ScrewUpgrading

I don't know which is better either. But I presume that China's blunt, "heartless" method probably saves everyone's time, if nothing else. Think about it, you never have to apply to the same place twice. Think of all the wasted effort that people put into things in America. If only they knew that they were ugly, unattractive, and creepy looking, they might stop trying to get a job working with the public. Instead, they'd be more suited to Janitor, or Garbage Man, or Septic Tank pumper. Or ditch digger. Or dish washer. Or guinea pig for the drug companies. ^ I'd take any of those jobs in a heartbeat however, except drug company "guinea pig".

^ Preach, brother. I'm running out of topic ideas at this place however. So far only Herbalist has showed and telled what he uses. Also, you guys are the only people that will converse with me about my Windows ME fetish. I might go through withdrawal now if this place ceases to be the Windows 9x mecca of the internet.

At least in China they will tell you to your face that your unwanted. Score one for China. Over here, we like to sugar coat everything.

Windows XP isn't dead, because I haven't started using it yet. I'm still sucking as much life out of Windows Me that's humanly possible. Whatever Microsoft has planned, I will stubbornly remain 10 years behind the game. That way, everything will be dirt cheap by the time I get around to using it. I got this Windows Me computer for free 11 years ago and it's still going strong. Only problem is the browser issue (Opera 10 last I can use). I can feel the impending death of XP and the looming sense of it's abandonment, and I have a premonition that somehow fate will plop a free XP box into my lap as it did Windows Me. And so on and so forth until Windows 7.... which I should get around to using no sooner than 2030, if my current rate of progress continues. I'm just hoping, for posterity's sake, that the good fellows at Microsoft will do something to remedy the "product activation" issue regarding XP. Because if they don't, then XP will have a shorter lifespan than Windows 98. Homo sapiens are still using Windows 98 and installing here, there, and everywhere, because they can. Not so with XP and it's cursed ticking-time-bomb "activation."

all the more reason to upgrade to the new and improved Windows Me.

1. I wish it was free. 2. Windows 3.11 probably won't work on a new PC. Save yourself the headache and just buy a really old computer from 1992. Then install Windows 3.11. That should work just fine.

I feel so alone now. Is windows Me really that bad? Should I downgrade then? Yes, I accept Windows 95, 98, 98se. Please list whatever software you have on Widows 95, 98, 98se, 98seme, ME. Am I missing anymore OS's?

Here's my totally rad Windows ME configuration Web Browsers Internet Explorer 6 (Installed, but never used.) Netscape 9.0.0.6 (no javascript) Seamonkey 1.1.19 (no js) Opera 11.11 (turbo, with javascript) K-Meleon 1.5.4 (no js) Firefox 2.0.0.20 (no js) Multimedia: Windows Media Player 9 Eusing Free Video Converter Graphics Win9x: CompuPic Pro 6.23 IrfanView 3.17 XnView 1.60 Mihov Jpegar Paul's Graphic Viewer 4 FastStone Image Viewer 4.6 11view ImgViewer 32 NGView TruView 1.83 FineView 0.63 New View Graphics Viewer 7.7.2 Slick View 1.4 PicViewer 3 by Annixsoft iview 3.0 by Jogra data ccy image viewer Graphics DOS PictView PV 2.78 Jpeg6a32 (cjpeg.exe & djpeg.exe utilities) Grafx Editor Photo Filtre 6.5.2 Word Processors Microsoft Word 2000 AbiWord 2.4.6 CD Burning ImgBurn 2.5.6.0 Deep Burner Burrrn Audio Players & MP3 rippers 1 by 1 Trout Neutrius Cdex 1.70 beta 2 CD ripper freeware Mptrim Anti Virus ClamWin 0.97.3 Rose's Heuristic Based Virus Scanner F-Prot 3.16 (definitions from Jan. 2009) Tiny Personal Firewall 2.0.9 McAfee Stinger Multi Virus Cleaner 2009 File Compression Ccy Haha ZIP UnzipThemAll 1.4 Simply Zip Freebyte Zip Desktopzip 2008 Info-Zip's Wiz 5.03 Windows components Directx 9.0c Microsoft Installer 2.0 Utilities CCleaner 2.36 Foxit PDF Reader 2.3 cutePDF writer System Information Viewer 4.15 Kernel Ex 4.5.1 (for Opera)

The newest Firefox 3.6.24 works using Kernel Ex. http://www.oldapps.com/firefox.php

XMPlay is great, thanks. At first, I wasn't too big on XMPlay's layout, but once I found the right "skin" it helped a lot. My favorite skins are "Go" "JFGreu" "Windows Classic" "iXMplay," and "flatline." My three favorite are: 1. Trout 2. 1 by 1 3. XMPlay

Didn't mean to be a jerk in this thread, was just in a bad mood for a few days, was getting zero sleep. My mom had a heart attack and she was in the hospital for 3 days, not sure if she would have to have open heart surgery again, she already has a mechanical heart valve. She's better now, but basically for almost 36 hours she was in a hospital bed with chest and back pain, while the doctors gave her morphine and nitro glyserine, and ran a bunch of tests waiting for her EKG results to improve. Well, she's better now. Was just venting earlier. Dont mind my ramblings, it's nothing personal intended to anybody. Just had a lousy week.

Yeah, NetZero isn't very good. But where I live (pacific northwest, away from civilization, out in the boonies), they are the cheapest at $10 per month. I may have to resort to something illegal.

I'll rant if I feel like it, Loblo. Have you even looked up the definition of 32 bit colors? It's billions, not millions. Don't make yourself look like a fool now.

For example, NetZero. If you're on dial-up they require that you install their stupid software in order to connect to the internet. You cannot simply type a phone number and password into Dial-up Networking and get online. So, I'm wondering, when these companies stop offering support for Win9x (whether it's for dial-up, DSL, or whatever), would it be possible to install their application and fool it with Kernel-Ex. You know, get it set up using Windows XP or Win2k SP4 mode? I'm just thinking ahead to the eventual day when they drop Win9x. Has anybody tried ordering a setup CD from an internet service provider that they know DOESN'T support Win9x, but tried using KernelEx to see if it works anyway? That's what I'm curious about. I might actually try that myself. Would there be a way to fool NetZero into thinking my OS was Windows XP, when in fact it was Windows ME or 98 or whatever.

Okay, so Windows 95 can use 32 bit color, news to me. The million dollar question is, what are you going to do with an extra billion colors that you can't see anyway, and most video games use a fraction of a billion colors, same goes for all Jpegs (usually only thousands of colors) and most other formats? What's the point? oh yeah, I forgot, it just another gimmick to rip off consumers. "Here, buy this graphics card with billion of colors, it doesn't matter if you're brain can only make out 7 million of them, it's got Billions!" Just send us your money now, or else you won't be cool and people will mock you for your un-coolness. They will call you a stupid id*** Windows 98 user who's missing out on a couple billion invisible colors. You know what, I hope they invent something with Trillions of colors. Then everybody with 32 bit (billions of colors) won't be hip and cool anymore. Doesn't matter if the human brain can only see 7 million colors, it's the fact that I paid $900 for my graphic card that gives me bragging rights over the other mouth breathing idiots. I really, really, really, really, hope that computers start becoming out of date in like 3 months in the near future. I'd be interested in seeing just how long people will buy into all this garbage before they finally figure out that they're slaves. Come on people, faster, faster, faster, more progress. Now now now.

I might be weird, but I actually prefer my background wallpapers to be 256 colors. A true color image that is 1024 x 768 requires 2.25 MB of memory whether it's a Jpeg, BMP, or whatever. The same size image, quantized down to 256 colors only requires 769 KB of memory. So, you're saving nearly 1.5 Mb RAM just from your wallpaper. If you make it a GIF or 8 bit PNG, it uses less disk space as well. I've found that reducing the number of colors (using Floyd Steinberg, not ordered dithering) gets rid of all the banding and gradients. The image becomes smoother looking. That's just my own weird personal preference, and I can understand if you think it's retarded. But to me, it actually does look more pleasing that way, somewhat artistic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_file_formats "the JPEG/JFIF format, which supports 8 bits per color (red, green, blue) for a 24-bit total, producing relatively small files. When not too great, the compression does not noticeably detract from the image's quality, but JPEG files suffer generational degradation when repeatedly edited and saved." ^There you go, proof that a 32 bit display is pointless, since most of the graphics you see on the interwebs (JPEG) will only support 24 bit max. And even then, most of those pictures won't contain the full amount of millions of colors but will only use thousands.

"OP, there is no operating system reasons why you couldn't get a true color display with win98 and since your hardware is not the issue I suggest you uninstall/reinstall your video drivers, perhaps trying a different version." Or, if it ain't broke, then don't fix it. If the OP can get 24 bit display, then that's probably as good as he will ever need to have. It's still slower than High Color 16 bit though. "You certainly are unless you are not bothered by the degradation of image quality that is very obvious in 16bit mode, eg, horrible banding in gradients." Hmm.... just tried switching to 24 bit mode True Color. It made all my images look much worse. It brings out every little Jpeg artifact and defect. If you're entire collection of pictures (I have over 5,000 family photos) consists entirely of lossless TIF files or uncompressed Bitmaps, sure, every picture WILL look better in true color than high color. However, it's a complete waste of hard drive space using TIF, TGA, BMP, or PNG files. I'm not exactly sure there's dithering going on with True Color settings on Win9x, hence the term "true color," no dithering. Either way, since most people use Jpeg and not bigger-sized lossless formats for sharing pictures, there's no point in anything beyond a 16 bit or at the most 24 bit display, unless you're using photoshop. That's Just my opinion though. I still think 32 bit is completely useless for any practical Win9x purpose. I'd settle for either 16 bit or 24.

Gattaca soundtrack - The Departure

I'm not sure if Windows 98 is even capable of handling 32-bit color. Have you tried reducing it to 24 bit or possibly 16 bit? How about 256 colors, does that work? Have you tried lowering the screen resolution? Maybe you're monitor can't handle 32bit at whatever high resolution you've set it at. Try to see if it works correctly at a lower setting such as (800x600x16 bit) first, then work you're way up. I find that 1024x768x16 bit is optimum for Windows Me (assuming you're computer is in the 866 MHz - 1 GHz range, like mine is; and about 256 - 512 Mb RAM). Any higher resolution and the icons and text is too small and it hurts my eyes. Also, it's noticeably slower when increasing to True Color (24 Bit, millions of colors). It's not like you'll actually see a difference beyond High Color (16 bit) anyway - which is roughly 65,000 colors... whereas 15 bit is 32,000, 8 bit is 256 colors, and so on. Trust me, 16 bit is "beyond adequate" for any Windows 98 purposes. And you have it set at twice that! Kinda extreme if you ask me. Not even your 1 GHz computer will be able to handle that many colors without putting some drag on the cpu. And no, I don't mean 16 colors (that would be 4 bit.) It's Windows 98 for crying out loud. Oh, and another thing. Before you go experimenting with updates from MDGX, it's good to make sure that everything is in 100% working order before you tamper with your system by installing that stuff. Because then you won't know if it was mdgx's "upgrades" that caused the problem or not. I'd be very cautious about fiddling with those things. Just my opinion. If you had system restore on Windows 98, which you don't unfortunately, I'd definitely try rolling back my system to how it was before the MDGX "upgrade." Just sayin'. To elaborate on my point concerning 32 bit on Windows 98, consider the following quote from wikipedia: "Many modern desktop systems (Mac OS X, GNOME, KDE, Windows XP/Vista/7, etc.) offer a 32-bit color option (given a suitably modern video card), but in that context, 32-bit color refers to 24-bit TrueColor with 8 bits for an alpha channel. When switching to an 8/16/24-bit color option in those systems, generally transparency/translucency effects are disabled, and the only reduction in color depth is seen when going to 8/16-bit color. " Furthermore, "While some high-end graphics workstation systems and the accessories marketed toward use with such systems, as from SGI, have always used more than 8 bits per channel, such as 12 or 16 (36-bit or 48-bit color), such color depths have only worked their way into the general market more recently." ^ quoted from the article entitled "Color Depth" Therefore, I think it's totally safe to assume that 32 bit color on Windows 98 is complete overkill. However, I may be wrong. It's always good to get a second opinion so maybe somebody can offer different advice. I don't know. Okay, I've thought about it some more, and it definitely sounds like the problem is your monitor. If it goes black like that when switching settings, then obviously you're pushing it beyond it's limits. Assuming Windows 98, like I explained, can even handle 32 bit.

Ccy Text Editor http://www.ccyjchk.com/catalog/text_editor.php "Syntax highlighting for contents of Html, XML, C++, CSS, Delphi, Java, Fortran, Foxpro, Java, Javascript, KIX32, Perl, PHP, XQL, Pascal, Visual Basic, Assembly and Initial files. Can read Rich Text Format rtf files."

It's bookmarked, thanks.

Queensryche - Silent Lucidity ^ I could listen to that all day.

LAST - FREE - Desktop Zip 2008 --- http://www.desktopzip.com/ ^needs no installation. Stand alone exe file. (I prefer smaller programs like these.)

You're right, Technoid, yahoo is back to "normal" as far as javascript disabled. I just re-checked. Last night, it was just a garbled mess. Useless. And google was acting funny last night. Every search result had a redirection notice after you clicked on them. Today, everything is back to the way it was. I guess I prematurely thought they were "upgrading" or something. But it's all fine again. I can continue enjoying Windows Me. Sorry to cry wolf like that.