loblo

Fear!

By now I have come across a few apps who don't appear to be able to read or write or both. There is implementation of new file I/O APIs in KernelEx as well as fixes for file I/O APIs already present in 98/ME but I think something might still not be complete there. And I suspect that the well known Firefox issue missing History and Bookmarks might be related.

Reporting success running Cathy 2.31 which relies on msvcr100.dll and mfc100.dll: http://www.mtg.sk/rva/Cathy231.zip

Joe, it's the FindActCtxSectionStringW definition which appears to be not good enough. You may want to hex that string in msvcr90 to something else as to fix your problem for now. I am now also able to run the excellent GraphStudioNext: https://code.google.com/p/graph-studio-next/

Even better, the VST plugins built with recent versions of Synthedit which didn't run at all without KexStub and which I had reported running but without an useable UI with the old actctx definitions... Guess what now, they now display their UI which is fully functional!!!!

Those new definitions look very good jumper! I can report success running two programs I had never been able to run before. Latest version of IFS Builder 3d: http://fractals.nsu.ru/builder3d_en.htm YFract: http://yv3.bplaced.net/

I just followed your instructions.

If you don't use Internet Explorer or Outlook Express you'll be 100% safe with Windows ME.

As a long term user of Windows Me who started using this OS on a Celeron 333Mhz (and probably 256Mb of RAM, can't really remember) and upgraded the hardware several times up to my current 2.8Ghz AMD CPU + 4GB of RAM machine, I can say that I only really became happy with it when I got to a 2Ghz AMD and 1.5GB of RAM configuration. If you want to multitask while having a modern web browser opened 1.5GB of RAM is the minimum required IMO not to go constantly through the major annoyance of swapping memory to disk.

I confirm that iphlpapi4 doesn't work with the Windows Me version of iphlpapi. I have now replaced the ME version (4.90.3000) in the sysdir with the 98SE one (5.0.1717.2) and it works OK which is cool. Successfully tested with the program Zulu btw: http://www.nch.com.au/dj/index.html

Java 6 Update 39 (hyper critical security fix) OK. Require KexStub to install.

Btw I added a couple of minor definitions to my KexStub ini file: [Kernel32.dll] AttachConsole=f1 Works with Xaos 3.5 http://wmi.math.u-szeged.hu/xaos/doku.php [sHELL32.DLL] PathCleanupSpec=f1 Works with Lite Radio 2.3: http://hase85.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/light-radio-v2-3-released/ In both cases any values would work so I did put f1 for both at the end, I am not sure if it's optimal as I frankly can't figure out those return codes yet.

I did try that before trying to integrate it into KexStub but I get an error message that says: Presumably it does work only with the Windows 98SE version and not the ME one and I guess it wouldn't work with KexStub either.

Thanks Jumper for the new solution but I am going to stick with the hexed crt80+ runtimes as it's done now, can't theoretically break anything and avoids me to have to put all the affected programs and any similar new ones I'll install in a specific compatibility mode.

Effective File Search 6.8.1, best search tool I've ever come across and it's free so grab it. http://www.sowsoft.com/search.htm

I read your unedited post yesterday and choose to do the above as the safest, most foolproof and almost 100% guaranteed to work immediately method. At the end, I got an almost 100% fix for all the crashing programs I had after hexing out actctx strings in the following dlls I have in the winsys dir: atl80.dll mfc80.dll mfc80d.dll mfc80ud.dll mfc90.dll mfc90u msvcr80.dll msvr80d.dll msvcr90.dll msvcr90d.dll vcomp.dll vcomp90.dll After doing this I had only 2 progs out of around 200 that still wouldn't run including K-Meleon 1.6. It turned out that they had those actctx strings in themselves, probably statically linked at compile with one of the above dlls, and hexing the strings out of the programs fixed them too. So I have a perfect 100% fix for all the issues I had and can run my VST plugins relying on actctx functions. I'll be reading up the rest you've written now. Cheers.

OK so, I have finally installed KxStub and there is some good and bad. I'll start with the bad as it's very bad: it seems I can't use any program requiring msvcr90.dll anymore. When I attempt to launch any such program I get first a Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library popup message which says: and then after I click on the OK button I get another message that says that msvcr90 can't start. I couldn't find a single program dependant on msvcr90 that would run at all. Examples: Audacity 2.0.3, Blender 2.49, FreeCAD, Scribus, TapinRadio I deleted the whole block of msvcr90 entries in kxstub821.ini, thinking this was the problem but it made no difference. And then I realized that most programs dependant on mscvr80 were also unusable, some crashing exactly like above and the others merely crashing in kernel32 on launch. Examples: SEO Note, Seamonkey 10.0.0.4407, K-Meleon 1.6.0.0, Google Sketchup 8 After some further testing I can say that no program dependant on msvcr70, msvcr71, msvcr100 or msvcr110 appears affected. LuxRender 0.8, 0.9 and 1.0 which rely on msvcr90 all crash but versions 1.1 and 1.2, which rely on msvcr100, run normally.I have many programs dependant on msvcr100 and they are mostly, like LuxRender develloped using the Nokia QT toolkit. I have only one program dependant on msvcr110 and that is the latest version of the fractal flame renderer Chaotica. I can run msvcr100 and 110 thanks to hexing them as explained in my little hex hacks thread, all functions not catered for by KernelEx being replaced by SetLastError as KxStub appears to crash native mscvr100. Now for the good: if the ActCtx entries of KxStub.ini crash msvcr100 and don't appear to allow starting programs needing those functions, they have however allowed me to run VST audio plugins which I haven't otherwise been able to run. Plugins made with the latest versions of Synthmaker which require the function FindActCtxSectionStringA can run normally with KxStub. I hadn't been able to attempt hexing of that function to SetLast Error as those plugins are UPX compressed in a special way that breaks the dll when unUPXing them. Plugins made with the latest versions of Synthedit which require all 5 ActCtx functions can be loaded and they work normally as far as DSP and host interfacing goes but unfortunately they only display a blank UI which is another story. I couldn't manage to get those plugins to run by hexing the ActCtx functions to SetLastError but the ActCtx entries of KxStub.ini do. Now of course, I'd like to be able to run those plugins but without not being able to run msvcr80 and 90 dependant programs. I have no clue as to whether I can do something about it with the KxStub ini file?

AbiWord 2.8.6 working fine here, no typo in the wiki.

Yes, I've noticed this too, and exported pdfs are all white for some reason... However it converts and save Office 2010 documents which are fully editable to earlier versions without problems. There is also the Kingsoft Free Office Suite and this one appears to be able to print. The last full package doesn't work at all but the individual apps, Writer, Presentation and Spreadsheets which can be downloaded separately and are of a slightly earlier version (8.1.0.3022) do run fine. http://www.kingsoftstore.co.uk/software/pc-office-list.html Both the Kingsoft and SoftMaker free Office suites are better at rendering MS Office documents than Open Office IMO (and faster to load).

Latest SoftMaker FreeOffice runs fine. Not too straightforward to install however, requiring to run the exe installer, then fetching the msi in the temp folder before cancelling and then editing the MSI with Orca to delete the Launch Condition table after which the MSI executes and installs normally. http://www.freeoffice.com/en/

Same as Dave-H with Opera 12.02 here, no issue at all that would make me want to go back to an earlier version.

Look up for the file SBA2_EAX4DRV_031031.exe for the Audigy 2.

Latest versions I can run are LAVFilters 0.50.5 (2012/05/12) and FFDShow 1.1.4281 (2012-01-25). Both require some hex editing of functions to run in addition to have KernelEx installed. I don't have KexStub installed ATM so can't say whether more recent versions of those filters would run with it. I have no problem decoding AVC with LAVVideo, I just checked this out in GraphStudio, normally using CoreAVC for AVC as it allows me to play 1080p HD video without any glitch unlike the other decoders which max out the CPU for such files. Not sure about VP8 as I don't have a webm file at hand to test right now but I think it would work as well. Btw I split both MKV and WEBM with Haali 1.11.288.0 which I think is the latest version.

Try unchecking View/Show Layer Boundary.

I couldn't agree more!