LoneCrusader

Hmmm... For some reason I haven't been able to turn up any good documentation on Prehistoric's particular machine (just a very generic spec sheet for multiple models) so I'm not certain about any of the hardware. How did you find this out?

JCPB's Win 95 page has an example of how to load it in CONFIG.SYS: DEVICE=C:\DOS\CDMKE.SYS /SBP:220 /D:MSCD000 However, it'll also require MSCDEX.EXE (or SHCDX33E.COM) to work (in AUTOEXEC.BAT or as an INSTALL= line, in CONFIG.SYS)... Yeah I overlooked the RAM info. Fixed. Still I have never encountered those DOS CDROM drivers before and unless Prehistoric's CDROM drive will not work with OAKCDROM.SYS I don't see what purpose they are serving in the current setup. There should be no need to set up a special DOS driver for a CDROM at this point in the process. If Prehistoric needs a CDROM driver loaded for running in pure DOS mode then this can be set up later after Windows 95 is up and running. We need to know whether the system has a Floppy Drive or not (assuming yes based on previous posts), and whether he is using 95 RTM or OSR2 (assuming OSR2 based on previous posts), and whether it is a set of floppies or a CDROM, and if a CDROM whether or not he has the Boot Disk that came with the CDROM. (I tend to forget that original Windows 95 CDROMs are not bootable like 98SE ones.) Provided it is an OSR2 CDROM, then only a normal Windows 98 Boot Disk with OAKCDROM.SYS/MSCDEX.EXE should be needed in order to install Windows 95, whether copying the SETUP files to the HDD as I do or installing from the CDROM. If it isn't OSR2 and is 95 RTM, the it's more complicated because the DOS version is different (therefore 98 Boot Disk can't be used) and the CDROM driver support is not automatic and has to be tweaked for the system (from my understanding; I've only used OSR2 on a normal basis).

Some CPUs at ~1GHz do still need FIX95CPU, as the original AMDK6UPD package applied to AMD CPUs as slow as 350MHz. Intel CPUs were affected as well, but the issue did not appear until a somewhat faster clock speed. There are many things that can cause a Windows Protection Error, it's a real pain that no other information is given, not even the name of the file causing the crash... I'm almost out of ideas, but let's start from the beginning and see if we may be missing something... You already said the CPU as 1.3GHz... You already said you have 256MB of RAM... Did you completely repartition and reformat the hard drive in this machine? Are the HDD and CDROM drives in this machine IDE PATA or SATA? What is the size of the HDD? Does this laptop have a Floppy Drive? (I assume yes based on what you said before?) Are you certain you have a good copy of Windows 95? (No file corruption, etc?) Is it a CDROM or a set of Floppies? Is it 95 RTM or 95 OSR2? (I assume OSR2 because you said it was 95 B?) When installing did you disable every extraneous device (audio/lan/modem/etc) and leave them off until you're able to boot to the Desktop? (You can leave the CDROM on lol) How did you end up with the DOS CDROM drivers you mentioned? I have never encountered these particular files... You installed FIX95CPU version 3... did it print any errors? When did you install FIX95CPU? After SETUP asks to reboot for the first time or later? Did the second phase of SETUP complete after the first reboot, or did it start crashing at this point? You mentioned the Sony CD's having drivers - unless these drivers are stated to be specifically for Windows 95 DO NOT attempt to install them to your system. If they don't contain things specifically for 95 they are virtually useless to you unless you are putting back XP or whatever came on the system originally.

Hmmm.. well I don't see any load failures in the BOOTLOG except a font failing to load. I've seen this before but I don't remember whether or not it caused the system to crash completely as yours does. Unfortunately I'm running out of ideas.. I had hoped others might be able to help once you posted the log, but it doesn't seem to be very helpful in this case. Try going into the laptop BIOS and disabling every "extra" device that you can such as Audio, LAN, Modem, USB, FireWire, etc, and once you have everything disabled that you can turn off see if you can boot normally.

The BOOTLOG is still created even when the machine crashes with the Windows Protection Error. You will need to choose a logged boot, allow the system to crash, and then retrieve the log either in Safe Mode or with a Live CD of some sort. If you had trouble downloading the FIX95CPU package, here is an alternate link. You can't just extract the same set of files from Windows because the old versions inside the Windows SETUP CABs are bugged and have to be replaced with the updates inside FIX95CPU. If you're trying to use the same versions from the CABs, then no wonder you're still crashing. XP drivers cannot be used under Windows 95, for PCIMCA or otherwise.

Does the Windows Protection Error list any specific files or give further info? The purpose of the logged boot it to produce BOOTLOG.TXT, a file that lists the startup process of Windows 9x and lists drivers and modules as they are loaded. It wasn't supposed to cure the problem, it was to provide the log so we can examine it and see if it will help determine the problem. You need to copy or attach the contents of the log here. What do you mean the "download will not work in DOS"? What are you trying to download? Or do you mean copying the SETUP files to the system? If you're having problems copying files in DOS it probably indicates a problem with hardware or the SETUP files themselves. The PCMCIA controller should not keep the system from booting properly, but I have no experience with PCMCIA.

I can't say 100% for sure about Windows 95RTM/95A, as I have never used it, but 95B/C OSR2 handles 512MB just fine.

Does it print any errors when trying to boot into Normal mode? If so, what are they? If not, can you describe the crash and how the machine proceeds up to it in more detail? How much RAM is in the laptop? Try a "Logged" boot into Normal Mode and then post the contents of C:\BOOTLOG.TXT here.

When running 512MB of RAM or less you shouldn't need to do any tweaking to SYSTEM.INI or otherwise. In fact, this may cause some things not to work properly, especially if you are trying to run more than 512MB. I was never able to get a 9x system to boot and be stable with more than 512MB of RAM without rloew's RAM patch. I got 98SE to boot with around ~1150MB once using an older version of the Unofficial Service Pack, but it was very unstable. Specific errors are important though, because one has to know them in order to trace down the underlying causes. DXDIAG seems to not always be reliable. I never sees more than 2GB of RAM on systems where 4GB is present. I'm not sure about how well it measures and keeps track of the page file.

Hmm... Microsoft at work I suppose, lol. Anyway you're welcome.

If you don't list the specific errors that you are getting then we can't help you. Will the installer not run at all? Does it run but throw errors? Does it complain about missing exports or "devices attached to the system not functioning" etc etc? You need to be more specific about this and any other issues you may have. At any rate, I'm glad you found a different solution.

Is this what you need?

I have several machines with the Intel 845 Chipset that run Windows 95, but none of them have onboard graphics... (I despise onboard graphics... ) Try this and see if it runs under Windows 95. Only Windows 98 is listed as supported on the page, but the ReadMe.txt linked there lists Windows 95 as well, so you never know. If it causes errors, post them here.

vfat.vxd does not exist (as a file) on my system. Do you actually run Windows 98 - on bare metal (not in a VM)? With large SATA hard drives with win-9x controller drivers? Because it is compressed into VMM32.VXD when Windows 9x is installed. Rest assured it IS present AND required. And therefore cannot be circumvented by using another driver besides ESDI_506.PDR.

What?!? jaclaz falling for Microsoft FUD?? Maybe you should see a doctor... are you feeling OK?

Windows 95C OSR 2.5 is actually EXACTLY the same as 95B OSR 2 and 95B OSR 2.1 when installed except for a small handful of updated files dropped into the \win95 folder to be picked up and override the older version inside the .CABs during installation. No new set of CABs was built for 95C OSR 2.5. See this. So what makes OSR 2.5 different? It contains an updated VMM32.VXD that corrects memory management errors with some Pentium processors and it force-installs Internet Explorer 4.0. Other than these two points, 95C=95B. The 95C CDROM includes later versions of the USB Support supplement than the 95B CDROM, but these are stand-alone packages that must be manually installed, and they can be applied to 95B as well as 95C. So, the point of this is that all updates for OSR 2.x apply to all versions of OSR 2.x. The only update you should purposely exclude is Q179897 (VMM.VXD 4.00.1113/4.03.1216), since it is in OSR 2.5 already, and once USB Support is added it will be further updated anyway, superseding Q179897 with Q247965 (VMM.VXD 4.03.1217) if my XUSBSUPP patch is used (I highly recommend this - the original official Microsoft USB updates for 95 are a mess). Now, as for deciding which files are newer, you have to check the actual versions of the files, not just the timestamps. Timestamps are a very unreliable method for comparing files as they can easily be altered, even unintentionally. For each new file, right click on it and inspect its Properties pages. Original files should mostly be versioned 4.00.950 or 4.00.1111. Updates are usually 4.00.951 or 4.00.1112 and up, etc. No, I said that msdun12 and msdun13 (Dial-Up Networking 1.2 and 1.3) were superseded. They are superseded by dun14-95 (1.4). There should be no need to install 1.2 and 1.3 when you have 1.4. Many of the HotFixes you have included files that were later replaced again by another update containing a higher versioned file. This is why you must compare versions; it isn't ALWAYS correct for every file, but it is MOSTLY correct. OAINST installs as part of either W95Y2K, and/or DCOM95, and/or Internet Explorer 5.5 SP2 I believe.. maybe all 3. I don't remember offhand and I'm not in front of my project computer at the moment.

The better portion of those updates are listed in my first post in this thread. Out of your list, these were not listed specifically by me previously: 238453US5 249973USA5 259728usa5 265334US5 273991USA5 crlupd dcm9xCfg FrancFix Jet40SP8_9xNT mdac26sp1 msdun12 msdun13 msxml3 OAINST q240308 q329414 remideup ROOTSUPD speu VC6RedistSetup_enu vipup20 w95filup wmi9x wmp6cdcs y2kvdhcp However a good many of these are either superseded by a later update (ex. msdun12, msdun13), installs as part of another package (ex. OAINST), possibly irrelevant depending on your system configuration (ex. wmi9x, wmp6cdcs), or apply to an "external component" (ex. Jet, MDAC, MSXML); these I would put in the category of DirectX/etc, as being separate add-on packages - this makes sorting the updates much simpler. The best advice I can give you is to have a look at the list of file versions given by Petr that I linked to in my first post. Extract the updated files from each HotFix package (ex. 238453US5) using WinZip, WinRAR, etc, and compare the file version of the updated file inside to Petr's list to determine whether or not you have the last available version. If an update contains only one file that is later superseded by another update, you can safely ignore that update and use the later one. Check out MDGx's website for most of the updates I listed in my first post if you don't have them. If you have a question about a specific update, post it here and we will try to help. I did find several packages and updates that I did not have previously thanks to your list.

I never got around to compiling a list beyond what is listed already in this thread, either in my posts or in the various linked pages. I doubt that you will find a more thorough attempt at this anywhere else, because even here at MSFN Windows 95 is followed and used by only a small handful of users compared to the 98/ME crowd. If you want to provide a list of what you have it might help in figuring out what you are lacking, if anything, and may provide some information that is lacking here if I have not covered everything. When installing Firefox 2 on Windows 95 you should do as many updates as you can first, and then you have to take some careful steps when running the installer and BEFORE running Firefox. There are a couple of threads out there about this, but some of them take unnecessary steps. Here's a set of instructions I wrote down some time ago for making it work. Install Firefox 2.0.0.x on Windows 951. Update Windows 95 with Microsoft updates to the fullest extent possible.i.e. - DCOM, DX8a, DUN14-95, IE4.01 SP1, IE5.5 SP2, WINSOCK2, & others2. Run the Firefox 2.0.0.x installer, choose Custom Install, uncheck:"DOM Inspector" and "Quality Feedback Agent"3. BEFORE RUNNING FIREFOX - Go to Start > Find > Files or Folders - search for"nsSearchService.js" and "nsSafebrowsingApplication.js"Delete both of these files.4. Run Firefox, it will ask to import settings from Internet Explorer, choose"Don't Import Anything"5. Install Addons and Plugins as usual.Once you have done this see this thread for Flash issues. I can't help you here; if your video card cannot produce higher resolutions then there's no way around it unless you replace the card. There's an outside chance a program such as PowerStrip might help you, but I have no experience with it.

Sounds like a good point to use the Reset button if you have changed your mind about powering off. (However pre-fab computer manufacturers have this nasty annoying habit of not providing such a button. Moral of the story - always build your own computers and avoid prefab junk... lol )

Try an older version of the ATI drivers as suggested by submix8c. If you cannot find one that works, I believe I have a compatible one that I can upload somewhere for you when I get a chance. See this for USB support.

Unfortunately there is no Auto-Patcher for 95 as submix8c pointed out. There are several projects here pertaining to 95 though, as linked and otherwise. You should be aware though that not all of those projects are compatible with each other, so mixing them all together is not advised. For example using the Unofficial Service Pack in conjunction with FIX95CPU or XUSBSUPP can create a potentially unstable or unbootable system.

This is simply not true. Microsoft FUD compounded and repeated by other sites whose authors apparently never bothered to learn any better. I've been using 95B/C on 40GB and larger disks for many years now without any issues. Of course the 128GB/48Bit LBA limit applies, but there is no such thing as a 32GB limit.

Paint Shop Pro 6.02 is nice... but it's up to you as to what you prefer and need. Really depends on what you want to do with it...

This is a possibility that should not be quickly dismissed though. If the driver farfigs11 mentions only lacks one WDM function under 98SE, then there is a chance that it could be made to load with WDMSTUB or a more advanced approach such as rloew's WDMEX. The real question is what other dependencies might that specific file have, and is it deeply intertwined with some other part of the Windows driver package that requires NT; or, will it "just work" as a substitute for the 9x file when placed with the rest of the last driver package for 9x provided the missing function is satisfied. Since the thread is still going, I thought I would add a bit more information on this for the record. I downloaded and examined the file referenced by farfigs11. I have no means of testing it, but I assume the missing function he is referring to is NdisMQueryAdapterInstanceName. Everything else seems to be satisfied; although still no guarantee it would work under 9x, even if this was stubbed or satisfied.

No. That's the beauty of the RAM Limitation Patch - no more such fiddling is required. You install it and go on about using your system. I would do away with any such entries once the patch is in use.