jaclaz

I don't run normally Windows 9x systems since the '9x's, i.e. namely since NT 4.00 came out, if that satisfies your curiosity AND IF I had to run a Windows 9x system I would do it (and have done it) on a compatible (vintage) machine with an adequate amount of RAM, surely less than 1 Gb, so you are asking to the LEAST suitable person. Again you should ask there, there is a list, maintained by dencorso which details who, on what hardware, how and which amount of RAM. What do you want more? jaclaz

Which doesn't belong to "Extended Kernel for XP (ExtendedXP)" ... You perfectly know (or should know) about the existence of a dedicated thread where all the info gathered are (or are linked to): http://www.msfn.org/board/forum/8-windows-9xme/ Why don' t you start your nitpicking there? (or start a new thread in the appropriate section of the board?). jaclaz

Good, but you carefully avoided to state the only relevant info, so I have to ask WHAT is your "old gear"? A Central Point Option Board? A Deluxe one? Or somethin newer, such as: A DiscFerret? A CatWeasel? A KryoFlux? jaclaz

Who knows? That I know of: SoftIce 4.05 for Win9x SoftIce 4.05 for WinNT/2000/XP SoftIce 4.2.7 Win9x/ME SoftIce 4.2.7 NT/2000/XP 4.05 should be last "self-standing" version, 4.2.7 is AFAIK part of a "Driver Suite" or "DriverStudio" which is already after Compuware bought Numega, buit most probably later versions of DriverStudio do still include in a form or the other SoftIce. We are talking here of something which last 4.05 "self standing" version was issued around 2000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoftICE http://www.angelfire.com/bug/ass_1/Readme.htm and support ended in 2007 or so: http://www.techtalkz.com/microsoft-device-drivers/251085-compuware-abondoning-softice-driverstudio-suite.html jaclaz

Sure it is "RAPID" the doubt was more whether it represents "PUBLISHING" . jaclaz

I provided a link to a thread that should have brought you to here: but Multibooter is just an example. Sinclair ZX80 Yes, self assembled and soldered ... and we LIKED IT: https://tinyapps.org/blog/misc/200702250700_why_in_my_day.html Lots of old stuff here and there, oldest (still working just fine last time I checked) is probably a 1992 or so Epson with a 286 processor, but I have also *somewhere* an almost complete Sinclair set, if I recall correctly a ZX81, a couple Spectrums, a QL, a few notebooks (some only partially working), and almost countless PC's of the 1995-2010 period. No particular floppy copying hardware, only good ol' floppy drives. jaclaz

Yeah, sure, go find some relevant FPP references on microsoft.com (not answers.microsoft.com, where usually clueless MVP's mislead users on a daily basis) If you want to know How to process an ESD or FPP purchase exchange: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/959327/how-to-process-an-esd-or-fpp-purchase-exchange the Symptoms are that "All content is TBD" however (and they seemingly keep Caps Lock on for RAPID PUBLISHING) jaclaz

WHICH previous post? They still look ALL FPPdefinitionless jaclaz

Still, you haven't revealed which interpretation of FPP you meant. I assumed Florida Professional Photographers: https://fpponline.org/ but I may well be wrong jaclaz

Which is fine, once (if) you will have explained what (the heck) FPP is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FPP And BTW, my post about BartPE, miniXP, XPCLI was actually on topic, and maybe deserves to go back to the original thread ... jaclaz

Not really-really, as anything related to MS (and their licensing models) nothing is "clear" or "definitive". Something may well be "activated" while NOT having a valid license, a typical example is the activation of OEM licenses obtained separately from the hardware or re-used on different hardware. The OS will activate alright, yet (assuming that the MS EULA actually has some legal validity) the OS is not properly licensed. Viceversa, say, a laptop with an original OEM install and the (stupid BTW) COA sticker, missing, removed or unreadable/worn down is and remains perfectly "legit" (even if you cannot prove it). And I guess that these Off Topic posts about licensing and abandonware and what not could be now split into another topic, this one should still be: jaclaz

To be picky, one thing is Copyright, another thing is possessing a valid license and yet another thing is "activation". The latter is only some means, not anything connected with the legality (or illegality). jaclaz

The smallest BartPE ISO EVER was 14 Mb (obviously with a reduced set of functionalities). http://reboot.pro/topic/15252-picoxp/ http://reboot.pro/files/file/27-picoxp/ A good compact build is around 60 Mb, this all in one builder is still available: http://hooovahh.com/Navigation/Code Repository/Other/BartPE AIO.php The smallest EVER XP (with a very reduced set of functionalilties, of course) is the XPCLI which can be as small as around 20 Mb (but you won't do much with it) while an installed size around 40-60 Mb already gives enough functionalities to be a very good and handy "second install" or "emergency recovery system". JFYI: http://reboot.pro/topic/3717-xpsp1-with-full-commandline-and-ntfs-below-10-mb/ which can now be easily replicated thanks to the excellent MiniXP project by Misty: http://www.mistyprojects.co.uk/minixp/docs/files/index.html http://www.mistyprojects.co.uk/minixp/docs/files/about.htm jaclaz

Good , can you copy files to it? (and read them back?) Can you defragment it? Can you CHKDSK it? I.e. does it behave like a "normal" volume? How does it show in diskpart? As a side note, on second thought, maybe the "blinking cursor" you had before was only because in your procedure the MBR code wasn't "automatically" written to the MBR when installing/applying the wim (i.e. as an example one would need to run bootsect.exe /MBR), jaclaz

Good, try formatting it (as NTFS). What happens? jaclaz

Well, it seems "normal enough to me that the good MS guys put some road blocks (in diskpart or in disk management). Rest assured that there are no issues in the way the grub4dos created the partition entry, it is entirely possible that Windows 7 does not like a partition ending so near the "limit", however (the old XP disk manager had "steps" in around 8 Mb, i.e. one cylinder, 1x255x63x512=8225280 bytes, it is entirely possible that the 7 disk manager has a similar step at 1 Mb or so) . When you have some time, try to just create the new partition entry with grub4dos (the second one). I.e. leave the disk "as is", with the first partition being the 1852,69 Gb one and the 195.31 Gb Unallocated and run only the; partnew (hd1,1) 0x07 4294967294 1258291200 then try booting to the Windows 7 DO NOT run diskpart NOR disk management, just see if you have a new drive letter in Explorer or run MOUNTVOL. It is perfectly possible that *some code* actually "sums" the extents of the partitions in a 32 bit integer, that would be the "show stopper" :(. The other test is to enlarge as much as possible the first partition, then re-shrink it two steps below the max. Then calculate the new LBA start to be used in grub4dos for the second partition as the last LBA in first partition + 1 (or post the data of cat --hex --skip=446 and I will calculate it). jaclaz

I heard that it was written for 72 Hertz, instead . It would make more sense since 36, like 60, has more integer divisors than 35. jaclaz

You can use *any* hex editor, then. AFAIK the whole concept of "API" or "library" is post-DOS. There is a good (read only) library, called libregf, and of course you can "port to dos" hivex http://libguestfs.org/hivex.3.html There is the MS offline registry library, but AFAIK it is WINNT only, if you can use that from DOS, good for you: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee210757(v=vs.85).aspx Again, if you actually DETAIL EXACTLY what you wish to achieve there may be other ways, command line usage of REGEDIT is perfectly possible for some scopes, as an example. jaclaz

You are right, sorry, my bad, (Mr.Presario made me do it ). No. (just the short version of "ontologically impossible"™ by dencorso). For an alternate meaning of "No", compare with: https://web.archive.org/web/20160527013035/http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/questions-with-yes-or-no-answers.html (that will allow the reply to be "Yes." as well) jaclaz

Well, the source code is provided, isn't that the "code" you were talking about? Or are you now asking a different thing, a pre-compiled "pure DOS" command line registry editor? What is the EXACT environment in which you wish to run that? Or describe what EXACTLY you wish to do. jaclaz

It is one of those errors that may be caused by *almost everything*, from a given antivirus/firewall not running properly to a corrupted file or filesystem, just as an example a known culprit is BitDefender: https://forum.bitdefender.com/index.php?/topic/75691-fixed-failed-to-connect-to-windows-service/ Unfortunately no way to know from just the message. Clear the System Event Log (optionally saving it before clearing it) then re-start/re-boot the computer and if the error presents itself again examine it or post a copy of it inside a .zip or .7z archive. Maybe with that data something more can be said about the possible causes. More generally (including the possible cause of the antivirus/firewall) it is definitely a timing problem of some kind during startup, *something* slows down the start of this (or that) service and then *somehow* *somethng* times out, a similar issue is known (and in some cases solved) by running: netsh winsock reset but it doesn't necessarily applies to your case. jaclaz

Sure. Meet the General Paul Lee Registry Viewer (which is also an editor): http://paullee.ru/ http://paullee.ru/regstry.html jaclaz

Yes, it is entirely possible that *something* in the install (or apply phase) doesn't like that second partition, Sure, if you create a new partition in diskpart it automagically creates a GPT disk (because it detects the bigger than 2.2 Tb disk and "switches mode"), but just after the "clean" command the disk should be actually "clean" . The idea was that on a "clean" disk you create the partition(s) in DOS or grub4dos, If you need to write the 55AA Magic Bytes, there should be no problems in initializing the disk in RPM, creating an arbitrary sized partition (without formatting it) and writing a MBR , then you write in grub4dos the new partition table. Or one could use cat --hex or this little script: http://reboot.pro/topic/18783-release-cateditg4b-script-to-write-hex-values/ I doubt that - outside diskpart - any PE, including the stupid Windows 10 derived one. will convert the disk to GPT if you only use the FORMAT command but of course when the good MS guys are involved everything is possible. jaclaz

Sure, we got that, but we tried being nice anyway . You see, when a new member comes on board we have no way to know how much knowledge and previous experience he/she has, I normally use my crystal ball (which has unfortunately given me a lot of tuning problems lately) and Tarots (I Ching for whatever reasons is less accurate), but I couldn't see that you had already tried each and every trick of the trade (+1) to attempt the recovery of that diskette. BTW, don't even think to make a grumpiness competition, not with me, I am the resident old grumpy bastard since 2004 or so, you simply have no chance to win. jaclaz

There were separate different releases for 9x/Me and NT family. jaclaz