LoneCrusader

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!

Can we get a "Forum Home" link somewhere at the bottom of pages? I had gotten used to having it there to click on when I had read to the bottom of a thread.

Thanks for the help so far. Unfortunately now my whole project is sidelined, when I started up my machine that I use for my projects I'm faced with this: One or more of your disk drives may have developed bad sectors. Press any key to run ScanDisk with surface analysis on these drives. So now I get to have fun moving all of my work to a different hard disk and making some backups before I can get back to experimenting.

The way it's written that page seems to be directed at Windows 2000 and XP only, or is this one of those pages they have "edited" to remove relevant 9X content? I've been looking into that, found some relevant info with Google, but any help would be appreciated. Right now I am working on integrating several updates into Windows 95 C OSR 2.5, figured I would start there and anything I learn should apply to 98SE as well. So far I've had some success, managed to integrate the Windows 95 Y2K Update and DCOM95 by adding them to SETUPC.INF, and replaced the forced IE 4.0 install in 95C with IE 4.01 SP2. I may also have found a solution to "slipstreaming" my FIX95CPU processor update, if I can manage to keep the newer files from being overwritten by other updates.

I'm in the process of trying to create semi-slisptreamed or updated install sources for my various Windows 9X versions. I know some of you who've been here a long time may feel that I am trying to re-invent the wheel but this is just for my own use and knowledge. Mainly I was wondering if there are any known issues with installing multiple updates and/or hotfixes that require a restart and only restarting once. If these updates/hotfixes set something that is supposed to be done during a restart, does installing another update/hotfix supersede and erase the settings of the previous one, or just add to it? Will everything that should be done during the restart for each update/hotfix still be completed properly? MDGx or anyone familiar with this please chime in.

While I have not tested xrayer's solution, I can vouch for RLoew's patch. I have been using it since January 2009 and have never had a single issue with it. Basically, you install the patch and forget about it. There is no tweaking, testing, setting MaxPhysPage or anything else. The patch patches Windows system files, so AFAIK it is completely chipset/processor/hardware independent.

I can confirm this, I read the same post and tried it for myself. I don't know if it will solve Andrew's original problem, but Firefox 2 will work perfectly on Windows 95. Specs for the system I tested it on, and steps taken: (Of course some of these are not/may not be required, included just in case.) - Windows 95 C OSR 2.5 - IE 4.01 SP2 installed for the Desktop Update. - Dial-Up Networking 1.4 Installed. - DCOM95 and DirectX 8.0a installed. - WINSOCK2 installed. - IE 5.5 SP2 installed. - WMP 7.1 installed. - USBSUPP, USBUPD2, and USBQFE installed. I did not use the registry hacks described in the other forum, or 50comupd.exe and SPEU.exe. Not saying these 2 updates might not be beneficial, but they are not absolute requirements. Install Firefox 2 same as you would on a 98 system, unchecking the DOM Inspector and Quality Feedback Agent as described, and deleting the two files "nsSearchService.js" and "nsSafebrowsingApplication.js" files from the Firefox\components\ folder as described BEFORE attempting to launch Firefox. One of the posters there claimed that Firefox 2 would crash on the first run. This did not happen any of the times I tried it, however it may be related to allowing Firefox to import settings from IE. I always tell Firefox "Don't import anything" because I use an Addon, PlainOldFavorites, to use all of my IE favorites instead of Bookmarks. Also worth nothing that Thunderbird 2.0.0.24 seems to function properly on 95 without any complaints, although I have not tested it extensively.

7-Zip It's a free alternative to WinZip, WinRAR, etc.

I'm sure many of you are (or were ) familiar with this, and I hope someone can shed some light on it for me. After installing Windows 95 C OSR 2.5, on the first boot, a "Windows 95 Setup" box comes up and does a forced install of Internet Explorer 4.0. I would like to know how to stop this (other than closing it with CTRL-ALT-DEL), or better yet, modify it somehow to use IE 4.01 SP2 instead. I WANT IE4 installed because of the Desktop Update, but I would like to eliminate a step in the whole install/update process. Also, I wonder if it would be possible to set other things to install like this, like DirectX 8.0a for example? EDIT 10-24-2010: Trial and Error has led to a solution, the forced install is caused by a single line in OHARE.INF: HKLM,"Software\Microsoft\Active Setup","OSRInstall",,"%1%\ie4setup.exe /C:""ie4wzd.exe /P:WC /M:2 /S:#e""" This line can be edited to allow more user control over the install, or completely removed to eliminate the forced IE4 install. Also, simply copying the IE 4.01 SP2 updated install files into the 95C install source directory and overwriting the IE 4.0 ones will solve the problem as well.

The ones on the desktop aren't the problem, it's the icon on the tree view inside Windows Explorer. I could not get it to change no matter what I set the desktop icons to. Proper 98SE version is circled in the picture below:

I'm no expert on the uSP, and I don't use it myself, although I have tested it before. I also do not care for some of the icon changes, and I asked a similar question (quoted below) a while back. The icons are changed because the uSP installs different versions of EXPLORER.EXE and SHELL32.DLL (both from ME I think). The icons are hard coded into these files. I ran an experiment once by making a copy of the original 98SE SHELL32.DLL and renaming it to something else, then going in to change the desktop icons and pointing to the old file when prompted for a location. This will fix most of the icons, but I was unable to fix the Recycle Bin icon inside Windows Explorer. dencorso suggested a solution in the quote below, but I have yet to experiment with it. The easiest way to do it is this: keep the old version of explorer.exe renamed to any other extension (.ori will do OK) in any convenient folder of your liking or even in c:\windows. Then right-click the desktop and find the tab that shows the especial icons. Select the icon you want to change and point it to the old icon in the old explorer file. If this generic explanation is too vague, I can give you a step-by-step one as soon as I'm using 98SE (but, at the moment I'm on XP). While we're on this subject, I have a question. I have been trying out some of the various "updates" that are available here on a test 98SE system (USP, 98SE2ME, etc) in preparation for the new system I'm building. While I love the idea of adding new functionality, I (in most cases) do not care for changing how my system looks. I might be able to get used to some of the Windows ME desktop icons, but there's one specific thing that really irks me... I do not like the Windows ME Recycle Bin icon. I know how to change the ones on the desktop with the same method described here, but that does not change the one on the tree view inside Windows Explorer. Is it possible to change this?

Just looked at that page myself a few minutes ago.

Ah yes, you are correct. I remember now, and also from your link I recall the different setting that was required, this particular chip ran at 95MHz FSB, so the clock multiplier had to be set at 6x instead of the usual 5.5x for the 550MHz chips. It was a real puzzle until I realized that the 2x multiplier was actually "rewired" to be 6x on some Super Socket 7 boards. Dug up one of my old Favorites on the subject Here.

Ah, trying to preserve an AT tower. I don't blame you, I had collected a bunch of nice AT towers for future use at one time myself. But even so, there is still hope. Take a look at the Gigabyte GA-6VA7+, also Here and Here. It's a Baby AT Pentium III board. I have yet to be able to get hold of one of these however, talk about rare!