ragnargd

Hi, regarding the IR-entry: I had that myself - although i did't have any IR-Adapter in the first place. While strolling through the BIOS, near the config of the COM-Ports, i found it, and switched it of. Thereafter, the exclamation mark was gone (of course). Another source of IR may be some types of soundblaster. I have an Audigy 2 Platinum, which has a 5,25" bay with quite a number of ports, among them that IR-port. I installed the driver, and that was it. Regarding the memory and your original W98FE: I was able to install FE with 512 MB only, and added the other 512MB thereafter. Perhaps you did that, after installing the SE? Just an idea, not that it matters, now that you have SE full version... If you get your NF4-Mobo running with that 7800 with W98SE, you'll be my hero. Good luck! (Tread carefully now, you are on slippery terrain... ) Regards, Ragnar G.D.

Hi, here comes another: i want to add a passivly cooled card to my next W98SE box. Because of compatibility with XP and W7, i want to stick to Geforce 6xxxx YZ with 256MB, and the 77.72 driver. My other card, a Geforce 6600 APG 256MB runs very well, but, well, faster is always better. I'd like to get something faster, still, but the only suitable model is a Geforce 6600 GT 256MB... ... PCI-E ... (i know of four models that have this combo: GV-RX80L256V, GV-NX66T256DE, NX6600GT-TD256EZ, and 90-C1VGH0-HUAYZ. Some of them pop up now and then on ebay) As i have suitable motherboards to choose from, no roblem with PCI-E. But as i'd have to buy that card via ebay, i'd like to make sure i don't do something stupid. But, after reading through the many threads on GPUs, i'm even more confused than before: Does this PCI-E-card work with the 77.72 driver? (It would be "Not OOB, but unpack, and choose manually... but, i'm not sure if that is a suggestion, or a tried and true method). Ragnar G.D.

Right you are. There goes another Sherlock Holmes... If i could, I'd rather get away from EasyBCD, and, but that's just me, if possible, just by configuring the system without external software. WIthin another month i'll build another Triple-Boot system, for multiplayer legacy-games. I hope i can ask you these questions again, and will open a new thread on this when i'm at that stage again. Meanwhile, i'm fighting with the virtualisation of my WHS in Hyper-V 2008, which has more prio atm, to be able to set up my own Ryzom Core server on an Ubuntu VM on thax box as well. Thank you very much! Ragnar G.D.

No offence taken. I don't claim any deep knowledge on boot-menu, so it may be as you say. I did not answer your extensive advice in detail in this mail, but i tried to improve my thread a bit on the subjects you mentioned. And I removed "you shall (not)" whereever applicable... By the way: Do you have any advice on solving this problem without BCD? I'd happily throw BCD out, if there is a better way... Ragnar G.D.

I'll try to be more explicit on this fact right at the start.

W7 and XP Security is an important discussion - some of us being parents, and such - but to stay on topic, i'll try to retreat from discussing this. Of course, it was me starting this, my apologies......

Any decent software firewall will be enough to protect from this... That's right. This was only to show that W7 is inherently more safe than XP out of the box. Because of my family, I tend to set up more lines of defense, so it is neither this OR that here, but usually both.

I'll try to add reason to my essay. Thank you for the feedback!

You said Win7 is needed nowadays for doing usefull stuff such as browsing the web. My son visited a site with drive-by malware (the famous DNS-changer). As his OS was W7 64bit, with restricted user-rights, the malware was able to bend his DNS-settings, but wasn't able to install a trojan, nor to spread that s***. XP would have been infected right away. So, W7 64, with restricted user-rights, Firefox with No-Script and Adblock, Antivir, plus Threatfire, that's what i built as a safe browsing environment for them. My children and my wife know, using the XP or W98SE for browsing is not allowed (not a good idea, regarding my wife , and as i showed them what the malware tried, they accept that happily. If it were only for me, I'd rather use a specialized VM with some Linux-flavour in it, but that would mean investing even more time for my home-network, which i do not have. Thank you!

Dear Madam, Sir, I'm far from being a pro with PCs or W9x, but i have my fair share of W98SE-installations, which i'm doing with SSDs only. SSDs can be fun, but they have caveats, so not everything, that works well with normal HDDs, works well with SSDs. This thread shows my experience with those. Perhaps it can motivate, and help you getting started with SSDs with a minimum of hassle. Limitations of my "advice" The only configuration i'm interested in is triple-boot, that is, W98SE, XP Pro 32bit and W7 64bit together, to play legacy-games (W9x and XP), and still be able to do something useful in what i consider a safe browsing-environment (W7), as watching HD-videos on YouTube (i connected this box to my widescreen-TV). Strictly speaking, the W7 installation and my opinion of a safe environment is a matter of personal experience, taste, (and my personal ambition of triple-booting at all ), of course, i simply mention the issues i had, as you might like to know about them. In combination of triple-boot with W7 and SSDs, i have experience with the AM2NF2-VSTA, 775Dual-VSTA, and 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 only, so not everything here may apply to you. I cannot (and won't) give detailed reason and technological background for each and every advice, except for i give those out of experience with many combinations i tried, which either failed, or were dissatisfactory. If you find SIMPLE solutions for the problems i mention here, feel free to add to the discussion. Why to use SSDs at all with W98SE? Simple reason: New IDE HDDs are so expensive, that IDE-SSDs have become a reasonable choice. You can use old IDE-HDDs, but they tend to be slow, loud, and unreliable (this is IMHO - but if you don't think so, this thread is not going to give you anything anyway). On the other side, booting W98SE from an IDE-SSD is fun: It's fast, and silent. Drawbacks of IDE-SSDs SATA-SSDs are widely known, well documentated, and well-tried. You cannot say this about IDE-SSDs at all. Even though i regard IDE-SSDs as something very well suited for W98SE, and recommend them for this type of PC-build, there are many reports on them NOT being suited for XP or W7 - i.e. "hiccups" of up to 10 seconds on XP are well documentated, and i experienced those myselves. Out of this experience, i advise against using IDE-SSDs for anything BUT W98SE. Another drawback of IDE-SSDs (compared to SATA-SSDs): They have no TRIM-Support, and there is no tool for "performance-recovery". If there is something like garbage-collection, only Transcend 320 SSDs have a slight chance on having this, although i tend to doubt this, as there is neither documentation on this at Transcend, nor at the usual places on the net (i.e. Toms Hardware). So, there probably WILL be a performance-degradation over time. I did not notice any until now (using those for three years now), but I cannot promise you won't notice or benchmark some. For my part, as everything is so much faster and more silent for me in comparison to normal IDE-HDDs, i would simply accept the performance-degradation, if there were some to come.. Which motherboards are to be taken, if you have the choice? Preferably use a motherboard that has support for 2 IDE-channels, that is, 4 IDE-devices. This is why: Especially the older IDE-SSDs tend to be peculiar in master-slave configurations, often resulting in devices to recognized, or the system falling back to the dreaded compatibility mode. If you want to connect a cd-rom or dvd, connect it to the second channel instead, for a minimum of problems. If you plan to have XP and/or W7 on the system, and can get your hands on one of those rare examples that sport a SATA II controller instead of SATA I controller, you are better off. Which SSDs to take, if you have the choice? (List will be updated now and then) I only know of a few meaningful types: SuperTalent MasterDrive EX2 (i.e. FHM32GW25H) (Seem to be ok) Transced SSD320 (i.e. TS32GPSD320) (recommended) KingSpec (i.e. KSD-PA25.1-032MJ) (can't say much about those) (I have a SuperTalent Masterdrive EX as well, but that one may be hard to get already, and it is slower than the above types) All others (including the Transcend SSD WITHOUT 320) are too slow, or too expensive, and often both. Montage You'll need an IDE 44 Pin 2,5" to IDE 40 Pin 3,5" Adapter (aka Notebook-IDE to Desktop-IDE adapter), and probably something to build it into a 3'5 " bay. Example: http://www.delock.de/produkte/G_61631/merkmale.html?setLanguage=en By chance i found a 3.5 Inch Drive Bay Mounting Kit with that adapter combined, which makes for a more stable combo - i can't seem to find it on the www any more, though. How to configure the system optimally for the installation? 1 IDE-SSD with one primary Partition, formatted with FAT32, on the first channel 1 IDE-DVD on the second channel., or as slave (oly if you must). If you know how to, DO partition and format the disk first, copy the content to a folder (i.e. INSTALL.W98), and start the setup from there, and not from ODD. Of course, this way you'll have no problems, if the optical drive is not recognized during installation - this is common knowledge. For our special build with IDE-SSD, you'll greatly benefit from the speed of the SSD. Believe me, this is where the fun starts! Do NOT attach SATA-SSDs before your installation of the W98SE is done: This will prevent the system going into compatibility-mode with some SSDs. This seems to be common knowledge on MSFN: If you copied the installation-data to the SSD beforehand, you might even disconnect the optical drive. This means to copy drivers and such to the SSD as well beforehand. Do that, if the system is forced into compat.-mode by the optical drive. Check for DMA-settings once the installation is far enough. Thereafter, Install the optical drive, if not done already. Before installing SATA-Drives to install other OSs (like XP or W7), DISABLE the SATA controllers in W98SE system panel - you need not access these partitions from W98SE most probably anyway. Again, this prevents compatibility mode. Things NOT to do, to avoid problems, and improve the duration of your SSD: Do not build multiple partitions on any SSD. This is basic advice given to me from the Support of SuperTalent. It makes life easier from my experience. Don't fill any SSD with more that 85% - this will enhance the lifetime of your SSD, as remaining sectors are not overwritten again and again, eventually weaing them out. Don't defragment (well: Once after installation of any OS and major software is probably ok, if you insist) - this only wears the SSD off, without helping with performance. Repeat: Do NOT install XP or W7 to this (or any) IDE-SSD: Quite some of them will cause annoying lockups while running XP or W7. This also helps against hassle when preparing multi-boot environments (KISS - keep it simple, stupid). W98SE does not seem to suffer from this phenomenon. To state my very personal opinion: W98SE-builds are the ONLY ones where IDE-SSDs seem to make sense at all. B) My recommendation: Don't install W98SE to SATA-SSDs, unless you have good experience with your drivers. Again, because KISS... It can work, though. Order of installation should be W98SE, then XP, then W7, from my experience. Don't be surprised, that W7, contrary to XP, may see itself located on drive C:, and W98SE (and perhaps XP) are shifted to another letter, while you are logged in to W7. This is to be expected, and does not affect your XP or W98SE-installation. My simple way of solving a problem starting W98SE from the boot-menu after the installation of first XP, and W7 thereafter (problem not related to SSDs) If you only install W98SE, and XP thereafter, everything will be fine at first. But after installation of W7, W98SE may show up in the W7 boot menu, but may not be startable directly (an irritating error-message may show up if you try). I was able to start it, by first choosing the XP-entry, and then again choosing W98SE from the XP-bootmenu, but found that annoying. This seems to be a problem of this peculiar triple-boot combo, where W7 copies the boot entry from the XP boot menu, but does not locate the W98SE-bootblock correctly on its own. After unsuccesfully trying some things out, i took advice from the www, installed EasyBCD (the free Version, V2.2.) on W7 (not on XP, though), and this enabled W98SE to boot directly from the W7 menu as well. Take note, that this produces some new files and folders on C: you are not used to from simple Dual-Boot configs. Never delete these. This is a working solution, but probably not the most elegant one. If you have more knowledge of building a working boot-menu than me, you may come up with a better solution, without using EasyBCD. (hi, jaclaz ) What about XP and W7? I installed XP and W7 on SATA-SSDs - each OS on its own disk, one partition only. This is what i.e. the SuperTalent support recommends, to keep partitions as big as possible, thereby guarantieeing a better wear-levelling, which is better for the life-expectancy. And i found triple-booting difficult enough, and having three partitions was enough for me. I prefer simplicity. While W98SE may be happy with 32GB for a gaming machine, i recommed 64GB for XP and 127GB for W7 as a minimum. Take care about keeping the partitions large enough to have "breathing space". If you are to use SATA-6GB/s SSDs, check beforehand, if they can be manually set to SATA I or II mode, and if in doubt, choose SATA II SSDs, not SATA III. This is, because i experienced SATA II-SSDs completely not working on SATA I-ports (unfortunately not having jumpers to set to SATA I), and i suspect that may happen with SATA III-SSDs as well. There are only a very few W98SE-capable boards that have SATA II controllers at all. Still, a new board with an SATA I controller may be better than a used motherboard with a SATA II controller. As a filesystem, I use NTFS for XP and W7, for a bit better performance (you may not notice, though) and (definitely) better security. One reason for using NTFS is NTFS-file compression, as this gives me 12-15% more space on my precious SATA-SSDs, and is said to enhance the lifetime of SSDs, as less data is written. This decision can be helped by choosing the correct SATA-SSD-controller (NOT sandforce, that is), and this works better with a bit more powerful CPUs (esp. Quad-Core CPUs). Anything else? This is my very personal opinion, and this may make your PC even more expensive, but: Passively cooled CPUs and GPUs fit an SSD build particularily well, combined with two silent 12 or 14" case-coolers. Well, this is it. Discuss! I will add meaningful ideas to this first entry. If i did say anthing dumb, correct me. Besides, there are old games, which my children can oly play on this build. They love it. This makes me happy. This is only possible because of the support of the MSFN-community, so: THANK YOU! Ragnar G.D.

I had a quick look there. No luck with W98SE Drivers. I did not expect that, anyway, though... Referring to MSFN-Lists, and a quick search in google, i found neither official nor inofficial drivers for W98SE at all. This is for 690G, as well as the integrated GPU. On the other hand, i found many people on the internet giving up any attempt because they found no driver. That may not be the last word on it, but i'm pretty sure you will be wasting time. Regards, Ragnar G.D.

Hi, ASRock 775i65G R3.0 can now be bought: http://www.jacob-computer.de/mod-775-asrock-90-MXGMF0-A0UAYZ-artnr-1409466.html Homepage: http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/775i65G%20R3.0/ Unfortunately, no CPU-Compatibility-Entries, though... :-( Ragnar G.D.

As i usually don't use onboard sound/lan, but use triple-boot-compatible addon-cards, it might work for me. it will take some days to try out, though, as my 965-board is still some kilometres away. for now i bought a 4coredual-sata2 r2.0, and a q6600, and an audigy. i'll try my freshly gained hot skillz on those first... B-)

Weeeeell, it seems things are never as clearly cut as they seem in the dark of night... Sorry to all, (and esp. Galahs) that i have been so fast with my opinion, sometimes to have a thread stay and mature for some days can do wonders... So, what i said is and remains true regarding the official drivers, but i see that the tech whizkids already solved the problem for some chipsets... ;-) Take care, and just go on like this! Regards, Ragnar G.D.

Please, anyone note: There is no proof, nor any hint, that any Intel chipset of the x900xx Series can be used with W98SE, or, probably, any W9x/ME, except for the x915xx. There is no such driver to be found. The only one person stating this is the starter of this thread (no offense, galahs, forgive me). There is virtually no other location on the internet than this thread on MSFN that makes this statement. Regards, Ragnar G.D.

Thank You for that hint. I downloaded, but it wouldn't even run... At any Admin looking into this thread: On the sticky thread about compatible hardware, any reference to W98SE working with any Intel chipset beyond x915x is, at the moment, wrong. There is no proof, well, there is not even a hint on the internet. MSFN is the only source for this assumption. MSFN is a kind of reference for people on the internet on this subject. So i politely request any admin to edit and correct that first entry, even if this means editing a user-made entry AS AN EXCEPTION, and to remove any reference to those other chipsets. Regards Ragnar G.D.

Dear Fellows, on the "Compatible Hardware" thread, the P965 chipset is named. However, i cannot seem to find a motherboard with that chipset, that also has "official" drivers for W98SE. 1. Do you know of any motherboard with that chipset, that does have official drivers for W9X? So, consequently, but unfortunately, i'm not able to find the "latest" Intel Chipset Installation Utility, that supports that chipset for W98SE. 2. Do you have any such Intel-Drivers? (I have policy-based, limited internet-acces from here, so i might have missed some sources - just in case i overlooked something that you might have in plain sight). If noone is able to answer these questions, we might remove that chipset from the list, or mark it as "yeah, we guess so"... ;-) Regards, Ragnar G.D.

Driver Cleaner Pro 1.5 Thank you Foxbat, the software did the deinstallation fine. But. No matter which driver i tried it with, the result remains. Probably my SB Live Value has a problem, or there is some incompatibility with the AM2NF2-VSTA, or with something else (i had, i.e., an incompatibility of this card with a Radeon 9700 Pro - atm there is a GeForce 6600 inside, though). Well, there is still my trusted Audigy, which will work better with Windows 7 anyway, so i'll try that instead. Addendum: Audigy works fine on W98SE, XP and W7 - mission acoomplished.

When i use the driver pack, from the first page, my pc hangs while trying to install "Creative SB16 Emulation". I have a sb live value type. Of course, as long as i don't remove the soundcard, it now stays in this loop... How can i get rid of the drivers again, except by reinstalling? Then, there are two iso's on mgmx's download page - what is the difference between them? Cheers, Ragnar G.D.

That's what i read and understand also. I use himemx.exe, which does this via a commandline parameter - this way my W98SE sees 1 GB of 4GB RAM only, as well. This is interesting to know. So he hurt your commercial interest by pirating your software, you say. If he did so, and you can proove it, you are able to report him to the german police, as his name and location is easy to find out. This is a strong accusation, which suggests that you can identify malicious assembler code by looking at it, and have been training this skill for some time already. ... So, then, you wouldn't mind if i cite you at www.heise.de/security forums, so that some colleagues of mine check the exe, just to make sure?

Sirs, today, while reinstalling my W98SE for the umphteens time, i googled around for fun, and found a link to a tool from 2008, programmed by a user Bernd "lamp2222" Stu., who claims to enable Windows to boot with > 512 MB Ram (even 4 GB). It is called BS_RAM9X.EXE Descriptions are in german only, as far as i can see. Does anyone have any experience with it? The user was active on the internet for the last time at January this year, so perhaps, if the tool is any good, we might contact him directly... Cheers, Ragnar G.D.

@schwups: Thanks for your advice - I'd rather spend that money on something else. P.S.: Still, then, *why* is that chipset mentioned as "supported", if there is no known board listed, anyway? I wonder... Ragnar G.D.

Hi, on the HW-Compat-Page we have the P965-chipset. I've seen no such board in this discussion (maybe i overlooked one?). So, there is this ASRock board P5D-DE, with this P965 chipset, PCI-E only, DDR2, SATA2, etc., which can still be bought. There is no offficial Driver-Support from ASRock for W98SE. What would i have to expect from such board regarding W98SE? Waste of time/money? Ragnar G.D.

...DOSBOX comes to mind, also a VM. Unfortunately, many games that were designed for W9X don't run in a VM, as they need DX9.0c, which is only marginally supported in free VMs, and so-so supported in VM Workstation (which is NOT free). Think of Thief I+II, Jetz, Dungeon Keeper, ... Some of these run on XP with some trouble, but under a 64bit OS it really gets difficult. Just my 2 cent. Ragnar G.D.

The loss is grave: Six pounds of male nerd pride, 23 gigazillion hours of installation time, AND a Level 5 archer in Diablo I. Yes, pity me. It feels so good noone is making fun of me, eh? Now, where is my Win98SE CD...