Eck

Evanhoe, Yeah, I run on a bit. Didn't mean to complicate stuff for you. Just be sure to get your updates, fixes, etc installed by using your favorite package. I like the Unofficial Auto-Patcher for Windows 98SE but it's your choice. 98 First Edition had a known problem with some of the stuff you're mentioning appearing in System File Checker when they really had no problems. I don't recall whether Second Edition suffered a similar cosmetic defect. If you got your system installed and you update it and all your stuff works, don't worry about it. That other stuff I talked about was for problems that occured during Windows installation on certain systems. I wasn't sure from what you wrote whether you had these file problems hanging up startup or whether they were just reports by System File Checker. So I gave you more than you probably wanted to know! Eidenk is one of the experienced guru's here, although I try to pitch in where I think I experienced something similar. Hopefully you can make good use of the knowledge so you can eliminate some of the bumpyness that Windows can give you occasionally.

Hey, eidenk! Heh, you remind me of my days hanging out at a bar with close friends. Brutally honest exchanges can occur. Quite fun (unless drunk to the point of stupidity). Say something that isn't quite kosher and one of the guys will call you on it. Yep. I'm a bit inconsistent in my poordum (guess that's not a word but appropriate). Got lot's of time to explain. I've got no justification for spending money on computer parts and software, at least none that says I've acted in a financially responsible way. My justification is just to excuse myself by telling myself that's all I've got. So I'll squeeze a bit here and there to get most of what I want done happening. I do this in cost cutting ways though. My hardware is never state of the art for this moment. I do wait until so many things in a system that is based upon discontinued stuff have worn out before deciding not to replace the individual components as the cost/value wouldn't jive. My day to day system is always built from the technology that is being sold at going out of business prices because folks have moved on to newer and better things. My building a Socket A board when it was getting hard to find the parts is an example. The advantage, besides saving money, is that the bugs have been worked out and if something is able to be fixed it already has been. Just install the latest Bios, drivers, software for it and it all will work without waiting for new problems to be fixed. Since I've got so much software already, just major stuff needs an upgrade occasionally in that department. No need to look for the latest recompilation of the same stuff I've already got. And we got to wait for, what, 6 years before the new Windows came out. Well, once in 6 years I can even financially justify purchasing a new Windows operating system. So the hardware swapping I talk about is mostly just playing with installing different pieces of stuff I've gathered through the years. It's almost never something new I bought, just popping in a different piece of the puzzle that I might miss using. And the rest is only paper, blank cdr/dvdr and cd holders, and ink. Oh yeah, and internet access. There you go! I might spend what I shouldn't but I do it with a plan. I'm quite satisfied with the performance of my probably 3 generations ago Socket A system. I'm not a fragger. I like older games and music and educational stuff. But occasionally I enjoy being wowed by cool looking desktop stuff, so Vista is nice. And Linux, with that Beryl desktop, is awesome too.

I don't know what you mean by those 2 errors. You're getting some sort of error at startup? This, with a fresh install onto a completely formatted hard drive? Or are you talking about System File Checker reporting damaged files? The old HP Pavilion PC's used to have a problem on the "Starting Windows For the First Time" screen during setup after the first reboot. An MS-DOS error message would report that Windows was missing vmm32 and it wouldn't complete the startup to finish installing Windows. The solution was to make an AUTOEXEC.BAT file with just one line in it and stick it on a floppy. The line is SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM Then instead of letting the Windows 98 OEM cd format the new installation, you would use a Windows 98 Startup floppy instead, and use format c: /s to format your drive so the MS-DOS system files would be put on it. Then you would put your floppy in and copy the AUTOEXEC.BAT file to your drive. If you already let the OEM cd format for you and start setup, you could hold down the Ctrl key during that first bootup (or after getting that error message and restarting the computer) and enter Safe Mode instead of regular mode. Then you could copy over your AUTOEXEC.BAT from your floppy, restart, and Setup would continue installing Windows. Unfortunately you'd lose those stupid links to Microsoft's early Active X media partners that don't lead anywhere anymore anyway. But that's the only problem with going to Safe Mode while that first boot happens. But if you format yourself instead, you get the stupid links as Setup won't be running in Safe Mode where it can't access the cd drive. That solution was not necessary with retail 98 cd's, only the OEM cd had that problem and only on certain HP Pavilion models. If you're talking about the System File Checker thinking you're files are corrupted, that's an erroneous report. If you went ahead and updated Windows Installer to 2.0, Internet Explorer to 6 SP1 and Direct X to 9.0c, those errors would likely disappear, or you could ignore them, or you could let System File Checker replace the files by letting it extract them from your Windows 98 cd which would just replace them with the exact same files but would satisfy System File Checker for some reason. With 98 First Edition you had to be careful with System File Checker as it would sometimes replace working files with mini Windows 98 Setup versions from the cd if you had it extract files from it. That was fixed in 98 Second Edition. I'm not sure if any of this applies to you as I didn't understand from what you wrote exactly what kind of errors you're getting. You shouldn't get any errors on a fresh install. If you're installing Windows over itself, that's different. I consider that rather pointless unless you no longer have your drivers and software programs to reinstall on a formatted system. Errors wouldn't surprise me if you're doing that. Some folks have all their software setups but just want to refresh Windows without needing to copy over all their music and data files onto a formatted fresh system. That's fine. You would set your own Virtual Memory Min and Max in the advanced section of the last tab of System Properties and restart the computer. That serves to get the swap file out of the Windows directory. Uninstall Internet Explorer. Then you would boot to a command prompt only or a 98 Startup floppy and delete the C:\Program Files and C:\Windows folders. Then a fresh Windows install would be fully new with the exception of your data already being on the hard drive. I've never done this so search around for perhaps more accurate directions if you ever want to do that. Others like to try to keep their programs. In that case you would do the above paragraph but without deleting the Program Files and Windows folders. Instead you would just delete the win.com file. As long as you're reinstalling not from the GUI but rather from starting with the boot floppy and running setup from the Windows cd, the setup would replace your Windows files with the original versions but all the links and stuff your installed programs need would remain where they are and within the registry. So when setup finished you would need to install Internet Explorer and the Windows Updates such as what the Auto-Patcher does. I haven't done this type of install either so my instructions might not be complete.

Zenwalk ought to be a good one for you as well. Unlike other distros with small footprints (ie. low system requirements) Zenwalk installs a full complement of software. It saves space and system load by only using one software application for each purpose. In other words, where a major distro such as SuSE will install several players for audio, video, several editors that do the same things, etc., with Zenwalk it just installs one application for audio, one editor, etc. It uses one of the latest Kernels so is compatible with all sorts of hardware. Best thing I've seen is that people use it and like it. Haven't seen folks complaining about it at all. Works on old computers fine. It uses XFCE for a desktop. If you have a computer that you think can handle KDE it offers an easy install of it as well. It also has GUI updates and software installation handling with a large depository. So just about anything you need to get is available for you.

No, it's not really that often, eidenk. My reasons vary but the majority of my wiping and reinstalling is by choice, usually when I want to do something totally new with my computer such as my recent experimenting with OpenSuSE Linux and my recently purchased Windows Vista. Besides the operating systems, my other reasons are that at times I like to swap around with my hardware. I'll want to change between my motherboards or go from ATI to NVidia or Creative to M-Audio to SoundMAX. When doing those kinds of things I'd just rather give my whole system a fresh start rather than deal with the potential work arounds or fixing that changing a lot of stuff would require. With too much time on my hands this is the one hobby that gives me things to do on my own. The rest of my time is spent as a live in care giver for my elderly Mom. So I can't work as I can't leave the house for long periods, my few bills are paid by using a portion of her SS check for them, and I watch us get further into debt as I use her credit to buy our food weekly. So things are a bit weird in my life and reinventing my computer every so often is about all I've got right now to fill a fun factor. When new update packages for 9x come out I sometimes like to wipe things out and redo the thing with 98SE in the mix again. The only thing with 98 that has peeved me recently is my continual problem with that IOS error I've complained about in several other posts. Once I learned that somehow one of the things that causes that is having smartdrv.exe in the place it freak'n belongs I've on a temporary basis fixed that by renaming that file. On one occasion I got the error again even with that file renamed or not even there. That was one of the times I had no choice but to reinstall. Gosh, I'd sure love to figure out what really causes that to occur! After a bout with my first attempts to multiboot several Windows versions along with Linux and having a SuSE Kernel security update mess up my partition table that had been working fine, I only installed Vista on one drive and SuSE on the other and that is how things have been for the last several weeks. I just didn't want to bother setting up several Windows operating systems after just having done so. So I just picked the one I just spent a bundle of cash on (Vista) and went with that for now. In that time I've been enjoying learning more about Linux as well as playing with getting a bunch of older stuff working in Vista that I hadn't actually expected possible. So in summary, my system nearly never gets borked with the exception of that 9x IOS error and the one time only experience with a SuSE Kernel update that happened to play havoc with a lot of folks boot loader settings until we learned how to deal with it. It's almost never necessary for me to reinstall. But because of the above factors I do get a lot of experience doing it.

I haven't really examined what's missing in the Lite version. Would it be possible for a friend at his/her home or office to download and burn the full version for you? Gosh, that thing is such a time saver it might be worth it for you to bug someone until they'll do it for you. Unless you have everything already downloaded already you would still need to download most of the stuff in there anyway. The mdgx.com website has extensive info and links to everything available for 9x and more. So yes, you could do individual small downloads that way. I've done it in the past, but with the advent of the Auto-Patcher it's been nice not needing to copy all that stuff from my cdrs, break out my print out of the mdgx.com web pages, and install it one thing at a time. Man, I used to hate that! If you can get the Auto-Patcher, it's all scripted so you just toggle on or off the optional stuff individually and basically just press go and it takes over your computer. It installs some stuff and restarts the computer, installs some more stuff and restarts, etc, etc. It's really cool to watch it working. All the time I'm thinking, "better this thing than me!" When done it's almost like having a just released operating system. You just start adding on the additional software you use and you're ready to go. Please don't forget your virus scanner, firewall, Firefox and Thunderbird or SeaMonkey, Spybot Search and Destroy, and Ad-Aware. I'd hate to have you bitten by some malware and need to start over!

Yes, I guess I'd try turning on the AGP with Smartgart. I don't understand why it's not on by default if your Bios is set to AGP speed of 4 or 8. One guess at it might be that since Smartgart had originally tested when first installed that it was appropriate to disable the AGP Read/Write, it set that somewhere in the registry. Perhaps if you try again with those Via AGP drivers installed it will redetect it and decide that you're now capable. Once you install Smartgart, go into it not through the ATI control panel but through the Run command Smartgart. It should start the Advanced mode that way. If it can't find it you may need to browse to it. If you manage to get it open, set the settings you want (all AGP and PCI read writes all enabled) save and restart the computer. I don't think Fast Writes enabled is too good a thing. It seems to make most ATI cards unstable and doesn't really improve speed that much, but it's up to you. It should test your settings and then, hopefully, apply them permanently in the registry.

That's strange that read writes were still PCI only. You did go back to the Standard PCI Graphics Adapter (VGA) for the normal display adapter, and if you have it the Standard Graphics Adapter for the Secondary Display? That should have happened after you uninstalled the ATI Catalyst software and drivers from add/remove programs and restarted. Windows generally will tell you to restart again for a Systems Setting Change when it installs those basic drivers. Usually after then installing the Via Win95 AGP vxd's and then reinstalling the ATI Catalysts, I would get full AGP read/write in the Smartgart settings. It looks like that didn't work for you for some reason. And you're right that there's no specific listing of whether their on unless you have Smartgart, however if you go into Dxdiag you'll see that AGP Texture acceleration is activated and I think the AGP 8X is possibly listed in there as well. If not there you can check some of the tabs in the ATI tabs in the Display Properties. It wouldn't say AGP 8X if it were just using the PCI bus. Neither would you get the AGP Texture Acceleration in DxDiag.

For an easier way to setup 98SE these days you might want to consider the Unofficial Auto-Patcher for Windows 98SE. That has those mentioned components as well as much more current updates and fixes. It is also fully maintained so with each new version you can run it and get the latest updates. When the Auto-Patcher runs it checks what is on your system already so it will not install things already there. In my view that's a lot easier than finding, downloading, and installing the many, many basic software packages and updates that are not included in the Unofficial 98SE Service Pack. It includes the latest, for example that importent Daylight Savings Timezone update for 98SE.

Vista comes with a fully in and out Firewall. However only the in part is activated by default. During the beta period of Vista I just leaved it alone and used Avast or AVG for a virus scanner and Spybot S & S and Ad-Aware for the spyware scanning. There are instructions around for activating the advanced outbound features of the built in firewall, but I wasn't thrilled with how complex the configuration of programs with it worked. Fortunately I subscribe to McAfee VirusScan which is now compatible with Vista. The Firewall, once installed, disables the built in Vista firewall in favor of the McAfee Personal Firewall Plus that is now included in VirusScan. Although the McAfee firewall is easily configured, actually no configuration is necessary if you just keep things at the default settings. McAfee has a Smart Recommendations function that automatically grants programs it is aware of full in and out access. For those it is not aware of it will pop up a message asking you if you want to grant a new program access to the internet the first time that program tries to do so. Very easy. If you know the program you can click Allow, if you aren't certain you can click Only This Time and it will ask you again the next time, and if you know you don't want to allow the program you can just select Don't Allow. If you want total control then you just change from the default Normal setting to Stealth. Then it works about the same as ZoneAlarm. You get questioned for every process and program and have to decide whether you want in, out, etc. Normal works fine as long as you trust the programs it doesn't know about and you grant that program access. Be sure about that because it will give anything you allow both in and out access! I've tested it in Shields Up and unlike the Vista Firewall it got a perfect rating! So for me McAfee is a good choice. I do change some of the McAfee defaults. For example I delete the Defragment Hard Drive and QuickClean items in the McAfee Scheduler properties. If I want to do those things I'll do them myself. And I also uncheck Scan on a schedule in the VirusScan options so that the thing won't just automatically start a scan. When I want to scan I'll run it myself. I even turned off the Vista option when opening Disk Defragmenter that has it run on a schedule. Although Vista has a smart defragmenter that can run in the background, I'd still rather disconnect from the internet, turn off everything, and run the defrag myself since it goes a lot quicker that way and less files are in use so it can defrag more files. The free McAfee Site Advisor browser plugin is also part of the package. I updated to the purchase version so I also get the protected mode where it won't allow going to known bad sites unless you turn it off. Oh! McAfee totally turns off Windows Defender. There are compatibility problems between Windows Defender and McAfee. But you're better off with McAfee which includes the spyware background scanning and SystemGuard, which monitors even more of the important registry settings than Windows Defender would, such as startup processes, etc. It's still good to use Spybot Search & Destroy and Ad-Aware though. Those scan and remove more forms of spyware than McAfee does. As long as you don't use Tea-Timer or the background pay for options of Ad-Aware there is no compatibility problem between them and McAfee.

Don't know. But there was a post from a mod saying that she hadn't cooperated with some unspecified thing after several warnings. The mod also said that if we discuss it we can get banned too! I paraphrase, but that was the jist of his post. Yes, LLXX was very giving to the community as far as offering assistance as well as designing several of the patches that are still being used in some of the update packs. Most of the gurus we have are awesome at creating guides, keeping track of updates, troubleshooting problems, packaging installers, etc, but she was a rare one that actually wrote code that fixed up serious issues. Had a funky sense of humor too. I enjoyed the sarcasm. Obviously someone else did not. I know I've been dissed on forums a lot more strongly and childishly than anything I've ever read from her and the perpetrators have always gotten off scott free. Who knows? Maybe she laid it on too rough on a mod who can't take a joke. Extreme loss to these forums. I have no idea what happened but I tend to be sympathetic to the accused as my diplomacy kind of stinks. I got fired from more jobs because of true things I've said even though my work was excellent. Most folks can't handle the truth. Shame on them. They'll make the money now but be burning later. Repressed anger guy signing off for now.

The author was banned (shame) but you can read the long thread where just about the whole thing was described as to the whys and hows and how to apply the fix, etc.

The root's tmp folder in Linux performs the same way. Folks just aren't used to an operating system designed for both use AND security. You can still clean it out but just a few extra steps are in order, and that's a good thing.

Oh! It was the common, "must run in administrator mode," thing. I noticed (this is the Carmen Sandiego game problem) that the sound cut out and freeze happened after one of the tour guides ran and apparently this must be written to the game's program folder. Eureka, said I, and added run as administrator check to the compatibility mode setting for the shortcut. No more crash! Although, the sound did cut out a couple of times and I had to minimize the game with the Windows key and raise and lower the volume control. Then I just clicked the program in the taskbar to restore it and the sound had returned. So this likely had no relation to my installing FFDSHOW, but rather that I had probably run it the first couple of times by right clicking the shortcut and choosing run as administrator. Just adding that to the properties and I can now autorun the cd instead and it works fine. The thing just hadn't been able to write to the save folder. Live and learn. I'll wait on reinstalling FFDSHOW until I find a file that can't play. That's what made me install it in the first place.

Thanks for the latest update! If you've seen some of my recent posts you can see I'm not sure how, when, where I'll be using 98SE but it's nice for one and all to see that things are still being continually worked on to increase optimum 98SE usage and minimizing bugs in the works. I noticed when clicking the link to the 98MP10 page that there was an update there I hadn't seen before, regarding a cumulative WMP9 patch. Should that be applied before or after 98SE2ME, 98MP10? And what if one runs the Auto-Patcher, skipping the 98SE2ME and 98MP10 stuff, rather wishing to install the full latest versions afterwards? Should that new cumulative WMP9 update be run (necessary)? And again, before or after 98SE2ME or 98MP10? Just want everyone to get this done right with minimal problems, including myself.

I've read quotes from Microsoft officials stating that there are no plans for any service packs for Windows Vista. They stated that with their ability to push updates through Windows Update there won't be a necessity for putting together a service pack. So anyone who applies the latest Windows Updates will get the latest improvements as they are released, for example the three compatibility patches that have already been released. The operating system itself is not the major hurdle at this point. It's pretty much done, excepting the occasional compatibility patch and of course the normal amount of Microsoft security updates as they patch newly discovered holes. The remaining problems relate to hardware that use 3rd party drivers such as videocards, soundcards and the like. This is coming along. ATI is a bit ahead of NVidia in the video driver field and Creative, regardless of the massive amount of complaints on their forums, appears to be way ahead of the rest of the soundcard makers in providing at least a working driver. They must restore missing functions where that is possible under the new Vista audio stack, but they have already done this in beta form for the X-Fi series that has been leaked by the U-PAX people. Audigy 2 ZS users continue to wait, as do X-Fi users who either do not want to install 3rd party unofficial packages or are not covered by the cards that U-Pax driver/software package covers. I've been struggling, with some success, in getting older Windows games that used codecs and tools no longer completely compatible with the new operating system to work. For example, the neat kids educational Carmen Sandiego series. By purchasing the Ligos IndeoVideoXP codec, installing Media Player Classic renamed to mplayer2.exe and placed in the Windows folder, and installing both QuickTime 2.1.2.59 and the latest QuickTime, I have successfully got "Where In the World Is Carmen Sandiego" to install and play in 98/Me compatibility mode. I played through 2 games with it with no problems. However I then needed to get my DVD copying stuff installed (CloneCd, AnyDVD) and I also went ahead and installed DVDx, Tmpgenc Plus, the Wrapper Codec package, DGIndex, DVD Decrypter, ChapterXtractor, Lame, AudioGrabber, tooLame, and only the DivX Codec part of the latest DivX package. I also installed FFDSHOW, although that is only for playing open source codec files as with Nero 7, PowerDVD 7, QuickTime, RealPlayer, and the IndeoCodecXP that just about covered stuff with the exception of those open source codecs. Following all that I am not able to play through the Carmen Sandiego game without a freeze of the game occurring. Vista does not freeze but the game does at some point of playing it and I must ctrl-alt-delete, invoke the Task Manager and end task on the game. Since all those items I mentioned with the exception of the DVD copying programs and FFDSHOW were already installed when successful with the game, I guessed that something in FFDSHOW might be to blame. So I've uninstalled it and ran all my media players and checked the Default Programs and file association control panels, and ran various files to be sure they still play and are correctly associated following the FFDSHOW removal. I will proceed to test out the game again. Turning off McAfee and the AnyDVD, CloneCd stuff had no effect either way, and it had played fine with the virus scanner on before so I can only guess that perhaps one of the FFDSHOW codecs had caused the glitch. But of course I really do not know. The game's animations and QuickTime videos play fine but at any random point the game will freeze, as hadn't happened before installing FFDSHOW and the DVD copying stuff. I just hope it's not one of those DVD programs. Can't see how it's the video driver or heat as the system doesn't freeze, only the game, and it had played fine before without any change to the ATI driver. The game automatically switches to 640x480 at 60MHz without my doing that in compatibility options. Then it plays through most of an adventure fine before suddenly freezing up. Weird. Project64 1.7 beta plays resource intensive emulated N64 games with no freezing. That uses a lot more resources than the simple QuickTime video based Carmen Sandiego game. I hope the problem is as simple to fix as removing a possible codec interference by FFDSHOW. I have no idea. I might redo things at some point soon using an NVidia G-Force 6600GT simply to get acceptable 3D performance in Linux, but I am waiting to experiment with things as they are first and also in the hope that either another ATI release will speed up the OpenGL 3D in Linux or NVidia will improve their Vista driver to at least the point that ATI has theirs. Also I consider my ATI x850 Pro to be a bit better hardware than the Gigabyte NVidia 6600GT as the ATI card has the 256MB memory and the NVidia just has 128MB. So I'd rather just keep using the ATI card. Not sure what I'll be doing. But Vista is quite a bit more finished than XP was at the same point in its release. Back then video and audio drivers were crashing XP and 3D gameplay of nearly any kind was impossible. With Vista, my printer and scanner, gamepads, modem, ethernet, audio and video all pretty much work fine and the operating system has been stable. Of course XP, heck even 98, are both fully bug fixed and anything that can be made compatible has been accomplished whereas Vista is an ongoing experiment while it is so new and hardware and software compatibility is a try this and try that process. But that's kind of fun! Especially when most stuff is succeeding. I don't understand the strong emotion of hate going on. Where it relates to it being harder to illegally use the operating system, well, those folks aren't going to be happy. As soon as they crack things one way it appears that Microsoft is making it harder for them as they must keep examining Windows Updates to see if they broke their latest crack. And, heh, sometimes Microsoft bundles the fix with a security update. So, no, those folks will never be pleased as unless they get legal they will be exposed to security holes that folks who bought the thing will have patched. And DRM does nothing unless you play files it works with, and as long as you really properly acquire the DRM'd files that won't interfere with anything. Those that want to circumvent that kind of thing will find it harder on Vista, if not impossible. So what for most folks who aren't interested in cheating? The DRM checks won't effect them at all. I was surprised that Microsoft Return Of Arcade worked fine. Dosbox works fine. Flash and Shockwave based programs that use older versions of those such as older encyclopedias work fine. You just install them, then uninstall the older Flash and Shockwave stuff they installed and reinstall the latest versions. New stuff is obviously designed with Vista in mind. Folks, this thing isn't that bad at all! And it will only get better as time progresses. No, for now it's not a need. But at some point it likely will be, at least for those who want the latest Windows software to run. Linux is a great alternative, but I'd rather have it as an additional operating system than the only one. I just have too much Windows software that I enjoy using. For those who haven't spent megabucks on games and software over the years it is a different story. A good distro of Linux with the available native Linux games and productivity software is perfectly viable now. No Windows needed! And 99% free, yes as in free beer! And as time marches on lots of Windows software will be more and more compatible with Wine, Crossover Linux, Cedega, etc. So there's a really nice alternative rather than keeping an outdated Windows running. With Linux you'll always be able to use the latest and greatest stuff as with Linux you can do nearly anything. You can design your own version if you like, etc.

Um, johnroberts, that post kind of makes it appear that you intend to use every single Microsoft operating system in semi-recent memory except for the latest. And you are quite strong in that usage of every single thing they've put out that you can get your hands on! Boy, that's sending 'em a message! Er, what exactly, "don't mean nothing?" Puppy looks cute though. I chose OpenSuSE for my first Linux as it looked like it had enough tools to make a crossover Windows fella comfortable (especially YaST) as well as a full featured software package. I'm not one who looks for the minimalist approach but that Puppy Linux looks pretty functional for such a small footprint. You might want to check out Zenwalk Linux as well. That looks more like my style for a Linux on older computers. I like the GUI software installer tools, the XFCE default desktop, but still with KDE available if you want it (they started with KDE originally). Small though, with a single application for each need. Very good package. Aww, you seem like the kind of player who'll wind up with Vista too. How can you resist the latest toys? Direct X 10, a GUI that is at least half as good looking as KDE with Compiz running offers at least on a fairly recent computer, etc. Hey, I run Vista on that AthlonXP 3200+ with 400 MHz FSB and a gig of Crucial memory and it doesn't seem sluggish to me. It will at first while your installing software and Vista is indexing for its quick searching and imaging at every restart because of all the changes. It images to keep up with its restore file versions feature. But once you've settled in it really picks up speed. Why so angry sounding? Heck, I'm running mostly the same stuff I've always liked to run. I've kept up with some of the major software packages over the years so yes, Office, Nero, and major stuff are new versions. But you can get away with less expensive or even no cost alternative for the same purposes. OpenOffice.org, something like DeepBurnerPro instead of Nero, etc. The usual browser players work fine and FFDSHOW, MediaPlayerClassic (dropped in the Windows folder and renamed to mplayer2.exe), and the IndeoCodecXP fill in some of the missing cracks in the codecs. PowerDVD works fine too. Even the old QuickTime 2.1.2.59 lets older games that used that play fine. (I install the new one as well, so I get the web stuff.) The hardware guys are catching up with the driver compatibility. My Audigy 2 ZS works okay with the latest from Creative. HP made a new driver for my Deskjet 4160 (with a full software package) and a basic driver for my Scanjet 3970. If I want better there's VueScan. ATI is improving with each month's driver release. I wish they would do the same for Linux! Both Thrustmaster and Saitek have gamepad drivers for Vista. Things are moving along pretty well for the new OS. No, at this point using it is not a NEED. But it's enjoyable to see things get better and better with it. Kind of fun to see the progress. I'd never try to talk a 98 lover into giving up the old favorite, but you seem like someone who likes to see what he can get out of lots of different OS's. Vista is just one more new one.

That's right. And even if you just walk in and buy a preconfigured computer you can put whatever you want on it once you get it home. Those with a recovery DVD option are pretty safe to go ahead and repartition, eliminating the hidden recovery partition and partition and format, installing whatever you like. Those who don't get that option can ghost the whole thing and do the same. Of course the caveats are that folks who do that need to burn the installed drivers to a backup first to be sure the hardware will work, and if not installing the same operating system they need to be sure they are able to get drivers that will work with their OS of choice first. Then they need to install their own software since the preinstalled goodies won't be available to them. Will a lot of people do that? I doubt it. Most people who will still be using 98 will have either older computers or build their own boxes. And, because of the driver issue especially on laptops the success rate might not be too good. Now, Linux is a different story. Those open source folks will usually wind up designing working drivers for many, many forms of hardware. And with Wine, Crossover Linux, and Cedega folks will be surprised just how much of their old Windows stuff can be jimmied up to run reasonably well on Linux. As time goes on that compatibility will increase. For most things there is no need to run Windows versions of things as quite often the available native Linux software is even better than that available in Windows versions. But favorite old games and even new games are of course the exception. That's getting better and better though.

I wanted to warn users off updating to the Catalyst 7.3 on Vista or XP. A bug exists where only disabling one of the processes (ATI External something or other) will allow Windows to even bootup without blue screening! The forum at driverheaven.net has a thread where folks are working with the Catalyst Maker (ATI developer) in sorting out this particular issue. Most folks there have backtracked to the Catalyst 7.2 to avoid the problem for now. So if you haven't installed the 7.3's yet it may be best to avoid doing so. The 7.2's work fine. ATI will either release a patch, a different version, or wait until the next release to fix this. I hope this helps folks avoid a nasty problem. If you have the driver installed and are not able to boot into Windows, get on over to the driverheaven specific thread in the Radeon driver forum there that mentions the BSOD problem. You can recover by disabling that process or doing a System Restore from Safe Mode to before you installed the 7.3's. They tell you exactly what the process is and even have a script to run that disables the process and lets you run the 7.3's if you want to take advantage of any specific improvements over the 7.2 Cat's.

Just wanted to jump in because of a slightly different UAC view. A problem that can occur with doing your driver and software installations with UAC turned off is that these programs will all then have automatic Administrator permissions even when reactivating UAC later on. This can be debilitating to the ability to take advantage of the purpose of UAC. If a nasty later somehow exploits a hole and attaches itself to one of these full permissioned programs, that exploit can have full run to do whatever it wants as UAC will consider any operation that program requests to be trusted completely. However, if you can deal with leaving UAC on and answering a bunch of "Do you really want to allow this" questions when initially setting up your system and software, then permissions will be set up the new Vista way for programs that can work with them. For those programs that have a problem when not running with full administrator permissions, for install programs Windows will usually pop up after a setup saying that the program might not have installed properly. It will ask you if you want to run the setup again with settings that will make that setup program work in this version of Windows. In mostly all cases letting it do that will get the program installed correctly. Sometimes a problem is uncovered with certain programs that do not behave when setup using this compatibility mode, such as the HP Scanjet driver for Vista. So HP recommends that for that particular setup you say no to that and the driver will work as installed. In most cases it is best to say yes and let Vista run the installer again though. For the programs themselves, a lot will run just fine without changing any settings. For those that don't, like not being able to save stuff to protected folders that they need to, then you would try running them as administrator using the right click run as administrator selection. If it then works you could chose to do that all the time or just right click and set the compatibility mode to run as administrator. Beyond that if it didn't run then you would try the Windows 98/Me setting, then Windows NT, turning off the Themes, etc, until the program works. Once all your stuff is setup you will find the UAC popups happen very rarely. And you will have installed your software in a way that enables the purpose of UAC, that is to prevent unwanted changes being done to your system unless you know it is a program or process you're sure you trust, to accomplish the increased security it provides. Once you find your way around the way your user folders are setup and some of the other new places such as where some of the stuff you're used to using in the Start Menu is, it's well, still just Windows! Easy to use and looks pretty with the new Aero stuff. A hint, if you work a lot with unzipping stuff besides what the default Compressed Folders can work with (only Zip) and like to extract programs to Program Files that don't have installers, then running WinRAR in the right click Administrator Mode can accomplish that task with only the initial UAC question you get when running in Administrator Mode. Otherwise you'll be bothered if you try to create a new folder, move or copy files there, etc. UAC only lets you play with files in your user folders. Otherwise a trusted program (like WinRAR in Administrator Mode) or your reply to a UAC popup saying Allow, Continue, yes I'm sure I want to do that darn it, etc will be necessary. See, with UAC activated you may be on an Administrator account but you're dumbed down to acting with Standard user permissions. This is a good thing! If you need to do something only an administrator can do you can still do it, but UAC will ask you first. That's cool too. Except during the initial setup of your operating system and software where it can become annoying, but that annoyance is temporary. Your system will be more secure if you leave UAC on during that setup process.

Ah well, it is possible that you still had the sys driver there. Once one of the drivers is installed it must be removed to properly install a different version unless a simple automatic update using the next Via Hyperion version is being done. First you uninstall your videocard software and drivers and allow Windows on reboot to install that Standard PCI Graphics Adapter (VGA). Then, if you had used the Via Setup to initially install the AGP driver you need to run that setup again and chose to uninstall the AGP driver. If you updated to it manually you would need to use Device Manager to remove it, then also manually go into the Windows\INF folder and delete the inf file so it wouldn't just reinstall it when it detected it again. Also make sure the .sys file itself is deleated. It's possible that Windows may prevent you from doing that while the GUI is running so a trip to Command Prompt Only would be the way to go there. Then you'd let Windows install the Standard PCI to PCI driver that it does if you don't have a specific one for it. Once that's restarted and working as if you just installed Windows, you can go ahead and update that PCI to PCI thing to the Via Windows 95 AGP driver as I talked about earlier. Then you install your videocard drivers and software. That should give you AGP reads and writes and the max speed (4X or 8X depending on your card and motherboard). And that should help immensely in gaming in comparison to the PCI bus speeds. Glitches can occur during these processes. A bit risky and much easier to accomplish on a fresh Windows installation, but if all goes well then that's how it's done and it can work. Of course sometimes processes like these, especially on 9x, get mucked up! And, yes I have a lot of experience with Via boards and their drivers. Since way back in the Abit KT7A days! On 9x systems I found a great deal more bug free and zippy performance when using the Via drivers rather than trying to get along with what comes with Windows. Not that IDE driver! It would mess up even the KT7A it was designed for. To get similar results to what that drivers goals were, one just needed to apply a few simple settings in the Bios instead of using that driver that interfered with file movement (corruption, freezing) and CD/DVD drives. On XP, for a long time it really wasn't necessary to use the Via Hyperions because Microsoft included a pretty stable version of them in Windows itself. At this point I believe that has changed as newer features and bug fixes than that old set (I think 4.34?) on XP includes are important enough so that installing the new ones is a good thing. I would avoid the current version on XP. Even Via is recommending that those only be used on Vista for now. They've had some problems with them on XP. The just previous version is the recommended one for XP, and I usually use that on 9x as well. (Unless a very old system, like that KT7A, for which the 4.38 is still the best, not the one on the site. 4.43 causes some problems on really older boards.) I'm not a guru, but if you do have a specific question regarding the Via drivers I'll do my best to relay my experiences with them and what I've heard about them from other experienced users as well.

I feel it's all been pretty civil around here. Wasn't sure about the "being fooled" line but I've been accused of worse. It's not a question of believing promotional speak by Microsoft though. They do, as anyone would expect, try to diminish fears of a new thing and drum up excitement so that their product will sell. It was just that at the time my system was botched up I wasn't in the mood to go through the whole setting up of several operating systems once again and was more in the mood to play with the newest toy. That was Vista, and for me these days, OpenSUSE 10.2. Once I got Vista installed I experimented with some programs and games that hadn't worked for me on Vista while I was using the beta and RC versions. I was pleased to see that with a little mucking about I got an assortment of those things working. I am back to using Firefox and Thunderbird even on Vista as I had gotten used to them again while using Linux. It was nice to see that that combination appears to get along with the new Office 2007 without a hitch so far. I just got back to Vista today after about a week and a half just on Linux. Gosh, updating from the previous version of Nero 7 to the latest was a chore. See, I came back because I had ripped a DVD using k9Copy in Linux. It came out perfect. I wanted to test out the same process using the latest tools in Vista to compare. I just got done updating Nero and needed to install the rest of my various Audio/Video tools as I hadn't done that yet as well. Only the Nero update gave me headaches but I got through it. Trying the automated update failed as the process in an error message the installer asked me to close and identified by number was not in the list in Task Manager. So I used add/remove and rebooted then ran the downloaded full version. That said it was successful but when trying to open NeroScout (so I could make sure it was set at off) an error told me the files it needed weren't there and to reinstall Nero. So I ran the installer again and chose to repair. During that process an error told me it couldn't find the first cab file. At least it gave the location. I browsed to it and noticed that it was looking in a parent folder and not in the Cab subfolder. So I copied all the cab files from the subfolder to the parent temp install folder and surprisingly this worked as the installer found and installed the whole package again. That fully worked and Nero is back and all updated. They really need to work on that stuff! I think I'm an oddity in the Linux and Windows world as I honestly enjoy working in both Linux and Vista. Frankly Vista is easier as if I encounter challenges I am more familiar with the Windows world in general and so quite intuitively can try specific procedures to attempt to get things done. In Linux it's necessary to roam the internet reading and searching for clues as to what things I might try. So far so good in both though. One cool thing about Linux, it's like if you have a problem and post somewhere about it you never know who'll you'll get to reply. I posted in the official Compiz forum about something and the actual developer of the thing replied to me. I could only compare the feeling to how I would feel if after opening a thread in a Microsoft forum, the next post would be an answer from Bill Gates giving me a status report on the problem. Felt kinda strange! I see nothing wrong with folks still using 98, and wise decisions regarding security like using the software and tools available to make it so can keep it completely viable depending on what one uses their computer for. That said, it is not as if Microsoft has been sleeping. Improvements, fixes, fancier tools, etc will obviously be a benefit of using the latest version of the operating system. Just like folks who get attached to an older version of a Linux distribution can, depending on what they want to do, continue to use it. However they of course will not be taking advantage of the latest work that the distro makers have done to the operating system. A lot of the updates can be adjusted to work on an older distro (like with older Windows) but the user who wants to stick to the older version will have to do a lot of work themselves to get the newer stuff going on the older OS. Work that has already been done in the labs and can be more easily taken advantage of by just installing the newer version of the operating system. Just sayin', there just may be some folks now still on 98 that will say the heck with it and take the Vista plunge. Either with a new computer or with a retail purchase if their computer isn't that old.

I beg to differ. The Windows 95 folder's VXD driver, the one that if you update the PCI to PCI driver manually you select the AGP (2.0 3.0 Support), IS the one you want for the AGP to work correctly on 98SE/ME. The one in the 98SE folder loads the Sys driver that does not activate AGP read/write speeds on 9x. I do this all the time. I extract the latest Hyperion Pro driver. I copy the AGP folder to C:\AGP. I update the PCI to PCI device, directing Windows to the Win95 folder in that AGP folder and choosing the one with AGP 2.0 3.0 Support. I choose NOT to restart the computer. Then I delete the big Via folder and just run the Via Hyperion installer normally, choosing not to install or update the AGP driver. Then I reboot, install the USB 2.0 driver and I'm all set. I just install the WDM ATI Driver, and the ATI Catalyst 6.2 for 98/Me, check the path statement in Sysedit to fix what ATI wrote if it doubled up on things, restart twice so the ATI WDM stuff is fully installed, and done! That's the only way I've managed to get the AGP setup properly on my 9x systems. You don't need an older Via 4-in-1 unless you're using a really older motherboard, like KT-133 stuff. Having AGP Fast Writes turned on will do nothing for you if you're using the PCI bus, which is what the sys 9x driver does. I don't think it does much except cause instability even on AGP. Mine gets automatically set to Fast Writes off and AGP reads and writes on with the vxd Windows 95 AGP Via driver on 98SE/Me.

Dosbox is quite zippy these days. Granted I don't run a vast amount of games on it, but some pinball, Star Trek, Leisure Suit Larry, that kind of stuff. I think most of the later, more resource intensive Dos games use other methods such as Mame, ScummVM, Windows ports, etc. For what I run it's fine. What DRM? All my music files are mp3, personally encoded. PowerDVD plays my DVD's. The web plugins do their thing. As long as I'm not interested in DRM based media there's nothing to call home about. Yes, activation and Genuine checking is an annoyance. But you activate once and occasionally when you need to download something from Microsoft it updates the Genuine files and checks to see that you're not using a newly blacklisted license. Just takes a few seconds. Rather do without it, but it hasn't interfered with me at any point. The amount of background activity is intensive. Much of what is noticeable disappears once you've gotten your programs and files installed as it gets done with its indexing activities and then only needs to keep track of changes instead of the initial full catalog with all the major software and files added, etc. Since it's still Windows a lot of files that have been used for many years are still in the new operating system. And any bug fixes, security patches, improvements to them are focused on the current one they'll work on. That is Vista. For me, it seems easier to figure out ways to get older software running on Vista than it is to get newer software to run on 98SE. Much of it just won't as the software companies didn't include the necessary files for 9x. A lot will! Especially for those who take advantage of some of the projects going on around here, Kernel project, etc. 98SE is still 98SE and quite capable as long as you use hardware that has a driver for 9x and software that runs on it. But I have seen that Vista runs my stuff quite well and would rather spend time doing things than keeping up with several operating systems. Installing a bunch of OS's and keeping them all updated is time and hard drive space consuming. It's getting to the point where I think I'd rather just install the latest and be done with it. Actually I'm spending so much time in Linux right now that it is hard for me to get too annoyed with Vista. All that said, I still love 98. I can see some folks having similar reactions to Vista that I did though. The thing does work, and as the years go on it will let you play with the latest toys. Same cannot be said of 98 anymore. So that, and the fact that there really isn't much of a 98 userbase these days, makes me think that there's no question that some folks will just move on. Flash? Never had a problem with it. Plays web stuff nicely whenever I have 98 installed, whether on Firefox or Internet Explorer. Pages would load slower on 98 than on XP, Vista with it but not seriously interfering with browsing. And I always installed the latest versions. Perhaps on older hardware they would cause serious slowdown and perhaps crashes though. I haven't played with my 366MHz pc's is quite some time! Break out those Voodoo PCI videocards!

This stuff is interesting. I normally have had 98SE as one of the OS's on my computer, whether installed to the real hard drive or running it in VMWare in XP. Recently, during my Linux education, a Linux Kernel update pushed as a security update messed up my quadruple boot configuration of 98SE, XP, Vista, and OpenSUSE Linux (that was on a 2nd hard drive all by itself). I couldn't get back access to the Windows hard drive as something had messed up the partition table. So I went ahead and, not having much patience to install all those operating systems again, just installed Vista on one and Linux on the other. After getting the WinHlp32.exe update for Vista, installing MediaPlayerClassic in a way that renames it as mplayer2.exe and ran from the Windows folder, installing both the older QuickTime 2.12.59 and the latest one, I found that I could get mostly all of my 98 era games to install and play. Having the Audigy 2 ZS latest Vista driver which activates a soundfont (even if there's no software to work with them yet) helped as well. The standard Vista Audio that uses the built in Roland hadn't worked in games. But setting the QuickTime Control Panel to use General Midi and the latest Creative driver seems to have worked. A bit of playing with the Compatibility Mode for 98/Me and running them as administrator, turning off Aero using the Compatiblity tab, etc was necessary but surprisingly they all wound up working! And of course Dosbox works perfectly. I had also purchased and installed the Indeo Video 5.2XP package. That probably helped as well. So with a bit of playing around with things Vista was running anything I threw at it. All my emulators work too, NES, SuperNES, N64, etc. Besides nostalgia, at least so far, I can't see why I would need 9x anymore. I might install it again, but unlike in the past where it was because some stuff just wouldn't run if I didn't have 98SE, I'm finding that it is now possible to get many things to work just fine with Vista. My hardware is not new. The most advanced I have are Socket A Via boards like in my signature. My one big dislike about Vista is that so many of its processes keep the hard drive churning quite often and for long periods. However I have not noticed slowdowns in gaming or problems using multimedia, DVD's etc. So it's busy a lot, which probably cuts down the lifespan of hard drives with the constant churning. But, for Windows, it is the most secure OS available and if just about all the software I have can work with it then it is likely the best choice to use. Perhaps the topic heading does apply because here is one user who has found that if I can get my things to work I'd rather be using the latest version of Windows with the pretty effects, updated security stuff, etc than to just have 98SE there only for nostalgia. One fun thing! I installed my old C:\Program Files\Plus!\Themes folder as well as that Lose Your Marbles game. I also copied over the Windows\Media folder's files and the Web\Wallpaper and the bitmaps to the Windows folder. I have an Original Desktop theme that I had saved while in 98SE. That's the original 98SE settings just saved to a Theme with the Plus! 98 Theme manager while I had 98SE running. I really wanted to see what would happen, so I went into Vista's Theme panel and there were all the themes I had put into that Plus!/Themes folder. I selected Original Desktop. Wow! My whole Vista desktop, sounds, etc switched to the exact Windows 98 look, including the taskbar! The start menu was the Vista start menu but the look of it was not the Vista Classic look, but rather it looked just like 98. Well, there's a little nostalgia for me if I want to revisit the past. Most of the old 9x themes work fine. And going back to Vista Aero also worked fine (sigh of relief there). I'm really mostly using Linux at the moment but I just wanted to speak out a bit on this subject. It seems to me that the 9x user base is getting smaller as the years go by and the new Microsoft operating system will probably get some more converts. Folks will be replacing old pc's finally. And if they aren't too old they may just decide to buy Vista retail and perhaps dual boot for a while. From my experience the dual boot might be found to be redundant if just about all things can be usable just on Vista, with a bit of extra work like I did.