LoneCrusader

Same here I have always used WMP 7 or 7.1, even on 98SE. I don't like the way WMP9 looks, to much XP-Lego-Look for my taste. I may install 6.4 in a VM and play with it if I get a chance. For the record - I seem to remember a while back seeing an unofficial method for installing WMP9 on 98FE and possibly 95, but I can no longer find the relevant pages. Anyone else remember this?

***UPDATE 06-10-2013*** Added instructions for 95 RTM (95\95A). I have finally worked out a method of "slipstreaming" this update into a Windows 95 installation. Details below. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- INSTRUCTIONS FOR SLIPSTREAMING FIX95CPU WINDOWS 95 PROCESSOR UPDATE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BE SURE TO FOLLOW THE SLIPSTREAM METHOD FOR YOUR VERSION OF WINDOWS 95! INSTRUCTIONS ARE DIFFERENT FOR 95 RTM (95\95A) AND FOR OSR 2.0\2.1\2.5 (95B\95C)! It is recommended that you familiarize yourself with all of the issues surrounding this update by fully reading the discussion thread and/or the README.TXT contained in FIX95CPU. This process will eliminate the need to create separate bootable floppy disks or CD's for installing FIX95CPU, and will not require the interruption of Windows 95 Setup. This process requires the addition of files to your Windows 95 Source folder (WIN95 folder on the Windows 95 CD-ROM). You can modify this folder by copying it to your hard drive for installation and performing these steps, or you can modify it and use an .ISO editing program to inject the modified folder back into an .ISO image of your Windows 95 CD if you wish to have a slipstreamed install CD. 95 RTM: IN YOUR WINDOWS 95 INSTALLATION SOURCE DIRECTORY (WIN95 FOLDER FROM CD-ROM) 1. EXTRACT SETUPC.INF FROM PRECOPY2.CAB 2. OPEN SETUPC.INF AND DO THE FOLLOWING: A. "COMMENT OUT" (PLACE SEMICOLON BEFORE) THE FOLLOWING LINE: wininit.ini, CombineVxDs,,"%22%\vfbackup.vxd=%11%\vmm32.vxd" IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE THIS NOW: ; wininit.ini, CombineVxDs,,"%22%\vfbackup.vxd=%11%\vmm32.vxd" B. SAVE SETUPC.INF IN THE INSTALLATION SOURCE DIRECTORY. SETUP WILL NOW USE IT INSTEAD OF THE ONE INSIDE PRECOPY2.CAB 3. PLACE ALL 10 UPDATED SYSTEM FILES CONTAINED IN THE FOLDERS W95BOTH AND W95RTM ON THE FIX95CPU FLOPPY INTO YOUR WINDOWS 95 INSTALLATION SOURCE FOLDER, AND SETUP WILL USE THEM INSTEAD OF THEIR OLD EQUIVALENTS INSIDE THE .CAB'S. CDFS.VXD DISKTSD.VXD ESDI_506.PDR HSFLOP.PDR SCSIPORT.PDR INT13.VXD IOS.VXD VFBACKUP.VXD NDIS.VXD WININIT.EXE 95 OSR2: IN YOUR WINDOWS 95 INSTALLATION SOURCE DIRECTORY (WIN95 FOLDER FROM CD-ROM) 1. EXTRACT SETUPC.INF FROM PRECOPY2.CAB 2. OPEN SETUPC.INF AND DO THE FOLLOWING: A. "COMMENT OUT" (PLACE SEMICOLON BEFORE) THE FOLLOWING LINE: wininit.ini, CombineVxDs,,"%22%\vfbackup.vxd=%11%\vmm32.vxd" IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE THIS NOW: ; wininit.ini, CombineVxDs,,"%22%\vfbackup.vxd=%11%\vmm32.vxd" B. FIND THE SECTION LABELED: [VxD.Files] ;Copy these to the \system\vmm32 dir to be bound into VMM32.VxD: C. IN THAT SECTION, UNDER THE LINE: vfbackup.vxd,,,1 INSERT THE FOLLOWING LINE: ntkern.vxd,,,1 SHOULD LOOK LIKE THIS NOW: vfbackup.vxd,,,1 ntkern.vxd,,,1 vcomm.vxd,,,1 D. SAVE SETUPC.INF IN THE INSTALLATION SOURCE DIRECTORY. SETUP WILL NOW USE IT INSTEAD OF THE ONE INSIDE PRECOPY2.CAB 3. PLACE ALL 10 UPDATED SYSTEM FILES CONTAINED IN THE FOLDERS W95BOTH AND W95OSR2 ON THE FIX95CPU FLOPPY INTO YOUR WINDOWS 95 INSTALLATION SOURCE FOLDER, AND SETUP WILL USE THEM INSTEAD OF THEIR OLD EQUIVALENTS INSIDE THE .CAB'S. CDFS.VXD DISKTSD.VXD ESDI_506.PDR HSFLOP.PDR SCSIPORT.PDR INT13.VXD IOS.VXD NTKERN.VXD VFBACKUP.VXD NDIS.VXD Now you may simply install Windows 95 normally from this folder or from your modified installation CD by running SETUP.EXE, and no further work is required.

It's possible to install WMP 7.1 using a special script and a couple of files from the 7.0 package. Also the Windows Media 9 Codec Package for WMP 7 will install with only one error, an "Error registering OCX..." I don't remember the rest of it, Ill have to check again. But after that error it says it's installed successfully.

Don't know about iTunes and KernelEx, you will have to experiment with that. But I do know that the driver works 100%, the choice of software you use to manage it is up to you.

I don't know about iTunes on 98, all I know is that I wouldn't use iTunes for anything on any OS But you can use your iPod with 98 with This Driver and RealPlayer 10.5, the last version for Win9x. I used this setup before to get my girlfriend's iPod working for her in 98.

There are several users here who run NVidia graphics cards, I'd estimate that they outnumber the ATI users. My advice would be to start a thread in the main forum specific to NVidia drivers and Windows 95. There are also a few 95 users still running around and I'm not sure what video cards they use, but they may have some insight. For some reason I want to think that I tried to find Windows 95 NVidia drivers once before, I had a GeForce FX 5500 OC that toasted itself. I will dig around and see if I have any other files or notes on the subject lurking around here. EDIT: What other updates have you installed? Most importantly, have you updated to DirectX 8.0a? I know the ATI drivers I use in 95 require DX8 minimum.

Congratulations! Now as for drivers, I don't know how much success you will have, but if you need it I'll help you all I can. I have several different versions of the Intel Chipset Driver Installation Utility archived, but I believe the last one that will install on 95 is version 3.40.1001 and it doesn't cover the 875 Chipset. It may still contain something useful, but I don't know. I use mostly ATI video cards, and have several older driver packages archived for them, but I don't have much for NVidia cards. I have the Win9X ForceWare 81.98 installer archived, but that's all unless I have an old NVidia drivers CD somewhere... Don't forget that you need to reinstall Windows 95 and install FIX95CPU per it's instructions. The method we used for the test does not produce a properly compressed VMM32.VXD or place the updated NTKERN.VXD file in the proper folder, which can lead to problems down the road with further updates, especially the Windows 95 USB Supplements. Also a proper VMM32.VXD is required for the use of RLoew's RAM Patch should you ever decide you want to run more than 512MB of RAM. Keep me posted on your driver experiments.

I believe you're right, Windows 95 or its standard drivers don't like something about your motherboard. The screen you made it to, "Getting ready to run Windows 95 for the first time..." is the screen that shows during the creation of VMM32.VXD, which will produce the "VMM32.TMP integrity check failed" error I mentioned. However, with all of the updated files in place, that doesn't matter for this test. Once you get into Safe Mode, try installing DUN14-95.EXE and see if it makes any difference. It contains more updated system files for networking functions. If that doesn't work, try removing all of the installed devices in the device manager and reboot... I'm running out of ideas, calling for help from anyone else concerning non-file-specific Windows Protection Errors... ? rloew in particular may have some insight, he's one of our resident experts and the one most familiar with FIX95CPU as he helped me develop it.

Hmm, looks like a nice motherboard B) I took a look at the Manual here. Although I imagine it will work much better for 98SE than 95, lol. I think the last Intel chipset with 95 drivers was the 845, but I'm not sure. I ran a Windows 95 test setup on a Soyo P4-I875P Dragon 2 v1.0 board with a 3.4GHz Extreme Edition CPU and 4GB of Kingston HyperX RAM during the update of RLoew's RAM patch, but I had no drivers for the board or hardware. I don't see any reason why Windows 95 should not install however, provided you disable or set everything you can to "Legacy" mode and re-enable things one at a time to see what is causing the problem. From what I saw in the Manual (p. 88), the RAID controller should be listed in the BIOS as "Onboard Promise Controller." I would disable the whole works, USB & 1394 included. Ok, as you said how you are booting to Setup is probably not related to the problem you are having, I was mainly curious as to whether your machine had a floppy drive, and whether you were able to try using the FIX95CPU floppy disk. I do all of my Windows 9X installs from the hard drive, so I was trying to see if it was somehow related to installing from the CD. You have tried running FIX95CPU on your system again after you get the protection errors, right? This is bizarre You're having virtually the exact same set of problems that occur without FIX95CPU, and that it was designed to correct. With AMD processors over 350MHz, Windows 95 installation would fail on the first reboot, and you can't get to safe mode (Windows Protection Error in IOS.VXD). AMDK6UPD fixed this, and it also worked on Pentium 4's up to 2GHz. Above that, the same circumstances repeat, just with a different error (Windows Protection Error in NDIS.VXD). Both of these keep Setup from entering its second phase, and FIX95CPU updates all of the necessary files for Setup to continue normally. If you install FIX95CPU immediately after the first reboot, without allowing the machine to return to Setup and crash on one of these errors, and then remove the FIX95CPU disk and reboot again, you should never even see a message about Normal or Safe Mode at all, it should just finish Setup as if nothing was wrong. It seems like the updates are not being installed properly. We can do a test run that should eliminate whether you are having a hardware issue or not. (NOTE: This method will not produce a properly compressed system file created during Setup, so if it works there is still more to do, but it will answer some questions.) Create newly formatted C:\ partition Copy all the contents of the \WIN95 folder on your Windows 95 CD to a folder on your new partition, example C:\WIN95CD Copy the 10 updated system files contained in FIX95CPU to the C:\WIN95CD folder. - (CDFS.VXD, DISKTSD.VXD, ESDI_506.PDR, HSFLOP.PDR, SCSIPORT.PDR, INT13.VXD, IOS.VXD, NTKERN.VXD, VFBACKUP.VXD, NDIS.VXD) Run SETUP.EXE from inside the C:\WIN95CD folder Using this method, Setup will use the updated files in the WIN95CD folder instead of searching for their old equivalents in the CAB files. Setup should run properly, and reboot properly without any errors except you may see something about "VMM32.TMP integrity check failed." You can ignore this for now, what we want to learn is whether or not this will get Windows 95 running without the protection errors. No problem

Yes, Safe Mode is inaccessible without the updates from the AMDK6UPD fix, even though Microsoft's directions for it say to use Safe Mode. That was one of the reasons I created my script. I have run a couple of tests and have not been able to reproduce the problem you're having I need some more details on your specific setup. Some of the details may or may not be having any effect on this issue, but we may learn something from them anyway. Hardware: You said you are running a Pentium 4 3.0GHz, do you know if it is a Northwood or a Prescott? (I have only used the patch on Northwood's and a Gallatin, I know Windows XP had some issues with Prescott CPU's, don't think it affects 95/98 but I don't know.) What other hardware is in your computer, sound cards, network cards, etc, including those integrated into the motherboard? - Have you tried installing Windows 95 with these other hardware items removed or disabled in the BIOS? Installation: From your response I assume you are installing Windows 95 from the CD? How are you performing the initial boot, have you created a bootable Windows 95 CD or are you using a floppy? - If using a floppy, have you tried creating a FIX95CPU floppy instead of the CDROM? Have you tried copying the install files to the hard drive and running Setup from there? Are you doing a "Custom" Setup or using "Typical", "Full", etc? Are you using a MSBATCH.INF script? Which Networking Protocols/Functions did you choose during install? Did the second phase of Setup complete properly after installing FIX95CPU and rebooting? - If so, you should have been prompted to keep the newer version of NDIS.VXD installed by the patch, did you? Have you tried reinstalling the patch after you get the Windows Protection Error? (Theoretically it should still work, as it is designed to be used before or after the second phase of Setup.) Thanks!

Welcome to MSFN, and thanks for your interest in my patch. Ok, lets start from the top. I assume from your title that you are running Windows 95 C OSR 2.5, correct? What exact order did you perform your installation in, did you install the patch immediately after the first reboot or did you allow the IOS or NDIS Windows Protection Errors to be displayed? @dencorso - If you think this should be merged with the main FIX95CPU thread, please do so.

Post in the SH95UPD thread, maybe the author or one of the others in the thread will see it and can help you.

Last official Firefox for 98 & ME was 2.0.0.20. (Can be made to work in Windows 95 as well.) There was also a later build of Firefox (Branded as Bon Echo) that was not an official release, 2.0.0.22pre, I think it was still being updated because of updates to Thunderbird 2 at the time. It seems most references to it have disappeared, and I haven't used it myself, but I have a copy of the .exe installer for it. I love Firefox, but that's my biggest gripe with it and Mozilla, virtually no support of anything that gets a year or so old, it's ridiculous. Think about it.. Firefox 2.0.0.20 was released barely 2 years ago and it's already "erased" from Mozilla's memory, and already websites are blocking it (MySpace) or complaining about it (YouTube).

Once again, not sure if it will help you or not, but take a look at this. I'm not familiar with this project, but I think it may be the closest thing to what you're looking for.

I'm not sure if it will help you or not, but according to this page PowerDVD XP (PowerDVD 4) will run on Windows 95. Power DVD 5 lists Windows 98 as a requirement, but I don't know if it really doesn't work or whether they just didn't want to support it.

When you say "Win98 FE modified," what all have you added? If the Windows Protection Error isn't giving any other info, then that rules out what I suggested. If I were going to guess, I would say that it has something to do with having more than 512MB of RAM, as I have never been able to get Windows 9X to run with more than 512MB installed without the RAM Limitation Patch or some other update. I know others have done it, but I never could. Possibly the Wireless NIC is eating up the "System Arena" in the first 16MB of RAM? Of course these are just guesses. I'll leave this one for the experts.

Does the Windows Protection Error give any other info? What device / file is causing it? You said you were using Win98 FE, is it possible it could be caused by the 98FE NDIS.VXD that has problems with faster processors, and the error is only showing up now that you are installing a networking device? The MSKB article on this says it only affects 2.1GHZ + CPU's, but I thought I would mention it. If this is the problem, it is the same issue discussed in my FIX95CPU thread. I have a copy of the hotfix for Windows 98FE if you need it.

It appears WinRAR will no longer support Windows 9X. From RARLAB main page: The linked page lists WinRAR 3.93 as the last version for Windows 9X, NT4, and DOS.

Hello again everyone I think I have finally discovered a method of "slipstreaming" this into a fresh Windows 95 (C tested so far, should apply to at least B as well) installation, but I need some help. While we were working on this fix, RLoew advised me that only the updated VFBACKUP.VXD prevented slipstreaming, as it breaks WININIT.EXE's original combining of VXD's into VMM32.VXD. Through my experimenting with customizing 95C's installation files, I have discovered that SETUPC.INF contains the list of files entered into WININIT.INI during Setup to be combined into VMM32.VXD by WININIT.EXE. Extracting SETUPC.INF from PRECOPY2.CAB into the main WIN95 installation directory and removing the line: wininit.ini, CombineVxDs,,"%22%\vfbackup.vxd=%11%\vmm32.vxd" will solve the VFBACKUP.VXD problem, allowing slipstreaming by simply placing all of the updated files in FIX95CPU into the main WIN95 installation directory. Placing all of the updated FIX95CPU files in the installation source directory and editing SETUPC.INF as described is enough to get Windows 95 Setup to complete properly on a 2+ GHz system, however upon further examination, it appears that NTKERN.VXD and possibly other updated files from FIX95CPU placed into the source directory are not actually installed or copied to the appropriate directory during the initial Windows 95 Setup. Requirements for these files must be added by later updates applied. I suppose the answer to this is to edit a script somewhere for them to be copied to the appropriate directory, or, try to develop a patch type installer that can be called in SETUPC.INF or run when setup has completed. ***EDIT 12-18-2010:*** Some incorrect information removed. Complete slipstream instructions have been added Here.

Here's a little more detail on what I've done so far with System Commander / Partition Commander. I have the full version of System Commander 8 which of course comes with Partition Commander 8 "built in" to it somehow, and I have mainly been using it the past few years. But I also remembered that I have the full version of Partition Commander 9 which comes with "System Commander Personal Edition" or something like that, I assume that it is some "cut-down" version of SC. My main goals were: 1) to be able to run Partition Commander (8 or 9) from my DVD for setting up hard drives 2) be able to use the DVD to re-Enable System Commander's MBR after installing another OS. (SCIN.EXE) I am content to keep using the SC CD to install it inside Windows if I must. I experimented some with files from the SC8 restart utility disks, but not extensively. I plan to return to that when I have some time to spend on it. Then I tried to figure out which files were required from the PC9 CD to run it in DOS, I made some headway but I stopped, now I don't remember why. I will revisit my notes on it. Then I hit on the idea of extracting the boot images from both the SC8 and PC9 CD's, I thought their contents might shed some light on what was required for DOS use, as they load using 2.88MB DOS Floppy El Torito emulation. I used MagicISO to extract the boot images of both disks, and then extracted the contents of each into a folder and added them to my DVD. The AUTOEXEC.BAT files of both are useless once extracted, they do not operate properly when called from DOS, even if renamed to something else, and I tried editing them and that was unsuccessful as well. However, it is possible to call the utilities directly. Partition Commander 9's PCSTART.EXE functions perfectly when run from in the folder, and it's mouse driver is built in so one does not have to load a DOS mouse driver first. I did get an error when I tried to run System Commander 8's SCSTART.EXE, but I do not recall exactly what it said at the moment. It did not crash the program, just showed up on screen. I was focused on something else when it happened, so I reverted to using PC9 for that particular task. I have not investigated further yet.

Yes, once you have downloaded all of the installation files you can copy the folder somewhere for backup, or burn it to a CD, or whatever you like. It can be used on a clean install of any of the operating systems you selected to download the files for.

As far as I know, IE has never been packaged into a single redistributable .exe installer. However, you can download IE6SETUP.EXE from Microsoft Here. Save it to it's own folder, say "C:\IE6SP1" and then Click Start, Run, and copy and paste this exact command (including the quotes) into the Run box: "C:\ie6sp1\ie6setup.exe" /c:"ie6wzd.exe /d /s:""#E" Then it will allow you to download all of the files required to install IE6SP1 for the operating systems you select. You can then copy the folder somewhere else for backup and you will have it whenever you need it.

Yep. I'll give this a try whenever I get my test systems back up and running. Yes, that was great. Actually I don't use them either, it was just an idea. I've always just used the bootable CD if I had problems. The reason I took interest in the disks is I wanted to be able to add the System Commander DOS tools to my DVD project without actually sacrificing my current boot image. I was trying to figure out what files were needed from the disks to be able to run System Commander from the DVD, sort of like how the required files for running Partition Magic and Drive Image in DOS are listed here. I did some experimenting with taking files from the disks, but ended up with a lot of errors. I have devised a temporary workaround by extracting the boot image of the bootable CD, extracting the files from it to a folder on my DVD and calling the tools from inside it manually. Still has a few bugs, I will elaborate further when I have recovered all of my work. (Hard drive problems on my main testing machine.) I have never had a problem accessing a DVD with MSCDEX.EXE or OAKCDROM.SYS, no matter what brand of DVD drive I used. I have LiteOn, TDK, and Sony drives and I've used my DVD in all three. Unless a different driver is being loaded... (I think there are some other *CDROM.SYS files on my disk, but they were all on the standard Windows 98 SE Boot Disk that I started with, I haven't added any other drivers.) I like MagicISO, and I still use it for editing pre-created ISO's, but after my previous experience I no longer trust it to create a bootable ISO on it's own. I use ImgBurn for this. In my FIX95CPU thread, RLoew mentioned that it was possible to create a 36MB Bootable Floppy Image on CD/DVD. I don't know what tools he used for this, maybe he can elaborate on it for us.

Interesting research, I wonder if it's possible to merge the contents of the two System Commander Utility Disks? I looked at this briefly a few weeks ago, as I was doing some more work on my Windows DVD project (discussed and "debated" in this thread). My goal is to eventually build a DVD that I can use to install various Windows 9X versions and install all of my software that I use. It would be very helpful to have functional System Commander tools included on the DVD as well.

Thanks!