Eck

briton, Of course you are correct when you do things the way you have done. I didn't! I first installed 98SE, used Partition Magic to change the active partition to the 2nd NTFS and installed XP, then installed Debian which replaced all the Microsoft stuff in the MBR with Grub. I set Grub to hide one partition, unhide and activate the other and chainload into it for both Windows partitions. Linux is on its own hard drive but Grub is on the 1st Windows partition on the first hard drive. Using Grub I can leave it alone and boot into Linux or go down in the menu and it will hand over the process to whichever Windows I pick after doing its hiding, unhiding, activating magic. Sort of like BootMagic would do. Now, if I erase the Linux drive Grub will not find its files and so nothing will boot. If I format Windows 98SE then Grub will entirely disappear from the MBR and Windows 98 will be the only operating system bootable unless I reinstall Grub again. XP, um, not sure where the heck its stuff is but I suspect nowhere as Grub is there and simply hands things over instead of using any Microsoft boot loader. This is better than the Microsoft way of having XP boot both and them both seeing each other. You like the OS's seeing the files in the other but I don't (except for Linux). But perhaps not as good as your boot loader that lets you format any partition you want (except for the primary that the boot loader is on, which is likely on a single small primary, right?) I tried that with BootIT NG and couldn't get it to work properly. You've had success with XOSL. But as long as I don't need to format Windows I'm fine as Linux distro's just install their own Grub replacing the last one that was there. I'm nearly all the time in Linux anyway. I think the 98SE partition is the most dangerous for me to format as that might lose everything as that's where Grub is. Hopefully, the installs of Windows are there to stay. They are only there for occasional use of Windows only things and I really don't want to mess with them much.

Well, I now triple-boot with 98SE and XP PRO SP2 on one hard drive (hidden from each other, both are C:) and Debian GNU/Linux Lenny on the 2nd hard drive. The 98SE install is fine and I intend to keep it updated by using your updated Auto-Patcher versions as you release them. However I'd like to have the stable final rather than a beta version as Grub is installed to the 98SE drive's MBR. A 98SE partition format must be avoided at all costs since I'm a guru at this point in some Linux stuff but reinstalling the specific Debian Grub for an updated to testing (Lenny) for which I have no DVD for (it's an Etch DVD) is not something that I think I can get to go well. It's a different Kernel than what's on the DVD too. It would just be a disaster. So, beta testing is unfortunately out for me. It would be different of course if I was still using this in VMWare but I'm not. But I look forward to your next updated release. I'll of course always give you whatever feedback I can for things I notice while using Auto-Patcher. But I can't risk needing to reinstall either Windows installation as that would replace Grub, which I use to boot all of these operating systems (for Windows unhiding one, hiding the other, and setting the one I want active and chainloaded). So no risking of hosing Windows is my aim. It was too much thinking to get it right the first time!

A separate note: I had already fixed up the erroneous install of that something 947 and 891711 official versions even after toggling off those in the July Auto-Patcher. I uninstalled Explore98, rebooted, uninstalled "947, rebooted, uninstalled 891711, rebooted, and reinstalled Explore98.exe. That fixed it all up. Since Explore98 was the standalone version I also needed to toggle that off this time. Or, maybe I didn't have to? I guess that's your point. Even though it's set to install by default, you are saying that Auto-Patcher will detect that I already have that installed (even with the standalone version) and so would automatically not reinstall it.

Well now, things are still going nicely following using Auto-Patcher again to install the latest updates included in the new August version. In addition to what I reported about earlier, I do want to mention that I had forgotten about that old Windows Media 7 Bonus Pack (or, even the 9 version one your pack used to install at one time). I've always wondered whether stuff from that had anything to do with assorted problems that I'd encounter, and also recall that running the 7 Bonus Pack installer after using 98MP10 resulted in it failing to complete installation. Since it's not a need, I haven't bothered with it. But I remember there were some nice skins and visualizations, file converters, etc that would be nice to have. But again, not a necessity. Was there a reason you took that newer 9 Bonus Pack out of the set at some point? Perhaps it caused some problem? I also remember that your version was the only way to get the 9 version of it to install on 98SE. Only the 7 version's installer would run on 98SE but you got around that somehow.

Perhaps just a comment on one of the initial screens stating that Auto-Patcher is designed to detect already installed updates and features. So if a module finds a component has already been installed it will not repeatedly install it. No need to toggle off an already installed feature as it is a feature of Auto-Patcher that this detection is done automatically as part of a running module's process. It didn't really take more than a couple of minutes though, so it wasn't a big deal. I just wasn't sure and didn't want something going wrong because of a reinstall of something. Since I printed out the list it made when I had it run its detection, it was easy to do the toggling with that list in hand. When I had used Auto-Patcher previously in much older versions, I had only ran it once each time. My Windows 98SE installations hadn't been lasting long enough for a new version to come out with newer updates. You'll recall, that was when I was suffering from the eventual IOS error whenever I was trying to setup Windows 98SE. So, being that this was my first encounter with running an updated version of this program after having previously ran it I was just trying to play it safe. Plus I wanted to be sure that the stuff I had originally turned off was also toggled off this time and that the new updates were set to be installed. Since the program announced that it would not apply my saved module settings because they were from an older version, I did need to go in and toggle those things I do not want to the bypass position. I've got that right, correct? The few things I didn't want were set to be installed, so I needed to go in and turn those parts off. I'm sure if I ran it again with the same version of Auto-Patcher, it would find and apply the saves I made and so my additional check of each process wouldn't be necessary. But if left to defaults, I'd get that stuff. That would be bad. I just feel it doesn't take too long to make sure it's all set to install what I want and not to install what I don't want.

All right! Used the updated August over the last one today and it performed fine. I turned off the ethernet card in Device Manager, all the Avast virus scanner resident modules, set ZoneAlarm not to run at startup, printed the Auto-Patcher report of what it detects was already installed, and then toggled off all the stuff it had said it already had. It was a bit unclear whether I needed to toggle the already installed stuff off but just to be sure, I did. The full run the first time last week with the July version didn't need any Environment adjustments, but this run had the out of environment space problem and the usual fixes didn't work. I let it modify the Autoexec with the increased default environment space and it went fine. Do I still need to keep the REM line that says to keep the line there, trust me? Or is that just for the running of Auto-Patcher? The new additions and the ones Auto-Patcher said hadn't been detected all installed fine, and resetting my internet stuff back on all went well. So far so good on Windows 98SE (and XP, which is also installed on its own primary partition with the opposing one hidden while the active one is, um, active). Got no idea about that old IOS Error stuff but I'm holding my breath things stay stable. My brother's visiting, after which I'll get set to install Debian on the 2nd hard drive. Got no idea what'll happen as all my previous times I had switched the Windows SATA HD to boot 2nd and installed Grub to the ATA Linux HD's mbr and did the map entry into Grub's Windows sections. Since their both ATA now with Windows the primary and Linux going onto the same controller's secondary connector I guess I'll need to either put Grub onto the Windows mbr or try putting it onto the Linux root partition of its own HD and attempt to use BootMagic as a boot loader instead. I really am not sure which is best/which would work. Theoretically either way should work. Grub is nice but I didn't like what happened one time when I tried to reformat and reinstall Windows. I wound up with Windows not being able to install because the partition table was corrupted and at the same time Linux was unbootable on the other hard drive (that didn't have Grub on it) as well. Total start over, when I had only wanted to redo one Windows install. Yeesh! Messing with multi non-Windows and Windows OS's and partitions is rather confusing no matter how much you think you know about it. Multi boot loaders like BootIT NG are just as flaky and confusing. I just hope the Debian install can handle things as easily as it did when I had a SATA/ATA mix. I hadn't even needed to adjust Grub as it booted Linux or Windows automatically the way the Debian installer set it up right the first time. Anyway, Auto-Patcher updating went fine! Thanks for keeping up with this and enabling users to easily get the latest improvements without figuring out which to use ourselves. It's a very easy to use and thorough installer!

There's a Windows Me theme around that includes the sound scheme, icons, colors, etc. I forget where I got it, but possibly it's on theme doctor. Heh, it's been so long I even forgot the name of that website! It's something like themedr.com or themedoctor.com. You don't need to use the theme if you don't like it. Like all the themes for Plus!98 you can browse in the sounds control panel to where the theme's sounds are and just apply each one. Save the scheme and you can then switch back and forth easily. With the exception of the startup sound most of those Windows Me sounds are the same as the 98 sounds. If you like the whole thing I think that theme includes the splash screen and Explorer looks as well. Most can be applied just by choosing the theme in Desktop Themes, but there are some parts you'd need Desktop Architect for, such as the splash screen. You could always rename it like the normal one and use though. Desktop Architect would just make it more automatic. It's old and not updated. Install at your own risk. The normal Desktop Themes is more native and works fine.

Yes, if your system can use that then it always has been one of the ways to use large hard drives on 9x. Still, don't do ScanDisk in Thorough Mode and use a 3rd party defragger that works on 9x. All the 3rd party ones from circa 2000 on support the drives larger than 137GB. Windows Me defragger doesn't, if I recall correctly.

Just to relate my experience. Yes, the shutdown AND the restart to MS-DOS Mode get broken by late model NVidia drivers in 98SE. However the MS-DOS thing can be worked around by making a shortcut to command.com (the one in the Windows folder, not the Command folder!!!). Just type in the stuff you want to load in the Use a specific configuration boxes for Autoexec and Config.sys and when you use that shortcut the system shuts down and restarts in MS-DOS Mode properly and returns to Windows properly when you're done. No fix that I'm aware of for using the actual Windows Shutdown. The darned thing always just leaves me with my monitor blinking the message, "Check System Display Settings," (or something like that) and I need to hold the power button to get the computer to shut off. A safer way is to just always use Restart since that does always work, unlike Shutdown that sometimes closes Windows properly and sometimes doesn't. You can't tell which since all we see is the blinking monitor message while the computer still is running. With Restart, we can hold the power button down when we see and hear that Windows has unloaded and just turn the power off that way. No monitor malfunction when we use Restart. At least then we won't get ScanDisk on bootup the times when Shutdown wasn't finished and we had no way of knowing. I've got to use a relatively recent driver since I have a GeForce 6600GT. Works great except for this problem.

Hey again! Just got back from posting to the 98MP10 thread and the Auto-Patcher thread (long one there). Anyway, the problem I wanted to tell you about in 98SE2ME is regarding the old problem of AUTOEXEC.BAT still having all your lines in it even after it successfully did everything and all of 98SE2ME is installed along with those files replaced by the AUTOEXEC.BAT commands. I checked in there just to be sure (in sysedit) and unfortunately there were all the commands. I just deleted them so all is well, but how come that occurred long, long ago and now occurs again every so often (I noticed someone else complaining a while back about this)? Of course my deleting the lines stopped the thing from trying to run at every startup, but a newbie isn't going to know to check there after everything seems fine, so it is a problem. I've got that problem left over after 98MP10's install in its thread as well as a long post in the Auto-Patcher thread, so if you can check them out perhaps you can answer some of my ponders? I just don't want to type up the same stuff in all 3 places so hopefully I did a good job of putting the specific questions or statements in the appropriate threads. Hey! Just feels nice to be using 98SE and having some stuff to post about again! Gosh, it would be especially nice if this 98SE install holds stable and doesn't give me that stupid IOS error. I bootup holding my breath every time!

Hi MDGx! I just got through a new 98SE install including 98MP10. I wanted to tell you about a thing in this program, and also a thing in 98SE2ME that I'll put up in that thread. For this one, I got a missing DLL that apparently has to do with splash screens. After using 98MP10 and starting the SBLive 5.1 Liveware install I got a, ""required DLL file was not found MSASN1.DLL." I ignored it and it all installed fine, but at restart after the Liveware install I got the error again, along with, "Ctavstub-illegal operation-exception in ASDXM.OCX." Well, since it happened twice I went into System File Checker and extracted MSASN1.DLL from the 98SE install files and had it put it into the System folder. Seemed to do the trick as on the bootup following I got the annoying Creative music and, "EAX," pronouncement. I have no idea about that ASDXM.OCX and since I didn't get any more errors I'm ignoring that one. I'll post the 98SE2ME thing in that thread. Hey! So far things are working.

Ah ha! So this is what Windows 98SE was like! After some thrills and chills that I will somewhat describe in another one of my long line of book-like posts, I am posting this evening from my computer that, temporarily, has only good old Windows 98SE installed on it. I needed to wipe out both hard drives since I changed from an Audigy 2 ZS Platinum to an SBLive 5.1 Platinum. I was clueless as to how I would readjust my Debian Linux installation to deal with that change as well as the big Windows change so I just wiped it all. The first thing I discovered was something that was possibly the reason why a Linux Kernel boot message had always had a line that stated, "Broken Bios detected, using work-around blah, blah," that I never figured out. Apparently XP and Vista can deal with a somewhat buggy Sata controller but Windows 98 would immediately lose the partition table as soon as I installed the actual Via Sata/Raid drivers in the Hyperion set. If you'll recall that had happened to me the very last time I attempted a 98SE install. It was simply the last straw for me at the time. 98SE had run perfectly well on my now back in its retail box for quite some time Asus A7V880. My replacing that board with the Epox EP-8KRAIPRO board was both because that Asus model is known (and happened here as well) to freeze a lot when using an Athlon 3200XP and operating with 3200 SDRAM memory at the top 400MHz FSB speed. Games froze and DVD encoding froze with all the adjustments tried. The other thing was, and was the reason I own 2 of these Epox boards, the Epox board is compatible with the SBLive MS-DOS driver's requirement for non-maskable interrupts. Hence my switching over to the Live card at this time. As long as I'm putting 98 on it I wanted the whole effect. Dos games within Windows and in MS-DOS Mode, along with the awesome sound of the old VXD Creative audio drivers. Of course I broke a pin that comes out of the Audigy breakout box where it connects to the floppy power cable. Thank goodness it was only connected to a splitter. But that breakout box is now damaged. Wonder if I take it to one of the local Mom and Pop computer repair places whether they'll be able to solder a new pin in there without damaging the rest of the thing? I also wonder why the floppy power connectors are designed so that you need to yank them out with all the strength a human can muster. What, do they want you to break the pins? Anyway, I just switched the box with my Live Drive and put the SBLive in. My first attempt of installing 98SE to the SATA hard drive that had contained Vista previously (and Vista just was too annoying to stick with on this old but still spiffy computer, churn churn of the hard drive, etc. Vista had already given the original drive it was on an early grave through its constant writes to it), immediately ended as soon as I installed the SATA driver. The message was that Windows requires VMM.VXD to be in the path. What that really meant was there was nothing there as the partition table was gone. I knew that from the last time so I didn't waste time wondering. I bought a new normal ATA Seagate hard drive (nice sale at the store) and got back to work. I still (even now when most of my stuff is installed and working) wonder when I'm going to get the "Error loading device IOS, Real mode memory allocation failed" death message, but so far so good. 98's got 114 (really 110) GB of my 250GB hard drive now and I'm debating XP/Vista for the rest. Likely XP since I couldn't stand how Vista ran, but I sure hate wasting a lot of money AND I HAD PURCHASED 2 RETAIL VISTA UPGRADES!!! Oh well, maybe someday I'll use them. I'm almost 100% decided on XP. My 2nd hard drive is formatted FAT32 and empty except for the recycle folder 98 put in there. I have kept it hooked up. I hope installing Linux on it later won't mess up 98SE/XP when it erases whatever they put on there. But both ATA this time. I just deactivated the SATA controller in the Bios, which is a nice feature of this Bios. The Asus didn't have an off switch. Then again, that board's SATA worked on 98SE (albeit with no SBLive Dos support) whereas this one gets broken as soon as the driver is installed. But now there's no SATA recognized by the operating system so no driver can screw it up! Strange that this broken SATA isn't broken for XP, Linux (albeit for that broken bios message), but is for 98SE. I used the Auto-Patcher and it worked great! Nice improvements since long ago when I last saw it. I did do the Via Motherboard Hyperions, USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 drivers beforehand. I just had to see that Windows would startup and not have a broken partition table after the driver install before I took the trouble of running the whole Auto-Patcher process. But I took MDGx's advice of waiting for all the rest of the hardware until after Explore98, 98SE2ME, and 98MP10 were installed. The only hiccup was "A required DLL file was not found: MSASN1.DLL. This occurred 2 times and the 2nd time I took action. I think it involves running those pretty splash screens that programs have because as soon as I used System File Checker to extract MSASN1.DLL from the 98SE install cd to the Windows/System folder, the next bootup gave me the stupid music and, "EAX," announcement from the Creative splash screen that was missing before. It also got rid of, "Ctavstub-illegal operation exception in MSDXM.OCX." The first time I had the MSASN1.DLL message was at the beginning of the SBLiveware install where the splash screen with the thunderclap didn't happen. Then after the reboot and having the errors again I just did the System File Checker thing and all was solved. I think it was caused by 98MP10. But extracting the file fixed it. The other hiccup was the old problem of 98SE2ME where the bootup afterwards left all of MDGx's lines still in AUTOEXEC.BAT. I just deleted them as everything in there had happened correctly and all 98SE2ME stuff had been installed correctly. For some reason it just doesn't always clean up AUTOEXEC.BAT when it's done. I you leave the lines there it will keep trying to run that stuff on every bootup! Oh yes, the Auto-Patcher. Not much to report, unfortunately. It was simply perfect, except for having 891711 installing even though it was deselected. But the unofficial one installed too, so I don't mind. And I do toggle on and off stuff so any of the other choices I made were respected. To Max_04, I went in to that laptop stuff as I did for all the potential toggles just to see exactly what they were and whether I wanted/didn't want them. I believe you can respond, while you're setting things up to run, that you want the laptop stuff installed anyway even though it detects your machine as a desktop. I answered no and it listened, but if you run it again try to specifically go to that section and allow it to detect, then answer its question that you do want them installed. If left automatic, I guess it won't install them unless it successfully detects automatically that you have a laptop. By going in there yourself it looks as though you can toggle it on anyway. So far I don't have that destructo IOS Error message that seems to always signal the end of my use of Windows 98SE, but you can understand why I always grit my teeth everytime I start up the system! Yes, I've had that happen on any board I've tried in the last few years and not only with SATA drives. It was only the Via SATA driver install that would actually destroy partition tables while on the SATA drives. At least I licked that problem by turning off the SATA controller and using ATA drives. But the IOS error is non motherboard specific. It even happened to me on an Intel 440BX! I gave up on the McAfee stuff. Just Avast and ZoneAlarm free (last 9x ZoneAlarm) right now, and I'll add Spybot S&S to it. Nero 7.2.3.2b installed and runs fine. MSN Mess 7.0, fine, WorksSuite 2005 plus the Digital Image Anniversary Edition, fine. Firefox, Thunderbird, Acrobat Reader, Flash, Shockwave, QuickTime 2.1.2.59 and 6.5.2, RealPlayer10 fine. WMP 9 with the MDGx 10 upgrade fine (except for my needing to extract that file). All is just running smooth! This is too good to be true. I did need to uninstall all of Flash and Shockwave as the Microsoft suites install Shockwave 8 which substitutes Flash 7 for the nice version 9 that Auto-Patcher installs. Installing them again after all is wiped works fine. See why I said not to bother installing Flash as part of Auto-Patcher? I have to remove it all anyway. Can this stability last? It sure would be nice! Edit - Oh yeah. Stupid NVidia driver and the shutdown problem. But, no wacky strange resolution changing during the 98SE startup bootsplash. So that's nice. But I can restart the computer, but not shut it down without holding the power button. And another thing. I had thought that the old problem I had in the past of the My Computer Icon remaining the old Explorer.exe one even though the new one appears in Display Properties was back, but as soon as I installed the NVidia drivers the one on the desktop changed to the newer one. I guess that one needs better than the standard PCI VGA driver to appear? Don't know. Removing shelliconcache hadn't fixed it but when I finally got to installing the NVidia driver that did. And, why does the right click My Computer Properties page show different amounts of memory all the time. I mean, it's jumped around from 1024 to 1023, to 1011, and to the current 1005 MB of RAM. What's up with that? I used the Tweaks in the Auto-Patcher after initially just setting the MaxFileCache to 524288 just to keep things booting right until I got all these packs with their tweaks installed. I saw a bunce of stuff that's new to me in the Auto-Patcher's tweaks so I gave them a go this time. When MDGx's 98SE2ME added MaxPhysPage=40000 I just deleted it. No sense limiting it to a gig when that's all I'm using in the first place. Might as well leave that without that setting. Can you explain what some of your additions to system.ini do? They're in there, but I just have never heard of some of them. Oh, when 98SE2ME changed the upper MaxFileCache limit I just left that. Your's were in the 100,000 range and his is the old 393216. I just figured bigger was better and left his in there. But what are some of the others that you put in there for? I noticed the Auto-Patcher does its thing a lot quicker than the old days, and so does MDGx's 98SE2ME for that matter. Speed is good so no problem there. Okay, that's it for now.

Sheesh! Fine! Make your updates complete and have them fix what they are intended to fix. If they did those things nobody would need the 3rd party tools. As it is many updates say they install correctly but don't. And many updates are withheld and you need to call them and sometimes PAY for them. At this point, the Auto-Patcher in this thread is not a target for removal by Microsoft as far as I know, and neither are the other packages and tools available from here or from the mdgx.com website. They specifically went after the Auto-Patcher for XP as distributed from the neowin website. I don't think they care what is installed into Windows 9x systems. Windows Update for these systems had been broken for a while now and when it did work installed buggy patches. It was much safer to install the Unofficial 3rd party packages than to use Windows Update. Hmm. I wonder what's going to happen to the RyanVM Unofficial XP integrator? I slipstreamed that into my XP installs for a long time whenever I installed XP. Maybe it's another ploy to get folks to upgrade to Vista? You can't use a good updater so XP will remain broken so you'd better buy a new computer with Vista or buy it and upgrade. Safe? If people want safe they're going to need to switch to Linux. Vista needs all sorts of 3rd party security software to be somewhat safe. Heck, Windows 98SE is safer than Vista. Well, I'm only a little bit carried away there, eh? But in some ways it is. FAT32 file systems are less software dependent than NTFS. And it's software that gets infiltrated by nasties. Direct hardware operating system control as 9x has is less prone to malicious attacks. Yeah, I'm sure they're worried about security. (Sarcasm.) What they're worried about is helpful DRM work arounds that could possibly be integrated along with these 3rd party packs and become native to the operating system. They're not included in the Auto-Patcher (XP) but can be added by integrators. Then they might have to answer to the mighty Hollywood and recording studios as to why users are being allowed to watch movies and listen to music without their getting a cut. And heaven forbid they might be able to install copying mechanisms to backup their purchases and their software wouldn't be able to turn them off or break things with possible 3rd party patches. I think it's another DRM thing. Not that the updaters include anything like that, but they could potentially be installed along with them and Microsoft wouldn't have a way to remove what is a protected part of the operating system. Windows needs to be treated like a toy. You only install it to run certain personal favorites but otherwise never to be used on a regular basis. A nice Linux distro for your main system. And not one that has a deal with Microsoft. That gives us a lot of choices.

I see. Yeah, it's already got just about everything and you're pretty much together as to how it functions too. Unless there's a lot that's new there really isn't a point to repackaging everything again. The full one plus the update is fine. Gape back and working on things again is great since it was his putting together a stable updater including all vital packages to install in one step was the start of this whole 3rd party forum to take up and fix what Microsoft left broken or fixed incorrectly for Windows 98SE. An open communication and sharing of knowledge between the projects can only help make things better. While I was involved many of the other projects focused more on eye candy but I have noticed that they more often include improvements that help run XP installers and allow many newer programs to run on 98SE. I've stayed away from both in the past, even back when it was mostly eye candy and I had things working stable. I just didn't want to mess with new bugs caused by too many changes to a 98SE base system. I just wanted what was there to work correctly. I still feel that way, especially since I just intend to use 98SE for software that was designed for it and I've always been pretty much satisfied with the standard tools and the normal themes if I wanted to change the look once in a while. So, if I can just get your pack, 98SE2ME, Explore98.exe (your pack might already have that?) and the 98MP10 or whatever that's called now (keep forgetting the name), running fine I'll be happy. Edit - I see in your modules file that you do include Explore98.exe. Cool. Printed that thing out so I'll know what's going in. I got reminded of MDGx's recommended order of installation by his partial post of his readme in the 98SE2ME thread the other day. Hmm, I recall that the last time my system blew up and I gave up the ghost I had waited until installing the AutoPatcher before installing the motherboard drivers and those drivers destroyed my partition table upon reboot. Previous to that time I had always installed the Via Hyperions first thing, and while that went well something down the road would give me that Error loading device IOS real mode memory allocation failed. I would get rid of smartdrv from the Windows folder from either safe mode or the command prompt only and then it would be fixed until it would suddenly happen again and I would have no clue as to what to delete at that point. System hosed! Goodbye 98SE! I see he suggests waiting until all is done including 98SE2ME before the 3rd party hardware drivers. Um, judging by what happened the last time I think I'll install the Hyperions first thing. I'll get all the via stuff out of the way, like the Hyperions, the USB 1.1 patch, the USB 2.0 Drivers. Then I'll run the Autopatcher and install the rest of the hardware drivers and whatever Office software I want to use, then finish off with 98SE2ME and the 98MP10 stuff. Edit - Ah! I see you've got the 98MP10 thing in your optional Windows Media section. Hmm, maybe I'll just use that. I'll trust that it's included because it works right when your AutoPatcher installs it so maybe it's best to go with the flow. Makes me a bit unsure what 98SE2ME will do afterwards but perhaps they're not related that much. Just some XP bits of Internet Explorer and the WMP10 things get installed by this I think. Edit - Belay that last order Mr. Sulu! I see MDGx updated that 98MP10 again. So I'll make sure that's off in Auto-Patcher and use the new one. Whew! No stopping MDGx, eh? (Thank goodness.) Who knows? Maybe something will be patched better than the last time I tried so the system will remain functional?

Didn't I hear that they make Pidgin (formerly GAIM) for Windows too? You could logon to just about anything with that. Not sure about 98SE compatibility but at least they wouldn't intentionally break it like Microsoft would.

Hi again. I guess its gonna be an end of August, early September full version? Not wanting to deal with all the separate upgrading needed by the use of other methods, I'm just sitting back and waiting for your next full version. I'll try that. If 98SE blows up on me again I'll try a format and Gape's pack. If that blows up I'll just try again with the Maximux-Decim version of these things. It's likely not the update packs, but some weird interaction of unknown different things I've tried to troubleshoot in the past but with only, at times, short lived success and other times, no recovery possible. I'm not asking for help here as you'd probably need to be sitting at my system to figure it out, but just telling what I'm brainstorming about. You know of my travails! Kind of impossible to figure out exactly what causes the problems. I suppose with mass Windows 98SE usage a lot of people with similar hardware to mine would encounter the same things. In that case big companies would put techs on call to test out why they're happening and how to prevent/fix the bugs. Not gonna happen. I'll just try installing less bloatware than I would normally do with an operating system I'd use as my main one. It doesn't look like any version of Windows will replace Linux as my main operating system anymore, just different Linux distro's perhaps. Though I seem to be loving Debian Lenny enough these days not to stray from that for too long. I just want to replace Vista on my Windows hard drive with something I can stand to boot into. 98SE was always my favorite. I've got 250GB to deal with so I'll likely do a 98SE/XP Pro dual-boot. I'll put my bloat onto XP and use 98SE for my old games. Which reminds me that I'll likely need to reinstall Linux too as there ain't no DriverCleaner for that and I'd like to replace my Audigy 2 ZS with my SBLive so I can get the nice VXD MS-DOS within Windows sound drivers. People on the Debian forums could likely redo the Alsa Kernel modules quick as a flash but I'm rather clueless. Don't know. I'll ask over there if I could just keep things and just run alsaconfig or something to get it to load the stuff for the different card. I have a feeling it's more detailed than that. I must be stubborn! With all the trouble I've had I just may try this 98SE thing again.

Well, there are a bunch of choices for how you want to go about things. The Unofficial Auto-Patcher for Windows 98SE is an all inclusive method that includes everything and gives you choices within it regarding which optional programs you may want it to install for you. The mdgx.com website has every Windows, Internet Explorer, Direct X, Windows Media Player, etc. update know to Men or Women and if you print out the lists from the various sections and download the files into labled folders that you can burn to cdr for future use (or download and read the same info in txt format you could also print out) and go from the bottom of the lists to the top for installation order (oldest to newest), that's a manual way of doing it. Then there is the Maximus-Decim packages for Windows 98SE, Internet Explorer, and MDAC. Those are nice as well. Gape is working on an updated version of the Unofficial Service Pack for Windows 98SE. He has a list of a recommended install order somewhere in his thread but it is nearly identical to the one in the readme provided with MDGX's 98SE2ME package so that's an easier way of obtaining a recommended installation order. Essentially it's motherboard drivers, Internet Explorer 6 SP1, Direct X 9.0c, the Service Pack, the rest of your hardware drivers with perhaps installing Windows Media Player 9 before your soundcard software if you use a Creative card and its software, and then various other updates (like Microsoft JavaVM and then Sun Java) before finalizing with 98SE2ME (if you have a Windows Me cd). If you use Office, install versions older or equal to Office 2000 just before the Service Pack and versions after Office 2000 after the Service Pack to avoid MDAC related problems. I used to use Maximus Decim's MDAC updater pack just before running 98SE2ME, and sometimes just in case I would run it again afterwards to ensure they meshed well with the Windows Me files. If you go the route of the Unofficial Service Pack I would recomment Maximus Decim's Internet Explorer update pack as well. Lots easier than installing all those on your own and his packs have been very stable in my experience. The easiest and most thorough is still the Unofficial Auto-Patcher for Windows 98SE. You really don't need much else besides it when going that route. Just when you run it, always turn on toggle for each section that it's available for and go through all the screens to ensure you are turning on things you want that may be off by default and turning off things you think you'd prefer to do without that are on by default. So, heh heh, choose your preferred poison and have fun with it! If I may suggest, going through the mdgx.com website and reading up on things would be a great education for you whichever method you decide to use.

Heh heh, memories fade especially mine. But I remember. What Gape's version of Dialup Networking 1.4 does is not install, or at least activate, Virtual Dialup Networking components that, for those who don't use Virtual Dialup Networking anyway, sometimes interferes with Ethernet Cable (or I suppose DSL too) internet. I couldn't get a connection with my cable internet access using my ethernet PCI card and cable modem unless I would go ahead and uninstall Virtual Private Networking and delete the components of it from Network Properties. With Gape's pack I didn't need to go through that hassle. So now that things are better, thank G-d, WELCOME BACK GAPE! And, yeah, how did you manage that neat trick with Dialup Networking 1.4 Gape? No one else has been able to figure that out. Somehow, since you've been gone, I've lost the ability to successfully install a stable Windows 98SE system. Anytime I do I get some inevitable error that causes Windows to either not be able to boot (Error loading Device IOS. Real Mode Memory Allocation failed), or the last time destruction of my partition table when installing the Via Hyperion drivers for the Sata controller. Actually I haven't been thrilled with any Windows version since 98SE. Nowadays I took the plunge into purchasing Window Vista but it churns my hard drive so much and is so buggy that Explorer doesn't even recognize new files added or the deletion of files (some but not all) unless I restart after adding (like from a DVD rip) or deleting them (like deleting a large amount of files at one time). I've been so disappointed with Vista that I usually use Linux nowadays nearly all the time. It's really awesome. However most of my older software, much of which still will run on Vista, will not run on Wine within Linux but ran best on Windows 98SE. My systems are still from the mid XP period and so I get the best Windows performance out of them with either 98SE or XP. But then even XP won't run some of my older stuff at all or not as well as on 98SE. If you can get an updated pack out that, for reasons entirely unknown to me, does allow me to use Windows 98SE stable on it, that would be awesome. I would just go back to installing major stuff like Internet Explorer 6 SP1, Direct X, WMP 9, etc. individually like I used to and combine that with your Service Pack for the updates. Well, at least it would give me incentive to try 98SE out again. I love how the Auto-Patcher lets us zip through installing just about everything we need for 98SE but I really haven't been able to successfully use 98SE since your Service Pack was the only option besides either trusting Windows Update (not even available anymore and it wasn't trustworthy on 98SE when it was), or installing each one individually. There's something in the newer updates or newer versions of some software that wreaks havoc on my systems, and I mean ANY of my computers. Even those that are old enough that they were designed in 98SE's day. I just can't run the thing these days. I'd use your pack and install the rest of the updates by hand like the old days and see what happens. I do remember that using your pack effected the order of Microsoft Office installs because of some MDAC files. Newer Office versions had to be installed after your pack and older versions needed to be installed ahead of your pack. It was kind of confusing but if I did it wrong Windows was shot to death and wouldn't startup. So if successful I'd run Linux most of the time and go into Windows for using older games and music creation stuff from that period. Since Vista runs like crap on these machines I'd just wait until someday building a new computer (years down the road) before using it again, but might dual-boot on that hard drive with XP Pro for DVD video purposes. I use a second hard drive for Linux, Debian Lenny being my distro right now. I just hate to boot into Vista so I'm missing out on my large amounts of Windows software purchased over the years even though I successfully installed and used a lot of it on Vista. I just don't want to boot into it and sit and wait while the hard drive churns to shortening of its lifespan and I have to deal with all the bugs of the new operating system. I like the old bugs better! So yeah, I can't wait until you get the new pack finalized after all the modern updates are figured out. I have no idea if it'll work any better this way than using the Auto-Patcher as the updates should be essentially the same, but I'm willing to give it a go just to try something. Darn it though. I've always installed most of the stuff in the Auto-Patcher anyway and it is so easy to just run that program and let it do it for me. But if somehow your installations can give me stability back it will be well worth the work for me. I can't see what's the difference but I remember a time when I could run Windows 98SE on these motherboards and the last time I could do that was back when your pack was current. Looking forward to having some fun.

Hey soporific, long time no talkie. Gape is back as I'm sure you're aware. That's really awesome, but just like earlier experiences some folks had (I guess I was "some folks") interacting between stuff like 98MP10 and Auto-Patcher For Windows 98se, there will likely be folks trying out different combinations of things again and reporting interaction experiences. That post above was just a sign of things to come. That's a good thing. Reporting experiences is the only way to know there may be a problem or something to fix. Although, of course you don't know what'll happen until people try to use them in combination. Like you said, it doesn't appear that they would conflict. When you first released the Auto-Patcher For Windows 98se I was using it after using the Unofficial Service Pack For Windows 98SE and didn't notice any bumps in the road. Ya know, I actually am experiencing a feeling of trollishness. That's what I get for not using Windows 98SE and still being interested in what's going on here. I've been a lurker lately, mostly using Debian GNU/Linux (Lenny) and once in a blue moon booting into Vista. Ah well, I'm being supportive here and as far as I know that's not trolling so I'm safe. Sheesh, and this was probably my favorite website ever (well, besides mdgx's). It's kind of a sad thing. It's hard to have anything to post when not currently using any of this stuff.

I think if you check out mdgx.com you'll see that if there's something that'll help a Windows 9x run computer, there's a link to it or a direct file download available there. In fact, any Windows not just 9x! Check out his pages with wonder and amazement that anyone put so much work into a Windows site. I've used it for many years and still find things there I've never seen before. It's so comprehensive that it's close to being able to say that if something that'll help 9x run isn't there, it doesn't exist. Sort of like that librarian in Star Wars claiming that if a planet isn't in their archives it doesn't exist. In this case it might be true.

What they all said about driver order and things, and doing the Via Hyperion drivers first. A little tip there. Install WinZip or WinRAR or whatever your favorite extraction program is and extract the files from the Via file. Copy the AGP folder to the C: root directory and manually use Device Manager to update the Microsoft standard PCI to PCI adapter in the System Devices section to the one in the Windows 95 folder of that Via AGP directory. This will give you AGP acceleration and Direct 3D texture acceleration that will otherwise run at PCI bus speeds if using the 98SE version Via's installer uses. The Windows 95 VXD driver works fine on 98, whereas Via uses a .sys driver in the default installation that doesn't allow AGP acceleration. Choose the AGP 2.0 3.0 Compatible Driver if that's what your board has. If your motherboard has a 4X slot, that's the one. If only a 2X slot, you can use either driver but the plain Jane one without the 2.0, 3.0 support has better compatibility with older motherboards. Before rebooting (say no), install the Hyperions from the normal Via setup.exe and uncheck the AGP driver. Restart when done. Then install Internet Explorer 6 SP1 and Direct X 9.0c. Doing those will also install Windows Installer 2.0 which should help the ATI installer as well. Then install a downloaded from ATI Catalyst driver instead of that ASUS provided one. Make sure to get it from the Windows 98 or Windows Me (they're identical) sections of the website. The ATI setup should work fine. The Control Panel and Smartgart offer nice controls over your card, the 3D settings, and color and video settings. It's just nice to have them. It does not require DotNET to be installed as the later XP Catalyst drivers do. If you want DotNET, install it before Direct X so the managed Direct X will give applications more control over the hardware, increasing performance. Be aware there are Service Packs and security patches that need to be applied if you do install DotNET. They do funky things to Windows startup until the ATI driver is installed, then things return to normal. I used ATI cards for a long time on Windows 98, 98SE, and Me and the last 9x official ATI Catalysts worked great for me as long as I did that little trick with the Via AGP driver first. If your PATH statement in AUTOEXEC.BAT has been customized, you'll need to check it before restarting after the ATI install. ATI's installer will in those cases double up on the entries so you'll need to remove the redundant stuff so Windows won't get confused by it. When you check it out you'll know what I mean. Just open sysedit from the run box and check it out before rebooting. If no PATH statement was there before hand, ATI's installer will set it up correctly. It needs to be SET PATH=%PATH%; and then whatever ATI puts there. If something was there before then it will repeat that part, which messes the command up obviously.

I've been kind of out of things here, busy with Linux and all, but I'd like to suggest that with that kind of soundchip a VXD driver would generally be preferred on a 9x operating system. Could the audio hum be solved by turning down or muting the cd, auxiliary, or microphone levels? The wave and system volume sliders then could be turned up to comfortable levels without the hum in most cases. VXD drivers, at least installed from manufacturer updated and complete versions, were more feature complete for the older sound chips. WDM drivers for older chips like that were mostly Microsoft basic drivers made to limit complaints when folks upgraded to XP and found their sound no longer worked. Fancier WDM sets that were fully developed and included matching software were made by Creative and M-Audio with 9x compatibility that was actually pretty good. Those older audio chips had already been discontinued by the time XP came out and so Microsoft worked with what they had and got some sound out of them, but really not as good as what you can get by using the older VXD versions on 9x. Yeah, they did get noise from the various inputs. Mute them unless you're going to use them. Once there's audio passing through (from the cd or dvd drive for example) the noise is replaced by the glorious signal coming from the cd that's playing, replacing the noise that exists from the audio system trying to make sense out of the electronic gibberish coming from the unmuted cd, aux, or mike lines. Mute the crap, then turn it up when you actually are giving the system a signal to work with and it won't be noisy. Also, try to eliminate cables and things touching each other within the PC case by tying them together or taping them to the case. Replacing old, worn out wiring can be helpful as well as blowing out the dust bunnies with some canned air.

Well, my thinking is more along the same path as submix8c here. If you want to try it, download the latest version of the Unofficial Auto-Patcher For Windows 98SE and some motherboard, videocard, and soundcard drivers that will (hopefully) work with your hardware and Windows 98SE, and install the thing. See for yourself what the results are, armed with your knowledge gained from reading the related information on mdgx.com and the forums here. Hey, it could be satisfactory for you. Who knows until you try? My recommend for a system like that is either Windows Vista Platinum and/or a nice late model Linux distro (OpenSUSE is nice and an easy one to learn on, though Ubuntu/Kubuntu would hold your hand more). And then get your 98SE memories from VMWare or VirtualPC. Do your MS-DOS stuff with Dosbox. For best performance as far as using established drivers that are mature and bug fixed, then Windows XP Professional would be your choice. Getting Vista would just future proof you, but will be a bit annoying since it's so new. And that's about it from my corner. The thread has run its course and now you need to proceed to the step of actually trying things out. Take or ignore the advice as you see fit, but what's needed has been pointed out to you along with various opinions regarding the advisablility of what you want to do. It really is having a Volkswagon run a spaceship. (I like Toyota's!)

Heh heh he, more pages than that probably! ROFL I remember the old advice for 98 was that past 64MB of RAM, adding more had less and less benefits as opposed to adding more up to that point. It's just that with todays operating systems and software we do need to bulk up on the memory and processor speed. With those numbers you're putting in there the more you add the less likely 98 will even be able to bootup. I have no idea what you mean regarding sarcasm but it seems you enjoy the word so I'll leave it alone. At any rate, good luck! Post up your results when you get it all installed and, hopefully, running. I think you'd be better off just lurking around all the forums and reading lots and lots of threads. You'll find links to interesting stuff as more was discussed about 98 than just about any other software out there. A lot was just different theories on how to get the darned thing to run stable. The mix of a 16 bit base with 32 bit stuff fooling its base that it's 16bit and the limits to GDI resources made for quite a lot of yapping on the internet and whole books were written. I know you've been looking around, but less posting and more reading on your own might be more helpful to you. Until you have a specific problem to report, nobody really knows how to answer you questions. All we've got is really, "we don't know if it'll work. Why don't you try it first and report back?" So I'm not surprised that you haven't gotten a lot of response to starting up threads. You're not asking questions anyone can answer. Have some specific problem, know your details, search first around for someone who had the problem previously (you've got about 8 years of stuff to help you) and then open up a thread with something an experienced 98 person can sink their teeth into.

You haven't been doing your reading, which makes me think you might be better off going to the store and buying a pc. Then if it doesn't perform you can pester the manufacturer. What, were you quoting yourself then calling it sarcastic? Lots of memory optimization for Windows 98SE is available here in these threads and on the mdgx.com site. You've been pointed there before and wouldn't have asked about the particular numbers if you had been reading. No, those aren't written in stone but most testing for both reliability and performance have made them what is placed in the system.ini by most of the 98SE tweaks in the update programs around here. Most would use your amounts of memory for an XP, Vista, or Linux system then put limits, as I described, to 98SE use of memory since limiting memory will allow 98SE to startup and operate. Limiting it to a gig usually works, and on some motherboards it needs to be limited to 512MB. If using Windows 98SE as the only operating system then purchasing more than 512MB of RAM is actually pretty pointless in my view. Usually greater amounts are purchased because the operator will be dual-booting with newer operating systems. In fact, purchasing the system you've described is huge overkill if all you want to run it is Windows 98SE. Please search and read first, then ask questions.