LoneCrusader

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?

I was running VMware Workstation when I saw the error. (May use the same driver(s) as VPC, I'm fairly new to VM's so I don't know, , thought I should mention it though.) @mjdbb1 Please specify whether or you were running in a VM or a real machine.

I have also seen this error. I did not post about it because I do not have any screenshots from it, I was only testing KEX in a VM for the first time. I was running a clean install of 98SE with only Plus! 98, DX9 (Dec2006), IE6SP1, WMP7.1, and specific updates required for KEX installed. I was using Firefox 3.0.18, and no text would be visible at all in the menus, or on visited websites. What was more bizarre, is if I watched very closely, when I first opened Firefox, the text would be there. Then it would shrink down into the "underlines" as if it were being squashed Rebooting the VM would sometimes partially fix the text, but "null characters" would still be visible in some places, especially in the menus, there was always one at the end of each item in a menu.

I have a C:\WINDOWS\UserData folder on my machine. It seems to contain a few garbage XML files containing references to google.com, yahoo.com, cnn.com, etc. One link that is referenced that stands out is: www.google.com/IsOnIE6tbPromo this leads me to believe it must be somehow related to IE6. I would think there should be no ill effects from deleting this junk.

My own personal experience with more than 512MB of RAM has led me to believe there is only one "good" solution - buy rloew's RAM patch. Before doing so I tried some of the other methods described in those threads you referenced, including the Unofficial Service Pack, and my system either would not boot with more than 512MB of RAM, or was unstable. Maybe some of the other members can help you if you wish to experiment further with the free methods. You should post exactly which methods you have tried, and what the results of each experiment were so they will know how to advise you.

Linux will "see" all partitions on your disk whether they are hidden or not. As far as I know, the location of the swap partition does not matter. I know someone is going to disagree with this or say it's the "wrong" way, , but it is also possible to create a swap file instead of a swap partition if one so desires. I have a swap partition for my Linux on this machine, but I have started using a swap file on other systems I set up.

Yes, we have quite an assortment of 9X'ers here, and we all stick together. Look around, you'll be amazed at all of the things you can make 98 do with the tools floating around this forum and/or created by it's members. It should be possible, although I would not recommend it. It is dependent on several factors, the software you plan to use for resizing mainly. I am not familiar with Ubuntu's current setup, I have used it before on a test system, but I didn't particularly like it. Maybe some other member will have more insight on this.

dencorso is right First, be 100% sure you have BIOS support for HDD's >137GB. Second, make sure you have an updated 98 driver for the >137GB HDD. Once those are done, the rest can be sorted out.

Check out this thread on Hard Drives Larger than 137GB. While I have not attempted a setup exactly like yours, I run a multi-boot system with 98SE, XP, and RedHat Linux 9, using VCOM System Commander as my bootloader. There are several alternatives when it comes to bootloaders. My system is partitioned like this: 1st Primary - 98SE 2nd Primary - XP Extended - Logical 1 - RedHat 9 - Logical 2 - Swap with storage partitions on a second drive. My own personal recommendation is that you set up your partitions manually and not allow any OS to "modify" another OS's partition, this can lead to unforseen errors. if you decide to take this route, you may want to check out these tools: Ranish Partition Manager & XOSL

It does not matter what size the partition you create for 98 or any other OS is, a hard disk larger than 137GB will eventually be corrupted unless you have a patched driver for your Windows 98 install. EDIT: Excepting the scenario described by rloew above.

Based on what I have been able to find, the TV Wonder Pro does seem to be the last ATI card officially supported on 9X. If someone knows otherwise, please advise. I hardly ever watch TV either, I've just been considering adding one to the new system I'm building in case I do decide to watch something, or more likely wish to record something. I suppose it would not HAVE to be ATI, so long as it could be configured to function properly and suitable software could be found...

Hmmm.. Interesting. I had been under the impression that such a program would depend on the OS for access to a partition, and that partition would have to be "recognized" by the OS for this to occur. (i.e. NT and Linux systems see all partitions whether they are assigned a letter/mounted or not) Definitely something to think about. Thanks again.

I'd like to undermine , at least partially , your certainties about "safety" of hidden partitions. Please read this: http://homepages.tesco.net/J.deBoynePollard/FGA/determining-filesystem-type.html and this: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=10169 In NT based systems a hidden partition is not much different from having a partition with no letter attached. jaclaz should + may /= certainties I have very limited experience when it comes to malware problems, having only gotten a virus once in my lifetime of computing experience even though I do not use Antivirus software. So I normally do not address the subject, I only did so in this case because the discussion was directed toward me. Thanks for the info though, especially concerning NT. XP (along with other NT-based Windows) is only a "means to an end" for me on any of my systems. I have it for two reasons only - for playing games that require it or running specific programs that require it, and occasionally for dealing with >4GB files. I would never dream of using it on the internet. When the day comes that my 98SE cannot take me wherever I want to go online, I will use Linux.

Disabling HyperThreading in the BIOS is not necessary. Windows 95 Processor Limit has now been broken. and Windows 98 FE had a HotFix issued by Microsoft for this. Windows 95 512MB RAM limit is now broken by RLoew's Patch v7.0. On another note, can anyone tell me the last ATI TV Tuner card produced that was compatible with Windows 98 and/or can be made to work in 98?

Yes, it's mainly a matter of personal preference. I personally don't like to have a bunch of partitions that I am not using always displayed/assigned drive letters in the OS I am currently using. However, I agree with the point you made back during the earlier discussion about working on files from one OS from another OS. If this need arises, I just unhide the partition I need to see to do the work, and then hide it again. Having the partitions hidden from one another during a malware attack should at least prevent damage to the hidden partitions/OS's and eliminate having to restore the entire machine from scratch. It may also give you the ability to use an antivirus program from one of the non-infected partitions/OS's to work on the infected ones. No, I currently only use BootIt NG on the Multi-OS computer, because I needed it there to solve the specific logical partition hiding problem. I have retained System Commander for my other machines because of the password protection ability. Switching to BootIt NG was quite painless on that system, I just booted into the OS where System Commander was installed (1st primary, 1st hdd, Windows 95 in that case) and uninstalled it, (which gave a warning that other OS's besides the current one may be unbootable {of course!}) then checked for any leftover files or registry entries and removed them. Then I installed BootIt NG (if I remember correctly this was done by shutting down and rebooting from a boot floppy created by the BootIt NG package) to the same partition SC was in, and it simply took over where SC had been previously. Of course I had to re-set-up my Hidden partitions settings for each OS.

Look again (inside Precopy2.cab, LAYOUT.INF and "find" it). It's there... (in WIN98_54.CAB) Thanks, I don't know how I missed it. I even ran an archive search with WinRAR and it missed it somehow. Who knows. EDIT: VMM32.VXD exists there, but not VMM.VXD.

May I ask what relevance this has to the current discussion?

Thanks for the explanation, and I agree wholeheartedly that the "Wizards" included should be avoided. I suppose when I say "partition settings can be changed quickly and easily" that was directed more toward novice users, as it is "point and click" in System Commander (it may be this way in XOSL, I have not used it so I don't know.) Worth mentioning that it is point and click in BootIt NG as well. I also agree that functionality is more important than the graphical interface, however I consider a nice graphical interface to be a major plus. AFAIK the gfxmenu for GRUB4DOS is only a background splash image displayed behind a Text-Mode Menu list. I do agree as well that GRUB4DOS has many advantages in the fact that it can be used "universally" as you described. IMO, it does take some getting used to however, especially for someone who may have never used Linux or even DOS...

You're not stupid, and these are by no means stupid questions. Only recently did I discover the answers to some issues about VMM32.VXD myself. If you have plain Win98SE installed and have not installed any of the various updates that are available here or any of the packages from MDGx's, I think you can safely assume that you have VCACHE.VXD version 4.10.2222, as this is the version included in the 98SE CAB's. VMM.VXD is another matter, I was unable to find it in the 98SE CAB's, and I also noticed the other day that it is not present in one of my Win95 installs. It MAY be created based on a need for it, it may be already part of the initial VMM32.VXD "starter" file included in 98SE, otherwise it may not exist?, I do not know the answer to that one. RE-EDIT: Text restored. Still unable to find VMM.VXD in 98SE CAB's.

I'd be interested in knowing why you think this if you don't mind explaining. I would also note that I do not use any of System Commander's "Wizards" and so forth; as I noted in another thread, I use it strictly for creating/formatting partitions, and I use it as a bootloader because it allows password protecting the boot menu (I am unaware of others that do this ) and the settings for visible/hidden partitions for each OS can be changed quickly and easily if the need arises. Also I like the "look" of it, although I wish I had a "Windows Classic" skin for it, instead of the XP Lego-Look.

VMM32.VXD along with VMM.VXD and VCACHE.VXD (these two files along with other VXD's for your system are merged into VMM32.VXD {as explained by submix8c} during Windows installation) manage and control the allocation of RAM for Windows 9X systems, hence the need for providing info as to whether or not these files are "vanilla", meaning that they are the standard files from a clean install and have not been modified, or whether they have been altered or patched to change the way they handle RAM.

Yes, thank you for the explanation. I should also add a few clarifications about my own setup(s) and why I had arrived at the conclusions that I was basing my input on before. BTW, I don't create a bunch of imaged partitions to do this with unless there are circumstances where I have to do so to get things working using my method. When I set up a multiboot system, I first use the System Commander bootable CD to create a primary FAT32 partition on a blank HDD and set it Active. Second, I install Windows 98 to that partition, and 98 sees it's partition as C:\. Third, I either go ahead and install System Commander to the 98 partition and use it on reboot, or again use the System Commander CD to create a second FAT32 (or NTFS) primary partition and set it Active, and Hide the 1st (98) primary. Fourth, I install XP to this second primary partition, and XP setup does not assign a drive letter to the hidden 98 partition, therefore seeing it's own partition as C:\. I keep the system partitions hidden from one another, however, this can be changed at any time (by simply unhiding the XP partition for 98, not sure about vice-versa) should the need arise. This process is repeated for whichever OS's are to be installed. The only limitation is the 4 Primary partitions limit. I handle sharing files between different OS's by creating a shared FAT32 data partition on a second HDD, which each OS will see as D:\ using this method. I can't think of many "common" situations where one would need to do this, but I get around the 4 Primary limit by making the 4th an Extended partition, and then using the image/clone method discussed by Dan Goodell. I have only needed to use this method once, for what I call my "Multi-OS" computer. It was on this machine that I discovered System Commander's inability to hide logical partitions from one another. This machine has 24 operating systems on it, 5 versions of Windows (95C/98SE/ME/2K/XP) and 19 different Linux distros, each set up to be independent of the others (excepting the fact that the Boot Loader will be installed to MBR + 1st Primary). The problem, in summary, was that I needed to put Win2K and WinXP in the 1st and 2nd Logical partitions (respectively) on the 1st HDD, without having them dependent on another OS for their boot process. So I installed them to a primary, deleted the relevant drive letter assignments in the registry to force their re-issuance on next boot, edited the BOOT.INI's to reflect the destination partition, and imaged them, then restored them to the logicals and edited the partition table values as discussed. This worked fine for Win2K using System Commander, but not for XP. As System Commander was unable to hide the Win2K (1st logical) partition from XP, XP attempted to assign C:\ to the 2K partition on boot and froze up. I solved this by using BootIt NG, which can hide logicals. I agree this may present several issues, all possibly unique to the given system. But I can say that I was able to change from System Commander to BootIt NG with no issues whatsoever on the Multi-OS computer I described above. This may have been simplified by my insistance on keeping each OS independent of another OS for booting purposes however.

I actually hate to ask this, because I do not consider it worth arguing about, especially since no one appears to be interested in using my method. But for my own information, and to eliminate any possibility of confusion, what specifically have I stated that was incorrect (and things not done the "Microsoft way" are not de facto "incorrect"), and what are the workarounds for said issues? It is perfectly right and a consequence of both direct experience of the author AND of commonly available knowledge at the time. Technically no, because birds are heavier than air, and they were flying in 1800. Really that is what this whole discussion comes down to. Do you choose to dual/multi-boot the "Microsoft" way, or the "non-Microsoft" way. (This could also be extended to include partitioning methods.) I would choose the "non-Microsoft" way, first time, every time. However, I seem to be alone in this, at least on this forum. @mntview64 Best of luck in your endeavor.

I never claimed there was a "NEED" for copying/cloning to a logical partition. I just mentioned it as a possibility because I know it works, I have done it. I speak from my own experiences and things that I DO know. If I don't know, I state clearly that I am not certain (AFAIK), or that I may be wrong. I have tried to help the OP based on my own multibooting experience. If I have stated something incorrect without noting my degree of certainty, then please correct me. I am reminded of something you said to me before:

Give Firefox 2 a try. It is much newer than IE6, it can be customized to look almost exactly like IE6, and there is an Addon (PlainOldFavorites) that will allow you to use the IE6 style Windows\Favorites folder instead of Bookmarks. I can't give you a definite Yes or No on this, but I can't imagine that there is not a way to get it working in XP. AFAIK, XP cannot be installed to a logical partition, however, if one first installs it to a primary partition, and then copies it to a logical partition, (this is a tedious process described in the link I provided), it will run and function normally as if it were in a primary partition. Windows 98 assigns drive letters on each boot. It will only assign drive letters to partitions that it can read, the others just won't show up at all. One possible solution no one has mentioned is SysInternals NTFS for Windows 98 (if it can still be found) as it will assign a drive letter to the NTFS partition. Windows XP however sets "permanent" drive letters, and then remembers them by entering them in the registry. (Can be changed by editing/deleting the relevant registry entries, also described in my link) Neither OS will "Change" the drive letters assigned by the other OS if this is what you mean. They may assign different drive letters when they are booted, but this will not affect the other OS. You could manually edit the drive letter assignments in XP to match those of 98; or If you use a 3rd party bootloader (examples above and in my link) simply hide the 98 System partition when booting XP, and hide the XP System partition when booting 98, this way each OS sees it's own partition as C: and the other drives would not be affected, they (should) be assigned the same letters in both OS's.