nil

I like that idea, maybe rename to "Unofficial Win9x Service Packs/Mod projects", which widens the scope a little to allow for things like NUSB and specific OS component hacking (like the Notepad hacks). I've also noticed over time that many threads in this sub-forum don't directly relate to *any* service pack - maybe they could be moved out to the 9x forum to keep things more relevant here. Cheers.

@coralreef. I mean no rudeness by the following, just trying to give you a heads up on how you can help us to help you in future. Although "IBM Thinkpad" is less vague than "laptop" it's the model number (A20m, A20p, G40, R40e,...) you really should be mentioning. I've never owned/serviced a laptop much less an IBM Thinkpad so even that info wouldn't immediately mean much to me, but at least I would've had something more useful to search for. That said, just by googling "IBM Thinkpad" I got to http://www.ibm.com/support/us/, and a search of the site got me the following:Software and Device Drivers - ThinkPad Troubleshooting by symptom - ThinkPad Troubleshooting video display issues - ThinkPad You'll surely find something of interest in that lot. It's definately not a flash idea just to slap any old driver on your system based solely on a name, and near enough certainly isn't good enough in most cases. As I mentioned earlier there's a number of variations of the "Trident Super VGA" chipset, and even the same chipset can be implimented differently on different manufacturers adapters. When you work out the specifics of your display adapter you'll need to download and install the driver for the exact model you have. Do you actually need to use the floppy drive to install the display drivers? Neither eidenk or I suggested you add a new, much less custom, monitor (driver) to your system. "Display drivers", as eidenk put it, is just another name for graphics/video adapter drivers, ie. drivers for your "video card" (which may not be a plugin card at all but rather integrated on the motherboard). As I alluded to in a recent post on another thread, model specific monitor drivers are a little like seatbelts in cars - they may not be needed to get your monitor to work but they're something you should certainly consider installing if possible (at the very least they may allow your system to access display resolutions not available with the generic Windows monitor drivers). If you do want to install another monitor driver for your Dell m770 the download can be found on this page. If you know you have a need to create a custom driver you'll still be wanting to stick to the manufacturers specs (otherwise you run the real risk of killing your monitor...) - try this page for that info. Just to make things clear though, you're unlikely to solve your display problems just by adding a new monitor driver. Well, no arguments here. Learn how to use search engines, and take the time to read what you find, and you'll at least find it a much friendlier place. Good luck!

Nonono, that's not allowed... ever... ! As required by rules 21 and 22 I reckon... I haven't seen that movie yet - and now I'm afraid to! What gives?

On this recent MSFN thread umulig (who had similar problems) linked this page - both the thread and the article are well worth a read. In the meanwhile try Display Properties->Settings->Advanced->General select "Apply the new color settings without restarting", click OK, change Colors to 256 and click Apply then OK to exit. Then reload Display Properties and check if Colors still reads 256. If it does, reboot and see if the setting holds; if it doesn't (at any screen resolution) I can only suggest using a different driver - even Window's generic "Trident (Microsystems) Super VGA" driver should be good for 256 colours though. I suggested checking the laptop manufacturer's site first (do a search for your laptop model and download the appropriate drivers from it's support page) as there's a good chance the graphics adapter is the same one sold with your laptop (and it will be of course if it's a built-in adapter... ) If you have no joy there download something like Everest Home Edition and get back with more specific model info about both the laptop and graphics adapter - the Trident Super VGA chipset was used by a large variety of graphics adapters so that list doesn't mean much to me either. Cheers.

Hi thecoralreef. I'll add that once you've found the driver for your laptops graphics adapter it's usually just a matter of double-clicking the file (if it's a .exe) after Windows has rebooted (and after canceling the 'New Hardware' wizard). If the driver package is a .zip extract it's files to a folder of your choice then install via the 'New Hardware' wizard (or Display Properties->Settings->Advanced->Adaptor->Change) - select Next, Display a list of all..., Have Disk, then point it to the folder you created. If you don't have a mainboard drivers CDROM or it doesn't include a suitable Win98 driver try download the appropriate file for your model from the laptop manufacturer's support pages. Cheers.

To swing back on topic, it sucked enough to keep my ideas of dual-booting Win98/Win2k from happening... You initially suggested Win2k is compatible with all new software and games but I wonder to what extent that's true. I admit to being ignorant on the matter but get the impression that Win2k is neither here nor there in the scheme of things - likely to have incompatibity issues with both Win9x and WinXP software. Have you since come across any newer software that Win2k doesn't handle, or have findings like HighPingDrifter's regarding Win2k's software/hardware compatibility and potential issues? For example, mjc questions how well 98(SE)/ME functions on PCI express machines - I'm curious to know if Win2k would function any better/worse with that type of hardware. Cheers.

!!!

It's the .icm files that deal with colour profiles jroc - monitor drivers list the resolutions/refresh rates a monitor is capable of, and are used to stop your video card feeding your monitor refresh rates and resolutions it can't handle. The generic drivers bundled with Windows are designed to suit a wide variety of monitor types/brands but may not be ideal (or safe) for any given monitor. A manufacturer supplied driver generally has settings optimised for a specific family/model of monitor - you may not notice significant differences between the two but using the manufacturer's driver is the safest option and will likely offer the best display results. I've yet to come across a monitor that I couldn't track down a brand/model specific driver for (and all branded monitors I've purchased in the last 5 years have come with monitor drivers on disk) but if you're still wanting to make a custom driver any recent version of PowerStrip should be able to do it (just keep your tweaking between 60-75Hz and you should be safe). A link for PowerStrip 2.78 is at the bottom left of the PowerStrip page I linked in my first post, and is the appropriate version to get if you intend using it's other features. I agree with Andromeda and others about the root cause of no 800x600 entry likely being a gfx card driver issue though - try uninstall from Safe Mode and install a later/different version. Cheers.

Just a guess (based on your "idle for about 1/2 hour" comment) but see if any of this helps: * Temporarily disable all scheduled tasks. * Turn off any screen saver that might be running. * Set the "Power Saving" options (Display Properties->Screensaver->[Energy Saving] Settings) to never. If the problem disappears try re-enabling the options one at a time to help work out which setting is causing the issue. If the problem persists try a RAM tester to check if flakey RAM is the cause (RAM could be fine when you first boot but go flakey when it heats up). Cheers.

< nil flips thru his entire Britney collection > Nope. Not that I was actually watching the show but all I saw was a still, though a comment on this page even suggests it was an April Fools joke so maybe it was just another regretable Channel 9 moment... But just to show you where Google took me...

Hi Adamastor. It's easy enough to create a monitor driver by hand but you'll find it easier still using a utility like Powerstrip. Although you could make some fairly safe guesses about max resolution/refresh rates to use you're best off sticking to the specs as given on the monitor manufacturers home site - try tracking down that info using the serial/FCC ID number on the monitor if it's been "badge engineered". All that said, I just found plenty of google hits relating to "Target Monitor" drivers so it's highly likely there's a pre-fab driver out there to suit your needs. Cheers.

Funny you should post that. Last night on Perth TV was a show about regretable TV moments - in the top ten was Britney Spears being caught drinking a coke while on a media tour in Australian, resulting in her losing a US$7 million deal with Pepsi... Bet she only does coke now.

Welcome Mike. To quote from this page, Fatal Exception errors related to 0E are hard to track down. Can you tell us if there's a name given after the numbers. There usually is, and as you can see from that linked file it's of often very helpful to know when trying to work out what might be wrong. You may want to check out this page also as it has a few good ideas on how to troubleshoot blue screen issues in general. Cheers. Nick

OMFG! You have a DICTIONARY??? Pass it here then! Sorry, that was probably a little too lively but I happen to think it was a rather fitting word... Oh, I give up!

Don't mind me kartel - no offense taken here. (Us bitter old Amigos don't get offended, we just get loud and obnoxious ) Off-topic: C'mon! I'll show ya mine if you show me yours! (Ignored a semi-functional fan for so long that I killed my old gfx card; was so eager to play more DiabloII that I forgot to power down before trying to fit it's replacement... Pop! BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP... $400 ) Cheers.

Hi cihatkarli. Sickening feeling isn't it. All files within all subdirectories of c:\dfs (e.g. c:\dfs\folder\file1.txt) would've be lost, and of the files that were copied "into" d:\backup (those in the root directory of c:\dfs) the only ones you'd have any real chance of recovering is text files, by working out the start/end of each text and pasting it into a new file. Unfortunately files that contained "binary code" (e.g. executable files, zip files,...) will almost certainly be unrecoverable using that method unless you happened to use COPY's /B switch. As depressing as this sounds that backup file isn't totally useless as it can at least help you to work out what you might've lost so don't be in a great rush delete it just yet. This info probably isn't going to be much help to you (since they're unlikely to work if you've written to the disk already) but there are UNformat programs available that might be worth a try. I haven't used one on FAT32 systems before so I can't tell you how good a job any of them do. I'm not trying to make that headache of yours worse but as you might've guessed by now it's 'XCopy' (or better yet 'XXCopy') that you should've used. Before trying to use 'XCopy' as a "poor-man's" backup tool though give this article a read. Anyhow, Good luck.

ootsoo, this page says otherwise but I'm sure it stands for: Lively Masturbation Feeds Asian Obnubilation.

or...After sending her kids off to school a friend switched on her computer to complete some urgent work and found that her screen was black. Frantic, she rings her (very busy IT tech) brother at work (miles away) and says that her monitor had died, can he race her over a replacement for the day. Later, while greeting him at the door, she notices him glance towards the system and saw his face turned that indescribable "annoyed" colour. Apparently he walked over to the monitor, centered the brightness dial, then left without saying another word. What made her story funnier to me was that she finished it off with "those **** kids"... Cheers

Capable of playing GTA SA or sending a reply to this forum ? I dont think so.Wanting to bother and try to get online with one ? not in your life. Went out with the 8-track ? 10-4 Windows98: Throws balls and voices instead of bricks and beeps with Speedball II? I dont think so. Entire OS fits on a 512K ROM and a floppy disk? Not in your life. Pattern matching and Command Line Interface that Catweasle would feel at home with? 10-4 78 RPM vinyl record? What suprises me about your response was that it sounds way too much like the sophistry XP trolls like to throw at us Win98 users. I was angling at humour kartel, and didn't mean to be offensive, nor to start a flame war or shift the conversation off-topic. Do I think Windows98 impressive? Sure. All OS have their pros/cons, and the "best" is the one that sit on your desk and works well enough to do what you want it to. All this Amiga talk, as off-topic as it seems, at least reinforces the point you made earlier about old<>bad, and highlights how things that can be done "out of the box" on later OS are often equally possible (and sometimes better handled) with older OS and third-party software.I can't agree more with your comments about rehashed technology though. I figure many like to re-invent the wheel just to get the chance to whack their own ©'s ®'s on it. In newspeak that's called Consumerism... Cheers

LOL. I hear the undead burn a *long* time. ** What prompted the edit of my last post was that I'd originally written ashes... so I may get let off with a sever spanking. ** Scrap that - just noticed where you hail from...

That "why not just" makes the "why 98" come across as a loaded question (like there's a need to upgrade from 98 that us ignorant technophobes haven't quite grasped yet) but the simple answer I have for you is that my Win98SE system currently does all I need it to, and any benefit Win2k might offer over Win98 would be marginal at best and certainly not worth the cost as far as I'm concerned. Native large hard drive support is nonexistant but third-party solutions do exist (like this one), and I can't envisage needing a single partition larger than 127.53GB. (Yeah that's right, I don't ever plan to install Vista. :*) Amen to that. I actually considered the opposite for a while, though I intended using FAT-32 thoughout. Bend over so I can thwack your ignorant butt with my dead Amiga keyboard.

Hi aromes. Given you haven't explicitly installed any software or adjusted settings (and assuming you're not getting spontaneous reboots) it's worth checking if the problem is being caused by some form of malware - for example the W32/Polybot.l!irc virus apparently causes reboots instead of shutdowns (see this page at the McAfee site for more info). In any case it's worth taking a look at the MSKB article "How to Troubleshoot Windows Me Shutdown Problems" found here. Cheers.

The answer is "Pop-eye". The circumstances were different but I was "rudely" reminded of this one recently by my four year old niece: Never raise your hands to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected.

But if you were an Aussie... I can imagine the sports headlines if Prince Charles DID re-marry then: "Chaz leads England to victory with a stunning hattrick" "Roma in mourning - Pope dropped after another crushing 3-0 defeat..."

LOL! Forget the pope - hide the Ashes!