pangoomis

right switch on the taskbar as you've said, same menu you create new quick lunch bar

Unlock the taskbar.

SoftGPU now works on real hardware, not just virtual machines, since it now includes support for any VESA VBE 2.0 compatible GPU and can now be considered a successor to VBEMP with some sort of 2d/3d acceleration, albeit purely software based. I've tested the newest version (v0.8.2025.53 special edition available for donators) on my ThinkPad X230 and DOS windows work quite well (tested only text applications) and windows are not as laggy as with VBEMP. In 3DMark2001 SE I got... 241 points Would be nice to have more tests done by others on real hardware. Download it here: https://github.com/JHRobotics/softgpu/releases/tag/v0.8.2025.53 No need for ISO, ZIP works just fine.

Try removing ESDI_506.PDR from WINDOWS\SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS folder. Or replace it with the updated version from SweetLow: (obtained from: http://sweetlow.orgfree.com/download/) esdi_506.zip

No. Do not compare WDM Network/Audio drivers to GPU drivers. Windows 9x never did and never will support Windows 2000 GPU drivers, especially when thinking about their 3D acceleration, end of story. WDM drivers are sometimes intercompatible between Win2000 and 98...but this never included video drivers, mostly just network and audio drivers, and even then it's not guaranteed. You're not the first person to think about this and all conclusions have been done long time ago. There is no breakthrough to be made unless someone is crazy enough to write a new Win9x GPU driver including proper 3D Acceleration for whatever NVIDIA/AMD/Intel GPU they want. Closest thing we have now is SoftGPU and its components here: https://github.com/JHRobotics?tab=repositories But so far he is implementing just DDraw acceleration, no Direct3D...and this is only designed for virtual machines. I don't know if it's possible to rewrite his VMDisp9x driver to be a universal one like VBEMP. Then, we could in theory use his Mesa/Wine ports to have some kind of universal 3D Acceleration, even if fully dependant on software (CPU) rendering. Dependency Walker righly so says to you that the GPU driver relies on VIDEOPRT.SYS, a NT video miniport, which is a fundamental difference between NT and DOS-based Win9x systems. If there was somehow a way to port NT display driver subsystem to Win9x....would it still be 9x at this point? Sometimes we need to say stop. Here's a good read: https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/12878/Driver-Development-Part-6-Introduction-to-Display

According to the official website, the file size in CrystalMark Retro for disk benchmark is 32MiB for 9x/NT and 1 GiB for other versions, and the scores are 10 x MB/s. I agree there are much better disk benchmarks for 9x like the ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.41 but this is just meant to be a quick and easy benchmark to compare scores between different PCs and operating systems...and just a little bit of fun for old retro PCs.

The recently released CrystalMark Retro 2.0.0 now supports all version of Windows since 95 and NT 3.51, and has the ability to submit results to the CrystalMarkDB database. You can download the benchmark here: https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystalmarkretro/ (NT version is for NT 3.51/4.0/2000) Here's the database: https://crystalmarkdb.com/retro And my scores (and some feedback as well): https://crystalmarkdb.com/users/17 I think of this as an opportunity to help him test the software with some 9x results

Are you saying choosing Command Prompt Only via F8 and then typing simply "win" boots system normally? Can just set BootGUI=0 in MSDOS.SYS and add "win" to autoexec.bat to automate this weird workaround. Also choose Logged (BOOTLOG.TXT) option in F8 menu as SweetLow suggested and check the logs. You can also try HIMEMX.EXE.

Interesting, need to test this myself - download link for the v6.92 for those interested: https://www.aida64.com/downloads/YmQ1ZDlhMjQ= And my topic on AIDA64 forums: https://forums.aida64.com/topic/4017-windows-98se-blue-screen-of-death-with-the-kerneldw9x-llkd/

AIDA64 v7.60 drops support for Windows 9x as noted here: https://www.aida64.com/news/finalwire-aida64-v760-kernel-driver-sensor-panel-rtx-5000-turing-lcd Making v7.50 the latest version for Windows 9x: https://www.aida64.com/downloads/ODE5NjQwYzc=

Thank you, the workaround works, although it is not intuitive, hence I forgot about it and went a bit more angry than necessary, I apologize. Still, people might not trust your website that is not https, no matter how meaningless the https thingy actually is. Hence I was asking if it could be made to use https...with autistic amounts of cringe, I'm sorry. EDIT: Site now works normally and no workarounds are needed.

The download link does not work under Chromium based browsers as I've mentioned in the past. Let's Encrypt too hard for you? EDIT: Site now works normally and no workarounds are needed.

Chipset too new, latest drivers for 9x were for i865G. You don't need chipset drivers anyways. For the GPU, use VBEMP, or old PCI gpu you can find on the street.

VB6 should work fine on Windows XP. If still want to stick to Win9x, you can try SoftGPU on VirtualBox, or older version of VMware, or 86Box/PCem/DOSBox-X.

You know that by "magically work", I meant all drivers and all functionality (high quality built in HD Audio drivers, GPU based 3D acceleration, non-NDIS2 ethernet drivers, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc...) "without errors" - Win9x is an error by itself, but that's getting more philosophical I wonder if OP actually has a valid reason to run 9x on his laptop, other than "just because", "for fun", or "I am bored".