pangoomis

Try installing Windows ME with the "/p i" switch. Note the space between p and i.

Try such URLs with XMPlay.

What PC/virtual machine are you using? What are the specs?

VBE.vxd is not needed for VBEMP to work. VBEMP.DRV is enough. It's the minidriver I think. Minidriver is what I think is seen at the top of the list if you look at a GPU Driver File Details list in Device Manager:

This is what you're probably looking for: https://soggi.org/files/driver/Intel_i810-i925_6.3.0.1007_Win98SE-2k3.7z

In addition to reinstalling Windows 98 SE with the /p i switch (there must be space between p and i), set the SATA mode to AHCI in BIOS. Then, after the installation is finished, install the AHCI driver from here using Device Manager (Update Driver): https://archive.org/details/ahci_win9x The device you'll be installing the driver for will be one of the "PCI Card" devices with yellow question mark. Just try each one (there might be many of these), until it is detected by the driver as an AHCI Controller. After the driver is installed and system has rebooted, hopefully you'll have full 32-bit disk access in the Performance tab in the System Control Panel. With the AHCI driver, you are bypassing ESDI_506.PDR entirely, saving a lot of headaches.

This driver pack is out-dated, use this one by the late rloew (Rest in Peace) : https://rloewelectronics.com/free.htm

While the content is...questionable at best, it is a good showcase how a "legacy" website can look quite good while being compatible with old browsers: https://razorback95.com/

For an alternative to Winamp I'm recommending again XMPlay from: https://www.un4seen.com/ Plenty of plugins for all sorts of music files, and still in development, doesn't require KernelEx.

That source might have been me Although it is probably incorrect, as I got VBEMP working with its .VXD file totally removed, leaving just the .DRV file. So it must have at the very least a .DRV file, not necessarily a .VXD file. I think the .DRV file is what is displayed in details in the Device Manager for a GPU.

Try installing the graphic drivers and see if it still happens.

MDGX's unofficial updates use NIRCMD to kill some processes, maybe that's the problem. Try with this update, does it happen also?: http://www.mdgx.com/files/VBVM60.EXE Does this happen even if GPU drivers are not installed? (using default VGA drivers)

HIMEMEX sounds interesting, will have to try it out (as well as XMGR.SYS) if it can fix the startup hang problem on my motherboard.

Time-bomb? What? How can I experience something like this? I've read the rloew's post about it but it only deals with ramdisks and EMM386, I don't use both on 98SE. I've been using HIMEMX.EXE without any problems for many years, it is necessary in my case, as normal himem.sys makes 98SE not bootable on my ASRock H110M-DVS R3.0 motherboard. Without HIMEMX, it just hangs on the startup screen, regardless if I use the RAM patch with the /M option or not. I haven't tested XMGR.SYS yet, would it be better?

As dencorso said, right after installing 95/98SE, just run PATCHMEM.EXE /M and forget about anything else. Don't bother with SPLIT8MB, Min/Max FileCache, or MaxPhysPage. For many years been running 98SE without ever tweaking FileCache settings, even before the RAM patch became available to public.

Huh? You don't have to change ACPI settings in BIOS to make setup /p i work correctly. It will simply not use ACPI at all. I don't have options to turn off ACPI on my ASRock H110M-DVS R3.0 motherboard BIOS yet Windows 98 SE installs just fine

Check this site, it might help: http://starman.vertcomp.com/asm/mbr/bootini.htm

It's not modified, all the files are original with their original modified date, the custom readme is something that I've wrote Also, there are many copies of the 4.1.2.71 driver on the internet, but all of them are branded in the INF file (D-Link etc.), rather than the generic Atheros name. Before the FTP went down, it was the only copy that was not branded (although that's a very minor nitpick ), good thing it's now preserved. Also yes, the INF file does indeed copy the SYS file to the wrong folder, blame Atheros, not me Just move it to the System folder and everything will be well.

I use this driver on my ThinkPad T42p with an aftermarket miniPCI Atheros WiFi card, they are the latest ever made Atheros WiFi drivers for 98SE (4.1.2.71), they support WPA2 fully and are working fine for me with Odyssey Client 4.56: http://shell.stare.pro/~mrmateczko/Atheros_Wi-Fi_Win98SE_Latest.zip

Which driver do you use? What is the hardware ID of the GPU? Try these drivers (modify/remove subsys in INF if it collides with your hardware ID): http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/vftp1gme.exe

Enhanced Host Controller means USB 2.0, therefore it should be able to work with 98SE. (note the kernel driver: it's ehci-pci not xhci) Which unofficial USB drivers are you using? Try these: http://www.mdgx.com/spx/NUSB.EXE http://shell.stare.pro/~mrmateczko/U98SEUSB.EXE (part of the unofficial SP3, not an install option in the INFEX window)

Any HD Audio drivers worked? (Realtek, Conexant, etc.)

Latest version of AIDA64 still works under Windows 98SE without KernelEx and provides real-time monitoring: https://www.aida64.com/downloads Use the ZIP version, the installer version doesn't work without KernelEx.

Use AMNHLTM instead of Rain and other such software (run bat to install and accept the registry change, then reboot): http://web.archive.org/web/20060212132151/http://www.user.cityline.ru/~maxamn/amnhltm.zip

PCI\VEN_10EC&DEV_8168&SUBSYS_81681849&REV_02 The SUBSYS gets ignored by the 98SE driver INF and shortens to: PCI\VEN_10EC&DEV_8168&REV_02 the INF supports REV_01, 02 and 03. You might try inserting newer revisions manually, but I've tried that before with no luck. These are the latest PCI-E Windows 98 SE Realtek Lan drivers which I'm mentioning here: https://soggi.org/files/driver/Realtek_RTL81xx_PCIe_FE-GbE_v5.708_11192008_Win98SE-ME.zip