LoneCrusader

Referring to this thread? I believe the exact same method used for Firefox should work for Opera as well...

I was referring to a method of installing HL2 without connecting to Steam, not a "workaround" for Steam itself. So it was specific to that one situation.

A quick question/observation... that has the potential to make this get off topic AGAIN... Do your/can your CD/DVD utilities work with Blu-Ray images/devices? I know Multibooter was having burn-quality issues during his tests, of course it is still unknown whether it was due to software, hardware, or media quality... In the event it is software related, your solutions might end up being the only "quality" Blu-Ray burning application available for Windows 9x...

You and me both. I had purchased a copy of Half-Life 2, and not knowing about their plans I hadn't attempted to install it until after that deadline had passed. Needless to say I was extremely angry to find that I couldn't install the software that I had purchased under the assumption that it was designed to run in Windows 98. So from that day forward, I refused to install Steam on any machine or purchase/use any game that required it. I have yet to play Half-Life 2. (I know there are "workarounds" - I've just been too irritated to even care about trying them.)

I'm missing something here. You wanted an obsolete HotFix for Windows 98 First Edition.. but you seem to be using Windows 98 Second Edition. Now the fix you probably downloaded DOES have updates for both, but was not required for SE in relation to CPU speed. Your reason for not being interested in the Windows 95 fix is that Steam does not run on 95. Last time I checked, it does not run on 98FE or 98SE either, so what's the difference? In one thread you complain that 95 "doesn't get much love" and then in another thread, when you are introduced to an important fix for it, you disregard it. The POINT is to do something that Microsoft says can't be done. Now if you're not interested, that's fine. But don't be so ready to complain about not having this or that fixed when you don't take advantage of what has already been done.

If there are Windows 95 drivers for the hardware on that "rig" then you can run Windows 95 on it as well. That should give you something to play around with for a while. See this thread.

I don't think he has it linked directly, but he has linked to a "newer" update that supersedes Q312108. If you want the original Q312108 HotFix for 98 FE, I can upload it somewhere for you. I'm very familiar with this particular problem. It has also now been solved for Windows 95. This is one of the things I was talking about in the other thread.

Elaborating further on this, the "Connect to the Internet" Icon can be killed in two ways: Either delete the line referencing ICW97.INF from SETUPPP.INF as described in the last post (this will kill the installation of the Internet Connection Wizard completely) OR, Extract ICW97.INF and delete the following line from it: HKCU,%KEY_RUNONCE%,"^SetupICWDesktop",,"%29402%\icwconn1.exe /desktop" The Windows 98 Welcome screen can be stopped by extracting SHELL.INF and deleting or commenting out the line HKLM,%KEY_RUN%,"Welcome",,"%25%\welcome.exe" SHELL.INF can also be used to set some other things if one wishes, for example I added the following lines to remove the "Favorites" and "LogOff" selections from the Start menu: HKCU,%KEY_CURRENT%\Policies\Explorer,NoFavoritesMenu,1,01,00,00,00 HKCU,%KEY_CURRENT%\Policies\Explorer,NoLogOff,1,01,00,00,00 I have not yet figured out how to stop Task Scheduler from running automatically, I believe it is set to run by 2 or more INF's as the change I made to one did not stop it.

@dencorso If all are in agreement, maybe just merge this thread with the old one? Would make it easier in the future to follow this subject. I was told in the last post of a thread at Computing.net that there is a version of Flash Player 8 that will install on Windows 95. I have not had the time to actually test this, as I have been busy with other projects, and the poster there noted problems with the IE version on YouTube, so you may still need the fix described in the original thread you referenced. Here is the quoted post, with links included: If you manage to successfully install it, please report your results. Windows 95 doesn't get much love around here? The limitations on CPU speed (>2.1GHz) and RAM (>512MB) have been broken here in the last year or so, I'd call that a lot of love.

A long time in coming, but I have solved the MSN issue in my own Windows 98 SE Slipstreaming Project. Extract SETUPPP.INF from PRECOPY2.CAB, and delete the lines referencing OLS.INF and MSNCLNUP.INF. Then Save the modified SETUPPP.INF in your \WIN98 directory. These two INF's apparently don't do anything except install MSN, AOL, AT&T, Prodigy, and CompuServe garbage. This has the added benefit of also making them disappear from the options during SETUP. If running a "full slipstream" like what I'm working on, this allows one to eliminate a bunch of useless files from the CABs, I can elaborate on this if anyone is interested, I don't know of anyone else using the same tools/method.

I always copy the setup CABS to the hard drive and install from there on my machines, prevents having to insert the CDROM if one needs to make changes. So it's not so easy, but there's always a solution.

Glad you solved your problem Wanted to add a couple of things to the thread for future reference if anyone needs it. I have Soyo motherboards in almost all of my machines (2 of them with the 845PE Lite, same as yours), so I have the drivers for almost all of their Intel processor boards archived. I also remember that there were some specific issues discussed on the Soyo site about the Audio drivers. (I will have to look through my archived webpages, I MIGHT have it saved somewhere, not sure) Apparently, different "revisions" of some of their motherboards contained different AC97 Audio chips. For example, the 845PEISA could have either Realtek or C-Media AC97 chips depending on the revision. Installing the drivers for the wrong brand of chip usually results in chaos, except in Windows 95 So I resorted to physically examining the chips on the board itself, to see if it is labeled with the Realtek "crab" or with the C-Media logo.

You should use either the Unofficial version 5.1.3102.5581 or the Old version 5.1.3102.1360 that was originally for Windows 98. (The last 2 in the list.) As herbalist said you should place the file in your WINDOWS\SYSTEM folder. If that doesn't work, place a copy of it in the folder of the program you're trying to run.

You can find GDIPLUS Here at MDGx's.

I believe version 2.5.0.0 was the last version without some "garbage ware" included, toolbars, etc etc. It's the version that I use, although as I stated in the other thread I have not experimented any with Blu-Ray yet.

I have no experience with what you are trying to accomplish, but I remembered This Page from reading it some time ago. It deals with setting custom display resolutions in the registry in Windows 95. It may or may not help you, but it's the most relevant thing I have offhand.

To further this discussion, have you tested any Blu-Ray drives? Since the subject was broached back in my Bootable DVD thread, I have considered experimenting with Blu-Ray drives and Windows 98. I first searched for IDE Blu-Ray drives, and some do exist, but they seem to be extremely rare. So, I decided that I would probably have to use a SATA drive with a SATA to IDE adapter or the SATA patch, depending on the system. I recently purchased one of these drives, but I have not had any time to devote to experimenting or my projects lately.

Maximus-Decim Native USB Drivers NUSB

I've had that problem for over a year now on every machine I have, and with both Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Is the black box you all are seeing similar to the one I complained about here? It always comes up for a second and then disappears on my system, doesn't remain to cause problems, but I thought the two issues may be related.

Agreed this is the case in the given scenario. However, in the setup I was referencing in my old post, I had installed the RAM Limitation Patch AFTER the USP, and the system was still unstable, and did not display the correct amount of RAM. These problems were not present in the test using only the RAM Limitation Patch. So some other setting or tweak must also be applied by the USP that is not compatible with the RAM Limitation Patch.

I've been trying not to say this, as I don't want to disparage the Unofficial Service Pack, and I am certain that eventually dencorso and rloew would find a way to get your machine up and running with it, but IMHO, the RAM Limitation Patch + the Unofficial Service Pack is a recipe for unnecessary problems. I discussed this in an older post of mine, quoted here:

Since a virtual disk is just one file (AFAIK) I don't think that's possible. Yes, that's the issue. If the VM software can create >4GB virtual disks (splitting it into multiple "files" on the real disk but knowing how to read them as one virtual disk) then I don't see why it wouldn't work. Of course we are also limited by the available VM software for 9x, most of it is dated, so who knows? Just an idea for a workaround if anyone wants to give it a try.

Hmmm.. I wonder... This is purely hypothetical, but I thought I would throw it out and see if anyone wants to experiment with it. (The following statement is not necessarily true on this forum, we're unique ) Given the fact that many times, when people want to run Windows 9X applications on their newer computers these days, a common response is always "Run it in a VM." Needless to say this is a rather irritating answer for us, but maybe we can use this logic in another way. Now, what if you were to run Windows 2000 or Windows XP in a VM on Windows 98, and use NTFS to format their virtual "hard drives." In this scenario, (provided one can create >4GB virtual disks) would it be possible to store and play >4GB files within the VM on your 98 machine?

@osiff You're already getting the best advice, so the only thing that I would add is do not be discouraged if changing the various settings in SYSTEM.INI does not fix your problem. I tried all of those things in the past, and none of it ever worked for my system either. I'm a firm believer in RLoew's RAM Patch.