jaclaz

Hanlon's Razor to the rescue : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor jaclaz

On the Biostar site there are 2 models of U8668-D 7.x, the 7.1 and the 7.7: http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/support/download.php?searchmodel=U8668-D The LAN drivers for BOTH the above models point to the SAME file: http://download.biostar.com.tw/upload/Driver//LAN/VIA/LAN.zip So it is very likely that even your "unknown" version use the same set of drivers. Have you tried that file http://download.biostar.com.tw/upload/Driver//LAN/VIA/LAN.zip (and not any other one)? What happens with it? The archive contains a DIAG.EXE DOS diagnostic program, have you tried running it (in DOS, before loading Windows)? About the Network bootdisk, you shouldn't "assume" or "invent" ways to burn it, there is a page dedicated to creating the floppy disk (or floppy disk image): http://www.netbootdisk.com/building.htm and one about burning it as a "floppy emulation CD": http://www.netbootdisk.com/bootcd.htm if you need further instructions or assistance just ask for it, the tutorial is about using Nero , but you can use IMGBURN (freeware) to the same effect: http://www.imgburn.com/ jaclaz

Yep , Vista users (all three of them ) will be extremely happy ... jaclaz

Translated, you half-@§§edly did something that was not intended to be done and didn't work as expected or planned by you, which of course has no meaning whatsoever... Example: I tried boiling marshmallows, but the roasted ones were crispier ... @BudWs Mercenary! jaclaz

And risking to be actually appreciated for making (for once) something intelligent and making customers' life easier? Naah, everyone would have said it was the exception that confirmed the Rule. jaclaz

Well, then it CANNOT ping it. And I presume that this is symmetric, i.e. pinging the laptop from the W98 machine results as well in destination host unreachable. If the router has DHCP enabled, try setting IP acquisition on the W98 machine as automatic. Which hardware is the W98 running on? Can you try booting an alternate OS, like a DOS: http://www.netbootdisk.com/ or a live Linux distro? The issue here is understanding if the cause is: 1) TCP/IP configuration (or mis-installed protocol) 2) Network card driver/software (again mis-installed, even if seemingly OK) 3) Network card hardware (defective) Since the machine can "ping itself", and given that you double checked all settings and that they are normally seen in winipcfg, #1 should be OK. Trying with another OS would exclude #3, although (anecdotal at it's best) it happened to me that for *some reasons* a network card worked in "pure DOS" but had issues in Windows NT. The Realtek RTL 8139 is a very common card, but there are like a zillion models of it, maybe the driver is not the "exactly right" one? Is your Windows 98 , "plain" Windows 98 or Windows 98 SE? Which EXACT version of the driver are you using, and where specifically you downloaded it from? jaclaz

You cannot AFAIK, but you can unregister zipfldr.dll. You can get searchmonkey from Sourceforge, in case: https://sourceforge.net/projects/searchmonkey/files/Searchmonkey2/ jaclaz

There is a whole lot of "tentative procedures" to overcome that stupid error (or similar ones) with the stupid Update 1, noone AFAIK ever managed to pin down the exact reason why the update is failing, generally speaking it is a "mis-configuration" (in the perverted minds of the good MS guys) of the system, most "tricks" revolve around checking and "repairing" the system and services before starting the upgrade. Here is a (possibly) complete set of steps: https://www.petri.com/windows-8-1-kb2919355-installation-update jaclaz

Can the laptop and Win9x machine ping each other? Of course you need two cables (and I am assuming that the router has more than one port). You could try (just as a test) temporarily set the Router to enable DHCP and see if the WIn98 machine can get a dynamic IP address. jaclaz

Well, if you cannot ping the router the issue is "from the start", it is very likely that you are either using a "wrong" IP address or a "wrong" net mask or - more simply - that the network driver/card is not working properly for whatever reason... Can you ping 127.0.0.1? Can you ping <Win98 Machine IP>? (almost the same of above but checking the actualassigned IP instead of the generic "home" one) If it is not a secret, can you post the actual IP address you assigned to the machine, the net mask and the router IP address and net mask? Do you have another device that you can connect to the network to check if the router replies to ping? (all routers do, but it is possible that - again for whatever reasons - it is stuck), as well with another device you can cross ping the two devices and determine if the network connection and/or TCP/IP stack is working and configured correctly. See also here: http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles-tutorials/trouble/Troubleshooting-Basic-TCPIP.html jaclaz

Can you ping the router? Have you set the gateway properly to the router address? Can you ping a known server (as an example 8.8.8.8)? Can you access the router (standard configuration) from the Win9x machine? Did you set correctly the net mask? What does Winipcfg.exe show? jaclaz

Peter Bright seems like trying to convince us that after all the MS flawed approach to updates could be fixed by using the Google Chrome or Mozilla approach: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/kindle-crashes-and-broken-powershell-something-isnt-right-with-windows-10-testing/ Either he has not re-read his article after having written it or he is intentionally failing at it. A whole OS is very, VERY different from a browser, and an approach (which BTW it is not IMHO particularly good ) for the latter SURELY cannot be adopted for the former. jaclaz

If I get this right, you have a misconfigured "My Documents" target/redirection. or key in the Registry: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/tech-tip-redirect-my-documents-to-an-alternate-location-in-windows-xp/ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/221837 http://windowsxp.mvps.org/redirectfolders.htm jaclaz

Maybe (coincidence) the newly named PC-BSD (now TrueOS) will fit the bill: https://www.trueos.org/more-on-trueos/ jaclaz

What is "botched" (just so you know) is the XP "Search", it is a known issue, it simply doesn't do what it is supposed to do. For "pure" file searching (by filename/extension) given that most XP's work on NTFS formatted volumes, NOTHING can beat a "Pure" $MFT parser, such as: https://sourceforge.net/projects/swiftsearch/ There are of course many more, some were listed here: If you want to search for text inside files, apart the name, searchmonkey is IMHO not-so-shabby (though not "perfect", as an example it only does a volume at a time): http://searchmonkey.embeddediq.com/index.php The good thing is that opens in a lower pane a preview of the selected file with the line where the match was found. I wouldn't use it as "everyday tool", but when I need to really search for some text into files, it is handy. jaclaz

I have to disagree. I am pretty sure that there are still quite a few very capable and talented developers at MS (though possibly a few less than they used to be) but they are seriously mismanaged and given foolish or pointless objectives. The problem is all (as it happened before and not only in MS, but everywhere) in the decision-makers and in management, not in the actual people that do things. jaclaz

@JorgeA That article is made out mostly of truisms (unneeded) such as "technology evolves and so does counter-techology" and of FUD "since a single german hacker managed to workaround Apple touchID then all biometrics technology is compromised". Remember if "they" are after you, "they" ALREADY pwn you. @NoelC In case of a second mag, I would have 30 rounds more, just because moar! ... and you wouldn't even need basic math skills ... jaclaz

I don't want to seem more grumpy than usual but what (the heck) is the problem? IF your modified kernel32.dll is tested, stable, verified to be working, etc. you can report the fact to the anti-virus vendors and - unless there is actually something malicious - they will normally whitelist the file. IF instead it is a half-@§§ed, temporary, untested, only partially working version (let's call it Alpha or Beta) the (I presume restricted number of ) testers will know that it is a false positive and trust you more than the antivirus detection heuristics. jaclaz

Version 2.34 of Atto Disk Benchmark has been reported as working in Windows 95 : https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=44820 https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=44820#p477064 Here is another download of 2.34 (mislabeled as version 2.32): http://ht4u.net/download-details/234/1355/ jaclaz

I don't know. Meaning that - besides the obvious patriotic preference for Beretta - till now one of the very good things is (was) amount of shots available. I recently casually saw a (seemingly also rather el-cheapo BTW) "newish" handgun made in Florida with an astonishing 30 rounds in the magazine (.22 WMR). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kel-Tec_PMR-30 It seems like recent modes have evolved and are reliable and very handy (light, little recoil, etc.). jaclaz

... and - as a side note - in XP (and 2K) it was (and still is) very easy to replace the shell with a much less "heavy" one (such as bblean or similar blackbox derived one) ... jaclaz

Hmmm, tricky. Of course the app being Microsoft they may well be using the secret seven : https://web.archive.org/web/20151204024041/http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jonathan.deboynepollard/Humour/microsoft-monopoly.html Get this Registry viewer/editor: https://web.archive.org/web/20051101101104/http://www.resplendence.com/downloads https://web.archive.org/web/20051101101104/http://www.resplendence.com/download/reglite.exe and use it to search for pi.exe in the Registry. (unlike "normal" Regedit it will make a list of all occurrences found). Check also what is in the "Version" properties tab of the actual pi.exe file. jaclaz EDIT: maybe it uses some of the (devilish) other ways to start. like a .dll or *something like that*, search the registry also for "Starter".

If the biometric reader/sensor/whatever has a given method to identify (for the sake of the discussion let's say my left thumb fingerprint) you cannot "change" it (if conceptually it is - wrongly - "a password"), you may "change" it (at the most 9 times, considering inconvenient to take one's shoes off) by "shifting" to a different finger. But once "they" will have collected all my fingerprints (and made perfect replicas, capable of tricking the sensors), "they" will be able to log in/enter/whatever. jaclaz

Sorry , I didn't notice that it was in the "Open With" context menu and that you wanted to change the name only. I sent you on a wild goose chase with the previous suggestion . Loosely there is a "translation table" in the Registry that - when a program is started - is created, linking a "description" (in your case "Microsoft Digital Image starter Edition 2006 Editor") to a given executable (including path), this translation table is kept in the Registry as MUIcache, in XP it is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\MUICache. The "description" is extracted by Explorer from some data in the Version metadata of the executable. Most probably the old description remained sticky (or if you prefer the new executable has the same path and name as the old one and the info wasn't refreshed). Again you can edit the Registry, but there is again a nice, easy tool for that, Nirsoft MuiCacheView: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/muicache_view.html Just run it, find on the right the description you want to edit or on the left the executable filename, double click on the line and change the description. The operation is safe, it won't affect anything else. jaclaz

@JorgeA Besides the usual FUD of which this kind of articles is full, there is ONLY a basic "conceptual" issue: Biometrics is ID/username, NOT a password/authentication. Your looks, fingerprints, eye iris and veins patterns, etc. do exist in the real world, they are used to identify you. Of course - one way or the other - they can (or will be) be reproduced (possibly with a level of accuracy sufficient to trick this or that sensor) the point is about the misuse of these as an authentication method. A password (in theory) is something secret that - as long and until you do not reveal it - does not "exist" and thus cannot be reproduced. A password can be BOTH revoked or changed, a biometric pattern can be revoked but NOT changed, you are born with it. jaclaz