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bizzybody

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Everything posted by bizzybody

  1. How about a version of the upgrade without that? I already have the redistributable version of the August 2007 DirectX 9.0c release.
  2. I haven't updated anything with IE or other internet stuff since these boxes are only going to be used for playing pre-2000 games for Retro-LAN at Fandemonium 2008. So far I've installed NUSB on two of the others right after Windows and the chipset drivers with no problem. On one the USB was recognized without installing chipset drivers so it got NUSB immediately after Windows, the other one I had to install the chipset drivers first. (I think it's a VIA chipset.) The idea here is so I can install all the drivers etc off an external USB hard drive instead of burning a CD for each PC. If the complete Explorer crash message is needed, I could transcribe it all by hand... If I *have* to install IE6 I will, but since most of them are only going to have 8gig hard drives I'd rather avoid giving all the space to IE that won't be used at all. I'm also going to see if I can get away with DirectX 8.1 instead of 9.0c because some old games just don't play nicely with 9. (I'd rather have been able to stick with 7.x but one of the videocards required a minimum of 8.1.)
  3. The 1394 is on the motherboard and can't be disabled. 98SE comes with drivers it loads- claiming it's a Texas Instruments 1394 controller. Did Adaptec sell this chip design to TI or is 98SE just detecting it incorrectly? It tried to claim the default TI driver was "better" than the Adaptec one- which I dug up on Driverguide. Adaptec has no info on this chip on their site. NUSB blew it up both with the drivers 98SE loaded and with the Adaptec drivers. I've attached the Adaptec driver I used for the second go-round. What I'd like to be able to do is get it working again without having to completely reinstall so I can try NUSB 3.3 and see if that blows it up too. Does NUSB also include 1394 drivers from WinMe? adaptec.zip
  4. Paragon Partition Manager 8.5 insists the main partition on my Acer Aspire 5315 laptop (with Home Basic) is not only not formatted but is FAT16 and 32.5 gigabytes. However, it can look inside it and show all the files. The other two partitions are the 9.7 GB PQSERVICE partition and the D: partition, which it properly shows as Primary, not Active, and NTFS. It doesn't show the name of PQSERVICE. (Yet the settings dialog for Windows System Restore shows the PQSERVICE partition by name!) Windows says the "unformatted" partition containing itself is NTFS. What I'd like to do is delete PQSERVICE (I've made the recovery DVDs by connecting the DVD burner in my desktop via USB to IDE cable) and expand both NTFS partitions to 40 gig, keeping the 50/50 split. What I don't know if the contents of C: will survive changing the partition type to NTFS and if the MBR will be altered to make everything work, or if the BIOS will leave it alone. I already turned off Disk to Disk Recovery in BIOS and attempted to change the partition type of PQSERVICE with PTEDIT32 but after rebooting it either wasn't changed or the BIOS or Acer's MBR switched it back to 27. PTEDIT32 says that C: is FAT16B.
  5. Is it possible to remove a bad install of version 3.2 without having to reinstall Windows? I have a Compaq Presario 5610 with the Intel BX chipset and a 400Mhz Pentium II. I installed 98SE, then Intel chipset drivers from 2001 (one of the last that will actually install drivers in 98SE!), followed by the drivers for audio, Adaptec 1394, DirectX 8.1 and the drivers for the Hercules Kyro AGP videocard. Then NUSB 3.2 and *boom* it blows up. After installing version 3.2, explorer.exe crashes during boot, even in safe mode. EXPLORER caused an exception 6d007fH in module EXPLORER.EXE at 017f:004093e8. It's always so much *fun* when Explorer shoots itself. This was the *second* go-round with this blowing up on this PC. The first time I installed NUSB immediately after Windows. I figured the reason it failed was because I hadn't installed the Intel chipset drivers first. This is the only PC I've ever had NUSB cause such trouble on. I wonder if it's a conflict with the USB controller in the BX chipset, or could it be something with the Adaptec AIC-5800AP 1394 controller on the motherboard? If you want to ask "Why did you install version 3.2?" it's because I hadn't checked the thread in a while and didn't know version 3.3 was released. P.S. I booted with a DOS floppy and checked explorer.exe and user.exe have both been replaced with the versions in NUSB.
  6. This isn't the latest and greatest of boards, but the MicroStar MS-6378 runs 98se very well. It's a Socket A, takes PC133, ATA100, built in sound, video, ethernet, USB. I have one with a Duron 900 and it runs 98se very well. The only strike against it is it has no AGP slot and stupid Windows sees the onboard video even when it's disabled in BIOS. Can't actually disable it, but choose zero for the frame buffer, and it has a (!) on it in device manager when set to zero.
  7. Try this trick. Boot to a safe mode command prompt then enter CD C:\ at the prompt to get to the root directory. Next, enter regedit /e backup.txt and wait for the command prompt to return, or for an error message. If you get an error, the registry is really fouled up. You can name the .txt file whatever you want. When the command prompt returns, enter regedit /c backup.txt For this process you get a % counter that will roll up to 100% and return to the command prompt if there's no error. If there is an error, the original Registry is left unchanged. What these two steps do is first export all valid Registry data, then restore it- replacing the old Registry when you reboot to Windows. Do note that this functionality in regedit for Windows 95 and 95a is broken, but there's a 95b regedit hacked to accept the original 95/95a version check as valid and it works for this just fine. This trick will also shrink the Registry, sometimes quite a lot if you've installed several programs that don't remove their temporary junk. What it couldn't cure for me one time was when there was a single bad character in one bit of data in the Registry. The export would choke on it and I couldn't find a way to delete that key, so I got to wipe and reinstall- not even using all the Win98 setup.exe switches to force it to overwrite as much as possible fixed it. Had it been Windows 95, reinstalling over itself would've fixed it because (AFAIK) 95 preserves none of the old Registry. That was before programs like CrapCleaner and similar 3rd party Registry utilities were available.
  8. Since the original release of Windows 95, I've called it the "Add New Hardware Id10t". First it asks where the device drivers are, so you show it, then it wants to know where the Windows install files are, then it forgets where the device drivers were, then can't remember where the Windows files are... back and forth until finally the device is installed. I'd like to know why that stupidity has been allowed to persist for so long. Windows stores the last several accessed paths in the Registry in the MRU keys, but DOES NOT SEARCH THEM when it goes looking for things like drivers or its own install files. The MRU keys are only used to fill in the drop lists for the user to do what Windows should be doing on its own. What's only been made WORSE over the years is it's been made more and more difficult to get to the point where the user can "shove the drivers in Windows' face" so you can get to making things work. You have to wait for Windows to search where you know the driver IS NOT LOCATED, then it wants to check online before FINALLY deigning to allow the user to click a button to grab Windows by the ear and poke its nose into where the drivers are. What always should have been is to have the option right at the beginning for the user to tell Windows where the drivers are rather than treating the user like an id***. So there's a project for Win9x wizards, program a replacement for the "Add New Hardware Id1ot" or find a way to hack directly to "Have Disk" so people don't have to wade through all the useless crappage. (And while yer at it, make the flinking thing default to C:\ rather than A:\ so we don't get those stupid no disk error messages.)
  9. Is it possible to remove a bad install of version 3.2 without having to reinstall Windows? I have a Compaq Presario 5610 with the Intel BX chipset and a 400Mhz Pentium II. I installed 98SE, then Intel chipset drivers from 2001 (one of the last that will actually install drivers in 98SE!), followed by the drivers for audio, Adaptec 1394, DirectX 8.1 and the drivers for the Hercules Kyro AGP videocard. Then NUSB 3.2 and *boom* it blows up. After installing version 3.2, explorer.exe crashes during boot, even in safe mode. EXPLORER caused an exception 6d007fH in module EXPLORER.EXE at 017f:004093e8. It's always so much *fun* when Explorer shoots itself. This was the *second* go-round with this blowing up on this PC. The first time I installed NUSB immediately after Windows. I figured the reason it failed was because I hadn't installed the Intel chipset drivers first. This is the only PC I've ever had NUSB cause such trouble on. I wonder if it's a conflict with the USB controller in the BX chipset, or could it be something with the Adaptec AIC-5800AP 1394 controller on the motherboard? If you want to ask "Why did you install version 3.2?" it's because I hadn't checked the thread in a while and din't know version 3.3 was released. P.S. I booted with a DOS floppy and checked explorer.exe and user.exe have both been replaced with the versions in NUSB.
  10. I found and downloaded some of the games from a beta version of Vista, and the emulation DLL file for XP. Has anyone hacked the games from the final RTM version of Vista for XP? They have some different/more graphics options and some bits work differently than the beta versions.
  11. What I want is a step by step guide to making Windows 2K/XP/Vista networking work, with what to do when something that is *supposed to work* doesn't actually work. Ie, when you share a drive and give the Everyone group Full Control but windows still won't allow other computers on the LAN to access those shares, WTH do you do? I'd also like Microsoft to stop @$%ing around with networking with every new Windows version. But that'll never happen. (But amazingly enough, in Vista they put Device Manager in Control Panel with its very own icon. Someone finally got a clue! I expected it to be buried even deeper than in XP.) I'm not a programmer, I gave up on that idea over 20 years ago when I wrote one fairly complex game program and decided it wasn't fun, it was too much like work. If anyone wants to write the Windows Networking utility that Windows SHOULD have, you're more than welcome to call it "Windows Networking Sledgehammer". Any anti-stupid-stuff Windows utility, go ahead and call it "Sledgehammer For Windows". I spent a whole afternoon researching online and beating the stupid out of Vista Home Basic on my new laptop. It almost looks and acts like XP with the "Classic" theme now and runs much faster with the junk scraped off. (Next step, building an even cleaner and leaner vLite install!) I've 25 years experience with PCs and encountered just about every "WTH does this do *that*?!" thing possible with the software.
  12. There's an office supply business near me that runs a small (about 2x the size of a typical tower PC) AS-400 system with TokenRing. They're too cheap to upgrade it to Ethernet, so their printers are shared off various PCs rather than being directly connected via their built in Ethernet printservers and whenever anyone wants to print... They have a VPN setup over DSL to another office. I got them to install a standalone JetDirect (that office uses Ethernet) to hook up a dot matrix printer for printing shipping orders. That was only because they wanted to be able to send the orders anytime without having to phone and make sure some PC with attached printer was running. I'm surprised they're still in business.
  13. The computers have XP HOME on them. With XP Home you are stuck with Simple File Sharing. If you can live with the restrictions of SFS, here's a guide. http://www.theeldergeek.com/quick_guide_to...ile_sharing.htm If not, upgrade to XP Pro.
  14. Seeing as how Microsoft keeps @#%%@#ing up networking with each new version of Windows so that users have to figure out all the new hoops to jump through... With Win9x it was easy to setup a LAN that was completely open unto itself yet shielded from the internet. All you had to do was NOT bind File and Printer Sharing to TCP/IP for your dialup or NIC connected to the WAN. Sure someone could still pingflood your IP but they weren't getting into your system without inside help from a worm, trojan etc. Then came 2000. 2000 could access Win9x shares just fine- just like another 9x box. But it got all prickly when you wanted to go the other direction. Next came XP, and XP didn't want to talk to anyone else, or have anyone else talk to it. Heck, it wouldn't even talk to another PC running XP until the user found just exactly where to apply the heated tongs... And now we have Vista, and exactly the same NYET-werking garbage all over again! Here's an idea. Someone who knows all the dirty rotten little secrets of 2K/XP/Vista networking write up a program that'll run on all three versions and make all the changes needed to force them to communicate with each other while totally blocking access from WANs. (May I suggest a name? "Windows Networking Sledgehammer*" or "NyetWerk to NetWORK!") I have 2 XP Pro systems and one Vista Home Basic system. One XP system I just reinstalled. They are all set to the same workgroup name, all their shared drives are set to give full control to Everyone and they can all see each other and themselves on the network. Yet the only system that can access anything on any other system is the "old" XP install, it has full read/write access to the "new" XP install. I'm just fed up with having to go and hunt up all the crap again to make what should be a SIMPLE operation actually work every time I reinstall Windows or add a new PC with a new version of Windows. I do not need internal security! I am the only person who ever touches my computers so there's no need to protect anything on my computers from anything on my own computers. Also, I never ever have a need to access my LAN from anywhere else in the world. The only outside WAN access I need is the typical stuff for P2P, HTML and FTP- just ye olde ordinary 'intarweb' stuff. I don't even run separate user accounts on my PCs because I am the only user. So WTH cannot Microsoft make setting that up EASY AND SIMPLE?! P.S. I have installed the WINDOWS XP-KB922120-v5-x86-ENU.EXE patch on the XP boxes, but the Vista box could already see them before. *Ever since the days of Windows 3.0 I've dreamed of an all-purpose program that fixes all the stupid things with Windows, called "Sledgehammer For Windows". It'd have a few 'attitude' settings with appropriate little animations and text to go with various environments and how the user feels... There'd have to be the boring blah 'work safe' setting, but then there'd be Maximum Attitude with the software's mascot pounding a Windows logo into a pancake while it says things like "So you don't wanna talk to Windows 2000? Well I'll fix that!" *POUND*SMASH*CRASH*
  15. That's no help. Where do most OEM installs of Vista have the install files tucked away? They have to be on the hard drive somewhere, especially on PCs that don't include any discs. In previous versions of Windows they were either in %SystemRoot%\options\cabs or C:\i386 (for 2000 or XP) or a folder named Win98 or Win95 or WinMe. I have an Acer laptop with Home Basic on it and so far haven't been able to find the install files. Is there not one path/location that most OEMs put them?
  16. I don't have an OEM install CD. I have an Acer Aspire 5315 laptop. The recovery disc maker produces a set of discs that can only be used to restore the laptop to EXACTLY the out of box condition- complete with infestation of Norton Internet Security, a bunch of game demos, and a load of other useless junkware. The CDs have some type of backup image files on them, so the Windows install files can't be plucked out from there. The recovery disc creator can also create discs to re-install all the 3rd party software it came pre-stuffed with, and the drivers, but NOT Windows. SOMEWHERE on the non-hidden partition must be the Vista install files- wherever it gets the needed files for when I plug things into the USB ports or install software that needs files from the install files. I haven't found a sources folder or install.wim file on the hard drive. I've set the options in the search to look in as many places as it will allow. Is there a Win32 3rd party search program that will search EVERYWHERE on a 2000/XP/Vista hard drive, AND can be set to NOT search inside archives, text files etc? I rarely need to search inside files, 99.99999% of the time I just need to find a #%^ file and it's annoying when Windows won't look in ALL the folders.
  17. Welll, that didn't work. Acer's eRecovery Management completely ignores the Virtual-CD burner- only showing the physical DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive in the option list. Found this link elsewhere on the fora here. http://www.ztekware.com/ But that one doesn't create a virtual DVD burner, only CD-RW.
  18. Where do OEMs put the install files for Vista on computers? I want to see if I can copy them and slipstream Service Pack 1 when it's released, then create a bootable disc to do a clean install of Home Basic on my new laptop.
  19. Somehow fixed itself. I ran Firefox, downloaded the Yahoo logo image off Yahoo.com. Went to the download window, which was maximized, and clicked the restore button. It minimized. Then when I clicked the taskbar button, the download window opened up to the upper left corner and made as small as it can be. I stretched it back out and it's OK now. There's no addons at all to IE. It's a brand new laptop that mostly all I've done to is remove factory installed bloatware and installed Firefox, Spybot and AVG.
  20. I want to burn recovery DVDs from my Acer laptop, but it only has a DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive. (I made a set of recovery CDs, 12 of them!) I'd like to be able to make the DVD set, which takes 3 discs. If I had a virtual burner I could create ISO image files then copy those to my desktop with DVD burner. It'd have to respond to software eject commands and have a way for the user to "insert" a new, virtual blank disc. I do have a USB 2.0 to IDE cable but it doesn't work for burning CDs or DVDs because it just quits working when a data transfer has been going for too long. (Gets about halfway through a CD-R then quits.) It'd be so much easier if Acer had just put DVD and/or CD images on the hard drive where the user can get at them! The recovery stuff is all in a hidden partition a bit less than 10 gigs at the front of the hard drive. That's space I could really use on the 80gig drive.
  21. I disabled the Windows Defender process, now when I boot up I get Windows Defender Application failed to initialize: 0x800106ba. A problem caused this program's service to stop. To start the service....yada-yada-yada Also, popping up from a red shield in the tray is first a notice about "multiple security problems" then Check your User Account Control settings User Account control is turned off So, Vista makes it somewhat easy to turn UAC off, it's not even really hidden, but then it constantly bitches about the user turning it off. Disabling Windows Defender is a bit more difficult, then Vista tries to make it seem like the sky is falling and malware is going to crawl out of your PC at night and eat your leftovers. I'm running the latest AVG and Spybot Search and Destroy (FINALLY a new version!), I have zero need for Microsoft's things constantly pestering me. (It also came with a 90 day "free" version of Norton Slow Your PC Down, AKA Internet Security. That was the first thing I uninstalled.) P.S. Apparently, nobody on the team who thought up the name "User Account Control" ever played DOOM. UAC, Union Aerospace Corporation, the bad guys whose experiments let loose the demons from hell...
  22. I just got an Acer Aspire 5315 for $348 on sale at Wal-Mart. Has Vista Home Basic* on it. (Bleargh.) I was downloading updates from the Acer site with Firefox 2.0.0.9 and to speed things up I decided I'd download some with IE. When IE launched it minimized the Firefox Download window. Clicking the taskbar button for it just made it blink, so I rightclicked and hit Maximize. Now all I can get on the Download window is maximized or the taskbar button. If I hit restore when it's maximized, it minimizes and the only thing I can do is rightclick and hit maximize, clicking restore when it's minimized just makes it blink. What did IE screw up? How did IE do this? How do I stop it from doing it again after I get it fixed? *First thing I did was change all the desktop settings to Classic style.
  23. I got a pair of Quantum Ultra SCSI 10,000 RPM 9.1 gig drives. I've had an Adaptec 2940U2W SCSI card for ages. That got me to thinking that just for fun, it'd be neat to do an 18 gig RAID 0 striped volume and install 98SE on it. It can be done on something as old and poky as a Macintosh with a 68040 CPU (about equivalent to an 80486) so why not something like a 350Mhz PII Compaq Presario 5610?
  24. I figured it out. I forgot that installing Drive Mapper is something one does not do with PM 8.0, especially NOT when copying the partition Windows 2000 or XP is installed on. It mucks things up without bothering to ask if it's OK to muck them up. I could've unhid the original partition, swapped the drives back, uninstalled then reinstalled PM WITHOUT Drive Mapper, then swapped the drives again and redid the copy etc... but I decided heck with it and did a fresh wipe and clean install on the 74 gig drive. I've seen some posts about Norton Partition Magic 8.05. Where/how did people get hold of that?! I haven't been able to find any updates to 8.0 anywhere.
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