Eck

Just got back here after a month of attempting a taxicab driving adventure. Took all my time, didn't make money, gave me heat-stroke and dehydration. Recovering now, but need to be job hunting. I'll dig out the cd and check out the possibilities when I have some time. Of course I'll report here on where it is if I manage to upload it.

Yeah, you know I ran XP fine with the newer Via Hyperion SATA drivers when I was using a SATA hard drive on this board. Linux also ran fine with it. But 98SE just would eventually peter out with crazy errors until I stuck a PATA drive in here and turned off the SATA controller. Thanks for the link. I probably have that older driver somewhere but now I'll just burn it for safe keeping. I likely had been using that SATA driver way back when I was using my ASUS A7V880 and dual-booting 98SE and XP. It worked fine back then. You're probably right that the newer drivers had a hand in my 98SE frustrations over a couple of years. Via claimed 98SE compatibility in its literature but they obviously must have stopped testing on 9x in the newer versions. Anyway, I'm happy 98's running just fine now on the board. Those continual "error loading device IOS, real-mode memory allocation failed" 98SE failures drove me crazy for a long time.

Yeah. Just see the sticky posts in the 9x Member Projects sub-forum. One for all the latest updates, one for the Auto-Patcher, and there's a thread for Maximus-Decim's latest Internet Explorer combined update pack as well. Lots of choices. Be careful using the latest if you use ZoneAlarm. The new IE Cumulative updates make the older 9x compatible ZoneAlarm versions cut off the internet connection. They only fixed it in the latest XP/Vista version of ZoneAlarm. The really old ZoneAlarm 4.5 series doesn't suffer from the problem. And if you use a different firewall then I don't think you get the problem either. I used Auto-Patcher and haven't updated the Internet Explorer Cumulative Update (the one that causes the ZoneAlarm problem) to any newer versions than Auto-Patcher comes with. These guys take the Internet Explorer 6 SP 1 Cumulative updates meant for Windows 2000 and adapt them to install on 9x systems.

Nice link there to Nero instructions. Funny that Linux's K3b seems to choose the proper settings automatically. The WinRAR idea is good too. I bought that long ago and always have it installed. I was only mentioning this because I thought you guys might want the cd image being that you're going through all this trying to put together the drivers and software yourselves. Creative actually did it on the cd, but didn't release the driver or software on their download site. They do that a lot. Well, if you want it I'd go through the work, either iso or rar. Just tell me if there's a nice free site that'll support uploading that size (full Creative install cd) and keeping it there for folks to download. I thought places like RapidShare want membership fees paid for larger files and also 100MB chunks. A problem with this cd is they leave out Remote Center as the retail product SB0100 did not get a Platinum breakout box release so they didn't bother putting the software for the LiveDrive on the included cd. Creative always seems to try to make diversions from the norm as difficult as possible for their customers.

There's a whole Creative installation cd that came with one of my SB0100 cards! I used to copy it to my hard drive, change the AUDIO.INI from 98SE/ME USE WDM 1 to 98SE/ME USE WDM 0 (something like that as it's been ages and I don't remember exactly what the line said. I just changed the 1 to a 0). Then running setup would install the VXD driver along with the good old SB16 within Windows emulation just like the older cd's did. The one that came with the SB0100 installed the WDM's by default. My tweak changed that. It's an entire LiveWare package. I have no idea how I could get it to you, but I do have it. It came with the retail box that was smaller than the older SBLive boxes when the Audigy replaced the SBLive as their upscale line. But not as small as the even later packages of the SB0200 series. So, if you could get this cd you'd have no need for all this tweaking and figuring as all the software and drivers are included. If I could figure out how to make an iso and then upload it somewhere that would allow that sized package free then I suppose we could make it happen. Do you know how I could do this for you? Either in Linux (where I suppose K3b could make the iso) or in 98SE (where I have Nero 7 Ultra Edition that I'm sure has that feature). It's figuring out how to get it uploaded that I'm unsure of.

Welcome back soporific. I'm dual-booting Linux and 98SE again, no Vista/XP, so I'm interested in this stuff again. Shockingly I discovered while setting 98SE up that I had never downloaded the full December 2007 final, only the RC and the upgrade. No matter, as the upgrade to final worked fine. I just toggled off the Java, Flash, Shockwave, and a couple of other things I install myself with later versions and it worked fine. Added a couple of things from the manual installs folder and I was off and running. My previous problems with getting 98SE stable had to do with both the crappy SATA controllers on my board (so I now use only PATA and deactivate the SATA controller in the Bios) and my finding that Via Hyperion 4-in-1 4.56v is actually the latest one I can use that correctly sets things up on this board on 98SE. No more need to play with manually installing the Via AGP driver to get AGP going as 4.56v sets it up fine automatically. And so far no more mysterious IOS errors that were probably caused by either the SATA or Via driver problems. I'm kind of afraid of using any later Internet Explorer Cumulative Upgrade package than the one installed by Auto-Patcher because I use ZoneAlarm free for my firewall and I've read that the later IE Cumulative packages cause ZoneAlarm to disconnect from the internet totally. I haven't seen any discussion about this here. The only thing offered by Zonelabs is a new version solving the problem but that version doesn't support 98SE. I'd love to see some guru here somehow patch up the Internet Explorer updates in that package so they won't cause the problem.

Unless you like busy work I wouldn't see the point of adding 95 to that mix. 98 is really just an updated version of 95, but with the Windows Desktop Update and Internet Explorer 4 (or 5 with 98SE) included and the usual ton of bug fixes. Perhaps some minor changes in what additional software came with it too. If you've got 98SE then you've got the finest 9x system Microsoft built. It's compatible with all the Windows 3.1 (well, most) and certainly all the Windows 95 based software. It's even a better MS-DOS than 6.22 was so you really don't need that, but then you already have it so enjoy. I think folks like 95 because they find Explorer without the installation of the Windows Desktop Update and Internet Explorer 4 to be speedier and less buggy. Simple, sometimes, is better. If you're gonna have that thing connected to the internet, make sure you use something like the Unofficial Auto-Patcher for Windows 98SE or at least the Unofficial Service Pack so you have fixed versions and updated security bug and hole fixes, and if not using Auto-Patcher then get Maximus-Decim's Internet Explorer updater installed so IE 6 SP1's security holes are patched. You can be infected without ever opening Internet Explorer, no matter which browser you use, because it's integrated into Windows Explorer.

Although I found the last retail "SecondChance" on eBay and bought it, when I was using SecondChance it was the latest version made that had Windows Me compatibility as well. In the old days when PowerQuest existed they used to offer the update to owners of the retail version, and just offer the package itself as an OEM version for manufacturers installing Windows Me on their systems. I got the final version off of the "PowerQuest System Tools 2005" cd. It was a torrent download, so perhaps if you search for it you can still find that. The registration key is included in the nfo file included with the torrent download. That backup method of copying those folders over looks neat though. Wouldn't work for me from Linux since utf8 messes up case sensitivity but for someone dual-booting with XP or Vista that looks to me like it would be a pretty good backup system. Mostly I just stick to the backups 98SE does daily of its registry but I found that SecondChance worked just fine when I used it. Saved my neck a few times when things went a bit nuts. It's the program Microsoft used and relabeled it SystemRestore, only changing the files to backup from the whole hard drive to only the Windows folders and assorted other Windows files. SecondChance has a GUI control panel where you can set it up to back up any folders you want instead of being stuck with only the defaults like SystemRestore does. I think the only difference from the retail version is that they moved the startup process from autoexec.bat to the win.ini file so it would also work with Windows Me. I found it to be a good program, and it doesn't suffer from the "chugga, chugga," hard drive thrashing and wait times like GoBack or Windows Vista's System Restore does because it doesn't have that "previous file versions" backup logging like those do. It was the thing I hated about GoBack and then Microsoft goes and incorporates it into Vista's SystemRestore to make Vista a disgusting operating system to use on anything but late model computers.

I just started using 98SE again and updates were, although time consuming, a simple process because of my being used to knowing my way around installing operating systems, my hardware, and these forums. The first thing to tackle is the motherboard hardware drivers and making sure you download a version old enough to work well with Windows 98SE. If your computer came with Windows 98SE pre-installed from your pc manufacturer and still own either an official recovery cd or one that you made yourself you're set for that. But if all you have is a Microsoft Windows 98SE installation cd then you'll have to figure out which manufacturer your motherboard is made by (just open up the computer box and check out what's printed on the board). In my case I needed a quite old Via Hyperion 4-in-1 driver (4.56v) as older 4.43 or newer modern ones caused several Windows problems for me. Check out what videocard, soundcard, printer, etc that you have and research the websites for 98SE drivers for all those as well. For operating system updates, avoid Windows Update like the plague. If you click on the link in this forum for the Member Projects you'll see a whole bunch of sticky threads up top that lead to several different ways to get different members versions of 98SE update packs. I like the Unofficial Auto-Patcher for Windows 98SE because it's laid out so well. I can toggle on or off the various modules and choose the pieces of the modules that I want installed as well. For example I toggle off Java, Flash, Shockwave since I install that stuff myself with full installer packages downloaded from their websites and don't want some of the tweaks he has to install by default so I toggle those off. And it's a great time-saver because it installs major software upgrades like Internet Explorer, Direct X, Windows Media Player, etc, all by itself along with the Windows Updates for those item's security, etc. Your idea of getting Windows Me file versions has been tackled and provided for you as long as you have a Windows Me installation cd. The 98SE2ME project does the work for you. Just pop the Windows Me cd in, run 98SE2ME, I choose option 2 in there, and upon reboot you'll have your 98SE system files updated to the tested ones from Windows Me that will work properly on a 98SE system. He also includes some nice fun stuff from it like the pinball game! There are further updates available as folks here adapt Microsoft updates for stuff they make for XP and 2000 and get them to work on 98SE, advancing security and functionality for 98SE since Microsoft abandoned including installers that update 98SE. These show up in the sticky thread 98FE, SE, etc... Updates, hotfixes, etc... These can be watched to install following the Auto-Patcher or you can just wait until the next edition of Auto-Patcher is released to get them installed. Maximus-Decim updates for MDAC and his USB package usually solve any MDAC or USB 2.0 driver problems on 98SE. There is a thread here for software still working on 9x systems that is filled with valuable information on various things like Office software, multimedia stuff, etc. I've found the Mozilla SeaMonkey web browsing suite (it's like the old Netscape Communicator suite or the mozilla suite) and OpenOffice.org a good combination for browsing, email, and Office software even though I do use WorksSuite2005 and OfficeXP. Modern web and office standards then become available on 98SE without the security problems of using Internet Explorer, resource intensive memory of Firefox/Thunderbird, and interoperability with folks using Office 2007 is made possible by OpenOffice.org. Even more-so if you get the Novell edition as they include more of that including enhanced font compatibility. Nero 7.2.7 and PowerDVD 6 are the last versions of those that work with 98SE. Winamp 5.35 is the last of those, but use the cd plugin from 5.34 if you want cd playback to work correctly. There's discussion of that around here and the Winamp forums as well. Do all that (and maybe the KernelEX project if you really need some XP stuff to work) and you'll find 98SE quite capable of supporting just about anything one wants out of a computer even today. And the old stuff that XP and Vista broke is nice to use as well! I also have a Debian Linux operating system that I've mostly used for quite some time now. I found myself missing some Windows games and stuff and that even though my Vista partition was available and I could get a lot working on it, I simply hated booting into it and using Vista. 98SE, I have no qualms about using. Quite enjoyable and it runs my slightly old computer (see signature) very well, much better than XP or Vista run it.

Heh heh. I just wiped Vista and installed 98SE! Nice semi old computer with the old Via Hyperion 4-in-1 4.56v. Going back to that old Via set seems to have solved both of my long standing problems of needing to manually install an older vxd AGP driver and my Error loading device IOS popping up eventually no matter what and ruining Windows. Anything newer was less and less 9x compatible regardless of the ones listed at viaarena.com. I've been using Debian Linux with a Vista dual-boot and never would go into Windows because of it being so annoyingly intrusive upon my time (hours of updating and satisfying its "Security Manager," hard drive churning for its previous file versions System Restore logging, etc.) Couldn't stand the thing. And I've still got more Windows 98 era software that runs better or at least runs on 98 than it did on XP or Vista, though I had managed to get most stuff going even on Vista. I'm also using the Mozilla SeaMonkey for the first time upon noticing that Firefox is warning of 9x incompatibility in a few months on Firefox 2. It's like an old friend! As close to the old Netscape as one can get these days. Essentially that's what it is, just stripped of the AOL stuff that appeared when they bought out Netscape. Virtualbox is just too darned slow running a 98 guest on Linux or I might not have bothered. Glad I did though. 98SE is the only Windows I've actually enjoyed running over the years.

The OEM 98 cd was a boot cd but the retail versions were not. They need a Window 98 Startup floppy or the same I suppose on a cd image of one.

If you install the Unofficial Auto-Patcher for Windows 98SE you can toggle More Options to on, click on the Windows Media Player module, and select to install Windows Media Encoder 7.1. Or just download the Auto-Patcher and find the WME installer among the files in C:\Program Files\Auto-Patcher. Or go to mdgx.com and locate his Windows Media updates page. Haven't checked myself for awhile but perhaps there's a link there to the WME 7.1 download. Keep in mind that I remember reading a long time ago somewhere that it must be installed after WMP 7.1 and BEFORE WMP 9 for the whole package to get installed properly and have all its functions work. The 9 encoder and above don't run on 9x.

Virtualbox is a great product but from my experience and from all other reports I've read from others trying it, it doesn't really do a great job with 9x systems. It's great for XP, Vista, Linux though. Work-arounds for the lack of additions support for 9x are there. I used SciTech Display Doctor 7 Beta with a key-gen to make a registration key for it for the video. They offer keys for the older versions on their website but they don't work on 7 Beta and that's the only one of those that work on 98SE from my experience. Hence my hunting around and downloading the keygen. Either the newly included SB16-AWE32 support (and 98SE comes with the driver for that) or the Intel Audio (better, I think, because the Midi works where it can't with SB16 because there isn't a real midi FM chip emulated by Virtualbox) with Realtek's Windows 95 VXD driver (extract with WinRAR and point Device Manager to it because the Realtek setup won't install if it's not Windows 95). Use Rain20 to give the CPUHLT instruction so you're processor won't run at 100% all the time. It'll work then, but really slow especially for web browsing and Office stuff. VMWare runs 9x terrific. Workstation is best, but Server or Player can be used (free) if Workstation is too pricey. VMWare Tools are there for 9x as well so Video, Shared Folders, etc, all work fine.

Only the sort of confusion that happens before doing a more thorough look at things. The qemulator GUI looks promising, but still not as pointy, clicky as the Virtualbox, VMWare GUI's. From briefly looking at some reviews and photo shots of qemulator it looks like I'd need to know device numbers to type in, choices to decide upon that are automatically set on the other emulators for the specific operating systems based upon pre-defined optimizations without my needing to tinker to figure out what works best. It's like using exim or something rather than Thunderbird. Gotta tell exim what to do without the benefit of pretty GUI wizards and stuff. Since Thunderbird is what I got accustomed to, I haven't bothered with learning the traditional Linux based email programs. Same with Qemu vs the others. Things are probably less complex than they seem but if something already works fine for me, I only briefly gloss over information for other things. Enough for me to know they exist and give a quick glance at, but not the same as actually going through the steps to learn the software. So it's only complicated because I haven't taken those steps to eliminate the complications through some study and use. Thanks for asking. I don't have anything specific that I'm confused about. Just the knowledge that the GUI based virtualization software with their mostly pre-defined schemes is, by personal use, less confusing to me as a bystander just checking out Qemu.

VMWare gets my vote (except for 3D gaming). Got experience with all 3. VirtualPC had annoying bugs when I used it. Virtualbox doesn't fully cooperate with its virtual hardware when using 9x. Meaning there are things in Device Manager like the Advanced Power Management and a PCI System Peripheral that don't work properly. Plus it is slower than VMWare on 9x guests. No additions so must use SciTech Display Doctor Beta 7 and find the Keygen to keep it past the trial. The new version of Virtualbox has SB16 ISA available as a choice of audio and it works better than the Intel AC97 choice that needs the Windows 95 VXD Realtek AC97 driver (extract with WinRAR, point Device Manager to it) to work. My Creative SB16 Wave Effects software/driver cd improved the SB16 with their software, but the driver is nearly identical to the Windows 98SE SB16 driver. 98SE2ME works great on either VMWare or Virtualbox, but since VMWare handles the hardware better on 9x it is a truer real experience than Virtualbox is. Performance when using multimedia playback of things or software gaming is better on VMWare. Gotta say that SciTech Display Doctor was nice. Give you software OpenGL 3D when setting it to its CAD-most compatible choice. Only slow because Virtualbox is slow on 9x. I may try that someday using VMWare, installing the tools but updating the video driver to SciTech's. This all is after upgrading DirectX. That needs at least Direct X 7, but I install 9.0c anyway. They offer a trial of VMWare Workstation. If you see it and like it (it really does 9x well) then you can buy it before the trial period ends. I found it just about the same speed as the real installed 98SE. Edit - And if you do check out VMWare Workstation, the audio is the ES1371 chip, the Creative/Ensoniq one that uses the drivers for the SB16 PCI. The SB PCI 128 WDM driver is what I end up with, but in the past I've installed the Creative Cd with the software and driver, then updated with the SB PCI 128 web update. It changes it from the cd's VXD driver to the WDM version properly. I used to need to edit the older VMWare version's Windows98.vmx file to get the audio to not speed up incorrectly but that's been fixed in the latest version. I had a problem with the original VXD in the newer version of VMWare. It would cause a BSOD, and then the Automatic Skip Driver agent needed to be run and have it checked to allow again, but don't reboot. Just run the updater to the WDM and then reboot and you'd have the software and the WDM driver working fine. I'd manage to do this after recovering from the BSOD but even if not, you could still update it. If you don't have the cd then just installing the SB128 WDM by itself works and you'd avoid the BSOD of the VXD install. But no neat PlayCenter, Creative Mixer, Wave Studio, etc. Too bad since I thought the VXD driver was a bit better than the WDM updated one. Can't use it anymore. You'll hardly notice you're not running 98 on a real computer with VMWare. Just a bit pricey though! Make sure to install VMWare Tools from the menu after 98's installed. Makes things better. If you do it before updating 98 with new Direct X, Windows Installer, IE 6 (not sure which causes it) I think you'll need to manually update the Standard PCI Graphics Adapter (VGA) to the VMWare Video driver in Device Manager. It shows up in the list after installing VMWare Tools. VMWare Server is free, but I've never tried it. I think it turns off things by default that Workstation has on by default so it may need some tinkering. They have a Beta of the next version of Server that probably is better than the released version at this point. The released version of Server is really old. Virtualbox kinda stinks running a 9x Guest so don't bother. For supported guests it's supposed to be great though, some say better than VMWare.

I've got all the older computers lying around I could want. I just only have this one workspace to actually have to use one on though. Heh, and you could call it testing but, for me and what I do, especially with Windows 98, it is more like playing at this point. Just taking a trip down memory lane and having some fun. Seems to me a virtual machine should be okay for something like that. Really though, the reason I don't just have one of my old boxes setup and running 98 is it's a pain in the neck to unplug my computer and all its stuff and move another box to the desk to replace it and hook all the stuff up to that one. I just don't have the space in this little Florida Room (kind of like a small porch) that is the part of the small one bedroom condo that I have EVERYTHING in. My bed, computer, TV, books, cd's, tapes, desk, it is all in a little walk in closet sized room. And with all the stuff I have it's not a pretty site! Stacks of software boxes (I save everything), big stacks of printouts of stuff that most would likely have file cabinets for, etc. Old computers underneath things, etc, etc, I needn't go on. I just would like to get 98 working well enough to occasionally use for some old thing I have a yen to use. Sure, it would likely work better on a real old machine but then I'd want to get some real stuff done and need to switch around all the hardware again? I don't think that's something I'd want to do. This computer actually runs 98 fine. I feel like a dunderhead switching it out for Vista a while back. The only problem was that NVidia shutdown thing. Really a minor bug. I've got an ATI card without that problem, but then there's Linux and that's the reason for NVidia being on here instead. Happily I've discovered Linux and have found it fully capable of doing the things I need or want to do on my computer. I just like having some Windows available just in case. Kind of a crutch I guess. Or a habit. I was so used to keeping up with the Microsoft operating systems and software over the years that with the Vista/Office upgrades I went along with the flow. Seems silly to me now that I spend no time actually using the stuff. Edit - Ah well. Virtualbox and 98 really isn't a good enough combo for me. Went through more of the setting up 9x process and just found it too slow. Not as slow as the older Virtualbox versions, probably because of the sb16 using less resources (again weird, since AC97 should be less resource intensive than ISA), but still just not good enough. Plus I couldn't get the USB going. Installed the HP drivers and software, activated the USB device for the printer, and although the USB port driver was working with the nUSB installed I couldn't get the specific printer device detected. Probably a Linux permissions problem but as I wasn't going to keep using it anyway, I just deleted the virtual drive. If I use it, I'll use it for OS's Virtualbox supports better. I'll either install VMWare into Vista or replace Vista with a 98SE/XPPro dual-boot. VMware runs 98 real zippy in Vista as I've done that before. But I also think I'd actually use 98 unlike what I do with Vista, and doing an actual install will get full performance, 3D games and stuff going. And XP would be just for some stuff I bought that doesn't run in 98 and I just figure I might as well use if I bought it. Plus, 98SE is easier to dual-boot with XP than Vista even when using EasyBCD and Vista. I just use BootMagic and keep the other OS hidden like PartitionMagic does by default. BootMagic also boots my Linux on the other hard drive that has Grub installed into its root partition, like EasyBCD does, instead of messing with my mbr. I hate Grub in the mbr. Auto-Patcher still works like a dream, saving a ton of time. Just adding the latest updates from the other sticky thread with the updates worked just fine.

I'm playing around with 98SE on Virtualbox in Linux again, so I was wondering what was happening here as well. It's still not as good for 98SE as VMWare but I don't have the Workstation for Linux version and $189 is kinda hard to budget for. I'm not sure if my older hardware can use Server or not, and I'd prefer Workstation anyway. Qemu confuses me, so I'm seeing if Virtualbox can be tinkered with enough to get me some better performance. Sun just put out their first version of it so that's what I'm trying. I installed December Full without some of the stuff since upgraded over time and will install those individually I suppose. One thing that takes absolutely hours to finish is that DotNET installation. On VMWare it's just like on a real system but on Virtualbox it takes a LONG time. I'm just trying stuff like the new SB16 ISA audio card in Virtualbox, that appears to increase Virtualbox performance over the normal Intel sound chip. No Midi, since there's no real SB16 midi chip to address and the mpu401 doesn't install, and isn't supported by emulators anyway. The Intel softsynth works, but not well, so I don't miss much by using the SB16 instead. I'm gonna try installing either (or both) the Roland VSC1 or the Yamaha YXG-50 soft synths and see whether my old games will be able to use them as drivers as they can on a real 98 system. I removed the extra stuff the SB16 Creative cd (from my real SoundBlaster 16 Wave Effects retail box, same driver) puts in autoexec.bat because that's for dos and Windows midi I think, and the dos sound doesn't work anyway. I'll just be using Windows games in there. The Blaster line stays as the driver puts it back even if I edit it out, but doesn't start TSR's like the config.sys Devices they have that run the Creative dos stuff. But the SB16 instead of the Intel is a bit zippier. I also removed the ACPI support from the virtual machine. When I loaded the ACPI Bios device in Windows it caused the mouse and keyboard devices to conflict so I figured I'd try the old Standard PC way. So I just leave the Advanced Power Management (which is also shown as not working properly) instead of switching it to ACPI Bios and power off the machine from the program since Windows can't fully shut down when that isn't working properly. But that's better than the mouse and keyboard having problems. Virtualbox is REALLY not designed to get all the devices working perfectly in 9x Device Manager. VMWare does that perfectly. They just virtualize the hardware for the modern NT systems and we're lucky 98 works at all. Nice of them to include the new SoundBlaster 16 ISA emulation as that does play smoother and uses less resources for some reason. You'd think the AC97 Intel chip would use less than a ISA card, but go figure. Not sure what'll happen when I add a midi soft synth to the running audio stuff. At least the SB16 works out of the box as 98 has the driver for it. The update on the Creative cd (or the similar downloaded update from Creative) is essentially the same driver, but adds those autoexec.bat lines, recommends the config.txt stuff it installs to its folder be added to config.sys (the ones I tried and removed later when dos sound didn't work anyway), and includes all the Creative software, the mixer, Wave, midi players, you know, the old Win 3.1 SB16 audio deck type software working on 98. Kinda cool. Realtek doesn't include that stuff with its Win95 VXD AC97 driver I had used for the Intel chip that 98 doesn't have a driver for. So now I have the fancy Creative players and mixers to play with. I get really slow OpenGL support with the Scitech 7 beta video driver as long as Direct X is updated. Nice addition by using Scitech that even VMWare doesn't offer with its tools. Kinda weird seeing glxgears spinning around on Windows! But 2D works nicely. Web browsing was too slow with the older configuration, but we'll see what happens since the audio driver switch and the Standard PC instead of ACPI. I also changed the Ethernet card to the older PCI one they added. Maybe that'll work better than the one designed for higher bandwidth that was the previous default. It's good Virtualbox added some choices. There's another one for Vista as Vista doesn't have a driver for the previous default. They include a separate driver for a manual install, but just switching the machine to use the Intel Ethernet card makes Vista internet work out of the box. Don't see myself emulating Vista though. But now there are choices of 3 cards so maybe one of them will increase the speed to be acceptable for web browsing. This is the first time I installed the full Virtualbox instead of OSE, so I'll see if that new Maximus-Decim NUSB update will get USB 2.0 working so I can use my printer and gamepad. That would be cool. They work fine in VMWare with the NUSB drivers. Since I nearly never boot into Vista, I'm trying to see if I could just have only Linux installed and virtualize 98SE on it. If I can get 98 working okay on Linux this way I could just wipe out Vista and only run Linux. I really don't use anything but older 98 era Windows software on Windows anyway, doing just about everything in Linux. I have the newer stuff installed in Vista, but never boot into it to use it. Windows 98 running gives me a nostalgic smile. Windows Vista running gives me a headache. I'd have room to virtualize either XP or Vista if I did that, without the hassle of dual-booting. Now, the whole big 250GB hard drive is sitting with Vista taking up space. Or, just use the 120GB drive Linux is on for a real 98SE and put Linux on the big drive and just virtualize XP or Vista. Probably XP since I only have a gig of RAM and I don't see Vista virtualizing well with 512MB. XP would do fine. But, yeah, what's up Soporific? You okay? I check back here every so often and don't see posts from you lately. Hope everything is all right with you! Don't care about the Autopatcher as long as you're doing okay. (But a freshening of Autopatcher would be nice if so.)

The driver manager didn't put up questions like this file is an older version? It is recommended that you keep the newer file, with the choice available to click? Theoretically it's supposed to do that. I recall that sometimes that sp2 cab would confuse some driver installs, opening a box saying it couldn't find files that had me browsing all over the place for things it finds fine if that sp2 cab isn't on the system. So I didn't like that method. Tough to find a perfect way to handle this.

Good point! Someone, at least, should report the false positives. I recall that the RyanVM Windows XP Post Service Pack 2 Update Pack and RyanVM addon changed a few programs included in it and ways of installing stuff to stop being detected as bad things by most spyware programs, not that they did any spying. They were just long standing tools that unfortunately could also be used for bad stuff even though they weren't in this case. He just took out the tools and installed stuff a bit differently. That was a few years back and I forget the names of the programs, but he was quite interested in the problem you're talking about and took his own action to prevent a bad reputation.

The false positives are dealt with by most virus detections manufacturers once users inform them of the problem. Some scanners allow ignoring, some automatically delete them and inform the user, some automatically delete them and don't tell the user or tell them after the fact. I like the ones that say there's a bad thing here and give you options as to what to do with them. Often you can let it quarantine them and then afterwards restore them from the quarantine folder. So the best thing to do is to report these to the manufacturer of the software. Sometimes they'll remove them from the definitions if they agree it was false. I don't think it's a problem with programs like Auto-Patcher using stuff that gets detected by virus scanners that aren't the major ones like McAfee, Norton, AVG, Avast, Bit-Defender, etc. Especially if they are things run during the running of Auto-Patcher. Virus scanners should be disabled from running at startup when using Auto-Patcher anyway, since it will reboot many times before finishing. Just turning them off doesn't help if it will reload upon Windows startup. With Avast, I need to go into the Resident Shield options and in Advanced turn everything to disabled at startup. Once done with Auto-Patcher I go back in and enable them all. I used to do similar with McAfee. By the way, I installed the integrated Windows Vista Service Pack 1 DVD replacing 98SE just to check out Service Pack 1 and also the recent unofficial Audigy 2 ZS Vista Support Pack done by a guy on the Creative forum (an updated version -I installed the missing pieces afterwards using his Revision 2 Cd). So my 98SE is gone for now. I'll get it back on VMWare soon I suppose. The Auto-Patcher had everything updated great though! Sorry to say goodbye for now to 98 again.

Actually to my surprise, when I used PM8 to expand the size of the partition while I was in Windows, it did not restart into dos to do it. I guess it only needs to do that on NTFS partitions. This time I had used the PM floppy to initially partition and format 120GB, installed Windows and assorted updates and software including PartitionMagic. Then I expanded the size to the maximum PM allowed, about 200GB of my drive like I said before. If I had used FDISK I could have use of that 15% that PM leaves as unpartitioned free space, but then I'd be afraid to use PartitionMagic utilities to work with the drive in the future. It keeps that free space for some reason so I just went along with it. I'll never fill it up anyway! BootMagic works great as a boot loader for my Windows/Linux on the other hard drive dual boot. You can FDISK the whole thing. Problem is going into SafeMode on first boot, and I did that once for a problem, has Windows continue the installation without the cd available! It does finish, but it was weird not having some of the stuff it copies over after that first boot. Better to find some way of doing CommandPromptOnly. Maybe holding the ctrl key down? Or tapping F8 instead of holding it? Gotta be some way. And the Via Sata controllers, with the driver installed on the very first Windows boot and NOT continuing in MS-DOS Compatibility Paging Mode, work fine (except on these 2 stupid Epox boards I have now). No corruption no matter how big. That ESDI.PDR driver isn't used. Installing the 48 bit patch is not needed, but I suppose can't hurt things since the driver it changes isn't being used.

Gotta run in SATA mode, not IDE mode, if using a 9x operating system and install the Via Sata/Raid driver, or Promise in your case I guess. Only XP and up can be run in IDE mode using the new Via Sata hotplug style IDE driver. That driver doesn't work in 98. I'm not talking about RAID here, just using the SATA mode which works without making a RAID configuration. And on an ATA hard drive (not your Sata drive though), you need the 48LBA patch otherwise as soon as 98 writes or changes something in one of those Extended partitions you're talking about you will start having corrupted files. You're okay without the patch on Sata since Windows will be using your Via/Promise Sata driver rather than its own driver.

Partition Magic doesn't have a hard limit. If it were a 500GB hard drive it would reserve about 15% just the same as it does on the 250GB I have. And I don't know why, it just states it on the box and when I've partitioned with it I've seen it not let me move that line or raise the size past a certain point. Dos and the updated 98SE or the Windows Me Startup Disk FDISK have no problems partitioning the whole drive, and neither does format when formatting it. I've used a SATA 250GB hard drive with the full drive partitioned in one big FAT32 by FDISK and format with no troubles. As I said, I just turned off the Scandisc scan on bad shutdown option in msconfig until I got Norton Utilities 2002's DiskDoctor to replace it. If I weren't using Partition Magic or BootMagic for anything then I'd have just used FDISK and stuck the 48LBA fix on a floppy like I said. But I'm doing the BootMagic (or BCDEasy if using Vista) thing so I don't have to worry about boot loaders when formatting stuff. Grub stays with its distro as does whatever Windows I'm using. I don't care about 20-30GB not being used. Got plenty of room. I think drives over 160GB make Partition Magic do that, but I'm not certain. Drives smaller than that can be fully used. With a SATA drive, there isn't even a need for the 48LBA patch because the Windows driver isn't used, rather the Via (or whatever motherboard you have) SATA/RAID driver installed with the Hyperion's (must use an old version like 4.56v otherwise 98SE has problems). Until that's installed Windows runs it in dos compatibility mode. First thing I install though so that gets fixed quickly! Unfortunately the EPOX boards I'm currently using have a SATA controller problem. So I switched to ATA drives. The EPOX boards have the Non-Maskable Interrupt support that the SBLive and Audigy ms-dos sound drivers need to function. None of my other boards have that. I'd rather lose SATA (I can turn it off on the Epox boards) and have MS-DOS sound in 98SE's MS-DOS Mode so I'm using the Epox. Heh, it also has a defective USB port that will not put through the signal if I have both of one set plugged in. I just put a powered USB hub plugged into one of them and it works perfectly. My other boards have none of these problems but then, no Audigy 2 ZS in dos.

FDISK from the updated version installed by the Windows Update for it does support the larger drives. It just shows you an incorrect figure. It's a cosmetic defect but it works fine. That update does NOT install into the folder that Add/Remove uses to create a Windows Startup floppy, so I just make one and then copy the fixed FDISK from the Windows folder (or Windows/Command, same one) to the floppy, overwriting the old one. I just did this. But I created a 120GB partition, formatted it FAT32, installed Windows 98SE, installed the Auto-Patcher, and then used Partition Magic 8 to increase the size of the partition to the maximum it allowed. With Partition Magic 8, on large drives it will keep about 15% of the drive as unpartitioned free space. So on my 250GB hard drive I have about 200GB or so as a partition size. About 190GB available for Windows. Just make sure to go into the Advanced options of msconfig and check to disable scandisk on bad shutdowns. If you do not have Partition Magic then you can create the full disk with FDISK and format. Again it's just a cosmetic error that it shows the incorrect amount, but Windows will see the whole drive. Have the LLXX 2225 version on a floppy, and hit F8 to bring up the startup menu when Windows Setup reboots the first time. Don't allow it to boot into Windows, but boot to command prompt only, copy the file over to I think the Windows\System\IOSUBSYS folder (check that because I've never done this). Have it replace the one there, ctrl-alt-delete, and then boot normally and have Windows finish its setup. The advantage is that you'll have use of the whole drive whereas my Partition Magic use reduces that by about 15%. Other than that it's the same thing besides using LLXX's patch in your case and getting the flat buttons on the Close Program box and some other places. MDGx's patch installed with Auto-Patcher doesn't do that. LLXX liked flat buttons and so stuck everyone who uses her patch with it. I left it like that until I installed Norton Utilities 2002. Right before doing the install I unchecked that to allow scandisk on bad shutdowns, rebooted, and installed it. I checked on the install to have it replace Windows Scandisk with Norton DiskDoctor. I still wouldn't allow DiskDoctor to fix things it finds in its dos mode. Dos doesn't need it, but I still don't trust it except to tell me if there are errors to fix. If it does, I cancel and let Windows boot and then use DiskDoctor within Windows and let it fix things automatically. I set it to not ask for a backup to be made and to turn off the surface scan. That's just time consuming and a hard drive rarely needs a surface scan. And I set it to do its fixes automatically. That, and SpeedDisk for defragging works fine. The Windows Me ScanDisc can be used except NOT for the Thorough option and Disc Defragmenter CANNOT be used. So a 3rd party solution must be used.

Amen! We've all got to be appreciative to contributors as it's all just folks trying to make a better experience for the operating system we use. So, no need to be cold or mysterious but just like the free software world (although we must be careful as Windows is NOT free software and we really can't fully tear it apart and release something different with it or we'd get closed down real fast. We can fix the patches and add to it, but can't rebuild it.), it is invariably going to be confusing. Lots of contributions from many sources and various different approaches cannot and should not be avoided. It'll be fun, but certainly not one single approach with a "press this" button to please everybody. It's not going to happen. Don't forget, we can't even fork any of this. It's a proprietary operating system with proprietary software. We can only enjoy different folks approaches to make the best of what Microsoft and various others have provided for it. This way it'll live on for quite some time for many, perhaps eventually only virtualized since there will be a time when only old computers can be run by it natively.