Tihiy

No matter how you optimize it, it will slow things down. Win98 version seems to work faster, but anyway, you must know - it uses: - MS HTML rendering engine, which is slow and buggy; - MS HTML CSS engine, which is slow and buggy; - MS HTML image engine, which is slow and buggy; - MS HTML JScript/VBScript engine, which is slow and buggy. But maybe some magical tricks possible...

Black text with black shadow?

^^ very nice. I suggest you to make active/inactive borders & title a bit more distinguishable.

Your SilverXP needs to use new undocumented LameSkin8 features which allow to change caption text shadow: [Global] ActiveShadow=0 (1 to enable - default) ActiveShadowColor=R G B (0 0 0 - black by default) InactiveShadow=0 (1 to enable) InActiveShadowColor=R G B

Yeah, wait for LameSkin8 update. BTW, there was a great Vista Standard skin somewhere in RP topic.

Well, WildBill, if you're creating TClock for community, and not just for yourself, then i have an advice... drop all features and code you don't need or want! That's how i usually do. Don't listen to anyone whining. Release really stipped down version which is stable and only then start adding features. As a programmer, i can say that your TClock3.dll code is insanely **** overfilled with features and API which: 0) Don't have sense under Win2000. 1) Duplicate functionality is already present in Win32 API. 2) Don't make sense at all. Let me explain: try hDC=GetWindowDC(hwnd) .... finally ReleaseDC (hwnd,hDC) end; How can this code fail? If NT user32.dll is trowing exception at GetDC(), it means your process is extremely badly corrupted and you should just fail hard. If you're tough, check it for <>0 and that's it. Personally, i believe object-oriented code is harder and worser to manage when you're dealing with hooks. Wrapping everything in try..except is a bad idea (in all means), better, rewrite main things in flat non-object code, you'll gain speed and simplicity. I'll suggest you rewriting your code and splitting it into several pieces: - TClock3Test.exe: why 2,6 MB has to be loaded always? You need just hook loader and icon in system tray (or clock hooked). Split them into TClock3Loader and TClock3Settings. - TClock3.dll: well, split it at least into 2 dlls: one which gets loaded into explorer.exe only and other into all processes. Get rid of hooks if you can safely hook API. Some boasting maybe, but that's how LameSkin is used: - 30 KB for skin loader, loads bitmaps into shared memory(only startup process); - 60 KB for shell hooking (30% of its code is actually for taskbar skinning); - 32 KB for process hooking (15% of its code is actually for window skinning); - 52 KB skin metrics/drawing API for every process; - 24 KB for 32-bit icons (consider this as an equivalent for font smoothing) for every process; So, it is 32+52+24=108KB and PB compiler sucks. Usually with loaded skin memory usage increase is under 2MB. You can do the same! If you don't want WB skins, use Windows XP msstyles format (it is FAR better than WB ones in terms of simplicity and standartization, and i believe it can't be restricted to Windows XP) or extracted bitmaps with ini file like i do. You can read a bit of LameSkin skin format if you like: http://tihiy.ahanix.org/lame/ Note it does not contain advanced taskbar skinning features

And now proper Zune theme: ZuneXP.zip Took me about 2 mins to port it. It'll be & improved in next RP. Also, this skin shows easy but cool trick you can use: figure where it takes start button. When you figure this out, you know how to create lightweight skins with sub-styles.

bump! Please find 5 minutes to test it. So far it is confirmed to work on Radeon 9xxx series, Intel 915/945GM.

Unfortunately, X1650 XT (and X1950) were out after X1900 and are based on chips not supported by those drivers. Edit: but heck, it may work with VESA drivers. I'll post them later when have feedback.

Fresh project (not by me) started to provide drivers for VESA-compatible video cards: http://www.bearwindows.boot-land.net/vbe9x.htm (alpha for now) There's also Scitech SNAP driver with wider device support, however, currently it is confirmed to handle only Intel integrated graphics up to G965 series and Radeon 9xxx. It is available per request.

What's the problem??? When it asks for update, it downloads latest 7.0 version from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en which is compatible with 98 and is 100% working.

Well, i gonna repeat again: this is a not real fix to the problem. It helps only with 768Mb-1Gb memory. With 1.5Gb, for example, you'll need to limit VCACHE to 128Mb, and with more memory you're certainly doomed. Remember that Windows ME works with same 800Mb limit well up to 2Gb, and 98SE with rloew's patch with 512Mb limit well up to 3Gb or more.

Well, pardon me, no offense meant. For me, it is useless to have more than 384MB of the cache, even 256 or 128 is too much; note that M$ notes in VCACHE articles that "setting vcache size more than 32 mb wasn't tested and not recommended". The problem is, limiting VCACHE size does not cure the real memory problem! It limites the memory that VCACHE uses, but not allocation issue. It helps only to cure issues that prevent MS-DOS applications or drives to work when their memory maps are overlapping with VCACHE because of high 1Gb memory shortage. So the real patch is rewriting VMM memory manager to properly allocate memory/swap/dos arena memory with more than 1-2Gb. There is a very good article about 98 memory problems: Windows 9x and lots of memory: Dotting the i's (unfortunately, it is in Russian, and no online translator was able to handle it) The solution is to reverse-engineer VMM to find the ways to work around it. And i'm still unable to find 1GB sticks for my computer

Well, change 2 bytes twice is not much a patch.

Can't you just reinstall/fix IE? The correct order is Win98->Service Pack->IE6. You're horrible sadist.

Hey WildBill! It's interesting too see that you're trying to implement skinning. Would you like to explore/port my LameSkin code? It could be very useful for you. Plz contact me via PM/mail/ICQ etc. if you're interested!

Hi MDGX. In fact, i found that vb scripts [like msgbox("Hello World")] do not work anymore. Haven't tested JavaScripts. Moreover, CScript.exe is now in \windows\system (was in \windows\command), but registry entries weren't updated to point to \windows\system (because your registry update flags indicate 'do not overwrite') and thus "Program Not Found" dialog pops up.

I did a quick review of 3.0a7 code and was shocked with Gecko developers' laziness: In fact, nothing prevented them to make absolutely 98 compatible version: they even have own GetGlyphIndices wrapper, there still a hell lot 98-compatibility code, and SetWorldTransform() is used only for scaling. It does not seems hard to make 9x-friendly version, i think it is harder to understand their creepy build system

Sorry, Xeno86, but your program is just no good: - Resident [processes are expensive] - Not using message-loop [wrong design and thus CPU usage] - Can cause deadlocks [timered send-message] The right design will be: - Load into explorer.exe as DLL [injecting, or better, using ShellServiceObjectDelayLoad] - Hook list-view and update color only when needed I can write such tool if anybody wants.

Thanks for release, Gape! Changelist looks promising and solid. Problem: infex.ini: [RunPost] shell.inf,SHELL32.W98 shell.inf: Explorer.exe,,,4 Shell32.dll,,,4 Oh why the heck? Forcing installing explorer.exe and shell32.dll looks extremely wrong to me. It instantly breaks Revolutions Pack or 98SE2ME Option 3, why'd you do that? That'll also break 98Lite as well. Or that is supposed to run if shell32.w98 is NOT present? Looks like wrong way. Those files should copy only if shell32.dll version is 4.72.*. One more [minor] thing: infex main window hangs while installing INF. I think just disabling window and checking if process still running (via timer / GetProcessVersion/GetExitCodeProcess or directly in message loop) will be right thing.

Hiya, man, sorry but there is no way. If there were a way, i would certainly provide it, yea? Unfortunately RP7 taskbar skinning is tied with WinME' patched explorer.exe, and whole skinning system is tied to RP dlls. You may try RP6++ instead of RP7, but if you've already installed RP3.6 (heck where'd you get it) you may need to reinstall your system because all RP<5 are flawed with bad uninstaller . I hope RP8 will address your issues with more componentization and stability.

Right click taskbar -> Lock Taskbar.

And why not you? I've tried oa2k.dll from VB6-KB924053-x86-ENU.exe (update for 2000) and it seems to work.

Welcome back, Gape! I'm glad new uSP is coming. I still prefer good old uSP2.1 over AP. Sorry, but won't you consider removing old IE5 updates included? Anyway if IE5 is used somewhere, it is still buggy and vulnerable with or without these updates. Also, All: there is newer msvbvm60.dll (6.0.97.98, kb930828) available, for example here. There is newer kb934602, but is is not available yet [i've tried to request it].

VIPv3 works flawlessly for me, just return explorer.exe and taskmgr.exe from backup after installing.