CamTron

When I try to install the Extended Kernel v2.6b2, I get a message saying I need IE6SP1 Cumulative Security Update MS12-052(KB2722913). Is there any place I can find updates like this one? It seems to have disappeared from Microsoft's website.

How did you get that to work? Doesn't that game require Steam? Or was there some other way it was distributed?

I just wrote this really simple C++ program, assigned a keyboard shortcut to it, and it does the trick! #include <windows.h>int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow){ if(!SetSystemPowerState(TRUE, FALSE)) { MessageBox(NULL, "Could not enter standby mode.", NULL, MB_ICONERROR | MB_OK); return 1; } return 0;}

First of all, don't use VirtualBox for running Windows 9x. It's not supported, and you're not going to get all of the integration features. The best VM program for Windows 9x guests is Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. VMware also supports Windows 9x, but lacks the drag and drop functionality. There is a special build of DOSBox which emulates a Voodoo 3dfx chip, but I've never tried it and don't know if DirectX and OpenGL will work properly inside of it.

I know that you can use "rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindows" to shut down the computer, "rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindowsexec" to reboot, etc., but I haven't found a way to make the computer enter standby (or sleep mode as it's called in Vista and later) through a batch file. My previous keyboard had a button for this, but since that one died on me, my new keyboard lacks a standby button, and I find it a bit inconvenient to open the start menu, click Shut Down and select Stand by from the drop down menu.

Did you update to DirectX 9.0c? Some games may require hardware accelerated 3D graphics to run, which VirtualBox does not emulate for Windows 9x.

I have a Dell Dimension E510 desktop from around 2006-ish. It has an Intel 945G chipset and a 82801 controller hub, a 2.6 GHz Pentium D processor, and 2 GB of RAM. I have compatible PCI cards for the graphics, sound, and network, and I can downgrade the RAM to 1 GB by removing one of the modules. I'm just wondering if there are Windows 98 drivers for the motherboard, and if anyone else has had luck with Windows 9x on 945G motherboards. I tried searching for the drivers on Intel's website, but I keep getting dead links.

Yeah, it looks like the controls aren't processing the WM_SETFONT message properly, so you're getting that default Windows 3.x style font, rather than the usual GUI font. I get similar font issues with some of the dialog boxes in Irfanview on Windows 98 for some reason. It might be possible to fix the font using Resource Hacker if the program uses a dialog box template rather than a standard window, but I wouldn't bother if it's purely an aesthetic issue.

The latest versions of MinGW support C++11 and I've made programs with it that run under Windows 95. Granted, I mostly use C, so I have no idea how compatible the C++11 language itself is with Windows 9x. I think a useful thing to try would be to borrow some code from KernelEx and use it to make a static library which implements functions missing from Windows 9x. That way, you could build newer software and link it with that library and have it run under Windows 9x without KernelEx. I'm not an experienced enough programmer to try this myself, but just a suggestion.

If you want to make a straight, raw image of the hard disk or a partition, you can use the Linux dd command. It will be very slow, though, depending on the size of your hard disk.

I did turn off KernelEx extensions for the utility, but that wouldn't have affected anything because the utility starts after the desktop has loaded. I don't know if KernelEx even applies to .sys drivers. However, I also had problems with Ollydbg locking up the system when trying to debug a multithreaded program, which I don't now.

Wine on DOS. That's interesting to say the least! If you have Windows XP or earlier, here's a nice guide to creating a MS-DOS bootable CD. https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=158 Alternatively, you can download FreeDOS (open source DOS) here. http://www.freedos.org/download/

I believe I've found the cause of the problem, but it seems rather unrelated to the WiFi adapter software. I did a step by step confirmation startup to see if any VXDs were the culprit and found out that disabling the Sysinternals NTFS driver that I was using to read my Windows XP partition allows the system to boot normally. I know that that driver loads a lot of Windows XP components to read the filesystem, and some part of it seems to be conflicting with the WiFi adapter driver during load time. After disabling the NTFS driver, my system boots normally and the wireless utility no longer crashes every minute!

Yes, I installed the drivers from exactly that zip file. Device Manager says that there are no devices which conflict with the card, though I don't know much about IRQs and that kind of stuff. I can try booting it again and post some logs if that would help. Also, the wireless utility is very unstable and crashes frequently, but this really isn't a problem since I don't have to change settings all the time. It is strange that the device would work once, then prevent my PC from booting afterwards, which seems like malware behavior. Are there any good virus scanners that still work on Windows 98?

I just obtained a HiRO H50069 Wireless adapter, and installed it on my Windows 98 SE machine. I installed the driver and utility, and the device works fine after a reboot, and I am able to connect to the internet. However, if I reboot after having the adapter work, I get a BSOD on the next boot, and every subsequent boot after that results in an endless splash screen and it never gets to the desktop. The only way for me to fix this is to go into safe mode and remove the device from Device Manager. If I reinstall the driver, the same thing happens. Machine works fine for one boot, then BSOD, then no desktop. How can I troubleshoot this?

I've been using SoftMaker Freeoffice for quite some time, and I really like it. I used to use OpenOffice a lot, but it was always a bit slow for me. This thing is small, fast, and starts in an instant. It's also available for Linux and Android. I don't think the ribbon interface is bad, but it's used in the wrong places. In something like a word processor, I like having as many of the commonly used commands as possible right in front of me. What I really think the ribbon should be used for is a replacement for the option dialogs and property sheets. I love having it in Windows 8's file manager, since the controls simply fit right there on the main window instead of the "Tools->Folder Options" modal dialog box that blocks my view.

wget is what I use all the time on Linux, and is also available for Windows. The -c flag, which resumes a partially downloaded file, is especially useful. If you tried to download something with 'wget http://foo.bar/baz'and it failed, or you killed the process, you can simply resume the download with 'wget -c http://foo.bar/baz'.

KDE is pretty awesome as far as customizability and user friendliness is concerned, but I've always had problems with it crashing or glitching out. My favorite desktop environment for Linux is Xfce. It's very lightweight, customizable, and has a very XP-ish feel to it. Do you get any error messages when trying to set up your dial-up connection through the Zorin interface? "Big" Linux distros like Ubuntu, Mint, Zorin, Debian, etc. usually include kernel modules for all hardware that they expect a user to use with the system, so it's likely that you already have a driver installed for that modem. Unlike Windows, Linux users rarely need to manually install drivers. If you have problems, run the "lsusb", "lspci -k", and "lsmod" commands and post their output. We can diagnose the issue if we know what hardware the system detected and has drivers loaded for. MSFN is mainly about Microsoft products, so you might also want to ask in a Linux-specific forum if you want more help.

Another option is to use Hirens Boot CD, which has a mini Windows XP live system, among other tools, which you can use to reformat the partition. All you need is an extra CD or USB flash drive to boot it from.

Not really sure what you mean. You can pretty much install any desktop you want on a Linux system. The desktop on Linux is like any other program. It can be installed/uninstalled.

Yes. The Zorin OS desktop is a heavily tweaked and customized Gnome 3 shell. There are loads of themes and customizations for Gnome 3 and Zorin OS, and you can make it look however you freakin want. Check here: http://gnome-look.org/

Hypercam 2 (at least the earlier versions of Hypercam 2) work ón Windows 98. I've found it to be a lot more efficient than CamStudio. I've still never found a screen recorder yet that can record 30 fps at 1024x768 on my Pentium 4 desktop.

There are libraries like SDL which make it very easy to create 2D cross platform games. I'd start out with something very simple, and then expand the complexity of your game. Keep in mind that making a game is not just coding, but you also need to make all of the tilesets, character sprites, sound, etc. It ends up being a lot of work,but it's pretty rewarding when you've got a finished product. I once made a simple stick figure fighting game with C and SDL, and I thought I bit off more than I could chew.

Does that SDL.DLL error happen right when you start Dolphin, or when you try to start the game? If it happens right when you start Dolphin, you might try opening it first and then attaching FineSSE to the process. It's possible that FineSSE might be interfering when it tries to load the DLL. As for PCSX2, you're getting the same exact exception, but FineSSE is catching it and shutting down the program rather than Windows. I've never used FineSSE at all, but I'd think there's a way to make it ignore that exception. There's no reason why the developers of both of those applications should be including code that throws those exceptions in a release version that's not meant to be debugged anyway.

I wonder how well 98lite would work for that setup. It basically takes Windows 98 or ME, and allows you to remove components and streamline it into something more like Windows 95. I've even seen people run Windows 2000 and XP on machines with 32 MB of RAM, I really don't recommend it. Windows NT does not run well with low amounts of RAM.