Eck

Isn't this interesting? That's the same error I got when I tried to uninstall it from add/remove a little while back. I had tried out the WMP10 on 98SE MDGx batch install and didn't know at the time that the WMP10 interface doesn't appear. I thought the batch hadn't worked and wanted to get back to the original. So I tried uninstalling WMP9 and got your error message. From reading the wmp mini-faq, the best way to repair WMP is to simply install the full version over itself. I don't know what your situation is. Sometimes things are too messed up to easily repair with a simple reinstall, but that's what I'd try if I were you. I recall that the reinstall couldn't finish when I tried it after failing the uninstall. I considered it a fubarred OS and formatted. Stack faults are things used to occur on Windows 3.1 systems. I was surprised to see that error myself. My reaction was that the thing was never going to be right again so I may as well install fresh and not mess around with the WMP10 stuff.

My Mom's been sick so I hadn't been around. I just noticed that I was right in my assumptions. Cool. I'm glad it worked. It only clicked with me since that's one of the drive's I own and though I do use that dos cd driver for Ms-Dos Mode, I had checked out the batch file for the installer and had no interest in it messing with my system files. What I thought might happen if I ran that installer was what happened to fernandomaravilla. It's actually the best dos cdrom driver I've come across. It uses only a tiny bit of memory to run, and on really old boxes that have a SiS5598 board will run in UDMA Mode 2 in dos! Of course, I'm learning to let go of the past these days. This sort of thing is from those ancient days of like 5-6 years ago. Now that I'm giving in to using XP mostly, Microsoft is about to make it, too, obsolete in a couple of years. Money, Money, Money. All they really had to do was keep updating 98. But I know I've spent a ton more money on computing because keep releasing updates as new operating systems. XP is NT with consessions for 9x software compatibility. I like it, but it's sort of Windows 95 Seventh Edition, ya know?

You'd be okay with a SATA 150 drive on the VIA boards. That's SATA 1. Even SATA 2 can be used with the VIA 8237 Southbridge, but you would need to set the jumper on the drive to the SATA 1 speed. The Asus A7V880 I have ran Windows 98 fine, but did not allow me to play with Ms-Dos Mode stuff like emm386 or expanded memory while using a SATA HD. No dos memory management stuff in Autoexec or Config.sys either. The system wouldn't boot if I added the standard calls to himem.sys, etc. 98 ran fine though. Just no dos mode for my old stuff. With a regular ATA HD, the dos functionality is restored, however this board does not let the SoundBlaster Live's dos mode driver function. It doesn't support the non-maskable interrupts that the Live dos driver requires. I don't have a board with an Nvidia chipset so I can't share any dos-mode experiences on those. I will tell you that the A7V880 has been stable for me on XP or 98SE. And that's with using a Maxtor 250GB SATA HD. Of course, I used Partition Magic to show 98 just 120GB. I made that Fat32, and the rest a big NTFS second primary partition that I installed XP on. I then used BootMagic to choose which OS I wanted to boot with. I now just run XP on that board, as without the dos stuff I find 98 incomplete! I just use the latest Dosbox with the compiled CVS build and vdmsound for my dos thrills. If you get a board with the Marvell ethernet chip, do not let Windows Update install its driver for it! Download it directly from Marvell's website. Although normally the Windows Update Marvell driver is safe, the latest one was pulled by Marvell after folks found it was causing Windows XP to freeze. For me, it was doing that, and one time the freeze corrupted my boot sector and I needed to use Recovery Console and run FIXMBR and FIXBOOT to access my hard drive again! Luckily, chkdsk showed no errors and everything else was untouched. On 98, you won't have that choice since the Marvell update is only on XP's Windows Update. Of course I had no idea it was the ethernet driver at first and thought my board was shot somehow. I went so far as to unhook everything, turn the board over, push out the Northbridge heatsink, clean off the cheap little circle of conductive paste Asus put on there and placed a thin layer of Arctic Silver 5 on the heatsink. After rehooking everything I was still freezing, so I checked the pcper forum and the Asus official forum and found 2 references to the Windows Update Marvell driver. Heh, well I've got a better cooled chipset now anyway!

There was no need for you to dig into the cd's files and install that dos cd driver. That is just there for folks who want to use the cdrom drive in Ms-Dos Mode. The dos driver installer copied the Ms-Dos cdrom driver to C:\HXCD-ROM. It also added a line to your Autoexec.bat calling MSCDEX, and a line to your config.sys calling the cdrom.sys driver. Possibly this has confused Windows, as ideally these 16 bit drivers should not be run. Windows has its own 32 bit cdrom drivers. First make sure you have the jumper set properly on the drive. The retail version of the drive has a chart in the manual showing you the various jumper settings available. It may by default be set to either cable select or master. If your hard drive is set to cable select then set the cdrom to cable select as well. If your hard drive is set to master, then install the cdrom drive to your secondary IDE and set the jumper on it to master. If you have another cd or dvd drive there, set that one to the slave position. The thin cable is to allow analog cd audio to be processed. On Windows XP this is no longer needed, but on 9x systems where older cd playing software will not use digital playback for cd's you need to connect this cable from the cdrom drive to your soundcard. Back in Windows, go to Start, Run, and type in sysedit and open it. On the autoexec.bat tab, delete the line referring to MSCDEX. In the drop down, click File, Save. On the config.sys tab, delete the line referring to cdrom.sys. In the drop down, click File, Save. Close Sysedit. Right click My Computer. Select Properties. In Device Manager click the little plus to the left of your cdrom drive and you'll see your Liteon cdrw drive there. Right click the Liteon cdrw drive and choose remove. OK Device Manager and restart the computer. Windows will detect the drive on startup and install the proper drivers for it automatically. Nero should now work. If you ever need to use the dos driver, do not run the install for it. Just copy the driver to an HXCD-ROM folder. In fact, if you haven't deleted the HXCD-ROM folder from your C: drive that you have there, you can refer to the readme in it. You simply place the calls to the cdrom.sys driver in either the properties page of the Ms-Dos program you will be rebooting to, or the exittodos.pif properties page in the C:\WINDOWS folder. You type in the same lines that we deleted from the Windows system files. The call to MSCDEX goes in the private Ms-Dos Mode autoexec, and the call to cdrom.sys goes in the private Ms-Dos Mode config.sys. But you don't put them in the ones Windows uses to run your computer. Some do. However they then call MSCDEX from the dosstart.bat file in the Windows folder, and put loadhigh in front of the call to cdrom.sys in config.sys. But this is still not optimal cdrom usage, as the 32bit cdrom driver in Windows 98 is preferred. Just use real mode stuff if you're gonna be in dos. That's what Ms-Dos right click properties pages are for. That install file sets things up like a Dos 6.22 and Windows 3.1 system. You don't want to load MSCDEX while Windows 98 is running.

Have fear of older registry cleaners. Newer software and drivers often don't connect the dot's except for when they are being run. Someone who keeps its registry cleaner software up to date and even accesses its server each time it is run to see if anything detected by its cleaner is in its database is Macecraft Software's jv16powertools2005. It is no longer free, but worth it. It doesn't break programs and its software manager is great to run after uninstalling software to remove left over stuff. The registry cleaner in it does a conservative job, which is what one should want.

Well, thank pitchforks and pointy ears Spock, it's fixed! I went browsing through all the old Windows Me topics at the Cnet Help forum until I found my old thread where Mr. Proffit and I were trying to solve this. I never did fix it at the time, but tried the same stuff again this time and it worked! First I toggled Disable Script Debugging and Display a notification about every script error a couple of times, ending with what was there originally, which was Disable Script Debugging checked and Display a notification unchecked. That didn't fix it. So I redownloaded Windows Scripting 5.6 and applied that update again. That had been already installed, but something in the Internet Explorer Cumulative Update apparently messes with something in it. I rebooted and found that all the Preview video's and tour's now work. I'm pretty surprised since I tried these same steps long ago and they hadn't worked then. All fixed! Thanks for tuning in.

A mysterious problem has reappeared from my past. A year or so ago I had been running Windows Me and after applying a WU Internet Explorer Cumulative Update all my Windows Me Tours ceased to function. The main Millenium Edition Preview Tour presents a javascript error message then just displays a large white box where the tour should be running. The other tours can usually be accessed through Help and Support, but these links open to an Internet Explorer "Cannot display page" screen instead of opening the tours. Apparently Microsoft has found these scripts to be dangerous and so has disabled them. This time, I had manually applied all the updates through the MDGx website and this problem did not occur. However, Microsoft just released a new IE Cumulative update and I applied it through Windows Update. Sure enough, all my tours are gone again. Personally, I'd rather have the tours and depend on my Virus Scanner's Script Stopper to pop up and ask me whether I want to run it. See, that's the way it worked before the IE update. I would click the link to the tour and the virus scanner would pop up warning me that a script was trying to run. I would allow it. Easy. If something came from the web I could just click the scanner selection to not allow it. That's pretty safe. Does anyone know what is turned off that causes this? I'd like to switch it back on, if possible. If it were just the tour's I'd be inclined to let it go, but some of my help files and about pages in programs are now behaving the same way. For example, my Project64 emulator's about page will not function. I guess it uses some form of javascript. I just get a blank box and have to end task on the program. I'd rather be less secure and have stuff work. Any ideas on how to fix?

mitchellovision, Um, thanks for the lesson. But what, what, what, whaaaat? (From a Mom in Southpark.) No, there is no NTFS in Windows Me's Ms-Dos 8.0 that reacts with fear, as if it were human, and, being hungry, eats the operating system until it crashes. It's just a file system. And Windows Me or Ms-Dos can only access it with a special program that isn't the most stable. I think sys-internals has that. Emm386.exe is just a memory management program. Ms-Dos 7.1 does not include a mouse. You must install a seperate mouse driver or use a GUI that comes with one, such as Windows 3.1 or 98. That prepackaged Ms-Dos 7.1 I was talking about simply was packaged with a mouse driver, or maybe not as I can't precisely recall whether I used my own for it or not. Ha, ha, ha! This all is a big joke, eh? Okay. I like nice big paragraphs too, but they have to be paragraphs and not a big block of text with unrelated drivvle. (See, I learn!) I feel kind of silly participating in this thread. I should go play games, or something.

There you go again with "NTFS removed from WinMe." Please explain where Windows Me has any compatibility with the NTFS file system. Who needs System Restore to go fast? I suppose you could install the original version of Windows 95 on Ms-Dos 7.1, in fact a fellow offers a stand-alone version of Ms-Dos 7.1 that has a nice tweaked install with optional programs, dos tools, etc. He offers a download of a Windows 95 and a Windows 98 GUI for it. That package was put together by a guy who used to post a lot to the computing.net forums. I used it briefly when I was having some fun experimenting. I messed up my HD using the included Norton Utilities. I needed to zero out to fix it. I suppose that miraculously performing what you are advertising would be interesting, but I can't see anyone but folks who just want to temporarily play with some stuff actually using it. Umm, I think Windows 95 even in its original form would be faster than XP. It's the nature of basic Ms-Dos with a GUI and nearly nothing else running in the background. That was Windows 9x at its basic beginning simple form Now, actually using your computer to do anything modern with it and needing all the programs and processes running leads to poor old dos and first edition OS files crying help and crashing. XP, or a fully updated 9x/Me system on the other hand will be slower with all the stuff running. But pretty speedy with today's hardware of course! On the other hand, we can accomplish much more than Ms-Dos or Windows 95 could ever dream of being able to handle. I guess this is one of those critical, what in the world use is there for what you perhaps are trying to make work, posts. Sorry, but until everyone can be shown your magic that's all you deserve. Edit - Not too much cache because of flawed DLL's? Man, this sort of stuff wouldn't work on a newly divorced, lonely woman who is in a bar to go home with any man available.

Right, umm, finding it harder to be all supportive and not critical. mitchellovision, in case you missed my attempt - http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=52318&st=40 Umm, all that stuff on Windows 95, huh? Even if possible, why please? And how it's possible at some point would be nice too. I must meditate again. AOOOMMmmm... Okay. Maybe medication instead. Careful, or I'll stick "some folks" on you. (Inside joke.)

As you know, Microsoft's Internet Explorer is not just the browser. It also is system hooked into the whole explorer mechanism of the operating system. IE 6 SP1 fixes a bunch of bugs with newer file versions as well as including patch's for many security holes. I think most folks here would agree that installing IE6 SP 1 is a good thing. I also use Firefox and Thunderbird for my browsing and email, but recognize there is more to Internet Explorer than the browser. Since the Windows Desktop Update included with the first stand-alone IE4SP1 for Windows 95, IE has been hooked into the OS. I wish I could be helpful regarding the system problems you're having, but that looks tough. I would suggest reading the sticky on Gape's recommended installation order for the Service Pack for some of the standard ways to install it. Occasionally I've had problems in the past with my firewall, ZoneAlarm, not reacting too well to some system changes if set as default to startup with Windows, and it has fubarred my registry. I would get similar messages to what you report. I've taken to either waiting until after installing the major OS updates before hooking my cable internet to the computer, and/or temporarilly disabling my Ethernet card in Device Manager (or, in XP, Network in Control Panel) and setting ZoneAlarm to not run at startup, again temporarilly. That helped me get through previous registry mess up's when installing MDAC updates, Office programs, and even RealPlayer installs! I hope you get things fixed up!

Also, for more fine reading pleasure looky here - http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=38193 A whole thread on this, as well as the engineer's recommended method.

eidenk, Yeah, Bob Proffit over at the Cnet boards once told me the same thing. So I try to avoid needing to ask him anything since that's how I write! And if I do, I walk on eggshells, afraid to express what might actually help with the solutions. So, I'd often get responses that wouldn't relate to actually fixing the problem. Needless to say I haven't bothered going there in awhile, except to laugh at some of the posts and feeling sorry for some of the poor folks asking for help. In order to include what I think might be needed information I try, in as concise a manner as I can muster, to write good paragraphs that include the information. And I do attempt to use a little humor and real life coorelations to make the reading a bit more enjoyable. He, he, English teachers used to love me in school but I see that perhaps I would fail at letters to the editor! The teachers would call it genius like natural writing ability, and magazine editors would call it too much work to read. And, yeah, I think there are bad posters, just like there are bad computer users. You know the kind. They allow their machines to become infested with malware and when you try to remove it they get angry that I want to remove their favorite programs (the ones that come with the infestations) to do it. Then they post with their problems and bash the people trying to help them. I had actually communicated before doing my Windows Me install seperately by email with MDGx. For my results, I figured my experience might help others if it were in a public post. When I got no response, yes I did freak a little, but it was only caused by my posting in the general 9x forum so MDGx hadn't seen it. Heh, heh. If I ever write a 5,000 page novel I'm sure I don't have a customer here, eh?

Okay then. Actually I noticed on 98SE that Gape's Service Pack does that regdone entry. I used to change it back so Welcome To Windows would register through its interface and get rid of the Register Windows link in it. I do find it strange that the Microsoft registration site is perpetually busy when I try to register Windows Me, but like you said it doesn't really matter. I've never had Windows Update refuse to update me even when I hadn't registered, but perhaps it hasn't refused that way in a long time and I always used to register first in the old days so I never saw that. After using nearly all of your updates on the Critical, WMP, WinMe Add-Ons, Direct X, and IE pages, Windows Update did still have a few there to install. Funny though, the one's it listed were all things I had already installed. I guess they just hadn't registered in the WU database so Windows Update wasn't aware I had done them already. Since I'm on Windows Me now, I only have an SFC.DLL in the System folder and no sfc.exe. But that's a handy fix for me to print out for future 98SE installs. I not only have all your updates for Me downloaded and burned to cdr, but all the WU Catalog ones too, as I had done that first before going and seeing how I wanted to do my Window Me install. Once I checked out your setup on the website I redownloaded the updates from your links just so I would have them organized to go along with your instructions. So, I guess the best way to proceed would be to keep checking in occasionally on your site to see if there are any new critical updates relating to security, etc. Microsoft does say that, for now, they are continuing to release security updates. But it's nice that you keep an interest in these things as some of those released for newer OS's can be manually installed on 9x/Me as long as after testing they don't muck up anything. Darned good OS, this Windows Me. It's a shame it was released in such a beta form and before hardware, software distributors had a chance to test things enough to work out compatibility with some of its changes. It got a bad rep because it was rushed out like that. Even IE 5.5 and WMP 7 weren't really finished on the version included in Windows Me. I've always found that after doing some updating the OS is able to deal with management of different software installing their own file versions and what not much better than previous 9x versions. Memory management can be tweaked a little, then that works fine as well. Thanks for all your assistance!

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=51909 There it is. I didn't know whether to send you another email with my results or post here so my experience might be helpful to others. I figured the latter was best. Heh, since it wasn't in your thread though, I guess it didn't reach my target! I've been wondering for days whether I had breached some etiquette rule or something, so no one was replying! He, he, I guess I should chill.

Yeah, man, I've never seen such a well ordered, understandable collection put together all in one place and made available free for everyone. Here's one vote for a great website design! And, I just found your incredible Sci-fi collection there. All these years and I never noticed that before! And I was proud of my puny collection. (I wish you had something to say about my other thread regarding my Windows Me updating experience though. Anything about that WU weirdness regarding the WMP security update? Or, about what might have happened with the IE Cumulative update not having the file versions you described there? I botched up a few things because I wasn't seeing what was described. Like I said, Windows Me fixed whatever I did-I think. C'mon, reply there or maybe send me another email. I'm one of the good guys!)

Heh, heh, heh, what the devil are you talking about? Gathering hot fixes and submitting them to me for what? No, gather all the hot fixes and install them on your computer in a logical order on a fresh Windows Me install. Print out any instructions so you have an idea of the order and what special steps are needed for some of the fixes and updates. And you don't need to do much gathering since all the links are on one website. If you use the known memory optimizations then Windows 9x/Me will use up to 1GB of memory. For example, you would put into the system.ini file under the 386 Enhanced catagory the lines "ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1," DMABufferSize=64', and "MinSPs=16." Then under the VCACHE catagory the line "MaxFileCache=524288." Then in the Advanced tab of msconfig you'd check Limit Memory to and put in 999MB. Then in System Properties, Advanced, File System you'd check to choose your own Virtual Memory settings and put in the Min and Max boxes your Ram times 3. Then on the front tab you'd choose Network Server instead of the default Desktop Computer. If you do all that then Windows will use all your memory up to 999MB. It's approximately the same thing as installing Gape's Service Pack for 98SE, but instead of one installation that goes real speedy like, you've got to do it yourself one update at a time and reboot between each one. If you want your desktop to look different you have loads of choices. The whole Microsoft Plus! 98 Themes package is available if you install Desktop Themes from Add/Remove Programs, Windows Setup. Many more themes are available from sites like themedoctor. If you want to change your whole GUI, you can buy Stardock's Object Desktop which includes WindowBlinds, Object Bar, an icon program, etc, etc. Change things to look like XP or whatever you want by downloading stuff for Object Desktop from wincustomize.com. Be aware that these programs work just fine on 9x/Me systems, but unlike on Windows XP, they will use quite a chunk of your GDI memory resources. But so would changing the GUI through something like the 98SE Revolutions Pack or what that mitchellovision fellow was working on which incorporated the Revolutions Pack (among many other things) without permission. There's no magic way to use fancy GUI's on 9x/Me without using lots of GDI Resources. That's why Stardock basically just developes for 2000/XP now and uses older versions for 9x/Me. There was only so much they could get out of 9x/Me. But what they already have does run perfectly fine. Just be prepared for colors to fade and buttons to disappear from view when you've used up all of the 9x GDI resources. If you refresh the WindowsBlinds program (go into Display Properties and reapply the skin), all skins will come back. But you really need to restart the computer to get back your resources. It's a pain. You'd get the same problems with the Revolutions Pack. There's no magic. I'm enjoying using Windows Me right now. I've got it setup with WinMeDos's PureDos. I've got my SBLive card pumping music into my old dos games in 98SE's Ms-Dos 7.1 as a program running on Windows Me! It's kind of like a duel boot on the same partition. If I used the other programs that allow access to Windows Me's Ms-Dos 8.0 and change Me's configuration files to do it, then I couldn't use the SBLive as it requires emm386.exe RAM to manage memory and Me's Ms-Dos 8.0 doesn't allow that. Plus I get the faster bootups this way and Windows Me isn't messed with. Meanwhile I've got the Creative WDM package while on Windows. It's the same package that they use for Windows XP with the 252 wdm drivers and the Advanced parametric eq and all that.

Actually, dirtwarrior, preferably someone putting together all the updates would avoid installing stuff like themes. That was one of the problems with the fella doing the pack here I think. Just give me the updates. If we want to change appearences there are plenty of ways available for us to do that without it being forced upon our systems by a service pack. And, there should be no reason that Windows Me would be any worse for gaming than Windows 98SE. At least, not by fault of Microsoft's operating system. If hardware manufacturers didn't want to spend money to update drivers for products they didn't sell anymore then gamers had someone there to blame. As far as memory management, Windows Me just required a little tweaking just like 98SE did, and XP does too if you're desiring to use every last ounce of speed. With modern processors, video hardware, and the large amounts of memory folks use today, System Health and System Restore occasionally running in the background really don't hurt performance much. They usually only run when the system is idle anyway. Even on ancient hardware, like when I was still using my first computer with a SiS 5598 chipset and a 300MHz AMD K6-2 with my old Voodoo 3 3000 PCI, I found that Windows Me was way more stable and dependable than Windows 98SE. The thing had actually come with Windows 98 Gold. It didn't really perform at its best for me until Windows Me came out. During the whole 98SE period it constantly gave me problems, but a fresh Windows Me setup had it going the best it ever did. (Which was never speedy, of course! That 66MHz system bus was quite a slowdown for it.)

Folks have been really busy around here lately, or at least that's my supposition as in most of my posts I've been responding to myself. If you're new, don't be concerned as that's kind of unusual. But I didn't want to leave you hanging and experiencing the sinking feeling that no one loves me anymore like I have, so I'll tackle this for you. A lot of work goes on revolving around keeping 98SE updated as a lot of folks are using that OS for a myriad of reasons. However, Windows Me is an OS that never really took off. Many folks only used it because it came installed on their new computers, and it got a bad reputation at the beginning because OEM's at times would release their computers with Windows Me combined with 3rd party software that had not yet been updated to deal with Windows Me processes such as System File Protection and the need to enter environmental variables instead of using the autoexec.bat and config.sys files. Some even preinstalled device drivers for their hardware that had not been updated for Windows Me. So new systems would give folks all sorts of problems. I now believe that a fully updated Windows Me with all available bug fixes, security updates, and the latest program updates is the finest 9x has to offer. A service pack for Windows Me is difficult because of things like System File Protection, etc. I'm pretty sure it could be made though. For now, you can fully update Windows Me as I have, through MDGx's website. That is www.mdgx.com. You'll be able to download a zipped or exe version of most of the reading material there. Frankly, I liked the web version better for reading comfort and printed out the pages I needed. To organize my downloads from his links, which mostly lead to official Microsoft downloads with the exception of some unofficial updates and tools, I downloaded each file to a subfolder clearly labeled so I would understand what was in it when I was installing them. I made a folder for Essential Me Updates, Essential IE Updates, WMP Updates, and Windows Me Addons, and then would download each file to an appropriately labeled subfolder within those folders. Then burn to cdr! Generally the order of his listings is from oldest at the bottom to newest at the top. So I generally installed them from oldest to newest. His instructions are clear as to a few updates which require a certain order or procedure to install them, such as disabling System Restore and running the program CoolKill to disable StateMgr so certain updates would install properly, and things like installing MDAC, then HTML Help, then IE Cumulative, then msxml stuff. When I did all this, I did somehow get a little mixed up but managed to wind up with a really well behaved Windows Me. It helps that Windows Me has that System File Protection and when I had somewhat botched the IE Cum update it fixed things for me. I did need to reinstall the HTML Help update to fix whatever booboo I had made. My help files would crash after exiting them. Reinstalling that update fixed that. If you do that, you're basically giving yourself a Windows Me service pack. You'll wind up with many updates and hot fixes that Microsoft doesn't install automatically with Windows Update. On a fresh install, I first added the memory optimizations done by Gape's 98SE Service Pack to my System.ini file, turned my Power Management stuff to everything "Never," turned off Automatic Updates and Personalized Start Menu, then I installed my Via MB and USB drivers, then the System Restore fix, then IE SP1, then Dx9.0c, DotNet1.1, the SP1 for that, the DX update for managed DX, my ATI Catalyst drivers, the WDM Audio and USB updates, my soundcard, modem, printer, faxer, scanner, WMP 7.1, WMP 7.1 Bonus Pack, WMEncoder 7.1, then WorksSuite 2005, WMP 9, then all the other fixes from MDGx, then my ethernet card and connected to the net. Then I went to Microsoft's Office site and updated my Office stuff that came with WorksSuite (it has Word so it needs Office Update), then did Windows Update. Only a few updates were left for Windows Update to install. The only minor glitch I seem to have is that Windows Update keeps successfully installing one of the WMP updates but actually doesn't since the files it is trying to install are older than the ones on my system so it really isn't installing the update. Yet it says it is successful. Yet, next time there it is again as a Critical Update. Kind of drives me banana's! But I think that's a minor glitch as I'm rewarded for doing the updating this way by a much more responsive system. By the way, yes there was someone working on a Me Service Pack. I had been reading the posts with interest. It's possible he did some no no's as all his posts and threads seem to have disappeared. He called himself mitchellovision and I think he was a talented 16 year old who perhaps was overzealously including unlicenced material in his pack and publishing it. No matter. You can do it all yourself as I did and, though a bit time consuming, wind up with a well behaved OS. Edit - Of course, install a Firewall like ZoneAlarm or something before you connect to the net!

Oi vey. Hmmm, if there's nothing related to it in Window's Add/Remove Programs then this might be tough. I'm sure a program like that replaces many versions of Windows key system files with tweaked versions that enable all the cool effects. Perhaps there is a shortcut for removing it somewhere on your Start Menu or even within a folder on your drive that contains the Revolution's files. Check your boot (usually C:) drive and also within the Program Files folder for a subfolder that has the Revolution's program files. With no sign of it in add/remove, I would first try running the setup for the Revo Pack again. Perhaps we'll be lucky and one of the options in the setup program will be to uninstall it. It's possible there is supposed to be an uninstall showing in add/remove but somehow it got deleted, possibly by a registry cleaner? To see if that is the case, try to completely install the Revolutions Pack again. Then check add/remove to see if it shows up there. If that doesn't work, do you need to keep this Windows install? If so, try to back up anything really important to you onto cdr disks if Windows still works, then uninstall Internet Explorer from add/remove programs (unless Windows won't run), then boot to a command prompt (press the ctrl key while booting and if that doesn't bring up the Windows Startup Menu then try holding down F8 while booting). Type at the command "DEL C:\Windows\win.com" then reboot with a Windows Startup floppy disk and choose to startup with cdrom support. Put your Windows 98SE cdrom into your cdrom drive. Then type "E:" if that is what the dos screen says is where your cdrom drive is, then type "Setup." (No period's or quotation marks!) Run setup. Make sure to change where you want to install Windows to C:\WINDOWS when it tells you it's going to install Windows to something like C:\windows001. You'll need to reinstall Internet Explorer and get all the Windows Updates again. Then check to see which of your program's work. For those that don't you'll need to reinstall them. Better, if you have all your program's setup files and all your important stuff already backed up to cdr's, as well as any device drivers for your hardware, you can format your hard drive and install Windows clean. That stuff is what I would try. I hope you work it out with as limited hastle as possible! Good luck.

Awww shucks, folks don't like me anymore. Things are working fine except for the Windows Update of that WMP security update, but like I said I have a feeling I already have that and even newer file versions of it. But, I don't really know. Perhaps I'm supposed to have the older file versions because they're more secure? Ya got me. I just wish I could get Windows Update to shut up about it. I don't see it unless I go there as I keep Automatic Updates off, but still. Oh! One other thing is a little unnerving. The Microsoft Windows Me registration site is perpetually "too busy right now," and it keep saying to,"try registering again." I know I'm legal as it's my retail boxed cd of Windows Me. And it's only installed on this computer. So go figure. I've been trying to finish registration on it for days now and the reg site is, I guess, always busy. Ya know, Windows Me actually checks for better drivers on the internet when installing stuff like joysticks. I've been using my N64 Gamepad with the Boom USB adapter and it wouldn't show up on 98SE even with the provided "Monster Gamepad" driver listed as being installed and working properly. On XP, it installs with an XP driver for a "4 Axis-16 Button Gamepad." But then it sometimes has a problem with recognizing it on restarting Windows. On Windows Me, I was all ready to install the provided driver that hadn't worked on 98SE but instead ZoneAlarm asked me for permission for the OS to access the net and then Windows Me magically found the "4 Axis-16 Button Gamepad." And, it always is working properly (since I calibrated it, anyway) with every reboot! Windows Me also got an updated Sidewinder Gamepad Pro USB driver from the net after I had installed the Sidewinder 4.0 software for it and hooked the pad to the USB port. Strangely, although the gameport Sidewinder Gamepad had been working with the Sidewinder 3.02 software when it was the only gamepad installed, as soon as I installed the Sidewinder Gamepad Pro USB it would be "not connected" no matter what I did. So I uninstalled the 3.02 software and just hooked up a Sidewinder Gamepad USB (the one that is virtually the same as the older gameport version). That works fine and is the one I use for most stuff. I won't go on an adventure with the Saitek gamepad software at this point. That always mucked up 98SE and I really only need it for MVP 2004 which I'm not playing at the moment. Hey, whatever happened to the mitchellovision Windows Me project? Did he do such weird stuff that his posts got removed? I wasn't about to download the thing until folks around here reported it worked okay and was legally okay, but it was interesting to read about. So, what did I say? Or is everybody just occupied elsewhere and my little questions got passed over?

Yes, just typing your name (which will already be there if you typed it in during setup) and leaving the password blank, then hitting OK will keep it from happening all the time. Now, once you install internet access you're okay with just dialup but with cable, dsl, etc, you'll get that at startup again. To prevent that go to Network properties in Control Panel and choose Windows Login. Usually I delete that Windows Family Login and install Client For Microsoft Networks as a client, but choose Windows Login in the drop down box.

Thanks to MDGx's website's updates I have Windows Me purring as well as WinMeDos's PureDOS running 98SE's Ms-Dos Mode with my SbLive dos drivers. Don't you love this hybrid OS stuff? I had a few quirks turn up. For one, I'd like to be able to inform Windows Update that all the files it is, according to it, successfully installing over and over again from the KB828026 WMP update are older than the files that are on the system. So, I'd like to say to Windows Update, I don't need your KB828026 update and you've successfully installed it enough times already! Article 319109 tells me to delete the WU registry entries related to the update that thinks it isn't installed and install it again. However, I checked the inf after extracting the manually downloaded update. The registry entries it is supposed to install to the Windows Media Player Update registry key are not in my registry. The files, like wmp.dll, etc that exist on my system are all newer versions than the ones the update tries to install. I'm thinking that perhaps since I have newer files there, Windows automatically stops the update from installing the older versions. But for some reason WU keeps saying the update successfully installed! And when I have it check for updates, it still says I need it as a Critical Update. Do I just leave it alone and accept the fact that everytime I go to Windows Update it will want to install the thing? Or, do I somehow add the entries that the inf is supposed to add myself and that will fix the problem? If so, how exactly do I add them? I've run .reg files written by others and also have added keys by following someone's instructions but do not want to go that route alone. I'm also not sure that in this case it is correct to add these entries if those files aren't the versions actually on my system. I don't want to mess it up! Or, perhaps I should manually do the whole thing and install the older versions using the CoolKill trick and disabling System Restore and stmgr to do it. What do you think? (Especially MDGx.) Also, regarding my installing the updates from the MDGx site I had problems during the VS6SP6 Full Manual install. The extracted cab files did not include all the updated dll files listed, and many had different version numbers than those directed to install by the Essential Add-Ons instructions. Between that VS6SP6 file, and the Unofficial OLE Update file, I did the best I could to replace as many of then as were there. Following my running of the Unofficial OLE Update I rebooted to Windows Me informing me that it found inconsistancies in system file versions and I should reboot to have Windows repair it. Well, seeing no choice in the matter I rebooted and Windows Me did whatever it thought was right with my files! But of course I have no clue whether that stuff is really installed correctly. Things are working fine though. The other problem that turned up is I found that anytime I exited from an html help file I was recieving an error box saying that the file did some no no and would be closed. The system would run fine following this. In order to try to repair it, I reinstalled the HTML Help Update. And sure enough that fixed the problem. I don't know what had gone wrong since I followed the order specified in MDGx's instructions regarding the HTML Update, the IE cum update, then the msxml updates. Whatever the cause, the help files no longer cause crashes when they exit since I reapplied the HTML Help update. Having 98SE's Ms-Dos Mode running as a program without messing with Windows Me's dos is cool! I can use emm386 to run the sblive sound, as this is Ms-Dos 7.1! I even get the Windows 98 logo.sys splash screen when I run CDStart to boot into it. It's pretty wild seeing that!

By the way, I'm considering putting Windows Me on my A7V333. For one thing, I'd like to see if the Saitek gamepad drivers have the same effect on Windows Me as they do on any 98SE install I've had. Plus, I want to experiment and see what WinMeDos (that semi-dual boot thing) is like. Instead of providing access to Ms-Dos 8, it uses Ms-Dos 7.1 from 98SE. Interesting. I might wait until I'm done with a game I'm playing, but if I get antsy this game allows me to copy my saves to a cd. It depends what I want to do more, play a game or play with computers. Computers can make for long delays. I'm sure XP would be the best choice for that computer but I only have one XP and 2 98SE full retails, a 98 Gold full retail, a Windows Me full retail, and a Windows Me Upgrade for 98 users. Gosh, I sure would like to use at least one of those! Edit - There we go! Hopefully the thought police are busy elsewhere.

Yep, your right I did confuse them. So, these media players like the stub (or whatever that smaller version is) version rather than the default one that comes with Windows Me. Hmmm. So folks with Windows Me wind up with the little stub while those using 98SE2ME get to put back the bigger, macho version whenever they update 98SE2ME. Whatever, as long as stuff works right!