Nomen

I'm not sure if this is related to my continuing problem with win-98se not remembering my folder-view settings, but when I use explorer (my computer) to browse to my c:\program files directory, I get what looks like a listing of font (ttf) files. Exactly the same thing as if I browsed to the c:\windows\fonts directory. The program files directory looks normal if I bring it up in a DOS window. Running scandisk from dos doesn't change or fix this (it found no errors on the drive). Any ideas? Remember, I've been messing with htt and desktop.ini files (moving them, deleting them, etc) in an effort to fix the folder-view issue. Would be nice to find a good description of how critical these files are to win-98, and if there's any in-built function to restore / rebuild these files to their "normal" or default structure.

Pressing (and holding) the control key while closing the explorer window does nothing for me. If I configure the folder-view to be what I want (details view, and NO web-page view) and select "like current folder" and then hold the control key while closing the window, the system does not remember my view settings upon the next re-start.

The driver I'm using did seem to function correctly when I select Shutdown-Restart, but didn't work for Shutdown-shutdown or restart in DOS mode. I tried to deactivate the driver by removing the "exists in all profiles" checkmark in device manager - but that didn't seem to do anything. (?) Last night I installed the earlier driver (77.72) and all shut-down modes do seem to work properly. But even still, windows explorer defaults to large-icon view upon re-start. I really don't have any idea as to how the desktop.ini and the htt files are supposed to work -I thought that maybe mine were messed up so I moved or re-named them thinking that windows would simply re-generate new ones. Am I wrong about that? What about webvw.dll? Can win-98 function without that file in terms of remembering my Details-view setting?

But wouldn't a shut-down and restart also do the same thing? What if I "hid" some desktop.ini files by renaming them? Specifically 3 of them located in \windows, \windows\system, \windows\system32? (I have a handful that aren't re-named, located in \fonts, \favorites, c:\my documents, and c:\program files. Should there be one in EVERY directory?) And moved all the .htt files and webvw.dll? Does win-98 re-generate any desktop.ini or htt files that it's looking for if it finds them missing, or re-generate them when you change folder-view settings?

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer HKEY_USERS\.Default\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer In the above 3 locations, the value NoSaveSettings was present, and was already set to 0. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer The value NoSaveSettings was not present in that location. I added it and set it to 0. (edit: adding this key had no effect). HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Program Manager\Restrictions HKEY_USERS\.Default\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Program Manager\Restrictions In both of those locations, I don't have a sub-path or tree for "Program Manager". The only path that exists under CurrentVersion is AppCompatFlags.

Ok, just so I'm clear on this - does "Universal Extractor" run on win98/Kex? I'm finding that it seems to hang while giving the message "Testing 7-Zip installer" when I try to process the flash-player-install exe file. It also doesn't seem to process the msi file without throwing up some sort of error that I can't figure out. If the Universal Extractor method is not the method that you were indicating in post 76, then the (only?) alternative is to watch for someone to post a file-locker link to the flash DLL file.

It works fine. This new .268 DLL is exactly the same file-size as the previous .265 file, but file-compare shows more than 10 byte-differences. Is there any way to get the 10mb MSI file (flashplayer11_3r300_268_win.msi) other than by downloading the "archived" 100mb developer file (fp_11.3.300.268_archive.zip) ? Does Adobe give a direct link to the MSI file? I run the MSI file, get two errors which I dismiss, then go to the \SYSTEM\MACROMED\FLASH directory and rename the new DLL file (remove the version info from the file name) and that's all. Is running the MSI file necessary at all? Can you just obtain the new DLL file and copy it over the old one? I've unpacked the MSI file with 7-zip, and then unpacked the single .cab file inside it, and then used 7-zip to unpack the single .exe file inside the cab file, but after all that I still can't end up with the DLL file. Where is it?

I've done that many times already. I open "my computer". Click View -> select Details. Click View (again) -> select Folder Options. Folder-Options dialog window opens. Radio Button is already set to "Custom, based on settings you choose". Select View tab. Click the "Like Current Folder" button. Get the "Set all the folders on your computer to match the current folder's view settings (except for toolbars)?" message. Click the Yes button. Click the OK button on the Folder Options dialog window to make it go away. Close "my computer" (explorer) window. Open it again - and all drives and folder contents ARE displayed with Details view. Close "my computer" and open it again. View is STILL set to Details. Great. Restart the computer, open "my computer" and I'm back to large icon view.

Everything was ok as of about a week ago (I had "details" view, and no "view as web-page") but something happened (don't know what) and since then the system always reverts to "view as web-page" and "large icons" upon startup regardless what I do to change it. So I moved the file WEBVW.DLL and all the .htt files (and some desktop.ini files) I could find out of the way so that win-98 can't find them, and that solved the "view as web-page" issue. I want explorer to show "details" but it is defaulting to "large icons". I've tried every combination in Folder Options but nothing sticks when the system is re-booted. This system is broken in so far as it's running an Nvidia driver (4.14.10.8198) for the past few months that prevents the system from shutting down properly, so I've been using "restart in MS-DOS mode" which the system shuts down to the point of showing a black screen at which point I switch the power off and that accomplishes the shut-down. So what-ever mess this creates with any system files should be considered in formulating an answer to "why can't I get Details file-view to stick"... Can the "VTCP.386" update (236926usa8.exe) or 243199US8.EXE (ndis.vxd) play a role here?

Why do you have these registry entries? Generally there is no need. In individual cases it can be necessary to fake the OS version for a setup. It's recommended to delete the string "CurrentVersion 5.1" afterwards. CurrentVersion=5.1 is to fake windows XP. I thought it was standard procedure to have to always change the "version" info in the registry (as in the above keys) to make the flash installer believe it's running on some version of NT (win-2k in this case). I didn't think it was possible to install any version of flash 10 or higher unless you did that. Am I wrong? (but if I'm wrong - why was it necessary in this case?)

When I run the install_flash_player_11_plugin.msi installer from the \SYSTEM\MACROMED\FLASH directory, and if I have winhttp.dll also located in that directory (as well as my windows and \system directory), I get this: =========== Error Starting Program The flashplayerupdateservice.exe file is linked to missing export advapi32.dll:ChangeServiceConfig2W. =========== After dismissing that error, the installer runs to completion and says flash was installed correctly. At this point, the following new files appear in the \system\macromed\flash directory: FlashUtil32_11_3_300_265_Plugin.exe FlashPlayerUpdateService.exe NPSWF32_11_3_300_265.dll The file FlashInstall.log also appears, but it has a size of zero bytes. At this point, FF2 has lost the ability to play flash (but it does not crash when attempting to play flash). the Adobe "find version" page indicates no flash version or functionality. There is nothing new or different in my \Mozilla Firefox\plugins directory. If I copy the file NPSWF32_11_3_300_265.dll to that directory, nothing changes. If I rename that file to NPSWF32.dll, nothing changes. However, if I rename NPSWF32_11_3_300_265.dll to NPSWF32.dll in the \system\macromed\flash, then bingo - flash is now working. But I think I know why it is working even though I've done all this before. What is different this time is that I made sure I had the following in the registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion "Version" = "Windows NT" (*) "VersionNumber" = "5.1" (*) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion "CurrentVersion" = 5.1 (**) (?) "Version" = "Windows NT" (**) "VersionNumber" = "5.1" (**) (*) These values were changed (**) These values were not present at all so they were added (?) I don't know if this is a valid or necessary value The previous values for Version and VersionNumber in the \Windows\CurrentVersion registry key were for win-98 - not win-2k. I'm guessing that the file winhttp.dll is not necessary at all for the flash MSI installer to work correctly.

I don't know if the file NPSWF32_11_3_300_265.dll was there (it's not here now - but I might have renamed it when I first saw it). I uninstalled version 11.3 and re-installed 11.1. I don't care about Opera. I want to know if install_flash_player_11_plugin.msi works with FF version 2.0.0.20. On one win-98 system I did get 11.3.300.262 working just by copying the DLL, but that method didn't work on another system (see post #77).

Where (in what post) was this method described? I downloaded this: http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/licensing/win/install_flash_player_11_plugin.msi And ran it. I got a pop-up box saying "A required DLL file, WINHTTP.DLL, was not found". I have this file as part of a kb patch I downloaded (kb890830-v2.8) but I don't know why I have the patch file (I never deployed it). In spite of that "dll not found" message, the above flash-player installshield wizard ran to completion and said that it has "successfully installed adobe flash player 11 plugin". I restarted the system and ran the Flash Player app in control panel. It crashed, saying "plashplayerapp caused an invalid page fault in module unicows.dll". I went to this page: http://www.codegeek.net/flash-version.php and it said "Javascript is enabled in your browser. You have Flash player 11.3.300 installed." This page: http://www.playerversion.com/ said the same thing. However, no movie is visible when I to go this page: http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/find-version-flash-player.html and basically I can't get any flash videos to display on any page. What's odd is that in my \SYSTEM\MACROMED\FLASH, there is no NPSWF32.dll file (!). I tried replacing it with several different versions but nothing worked. I had to go to add-remove programs and un-install Flash Player 11 and then run install_flash_player_11_plugin_32bit_11.1.102.63.exe to get flash functionality back.

Sorry guys. Man, do I feel stupid. I booted into DOS and ran scandisk on the drive. It took 1/2 hour, it found no real problems - except that the free space wasn't being reported correctly. I let it fix the free space and then when it was finished I ran chkdsk. It now tells me there are 3 (three) free clusters on the drive. (!) Booting into Windows and looking at the drive in explorer - yup - 96kb free space. So I think this issue has been solved. Just for the record, I did download v2.1.0.0 of JD Design Space Patrol, and I did disable "operating system's built-in low-disk space checking facility", but naturally this was of no value in this case. So - time to get a bigger drive...

"APPLIES TO * Microsoft Windows 98 Standard Edition" So it doesn't apply to Second Edition? (or is this typical MS being sloppy with their details...) Does it also apply to win-ME?

Well, here's something interesting. When I bring up the properties for the Recycle bin, click on the tab for D drive, It displays this: Size of drive: 1.99 GB Space reserved: 61.4 mb This is when I set the percent-reserved for the recycle bin to 3%. Now why it's thinking that the drive is 2 gb in size is strange. It is underestimating the size of the drive by a factor of 350. If I take that 61.4 mb and multiply it by 350 I get about 21.5 gb - about the amount of free space on the drive. My gut feeling is that even when the "Do not move files to the recycle bin" box is checked, something is still trying to reserve 3% of the drive space. That "something" is getting the math wrong and it thinks it needs to reserve 3% and not 0.1% as you indicate it should for a drive of this size.

The 700 gb SATA drive in question is the second physical drive in the system (logical drive D). The first physical drive is an 80 gb IDE which is partitioned into 2 logical drives (C and E) - each being 32 gb (yes, there is some un-allocated space on that drive). The OS and all apps are located on C. The system has Norton Systemworks 2002 installed on it, and that comes with Norton protected recycle bin. I've changed the settings several times, including complete deactivation of the recycle bin (or so it says) and this had no effect. I came across some mention on the web of this registry key: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\BitBucket - "Percent"=dword:0000000n - "UseGlobalSettings"=dword:00000001 - "NukeOnDelete"=dword:00000001 But they also had no effect. By the way, this "Bitbucket" key has a long list of hex parameters for logical drives C through M, as well as "Purgeinfo". Does anyone know what those parameters are for?

I thought that saying the drive was 700 gb, and had 22 gb free was sufficient information. Please accept my apology if I didn't say that it was a SATA drive being controlled and used in native SATA mode, and that it was formatted as a single primary FAT32 partition with 732,395,680 kilobytes total disk space, 23,095,744 kilobytes free, 32kb cluster size, 22,887,365 total clusters on disk, 721,742 available clusters. Is there any other information that is necessary in order to arrive at an answer to my original question? Or perhaps nobody here has encountered this phenomena before?

Ok, I'll completely re-edit this. System 1 has KeX 4.5.10.1 (2010-12-30) and Flash 11.2.202.197 System 2 has Kex 4.5.12 (2011-11-14) and Flash 11.1.102.62 I obtain NPSWF32.dll (version 11.3.300.262) and just copy that file over the existing files on both systems. This works for system 1(all flash content is viewable on firefox 2.0.0.20) but FF crashes on system 2 when attempting to view flash content. Comments? What do I need to do to get Flash 11.3.300.262 working on system 2?

The registry key "DisableLowDiskSpaceBroadcast" is probably used by the Disk Cleanup utility. Mine is currently set to 12 - indicating drives C and D are not to invoke the cleanup tool upon reaching the low-disk-space criteria. I currently have the cleanup utility deactivated on those 2 drives, but win-98 will still generates "disk full" errors when I try to copy files (even relatively small files) from the C to the D drive.

This is a SATA hard drive connected to a SiL 3512 controller, using the driver file SI3112r.mpd. I thought it was common knowledge that win-98 is fully compatible with most SATA-1 controller hardware and that no special drivers are needed because those controllers came with win-98 drivers, allowing them to be used in native SATA mode (not IDE emulation mode).

Win-98 seems to have a hard-coded threshold of 3% free disk space that I can't find any way to reduce or disable. This is not the same as changing the settings for the Disk Cleanup tool. Disabling the activation of that tool when free disk space reaches the 3% mark does not seem to prevent the OS from generating "disk full" messages when you want to copy files to the affected drive - or when applications are attempting to write to the affected drive. I came across some mention of this Explorer registry value: NoLowDiskSpaceChecks (set to value 1) But my win-98 system doesn't seem to pay any attention to it. I've got a 700 gb drive, and it's got about 22 gb free, but win-98 won't allow any more files to be written to it. Ordinarily, you would think that having 22 gb of free disk space wouldn't be a problem... Is this a known issue for win-98, and is there a solution? Or must I simply live with the fact that 22 gb of this drive is unusable?