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> SP3.x is not needed to run skype Then explain WHAT version is needed to be compatible with skype's current user database server. Because the version I was previously using (3.5.0.239) is not. (never mind - I just realized that "SP3.x" is not Skype 3.x). > Here is proof the sound is working in skype, I did this just for you Nomen: > You're welcome!!!!! Of what use to me is your proof? Have we not exchanged PM's - where I showed you that there is evidence that the sound chip on my motherboard (C-Media CMI-8738) is or might be incompatible with this particular version (3.8.0.188) of skype?

I have JRE 1.6_7 but I think the Jdownloader v2 installer includes and is trying to use JRE v8 based on what I see in the temp directory. I end up getting an error (after a long time-out) that the installer can't start the Java VM.

For what it's worth, skype version 3.8.0.188 appears to be the most popular download at oldversion.com, with over 1.2 million downloads. Other top downloads are Yahoo Messenger, Bearshare Lite, MSN Messenger, Winamp, LimeWire and IE 6.

> Thank you very much for the contribution. You don't actually say that you've tried it - and it works...

> Probably I never had sound with version 3.8 and also 3.6 and 3.7 > (PROBLEM WITH PLAYBACK DEVICE) So until or unless someone else running Win-98 natively (ie - not in a VM) can run this 3.8.0.18 version of skype with proper audio functionality, it should be considered non-functional for its stated purpose.

Would the fact that I have this in my registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion - Version = Windows NT - VersionNumber = 5.0 - Win XP version number = 5.1.2600 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion - CurrentVersion = 5.0 - Version=Windows NT - VersionNumber = 5.0 be causing problems with skype 3.8.0.188 not seeing my audio hardware? Or causing this problem: If I try to set a picture for my skype profile, and I point skype to, say, the root of E drive and select a .jpg file located there, I get this: ----------- Cannot create file "E:\profile\pictures\some-picture.jpg" The system cannot find the path specified. ----------- If I create the directory "E:\profile" in explorer and then go into that directory, the file "shared.lck" is mysteriously already there - with the current date and timestamp. I then create the sub-directory "pictures" and go back to skype and repeat the profile-picture selection process. I select the same picture (located in e:\) and the picture shows up in the Skype Picture Library (its the only picture there besides the default picture). The new picture is selected, and I press the "apply" button. The skype profile window closes, and an error-window pops up with this message: -------------- Error Skype encountered an error accessing stored data. You have been logged out for protect integrity of your data. [ok] -------------- Skype interface reverts to login screen, showing "welcome to skype" and under that is "! Failed to mount skype database. Possibly another instance of Skype is using it" - but there is no other such instance running as far as I can tell. So I exit and restart skype, and it does an auto-logon and I get the green circle with the checkmark in it in the system tray (indicating that I have a working skype connection) and my profile picture is still the default picture.

When I installed this modified version of skype (3.8.0.188) I chose to install it to c:\program files \skype2\ because I wanted to keep the existing installation (version 3.5.0.239) which was located in c:\program files\skype\. I just ran the older 3.5.0 version, and it gets hung up trying to login. I can cancel the login but the application comes up and I get the green circle with the checkmark in the system tray. I *can* make a skype test call, and the audio works fine! And in the audio settings, there is no play arrow. In the Sound settings, there is a small play arrow, and I can play any of the selected sounds. So I closed the old version and ran the modified version directly from the directory where it's installed in (\skype2\.App\). It behaves differently vs when it's launched from the desktop shortcut (SKYPEL.BAT). It logs into my old user-name - and it seems to do that smoothly / automatically. But if I try to "View Account", I get a screen showing a padlock and the message "Loading (old account name)" and then it says "unable to launch web browser". I still get "problem with playback device" when trying to make a test call. I've set the Kex properties for skype.exe to "disable kernelex extensions" but that does nothing. Still get "problem with playback device". If I start this modified skype with the desktop shortcut (SKYPEL.BAT) it logs in with the new skype username, but when I try "view account" I still get "unable to launch web browser" and making a test call still gives "problem with playback device". What is known about this modified version of skype (3.8.0.188) and installing it in a non-default directory location, and installing it when a previous version of skype (with all it's settings stored somewhere) still exists?

I was trying to bring this website up using IE6 (win-98): https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/viewMyClient.html and was getting the standard message you get if you try to access a non-existant domain: The page cannot be displayed The page you are looking for is currently unavailable. The Web site might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your browser settings. I also get the above message when I try to bring up https://www.msfn.org/ with IE6. Trying that URL with FF2, after dismissing a couple of certificate messages I get redirected to https://www.msfn.org/cgi-sys/defaultwebpage.cgi. On IE6, trying https://www.google.com gets redirected to https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl but otherwise the page seems to function just fine. So what's happening with https sites and IE6? Do some sites test for user-agent and give an immediate null response to https requests? Setting my FF2 user-agent to replicate IE6 like this: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1) Doesn't seem to matter or interfere with connecting to https sites (like ssllabs.com). Although a check of my IE6 shows that it's identifiying itself as: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; Avant Browser) Which now has me wondering how to untangle or remove the "Avant Browser" thing from it. ?

The previous version of skype that I had (that used to work a year ago before Skype changed something with their contact server) was 3.5.0.239. Also, I'm blocking ui.skype.com in my Hosts file (I read somewhere that it would help get skype working again). Should I unblock it? According to this screen capture: http://forums.logitech.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/8659i30B1770A931883BB/image-size/original?v=mpbl-1&px=-1 I'm supposed to have a small green "Play" arrow beside the Speaker setting drop-down box. I have no such arrow.

I downloaded and installed the skype package created by Oerg866, and it is working on my win-98 system with kex. I was able to create a new skype account and send a contact request to someone and it was accepted and I can conduct a skype chat session with them. However, regardless if I try a call to the contact or to the skype test account, I get a message (in big red letters) PROBLEM WITH PLAYBACK DEVICE. Under Tools - Options - Audio Settings, for each of Microphone, Speakers and Ringing, a dropdown box for each of those has 2 choices - Windows default device and C-Media Wave device. Regardless which one I choose - this Playback Device problem exists. I have all inputs in my taskbar speaker/volume control selector un-muted. I do not currently have a microphone plugged in - but I wouldn't expect that would cause this problem. ? Under Tools - Options - Sounds, the "play this sound" function does not result in any audible sound. Does the actual program file (skype.exe) require any specific kernelEx setting? Does the .bat file that invokes skype (or any of the custom .cmd files that are present) require modification to restore audio functions?

Would the program "HD Sentinel" (hdsdos.exe) found here: http://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_sentinel_dos.phpbe of any use in exploring these AHCI issues? I ran it on my system and for my sata drives it reported both drives as: Interface: S-ATA II ATA Information ATA Revision: 7 Maximum UDMA Mode: 150 MB/s (6) Active UDMA Mode: 150 MB/s (6) ATA Control Byte: Valid Serial ATA Features S-ATA Compliance: Yes S-ATA I Signaling Speed (1.5 Gps): Supported S-ATA II Signaling Speed (3 Gps): Supported There is nothing in the lengthy report indicating AHCI status (unless it goes by another name) so I don't know if that can be determined by anything in the report generated by this program. The SATA controller on this win-98 system appears in Device Manager under the heading "SCSI Controllers" as Silicon Image Sil 3512 SATARaid controller. There's nothing obvious in the properties of that object, nor for the properties of the SATA disk drives themselves, that indicates AHCI status. I have a "Silicon Image SATA Controllers" control panel applet, which again says nothing about AHCI status - but it does tell me that the current transfer mode is "Ultra DMA mode 6" and the ATA version is "ATA/ATAPI-8". The BIOS on the SATA PCI card (accessible by pressing control-S or F4 during boot) only seems to give the ability to configure RAID sets, with no option to set operating mode (IDE/legacy/native etc).

rloew said: > There is no "Emulated" Mode. SATA uses a superset of the PATA Protocols. When you set the bios to IDE/Legacy for the SATA controller, aren't you telling the controller to cause SATA drives to appear to the installed OS as an IDE/PATA drives? Aren't you telling the SATA controller to pretend that it's an IDE controller? Does none of that qualify as a form of emulation? > You cannot choose between PATA and SATA. They use separate connectors and Controllers. Do you really think I don't understand that SATA and PATA are physically different? Did I really have to explain what I keep on saying about the bios EMULATING an IDE/PATA controller/drive? > Unmodified Windows 9x will use ESDI_506.PDR for all drives in IDE Mode. If a SATA drive is not in "IDE Mode" (and it is not in Raid mode) - then what mode is it in? Is it in AHCI mode? Does Native/Sata mode = AHCI? That's all I'm trying to get an answer to. If my win-98 system is not using ESDI_506 to access my SATA drives, and if I know the drives are not in DOS/compatibility mode, then I must be accessing the drives through AHCI - yes? Which nobody running win-98 should have any problems doing if the controller is SIL3112 or 3114 or potentially any SATA-1 type controller. If (as I suspect) anyone can run win-98 with Sata drives under AHCI if the controller is Sata-1 type (because I believe there are win-98 drivers for all SATA-1 controllers) then I suspect your AHCI project is for people with SATA-2 or SATA-3 controllers. If this is true, then I would submit that anyone with a SATA-2 or SATA-3 controller on their motherboard would also have many other aspects of the system that win-98 is not compatible with at the driver level.

> If an option is listed, it must be AHCI or possibly RAID for the AHCI FIS Structures to be used. > Native Mode does not imply AHCI. In a situation where Native Mode does not imply or does not mean AHCI, then what else can it mean other than emulated IDE/PATA? Is there a third meaning or interface type? > I answered your Second question before. You can be in ANY Mode and still not use ESDI_506.PDR. How can a SATA controller be set in the BIOS to emulated/PATA mode, and NOT be accessed through ESDI_506 by win-98? (other than the obvious case where you removed the file from use by win-98). Regardless if the original or a modified version of ESDI_506 is availble to the OS, in what circumstance would win-98 choose to use another driver to access a SATA drive if the SATA interface is set to Emulated/PATA mode in the bios? Can the Intel SATA drivers (from the IIA package) be used if the bios is set to Emulated/PATA mode? I'm trying to understand how a Native/Sata mode bios setting does not imply (or is not equivalent to) AHCI mode. Can AHCI be utilized or invoked even if the bios is set to emulated/PATA/legacy mode?

I'm simply asking if by using the on-motherboard SATA controller in "Native" or "Sata" mode (and NOT in IDE/legacy/PATA mode) - is that the same as saying "AHCI" mode. ? Or to ask that question another way: If I know that I am NOT using ESDI_506 to access my SATA drives in Win98, does that mean I therefore must be using AHCI mode. ?

Sorry - I was confusing AHCI with UEFI - along the lines of a motherboard with UEFI bios (or operating in UEFI mode instead of regular "BIOS" mode - what-ever that's called) would be very incompatible with Win-98 in a number of ways. Regarding AHCI - would it be correct to say that if on any given system running 9x/me, that if access to a connected SATA drive is NOT facilitated by ESDI_506.PDR, then that *must mean* the SATA controller is operating in AHCI mode? Does AHCI mean that the SATA drive is not appearing to the system as an IDE/PATA drive? If so, then what exactly is the problem with Win-98 and AHCI? Are there problems if the controller is a SIL3112 or 3114? Or any other SATA-1 type controller? Or does this quest to improve Win-98 compatibility with AHCI pertain only when the SATA controller in question is a type 2 or 3?

Is there any value in running (or attempting to run) win-9x on a motherboard with AHCI bios, given the likely situation that there will almost certainly be no win-9x drivers for (some/most/many/all) motherboard components - north/south bridge, onboard graphics, PCIe video cards and other controllers, etc. ?

> ok. then i will change back to sata then. its hard to know when you never have dealed with this this before, > but i ahve one pation now at 125 GB and hide the other one. is this ok. are kinda tired to reinstall win98 > i ahve already done that liek 5 times. If you have a SATA drive (the drive itself, not a particular volume) that is larger than 128 gb connected to a win-98 system, and: 1) the drive is (or you want it to be) partially or totally formatted as FAT32 (regardless if single or multiple partitions or logical drives) 2) you have or can obtain Win-9x drivers for the SATA controller Then the motherboard bios should set the drive for Native/Sata mode access, NOT IDE/emulation/compabitlity mode access. > i just wonna know what i do wrong. It's not that there is something wrong - there are just easy ways to do things, and hard ways to do things. Golden rule of thumb for SATA drives and win-98 is that you do not want the native Windows hard drive controller (ESDI_506.pdr) to have ANY involvement with a sata drive that's connected to a win-98 system. There is one exception to this - that you have obtained a modified version of ESDI_506.pdr and replaced the original with the modified one. But doing this during win-98 install can be tricky. If you have an IDE (aka PATA) drive larger than 127 gb that you want to connect to (or use as a primary drive) for a win-98 system, or if you have a SATA drive larger than 127 gb that you want to use in BIOS IDE/Compabitility mode, the above-mentioned modified ESDI_506.PDR can be used - OR - if the system has certain Intel chipsets, the Intel Application Accelerator software package will replace the faulty ESDI_506.pdr with a different driver that does not have the 128 / 137 GB hard-drive access problem. Do you already have a working Win-98 system? With SATA port? It really helps to be doing all this (preparing a new windows-98 install) if you already have a working win-98 system. And oh yea - never install win-98 on a machine with more than 512 mb of ram. After win-98 and all drivers are installed, you can experiment with adding more ram, but just don't start with more than 512 mb during installation. PS: My memory is a bit fuzzy on this, but I seem to recall having to remove (ie - move or rename) the windows 32-bit floppy driver (hsflop.pdr?) on at least one system because it was causing windows to hang during startup.

Wow. I can't believe the convoluted crap that's being posted here. Any socket-478 motherboard with onboard SATA will be perfectly fine to install win-98 on, using SATA drive. Set the bios to SATA mode for the drive. NOT compatible / IDE emulation mode. When you install 98, it will not use ESDI_506.pdr, and hence the drive will be used in DOS-access (16-bit BIOS) mode. Which is OK initially - you will see the entire 250 gb drive just fine. When you install drivers, you will install SATA controller, and it will appear as SCSI adapter in Device manager. After that, the SATA driver will be accessing the drive using 32-bit drivers with full speed DMA access, so you will be fine. This is where win-98 is superior (or easier) than XP when installing to SATA drive - you must use IDE mode in bios or have SATA driver on floppy and ready to give to XP during install. We have established here that FDISK.exe and Format.com is fine (works correctly) for any drive up to what- 1 tb in size? I have formatted large SATA drives with FAT32 using third-party tools such that cluser size stays at 4 kb regardless the volume size and win-98 works fine with that - to a point. The best way to install 98 on a "new" computer is to start with an existing (already running) win-98 system and slave a new drive to it and prepare the drive for the new install by formatting it (format drive so it will boot dos) and then copy win-98 cd to the new drive. Seek out all drivers available for new computer and copy them to new drive. Then take new drive to new computer, set SATA mode in BIOS to Native or "Sata" (NOT compatible or IDE emulation) and boot into DOS, then run win-98 setup. 10 years since having SATA drives and we still don't know how to handle them with win-98?

I've edited the malicious .doc file in 3 places, rendering 3 internal keys as invalid. While opening the modified document, Word throws up a VB error message for each key, giving me the option to continue loading the project - which I say yes. I can then open the project in the VB editor, and there are 3 code windows (one for the document, and two which are labled as Module1 and Module2). I understand that starting with MS Word 2007, I wouldn't be able to view this code or possibly even open the document given the invalid keys. If anyone wants to see the VB code, I can post them (or the modified document itself) where ever appropriate.

> The above link answers your question, Well, technically the above link doesn't mention Word 2000. But the point is that for what ever reason (maybe it's the default setting?) I have Word macro's set to "High" (only signed macros can run). With that document open in Word, if I go to Tools, Macros, Visual Basic Editor, that brings up MS Visual Basic project editor, where I see the name of the document in the left-hand project pane. If I try to do anything with it (like expand it, get the properties, etc) I am prompted to provide a Project Password. I am really curious though. I am tempted to set macro security to Low just to see what this thing does on this system...

When I open the .doc file in MS Word (that is part of Office 2000) I get this message window: ------------------- Microsoft Visual Basic (in the title bar) The macros in this project are disabled. Please refer to the online help or documentation of the host application to determine how to enable macros. -------------------- And while that message is on-screen, this is what the Word window looks like:

> And something more is that this file can had fail in a plain vanilla Win 98 > but be active when KernelEx is installed... Um, I run Kex on all my win-98 systems. I think it's been discussed in this thread that Kex doesn't convey any of the various heap-spray and buffer-overrun vulnerabilities that NT has to win-98.

I was going to create a new thread, but I see that this thread has been resurrected so I'll add this. I got a spam on Friday with a nonsense subject (#jNSuR) and an attachment (hqPP03Lb.doc - 83 kb). The only text in the spam was "Sent from my ipad". I saved the attachment and tried to open it with notepad. Notepad threw up the usual "this file is too large- how about I open it with wordpad?". My fingers were faster than my brain and I clicked OK. Now I've seen a bunch of viral .doc files recently where they try to invoke some sort of macro, and if you have macro's disabled then they throw up a lame message asking you to enable macros. So I guess I expected this to do the same. But instead I got this: =============== Wordpad caused an invalid page fault in module mswrd832.cnv (a bunch of details) =============== And that's all. No dropped files, no new processes, no new entries in my registry. Yet another example of a cutting-edge exploit that falls flat on it's face when it encounters a win-98 system (and I have Office 2K Premium installed - and still it could not exploit it). I have 2 copies of mswrd832.cnv on this system - one in a directory containing all files unpacked from a win-98 CD, and the other in program files / common files / microsoft shared / textconv. Presumably the one being used is the one in textconv, and funny thing - it's dated 12/08/1998 (but has version 98120800) while the other is 4/23/1999 (and has version 97081200). A scan of the .doc file at virustotal (and this is some 24 hours after I got it) got flagged by 29 out of 56 AV programs. A few of the notable programs that DID NOT detect this threat were: ClamAV Malwarebytes Norman Panda The file acts as a downloader (or dropper) and is variously ID'd as W97M / Adnel. Trend calls it "W2KM_BARTALEX.VVRA". I really would like to know the exploit mechanism being attempted here, and why the mechanism failed under win-98 (and hence why does it work under NT). I can make the file available to anyone that want's to analyze it in more detail.

In FF 2 I changed my user-agent to Firefox 36 / Win 8.1 and entered "maps.google.com" into the browser. It was redirected to https www.google.com/maps/@?dg=oo and ultimately displayed nothing. View Page Source showed a lot of code that FF was, apparently, unable to render. I copied that URL and brought it into Opera 12.02. Opera was eventually redirected to https: www.google.com/maps/@45.0023714,-165.1106618,4z. The location 45/-165 is just some default starting point in the middle of the pacific ocean. I haven't explored any map functionality yet beyond capturing this initial Opera screen: Update: The maps interface seems to work fine. I can move the map, zoom in, and go into street-view mode just fine.

I must admit that given the number of cheap (but acoustically acceptible) bluetooth speaker systems that I'm seeing turn up in discount electronic stores, I am somewhat surprised that Windows bluetooth connectivity for these devices isin't more of a well known issue - at least to the crowd reading this forum. Both XP and Win-7, out-of-the-box, doesn't have the ability to send audio to bluetooth speakers. Seaching the web turns up a few moderately detailed thread as to why that is. Windows XP / Vists / 7 apparently do not support (or have no awareness of the bluetooth "Advanced Audio Distribution Profile" otherwise known as A2DP. Bluetooth has always seemed to be a funny animal in the world of PC communications technology. Having the hardware (bluetooth radio) is not enough. The stack is, apparently, not a commodity the way that, say, the TCP/IP stack is. Microsoft apparently didn't want to pay to have Windows have full bluetooth device operability out-of-the-box. So the short story is that I downloaded something called the Toshiba Bluetooth stack, for which multiple versions can be found here: http://www.support.toshiba.com/support/viewContentDetail?contentId=3461138 I don't recall which one I downloaded onto a PC with Windows 7 (I'll check that later today) but after it was installed, I was able to play music (all sounds, including system sounds) through the Memorex MW212 speakers using the Aircable XR2 bluetooth radio. I will try the same thing on an XP system later today.