Fredledingue

jimc52 W98SE unstability can be fixed by: -Newer hardware (if compatible): More ram, more processor speed, faster HD etc -Updates: windows updates (officials and unofficials), IE updates, multimedia codecs etc When this is done, XP offers very little advantage for a home user PC but adds some disadvantages: -Less safe against viruses and hackers -Slower (except for internet based activities) -Obligation to use "safely remove hardware" when removing devices (not on W98) -More complicated to manage services, manualy modify systen files, tweak/hack etc -Useless services and features -No boot batch script (Autoexec.bat) (An advanced feature but realy useful sometimes) -Wannabe "intelligent" interface is in fact very dumb and irritating -Default settings realy suck (that can be fixed easily) Finaly XP has its instances of BSODs, driver issues, installation incompatibilities etc. If at least it was good in this respect, but it isn't. HTH

- I solved this problem a long time ago by using an altenative file manager. Actualy Xplorer2-free, but I think no alternative file manager has this bug. Ages I didn't open "Explorer". + you get many many extra features and options not available in Explorer. - A patch to fix this bug was released two months ago. Check the updates on MDGx thread on the Unofficial Win98 SE Service sub-Forum.

A browser retruns such error when a sophisticated, non-standard internet content cannot be opened with this browser. The "Upgrade to IE 7 required" is BS. Most of the time upgrading will not solve the problem. The best reaction is to write to the webmaster (once you get to the website) and complain that his website cannot be viewed under normal conditions. It's a huge mistake to create a website which depends on a certain browser type and version or from a certain OS. Because the 17% of internet users who don't use XP and the even higher number of those who don't use IE at all won't have access to this website. And more and more poeple are switching to alternative OSes and Browsers. Finaly, I would be extremely cautious about visiting a website which forces me to use a specific software on a specific OS. Because the only reason a webmaster would like to do so is to infect your computer. So in fact such error means that your system is protected against potential threats.

Hi, submix8c! I spent 3 days trying to fix it when finaly my father, on the phone, told me to select DVD on a small drop down list (with only CD and DVD) in the Nero's 'new project' interface. And, Hop!, all of suden both drives became DVD-W, at least inside Nero. It's a very simple thing to do but you have to know it and all the informations you get from the system are strongly misleading. For example the DVD drives apear as CD-R, and no "blank cd" as before with the old CD-W drives (It' the first time I install a dvd on a pc). Also in the system panel, there was only one drive under "CD-ROM", while, materialy there are two, but identical. I thought the problem came from the fact that the system mixed up on this. So I even bought a thirdDVD drive of a different brand (thinking these two first ones were not compatible with my hardware and\or w98). I didn't solved the problem and turned me :mad: even further. At sme point I thought that me MoBo wasn't DVD-W capable (!). Well now i find myself with 3 DVD-CD writersw. Not even too much given the number of CD I had burned in the past with the CD-R double combo: about 1000. I'm sure I'll have to replace one within 3 years and this technology won't evoluate as much as in the past IMO. My Windows partition has been formatCeed A totaly new install didn't help neither but it was not a luxury after 4 years. I just lost a lot of time uninstalling and reinstalling Windows, backing up all the datas, playing with the BIOS, playing with the ribbon cable, turning on and off the PC, and every time correcting the system.ini file for the 1Gb memory support when the BSOD didn't preceded me. Upgraded the firmware. Reading the ineternet tech forums for hours... I can say from what i have read that this problem is common and appers frequently on XP platforms. I left my PC 2 days {two days} at the store just hear that "I have windows 98" (and so they won't even try it on my machine - You know: consumer service) They could have told me about this F%@!# selection on Nero. I also downlaoded Nero 6.6.1.15a, the last W98 compatible version (I think). It wasn't obvious because it seems that Ahead only offer Nero 7 and Nero Linux. I had to go to Major Geek. I advise you to download Nero 6 and save it because one day you may not find it at all. I don't like much the bloat that comes with nero and all the stuff I'll never use, but it succesfuly do what I need while other softwares even didn't see I had two DVD-W installed. Even more surprisingly it's the only app I know of which copy disc to disc directly without using the HD at all. A very simple thing to do, yet no 200Kb freeware nor payware do that. (I someone know of such program...please tell me). Of course to connect to the internet, they always succeed. Now i just burned a DVD to another DVD on the fly in 35~40 minutes. That's about the same speed as with the CD-R combo I had before (8 min for 700Mb). The system still doesn't see blank DVD correctly but at least Nero see them and used them. I have watched the movie on the mentioned burned DVD and it played fine until the end. That's the only test i have done and the most important thing to do for me at this stage. Tomorrow I'll be leaving abroad. I won't be doing other tests and won't posting here for one month so i say thank you for your replies.

Explorer tells me in "properties" that it's impossible to read the disc catalog (or table)

I did that. Didn't help. The store service checked the drives on another PC and they are fine. But they won't thouch a w98 system with a ten feet pole (for them it's like stinking poo-poo or something) so they didn't even try to fix my problem. I'm more and more puzzled.

I completely uninstalled Nero (version 6 anyway) and the problem remains: Windows OS, I mean, Explorer, doesn't recognize the media inserted in the tray. It shows "bytes available: 0 - bytes used: 0". Same problem with CD-R. No firmware update and other system manipulation helped.

I installed two new DVD RW drives. (Tec AD5170A) They can read contents on DVD and CD-R but they system doesn't recognize blank DVD (+ and - R) or blank CD-R. Explorer shows properties same as without disc while Nero see that there is an empty DVD inserted but fails to see the available space on it. Any attempt to burn will trigger a "please insert a compatible media" error. I updated the firmware and uninstalled and reinstalled Nero, with no result.

If you try to get an OS in every points identical to XP you forcibly end up with an OS worse than w98.

Using VBS with w98 native components is perfect for text file download, for example, when you need to extract text or numerical informations. It works also with binary files, such as picture but I wouldn't rely on it for downloading exe files. I can work with exe files but there is a level of uncertainty about that. There is a free component on JSWare to handle downloads with VBS, it's very good. If you are confortable with .bat, use it of course. One last thing: Only through VBS I know a method to launch a batch file or a cmd line in invisible mode.

Slightly OFF topic but a good related tip: It's a good idea to make a "dumb" copy of the Program Files folders onto a CD or DVD-R. Like that you keep most of your customization settings and also, the plug ins you eventualy added but don't remember of.

That's why I suggested an application specialy dsigned to ddtect unused second core and use it.

Wrong: here is the solution. My w98SE++ recognize and use 1Gb. (Actualy my resource meter shows 671 Mb free...) Note that you can still reboot in safe mode and do the above mentioned tweaks in safe mode using notepad (easier).

If you can manipulate VBScript a little bit, the options are limitless.

What about detecting the second CPU as another computer and network them. Eventualy mounting a virtual drive in the memory for the virtual second computer. Instead of the ethernet, the connection would be made through the internal connections of the MoBo. The dificulty is to build a driver which can manage the MoBo structure. Almost impossible to do without extensive manufacturer documentation. Unless we can take XP based drivers to detect the second CPU, then instead of instructed the kernel, it would immediately fully allocate this resource to either this virtual "networked" computer or the special application I was talking about above. The advantage is that we don't need to mess up with the current kernel and other things.

That is relatively simple. Just startup your computer with some multiprocessor OS (Linux) and start a virtual machine with W98 twice. So we'v got the solution! Thread closed! LOL Seriousely how efficient will it be to run windows twice on virtual machines based on a Linux system? The idea is not bad and can be exploited but I doubt doing it outright as you said will make the PC be much faster than a single, yet same speed CPU, let alone allow much fee memory etc. What we can imagine is a virtual machine based on a low-key, ultra light Linux version, especialy optimized for this task and a virtual machine application also modified for best performance. ----------------- LOL. And someone who installed the w98toXP pack had forcibly the money to buy an XP installtion cd (doesn't work without that). So here is an important question: there are poeple who can afford XP, bought XP, have a PC which can run XP, yet use w98... Well, maybe another day you will see pink elephants in the sky. Be careful.

New "fix" release. (of course not extensively tested in such a short term) 4.2 -Fixed: Subfolders of excluded folders still scanned -Fixed: Error "input past end of file" when InvalidPathsIndex.txt is empty -Fixed: Other possible errors with ifc_config and checksystem*.vbs

Ironicaly you got this error because there was no error with your file paths! (The error came because InvalidPathsIndex.txt is empty and it must contain at least one line feed.) I made a silent update on my site. Please download it again.

Why? The goal of multicore is to get more free processor power. Not a faster computer because that doesn't work that way. The only difference by using the second processor through a small app, would be that it requires user's initiative. Let say you xant to compress a video, you know it will takes hours: you open your vido editor via the dual-core app. After that you still use your pC on the first processor as if nothing was running while your divX compression goes at full speed. That would even be an advantage to real dual core system as the user can control the processes for both processors, the way that best fit his need or the machine performance. That would make the system even more stable. We can also imagine some system protection, while using internet applications for example, as the processes on the 2d processors would not interfere with those on the 1st one. I dream about something ike that on w98. With dual boot, I agree it can be more complicated to use but much easier to realize for a similar effect.

Many improvements: 4.1 -Added: HTA interface for the configuration settings -Fixed: New bug from version 4.0 : New folder content not listed and not compared -Fixed: Other potential albeit not experienced errors. -Fixed: Cell on the top of the 1st table empty and not framed. -Fixed (posssibly fixed in v4.0 already): Some folders are listed twice, in two separate tables, with different results. -Fixed (posssibly fixed in v4.0 already): Sometimes the directory where the script is installed is mentioned. -Improved: Dos prompt not apearing anymore. Instead, a progressbar is shown. -Improved: Better Scan list and Exclude list handling by the program as well as by the user -Improved: Minor details in the checksystem41 HTA interface -Removed temporarily: Support for text output *********IMPORTANT UPDATE NOTE*********** After updating from 4.0 to 4.1, the first scan after the update may contain a lot of false results. So I recommand running a check with the old version right before updating and start anew with a fesh install. click here

Maybe more feasable albeit not yet easy, could be writing a driver for the second processor and a shell application to launch applications or processes on this second processor. Instead of having a dual-core system, we would have the second processor as a separate hardware, like say, a scanner or a modem. The shell application would offer a list of shortcut to the installed applications, and run these apps on the second core only. Or perhaps easier: Allowing a dual boot w98 + w98, each boot on each processor.

Very useful for scripting. Thanks!

From what I'v read, there is no problem with speed. Just make sure the DSL modm comes with a w98 compatible driver.

Yes but in my case I would need 1Gb for each restore point and a restore point every 3 days. Not saying it's a bad solution but there must be something faster and lighter. I'm still working on the project. i hope to finish it before w98 become extinct. LOL

I agree prw984. Saying "XP is unsafe" is sort of like saying "W98 is unstable": with all the patches both systems have improved in their respective weaknesses. TBS, I never had a permanent anti-virus let alone a firrewall in 10 years of w98 websirfing, with IE (now Maxthon), and I got maybe 3 or 4 viruses, no more, and I always knew which site or which session gave me these viruses. One was a porn site, another a freeware dowload stuff. I don't remember of the others. I don't go often to pornsites, but as everyone, I happened to look at them once or twice, you know what I mean. Addaware and Antivir detect only cookies while Antivir Gurd is always OFF. On the XP machine they detect exe and dll files regularly by the dozen (17 last time) with the Guard is always ON. Go figure. Facts shows that XP platforms are more often infected than W98 ones. It doesn't mean you can't use XP. You just have to run the antivirus scanner more often and abstain fom pornsites.