 2K, and he was given the standard Microsoft-esque response (old, outdated, insecure, bla, bla, bla). I can only imagine the rubbish that would be said about supporting 9x.

It is forbidden to request downloads of copyrighted software or to discuss means of using them illegally on this forum. But here you may be able to learn how to create such an image yourself. Good luck! Es prohibido solicitar descargas de software con derechos de autor o informaciones sobre su utilizción ilegal en este foro. Pero aquí Usted puede aprender como crear la imagen deseada por si mismo. ¡Buena suerte!

True. Here's hoping... lol Apparently my first post got lost in the shuffle along with the other one. A bit fishy, but all's well that ends well I guess...

That post removal was the last straw, I had to register and say something. I did try to reply after the post disappeared. Mine has also disappeared or was never approved, one or the other. If nothing else, here is the best quote from that post, preserved for posterity. It sums up the whole issue of XP compatibility in PM up from beginning to end, from dropping support in the main code line to the POSReady block: "...have gone from really liking PaleMoon to simply hating it less than all of the other options..." well said, whoever you were!