Mathwiz

Here's an interesting one. DownThemAll (a download manager add-on for Firefox) v.1.x worked with KernelEx 4.5 (every version I tested) and Firefox 3.5, but there were some bugs I noted in the KernelEx thread. I'm happy to report that DownThemAll 2.0.x also works, and without the bugs!

Just though I'd let you know that RP 9.7 works much better with a vertical taskbar (dragged to the left or right vs. the usual bottom or top) than 9.6. The latter left a couple of narrow gaps on either side that tended to accumulate random crud when the taskbar was locked. 9.7 fixed this. Most themes don't look good with a vertical taskbar, but a few do. BlackMesa is my favorite. Edit: I may have spoken too soon. I rebooted (to install KernelEx 4.5 final) and the narrow gaps came back. They seem to be invisible/transparent borders for the taskbar (even though it's locked). But as soon as I resized the taskbar by dragging one of the invisible borders, they both went away. OK, not perfect, but I can live with it.

A search in this forum would have given you the answer. Silverlight & Windows 98SE Very funny, but that thread merely contains a lot of irrelevant descussion followed by (the link I wish you'd posted): SO, I guess the question becomes: Is there any hope of running .NET 3.5 on Win98 with KernelEx? Again, I suspect the answer is no, although I've now learned that merely asking can seem unbelievably naive to some folks.

Is there any hope of running Silverlight (Microsoft's version of Flash) on Win98 with KernelEx? Many radio stations are switching their Web streams to this proprietary format. I suspect the answer is no, but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask.

Is that true for all the other "X" files (XLSX, etc.) as well?

You're not retarded; it's just that the program is mostly invisible. The big difference is that some programs will run that wouldn't run on "vanilla" Win98; e.g. Firefox 3.5. The only other thing you're likely to see is if you right-click on a 32-bit program (or a shortcut to it) and click "properties," there's a new "compatibility" tab on the properties dialog. You can use this to disable KernelEx for that program if it runs in vanilla Win98 but won't run after installing KernelEx; or to customize whether Windows will look like Win2K, WinXP, etc., to the program.

I know the point is moot now, but I noticed the above question hadn't been directly addressed yet. Here's the thing: just because Flash Player 9.0.115.0 has SSE instructions, that doesn't mean it will always use them. Whether or not it uses SSE instructions probably depends on how the video being played was created - from the above, it appears YouTube videos always trigger their use, but many Flash videos from other sites do not. Flash Player will only crash when it tries to use an SSE instruction, causing a Pentium II to say "huh?" This has me curious: has anyone tried YouTube + Flash Player 10 on a Pentium II machine to confirm this? (If you're running Win98 you'll have to install KernelEx to test it, but the latest version is easy for even a novice to install - and to uninstall in case of problems.)

... notice that the third line is commented (that is, has a semicolon which I marked in red before it) and fourth line is not commented. So move the semicolon from the third line to the fourth, thus: After doing it, you may put back usbstor.sys v. 5.00.2195.6773, and when you insert your USB devices they may be detected correctly straight away. If not, enter the device manager with the device connected (one at a time), delete the device with the yellow exclamation mark, then disconnect and reconnect the device, that it will be recognized and mounted correctly. Well I'll be damned. It worked! I just copied a file to my BB without that BSOD. Thanks!

Thanks for the suggestions, but no joy. I installed IOSYS98 but it didn't make any difference. Then I installed USB20DRV, but after that it wouldn't recognize my BB at all! I opened up the control panel device manager and it reported a problem with the USB mass storage device driver. Looking at the driver files, I realized one (USBSTOR.SYS) was replaced by the USB20DRV update. So I rebooted into MS-DOS mode, restored the original USBSTOR.SYS, and rebooted. (I still have the new version in case I want to try it again sometime.) That fixed the driver and Windows recognized my BB again, but it's back to the same problem: BSOD if I try to write to the BB. So neither update helped, but (except for USBSTOR.SYS) they didn't seem to hurt anything, so I'll leave them installed for now. FYI: the version of USBSTOR.SYS that (sort of) works is 4.90.3000.1. (I assume NUSB 3.3 installed this version.) The version that USB20DRV installed (that didn't work with the BB) is 5.00.2195.6773.

Sorry for the confusion. I meant I hadn't installed Tihiy's USB 2.0 stack (mentioned in Bristol's post). Without wanting to sidetrack you from your investigations (and provide irrelevant information): is the file usbccgp.sys present in your system (in %windir%\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS)? RetroOS found that he required that file from XP Service Pack 3 in order for composite devices to work: Windows 98SE (with 98SE2ME) and a recent USB composite device The file can be found in the USB 2.0 Stack installer at MDGx's site: http://www.mdgx.com/files/USB20DRV.EXE Thank you both. I've downloaded both files and will try installing them tonight. I'll let you know the results.

Copied from the USBView screen on my Win98SE machine with the BB attached: idVendor: 0x0FCA (Research In Motion, Ltd.) idProduct: 0x0004 This matches the registry key from the XP machine. I have NUSB 3.3 installed, but not the USB 2.0 stack.

Yes, it's version 3.3 (the latest). Sorry, but I'm a bit ignorant about USB. How do I determine these? Wait: I found the following registry key on my XP machine: My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB\Vid_0fca&Pid_0004&MI_01\6&1b9c87ee&0&0001 The description in the registry is USB Mass Storage Device. So if I'm reading that right, the VID is 0FCA and the PID is 0004. One problem might be that the BB is a composite device. Is that what the &MI_01 is for? There's another key with &MI_00 which I assume is the other device (that I don't expect to work on Win98SE).

I installed it on my WinXP machine and like it. Unfortunately it doesn't run on Win98SE even with KernelEx 4.5 RC1 (missing shell32.dll export).

And when I press Enter, here's a (blurry but legible) pic of the BSOD. When I "press any key," the desktop reappears but Windows is locked up.

OK. First, here's a screenshot of a 4DOS session showing me about to copy a file to the BlackBerry. (Same problem happens with, say, Windows drag & drop, but it's easier to show what I'm doing this way.)

I have a question about using NUSB with a BlackBerry. I tried this and it does let me access the micro SD card in my BB as a disk drive. (It doesn't support the BB completely, but I didn't expect that. I just want easy access to the micro SD card.) Trouble is, I can only read from the BB - I can't write to it. If I try I get a blue screen saying "Cannot write to E:". This doesn't happen with other USB drives (memory sticks, etc.). Does anyone know of a way to fix this so I can write to the BB?

Probably the simplest way is to have them try to install and run Firefox 3.5.11. (Ignore Flash 10 for the time being.) If that works then KernelEx must be installed and functioning. If Firefox 3.5 doesn't work, then have them download at least version 4.0 Final 2 of KernelEx uninstall whatever version they have on their PC reboot (very important!) install the downloaded version reboot again. Once Firefox 3.5 is working they can move on to Flash 10. Installing that requires some temporary registry hacks, unless you are using the latest KernelEx version (4.5 RC 1). Check the first page of the KernelEx thread for the info you'll need to fool the Flash 10 installer.

Well, after all that sturm und drang Alt+PrtSc worked! And this site let me upload a .jpg of the freecell game showing the corrupted display. The top left cell should be blank, but instead shows weird partial card images. I found a pattern in the lockups: they occur when freecell tries to display a dialog box (select game, move column vs. move single card, etc.) Dr. Watson log is at http://www.speedyshare.com/files/23706735/freecell.wlg

Have any of the crack programmers on this board taken a close look at the conflict between the new IO.SYS and SCANREG.EXE (the DOS version)? In brief, if you replace IO.SYS with Microsoft's fixed version (included in all these 98 SE Service Packs since at least v1.6.2, I believe), then SCANREG.EXE will think your registry is screwed up, replace it with a backup, and reboot. To prevent this from happening every time you boot (which would result in a loop), the service packs just turn off running SCANREG.EXE at boot. (SCANREGW.EXE, the Windows version, still runs and backs up your registry once a day.) Does anyone know why this happens? The fix to IO.SYS supposedly had nothing to do with accessing large files like the registry. I thought it was just supposed to handle disk errors better. That's the only concern I have with the service pack so far. It'd be nice if both disk error handling and SCANREG.EXE worked correctly!

Thanks guys. I couldn't get Alt-PrtScrn to work last night, so tonight I'll just try a regular Print Screen. If that works then I'll clip down the image. Hopefully MSFN.com will let me upload that, at least.

I have just checked FreeCell and Reversi on two systems. I can't replicate those problems on any of them. Can you check if the problem is there with last stable release - KernelEx 4.0 Final 2 ? Both work fine under 4.0 final 2. But just to be thorough, I tried 4.5 beta 1. Freecell and Reversi experience the same problems (except F2 for new game works in Freecell). Here's what I did: Started DrWatson Started FreeCell Selected Game / Select Game... from the menu (this always locks FreeCell up under KernelEx 4.5) Clicked the DrWatson icon and saved a snapshot (attached) Hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and ended FreeCell then shut DrWatson down Started Firefox to post this Ugh. Site is telling me "Error You aren't permitted to upload this kind of file". What's the best way to send it to you? Not sure the best way to do that in Win98. In WinXP which I use at work, I'd just hit Alt-PrtSc and it copies the active window to the clipboard. Can someone recommend a free screenshot grabber for Win98? I'd hate to try a digital camera!

Just checked. Both games run perfectly under KEX 4.0 Final 2. (Of course they run perfectly under KEX 4.5 for everyone but me) Of course, now I have to uninstall 4.0, reinstall 4.5, start Dr. Watson, etc. Maybe tomorrow night.

I'll try to get some debugging info tonight when I'm home, but I was up way too late last night so I may not get everything you need until tomorrow night.

I'm not surprised. When Freecell worked for you, I figured the bug must be specific to my system. Possibly the display card/driver, but it's odd it only affects these older programs. Reversi is definitely 16 bit, so no surprise there's no compatibility tab there.

Do you have a link for your Reversi, it's not a default game in Windows. Yeah, it's from Win 3.0! Micro$oft used to have it posted, but no longer, apparently. However I did find it online here: http://www.4shared.com/file/TPOz45vC/REVERSI.html That link doesn't include the help file, but that's not required. I downloaded it and it's indeed the correct file. With KernelEx installed, the cursor problem is the only issue. Other than that it runs fine.