jimmsta

I contacted Sysinternals about a year ago, reguarding their EULA and how I'd like to be able to distribute their software in my BHT package. Their reply was that I should not distribute their software, and that they didn't have any licensing terms yet (pricing info was what I was after). ??? Needless to say, a full download of BHT comes with their tools, since they never gave me a full answer, or quote me a price on a license to distribute their software. If you build BHT yourself, using my base package, it downloads from Sysinternal's site, which makes BHT as EULA-abiding as I can make it. In other words, I think Sysinternals is more worried about corporate businesses that are redistributing their software for thousands of users, and possibly also making copies to bring home or something like that. They don't seem to care about the little man re-distributing their software.

Technically speaking, Windows expects to see a vmm32.vxd file, and will load up any vxd's that are in the system directory, as it is expected that updates to the OS's critical services would be located as VXD's in the system directory.... VMM32.VXD is NOT built at microsoft, it is created upon install of the OS. Basically, this might help reduce problems thanks to the fact that the files are pre-decompressed, and available to the OS without having to decompress the VMM32.VXD file.

Here's another option, if anyone wants it: http://www.google.com/codesearch?q=show:f2...cs_f=cmd/chkdsk Google has a cache of MS-DOS 6.0's source code, including chkdsk. If anyone wants to figure out how to make their very own chkdsk replacement for Win9x, the code is through that link, available to anyone.

IE v1.0... there's no cookies settings whatsoever. It seems the first set of cookies settings came with v3.0. My feelings about IE7.0 are that it is a required install... I have it installed at work, to protect my bench machine that tends to see the nastiest spyware/malware/viruses... And of course the occasional coworker who likes to go to malicious websites with IE.... IE7 seems pretty secure, in my tests. It's ok in my book... and my book is just one sentence repeating, for 300 pages.

I assume that would be true, but I wonder if Microsoft hard-coded memory addresses for certain system processes - which would mean that some processes may expect data to be in a specific place in memory. I wouldn't doubt that there's some sort of protection against rebasing some of the critical system dll's. But hey, why not try? There's always a good chance that all this is hogwash, and rebasing will work on all DLL's, no matter what.

Is there any way that the rebasing could take place on load-time? That is, we create some sort of kernel hook that looks for white-listed dll's, and attempts to allocate a contigiuos block of memory for that DLL to load itself in. I think some sort of runtime patching would be more useful, especially when creating a whitelist of files that work properly with rebasing. Then again, that search for a continguous block of memory may be slower than rebasing the file the normal way. I guess we're just looking for ways to get around re-writing the memory managment subsystem for Windows 9x.

Let's see what results we can get on a system that has the UnloadDLLs registry tweak applied... I suppose that was microsoft's way to 'fix' things... but disabled it to prevent extra crashing... or something.

This sounds like an awesome idea, in terms of better memory management, especially on older, slower systems running little ram, and slow hard drives. In terms of finding what files were compiled with MSVS, we can use PEiD, which can determine the compiler from tags within the file. Now, how would we figure out what can be rebased? I figure that the w9x kernel and all other files have already had some sort of optimizations like this applied to them, and that most system-level dll's cannot be rebased due to hard-coded dependencies within other system-level executables. This is an interesting topic, and I'll be fooling around with this a bit, to see what works, and what doesn't. DLL's that are known to take up large chunks of memory or known to get fragmented a lot should be first on our list of things to do. All I can say is, thanks for posting this bit of information. It looks quite interesting, and should provide hours of fun research for those of us that are interested.

Perhaps some of us should create some sort of Critical Fixes Package (Security fixes, IE6SP1, various other important patches), as a sort-of alternative, updated unofficial SP for Win98SE... I find it strange that Gape has not posted in this thread in ages. Maybe he has moved on to bigger, better things?

Check this out: http://datalight.com/products/romdos/produ...su_download.php This company has designed their own DOS, complete with their own version of chkdsk, which looks and feels quite a bit like Windows 2000/XP's chkdsk command. What's great is that they allow you to download their DOS for free. I've confirmed that their EXE's will run fine on a Win9x system, as well as in Windows XP's 16-bit subsystem - I'm able to run their COMMAND.COM as my command interpreter. Pretty neat. What's also neat, is that they're giving out their ROM-DOS for free, as well as how-to's on building their DOS kernel. I still have to see if you can install Win9x on top of this, as it would make a great replacement for IO.SYS, if you need a real dos layer...

LLXX: It used to be called BenchTools, but no one liked that name, so I shortened it to BHT. I personally still call it benchtools, as I use it with my bench machine at work. A patch has been released that fixes some minor update script bugs (due to host changes, file name changes), and a few minor html fixes. http://www.majorgeeks.com/BHT_Unified_Patch_d4857.html

Anyone want a new release of DirectX? Surprisingly, this month's release from Microsoft includes a new dll for Win9x. Here it is: http://repository.jimmsta.com/release/dx9cOct06.exe (32MB 7zip compressed SFX archive). This is only for Win9x. Do not attempting to install it on NT-based Windows. I've stripped the cabs for x64 and any OS higher than WinMe.

Vista RC2 build 5744 includes MSVBVM60.DLL 6.00.9796 1378064 bytes. It also has a comment - September 25, 2006. I suppose that's the actual build date.

I've released the latest version of my BHT* utility package, so I'm back to work on the next patch for this package. The next patch will include: LLXX's Copy2GB patch, as well as her 48-bit LBA patches. A slightly-cleaned up GUI (some machines don't display the fonts correctly). Tihiy's latest RPLite and LameSkin applications, and various other in-development apps. I'd like to move the autorun over to a K-Meleon based gui, as it works very well on Win9x, and is very versitile when it comes to customization. This is probably a feature for v4.5 or 5.0. I may also start up a separate website for it, (Win9xPP.org, perhaps). All in all, expect a patch by the end of next week (October 20th or so). * See my signature for a link.

The latest release of my customizable utility compilation is ready for downloading - WHAT is BHT? Why do I WANT it? BHT is a compilation of Utilities that can help you solve computer problems, and also fix spyware and virus infections. It has been re-designed from the ground up, over the past few months, to make it easier to use and download. It has a fully documented HTML interface (see apps list below for example). It has an autorun, pre-configured for easy use when burned onto a CD. What's included? How legal is this? Completely legal. All apps are either Freeware, shareware, or trialware. I've hand-picked all the software, and have used every single application at least twice. I built this version off my personal usb key's contents. All licenses are intact. Is it a CD? Not at first. If you read the included Readme.txt file, you will find out how to build it as a bootable cd, with bits and pieces of the freely available UBCD. What do I need to do to get it installed? Since I rebuilt this thing, I decided to try out something new - You start by downloading a 90MB package, unzip it to a directory. Inside, you'll find a "BHT v2.9" folder. Go into this folder. Run Autorun.exe, and scroll down to the bottom. Click on "Build BHT/Update BHT". You'll then be asked what version of Windows you are running. Select the correct version, and a window will pop up (Black command box). Type in "1" (without quotes), and press enter. Make sure you have about 10-15 minutes to allow for the script to download the rest of BHT. Once it is done, you will be greeted with a "BHT v2.9" directory that is about 130MB larger than when you started. At this point, you can either read the included Readme.txt file, and learn about BHT Extended, or you can burn the contents of the directory to a CD, or DVD. (Or, in my case, copy and paste all of it onto a USB key). Where can I download this? Base Package download: Download torrent(1 files; 88.13 MB) View torrent stats HTTP Base Package Download: http://repository.jimmsta.com/release/bht29base.tar.gz What about a full version, with all the stuff already downloaded? FULL Package download: Download torrent (1 files; 210.94 MB) View torrent stats MajorGeeks.com: FULL Version: http://www.majorgeeks.com/BHT_d4855.html HTTP Full Package Download: http://repository.jimmsta.com/release/bht29full.tar.gz Something is wrong! Post any/all bug reports in this thread, or use the "E-mail bug report" button in the AutoRun menu.

Just wondering if anything came of this project, and if the info I found was the least bit helpful.

I editted the above post. The odd thing is, the original NDIS.VXD file in this install (original Build 950 B, clean install), has a version number of 4.00.1111, which I expected to mean that the 4.00.1114 patch was the correct patch... however, it is not. The .950 patch is the correct patch for this version of Win95.

Petr, running Win95 OSR2 on VMWare Server, on my Athlon64 X2 (@ 2.01GHz) (Using only one CPU for virtualization), with the 4.00.1114 patch, I still get a protection error on bootup, specifically after turning on file and printer sharing. I used VMware's DiskMount utility to write the file into the virtual disk (which is what I use on a nearly daily basis to do things like this). EDIT: I was wrong about the version number - it was 4.00.950 B, NOT OSR2. I tried the older release, and it works fine. Thanks

TERRIBLE and DISGUSTING. Even worse than first MSN Toolbar with tabbed browsing. How about the Maxthon browser? It's customizable, uses whatever IE engine is installed, or mozilla engine, offers tabbed browsing, and still offers an Ansi version for Win9x... Also, I'm rather sure that IF IE 7's mshtml.dll file has no unresolved dependencies on win9x, it could run with the Maxthon gui, thus providing you with the rendering engine of IE7. (pipe dream?)

AFAIK, 98SE's original FDisk executable has a limit of 64GB. However, I've used it on larger drives with no problems creating partitions over 64GB. Perhaps it's just a rumored limit?

I'm very interested in what the VXD files may have to offer, in terms of extensibility. I did the following google search: "structure of 16bit VXD" (without quotes), and came up with a few pages that offer an insite as to what the structure is... http://podgoretsky.com/ftp/Docs/Asm/IczVXD/vxd-tut7.html http://www.podgoretsky.com/ftp/Docs/Asm/IczVXD/vxd-tut3.html And this site: http://www.tbc.net/~clive/vcomwinp.html has a few decompilers/extracters for Win95 VXD files -- Just a heads up, according to this site, the VxD files can be extracted, and more VXDs hide inside the VXD files stored in the SYSTEM folder... Some sort of microsoft compression scheme is used, probably to keep initial memory usage low at boot time. (or possibly only load code that will fit in conventional memory (?)). This may explain why you can't find the location of the code referenced above. Be sure to grab all the utilities on that site, as you'll need dumplx to dump out each VXD into a text file (ASM disassembly). It all works out pretty darn well, if I do say so myself. Hope this helps some. Good luck. edit2: Hehehe... Our very own MDGx has one of the utils on his site, VxDLib - http://www.mdgx.com/98-3.htm <- Points to the above "and this site:" link. Also: http://www.helpwithwindows.com/techfiles/vmm32.html - " Now there may come a time, when one of the *.vxd files built into vmm32.vxd needs to be updated, and Win9x provides a very simple means for this. Each system has a Windowssystemmm32 directory. Any *.vxd file in this directory will be automatically loaded and used during Win9X startup, instead of the one in the vmm32.vxd file if it exists in both places. In other words files in this directory take precedence over same files within vmm32.vxd. So when these web sites have you put the individual files in this directory all they are doing is putting a copy of the same code that is already within vmm32.vxd into this directory as stand alone files which will actually cause Win9X to take longer to load. Microsoft says that Extracting system files that are rolled into VMM32.VxD will not increase system performance, once you are started, there will be no difference. The reason for bundling VxD's into VMM32 was to improve system boot time." So, it seems that the possibiliy that your memory addresses are actually relating to another file is very, very possible, according to this article. And here's another page with some Win95 vmm32 hacks: http://netweb.usc.edu/yaxu/ISPsoftware/Sha...ok/unauthw.html And here's a site with some useful VxD hacks: http://www.dcee.net/Files/Programm/Windows/ After fooling around with a decompiled VMM32.VXD from a VMWare install of Windows 98SE (No patches), I managed to create some dumplx log files, which are mostly ASM listings of some of the VXD's. Here's a zipped up copy of the log files: http://rapidshare.de/files/34473933/vxd_logs.zip

Hehe... I couldn't even download the file, thanks to NOD32. This is a reason why I still swear by antivirus applications - They're needed on all versions of Windows.

Sorry, I'm not familiar with [never heard of] modplug tracker. Just a heads up, Modplug Tracker is a media player for MOD-format music. You can use Winamp w/ a plugin to play such things - in fact, I remember winamp having very decent plugins for MOD files. I use MediaMonkey now, which supports Winamp plugins, so I'll try and see if such plugins still work, when I get home (at work right now).

I've tested both - Diskeeper and PerfectDisk. Which one did I decide to purchase? PerfectDisk of course. Even when it runs in the background (on Autopilot), it's non-intrusive, and doesn't slow the system down to a halt. I've never had any problems with PD, but oh god, the problems I've had with Diskeeper. In terms of stability, PD takes the cake. Diskeeper would freeze up on me at random, and keep in mind- I wasn't using it on just one system, I was testing it on a variety of systems, including a few file servers and bench machines (all at work). PD seems to take care of the files before moving them. Diskeeper seems to move files reguardless of their importance to the system.

Link above to VMWare forums is broken. Here is the correct link: http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jsp...48&tstart=0