Wijono

Thanks to MDGx for your comprehensive information. There are so many options out there… Based on your experience though, could you perhaps recommend which one is your preference for Win98SE that is possibly similar or close to ewido?

Good idea CLASYS to prepare the batch file. Some say that even after Windowsupdate the default BROWSEUI.DLL will stay unchanged. I have different experience though, mine was moved back to the version 6.00 in System folder. Therefore I had made also the batch file as you. But the Windowsupdate for Win98SE will end this month, we might not need it anymore in the future.

The answer for noguru, my BROWSEUI.DLL in %windir%\System folder after the update is Version 6.00.2800.1692 (xpsp2.050617-2102) dated 18-06-2005. I did all 5 updates in one go via Windowsupdate site, and I really don't know, after that update the default BROWSEUI.DLL is the one in the %windir%\System, so that I had to redo the patch to avoid freezing Explorer. But, in another Win98SE PC, I first downloaded those 5 updates and do the updates manually, there the default BROWSEUI.DLL stays with the one in the %windir%, which is version 5.50.

When trying to verify what codec is installed in my PC running WinXP SP2, I suddenly found out that I have no “Multimedia Control Panel”. Got the information, that I should instead look into the Hardware tab of the “Sounds and Audio Devices Control Panel”, I started it and found out that it only has 4 following tabs: Volume, Sounds, Audio, Voice, the Hardware tab is simply missing!! I tried to find a solution either to bring back “Multimedia Control Panel” or enable the Hardware tab in the “Sounds and Audio Devices Control Panel” by googling around to no avail. Hence I would be grateful for any hint to a solution.

Thanks for the information from RainyShadow. Meanwhile I found following information from the Inmatrix website: The downside of the "Standard Renderer" is that it doesn't support proper Aspect Ratio controls, Hardware Color Controls (Hue/Saturation/Brightness/Contrast/Gamma) are inaccessible. The "Overlay Mixer" Renderer still using the Video Overlay technology, this renderer allows access to Hardware Color Controls (Hue/Saturation/Brightness/Contrast/Gamma) to cards that support color controls in hardware. Some cards may support only a subset of the color control features (only Brightness for example). So I exclude "Standard Renderer", and experimenting under WinXP with other following renderers: Overlay Mixer VMR7 VMR9 Windowed VMR9 Windowless Unfortunately with all those renderer, I still cannot adjust the brightness. Does it mean that Intel® 82845G Graphics Controller does not support color controls? But how come that under Control Panel or in Windows Media Player 9 I can adjust the brightness? I really am puzzled!!

In my PC running WinXP Professional, USB thumb-drive or memory stick that was plugged in was automatically recognized by the system. I don't know what happened, since recently when I plug in a new type of thumb-drive, Windows comes up with a pop-up telling that new USB drive is found and Windows wants to install the needed driver, I need then to click OK to proceed. Could someone brief me what could have gone wrong, and what can I do to fix that problem? Thanks a lot.

One way of checking whether the patch as described above to avoid Explorer freeze is still effective or not is to create a temporary folder, then copy (be careful do not move) as many files as possible, such as over one thousand, into that temporary folder, then select all those file and delete them at one go, if the patch is still effective, then the Explorer will delete those files briskly, otherwise it will start to freeze. But there is a better way of verifying it. First make sure that the version 5.50 of BROWSEUI.DLL and BROWSELC.DLL are still intact in the %windir% (usually C:\WINDOWS). Internet Explorer shall not run, start "Programs" -> "Accessories" -> "System Tools" -> "System Information". Click to expand "Software Environment" at the left panel -> click "32-bit Modules Loaded", at the right panel search the BROWSELC.DLL and verify that the version is indeed 5.50.... If the version is not 5.50 but 6.00, then the patch has been deactivated, and you need to redo it. The other questions are hard to answer, I also don't know why Microsoft did not solve the problem properly in the first place...

I am still curious, why the Brightness control of the Zoom Player does not work at ALL!! It is mentioned that it should work if the hardware supports it. I believe my hardware supports the brightness control, it is an Intel® 82810E Graphics Controller. In the control panel, under the Intel Graphic Controller Properties, I have no problem whatsoever in setting the Gamma, Brightness and Contrast. Furthermore, DirectX 9c is installed in my system. Also when I play Windows Media Player 9, it is possible to change the brightness too!! What could be wrong then that the Brightness control of the Zoom Player does not work??? Any clue how to fix it??? BTW, I tested the Zoom Player under WinXP with Intel® 82845G Graphics Controller, the brightness control is also not working here....

Thank you all guys for the information. I am highly impressed by the ewido. It is pity that we cannot tweak it to run under Win98SE, I thought it might be possible with some sort of Kernel patch.

A couple of days back Microsoft has come up with 5 simultaneous updates for Win98SE, which might most probably be their last updates for Win98SE. Those updates are: KB916281 -> IE6.0sp1 on Windows-98-ME KB918439 -> IE6.0sp1 on Windows-98-ME KB917344 -> Windows9X KB918547 -> Windows98 KB917734 -> WindowsMedia9 on Win9x KB916281 contains among other BROWSEUI.DLL Version 6.0.2800.1692. So if you decided to carry out the updates from Windows Update website, then it will set the BROWSEUI.DLL above as default, thereby deactivating the patch to overcome freezing Explorer when deleting a lot of files as described in following thread: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=&sho...ndpost&p=452384 With other words, once you did those updates above via Windows Update website, you may need to redo the patch mentioned above to avoid freezing Explorer when deleting a lot of files. Strange enough, when you download those updates and implement them manually (not via Windows Update website), then the patch to overcome freezing Explorer above will stay untouched.

ewido anti-malware seems to be a very good anti trojan software. Unfortunately it is meant only for following OS: Windows 2000/XP/2003 Server, as such not for Win98SE. Does anyone know a trick to install it under Win98SE? Any suggestion other than Ad-Aware and Spybot? Those are also good and I use them, but ewido seems to catch more malware.

It seems that no DLA solution is available for Win98SE users up to now, what a pity. Meanwhile I feel like to share my precious experience with the InCD 3.5.24. As I said earlier, I don't run it at Windows startup but instead only turn it on when I need it, meaning when I want to format a CD-RW or I want to write/modify it, and I wrote a VBScript to turn it off when done. Just now by chance I found out, that I only need to turn it on when I want to format a CD-RW. When I want to write/modify a previously formatted CD-RW, I don't need to have InCD running, simply insert the CD-RW into the my "TDK CDRW4800D" drive, then I can handle the CD-RW as a large floppy disk, I can write to it, I can delete what is not needed! To verify that it really works properly, I check what I have written that way in another CD drive "Compaq CD-ROM LTN403", and it can read it with no problem at all. Great!! From now on, I only need to turn on the InCD when I want to format a CD-RW. A word of caution, this may only work with the versions of InCD 3, it won't work with version 4.

I feel I am obliged to tell the result of my experiment with DLA. After failures with Version 4.95 and 4.90 mentioned earlier, I tried to install Version 4.60, but the installation was stopped for incompatibility problem with "Intel Application Accelerator". I then tried Version 3.59, I was quite happy at the beginning, because it seemed to be OK, no problem like those I tried before, unfortunately when I tried to insert a CD-R disc, the system suddenly rebooted itself, what a pity. The next Version I tried is 3.26, it looked also pretty good, until it failed to reformat one of the CD-RW, that I finally could reformat with InCD. The conclusion is, DLA may be a good packet writing software for say WinXP, because in my PC that runs WinXP, the Version 5.20 really works fine, and I really like the way DLA works, but unfortunately it really is not compatible with Win98SE, what a shame. It seems to be no other option left for me, I followed Andromeda's advice, I don't run InCD on startup, just turn it on when I need to write to CD-RW, and I write a VBScript to turn it off when writing is finished. Nevertheless, if someone should have a good solution that can make DLA work with Win98SE, I would highly appreciate it for sharing such a solution. Thanks.

Thanks for the comprehensive information from MDGX. I must have mixed up with WMP9 in WinXP, where we have "DVD, VCD or CD Audio" under the Play menu. As said by noguru, I can play VCD by clicking "File" -> "Open" and select the file "AVSEQ01.DAT" in the folder "MPEGAV", WMP9 can play VCD quite nicely, where we can even adjust the Brightness, Contrast etc. BTW, I have tried the Zoom Player Standard recommended by MDGX, quite nice, but the Brightness and Contrast controls under the "Controls" -> "Color Controls" seem to be not effective, maybe I did it wrongly? Didn't I?

Thanks Andromeda for your nice information. I fully agree with your counter argument against CD-RW, however I have a habit to treat CD-RW like a big floppy, where I can write data to it, modify it if need arises, only when the CD-RW is almost full and the contents are well arranged, then I will burn it into a CD-R for final backup or archiving. BTW, I have tried Sonic DLA Version 4.95, unfortunately right-clicking the CD drive and click “Properties” will result in “Explorer has caused an invalid page fault in module kernel32.dll”. I tried Version 4.90, above problem does not come up, but another more serious problem instead, i.e., when I either plug a USB thumbdrive or unplug it, the PC will freeze or BSOD is coming up. I think I will still try another version or two, if it really sucks with Win98SE, then the only option I have is revert back to InCD and follow your good advise, i.e., not to let InCD run at startup but create a shortcut to start it when needed, and another shortcut to a script to turn it off when writing is done.

Currently I am using InCD Version 3.52.40 Packet Writing Software with my Win98SE. That version is practically the last version of InCD that works reasonably OK with Win98SE. The early Version 4 of InCD will bring BSOD at boot time, i.e., Win98SE will not be able to start. Whereas the most recent versions, such as Version 4.3.23.2, will work with Win98SE, but it is resources hungry, it will almost use up the CPU time, furthermore it will access hard disk every few seconds and then, really annoying! Back to Version 3.52.40, it has following drawbacks: 1. InCD runs in the background and stays at System Tray (I don’t really like it). 2. CD-RW formatted with InCD cannot be written by other packet writer, such as DLA, it can be read though. 3. When we right-click the drive and click “Properties”, InCD will generate an Invalid Page fault error, very annoying. I have heard that DLA (be it from Sonic or Roxio) is more stable compared with InCD, it is integrated within the Windows Explorer. However, due to the fact mentioned under Point 2 above, if we want to migrate to it, we will have to do the following with each and every CD-RW written before by InCD: Backup -> Reformat CD-RW with DLA -> Restore from backup. That can be very cumbersome. Therefore, before doing such a thing, I would highly appreciate advices from those of you that are experienced with DLA, whether DLA is really stable and cause no problem with Win98SE, and if so which version of DLA is recommendable.

I am using WMP9 on my PC running Win98SE, the Version is 9.00.00.3344. I have implemented MDGX's 98SEMP10.EXE. I don't know why, suddenly only "Audio CD" is available under the Play Menu, not the usual "DVD, VCD or CD Audio", i.e., the DVD, VCD parts are gone, as such I cannot play VCD anymore. What could have caused it, and how can I bring it back?

Certainly it is a great idea of tel ormanda, but unfortunately it was not "System Restore" that I did, it was partial System Recovery (Compaq F10) to resolve corrupted DLL. It will solve the problem if it were "System Restore". Thanks anyway.

Thank you all for your effort to help. Answer for Maelstorm: As mentioned earlier, the extension is .tmp, one of the .tmp files which is 9 MB I can open with Winzip. Unfortunately I do not remember how big "My Documents" was before. BTW, I have tried 7-Zip, but it also cannot open that 20 GB file with the remark "GLC21.TMP is not supported archive", it can "Test" the 9 MB file successfully though. As I said earlier, I believe that the previous "My Documents" must be in the 20 GB file, it might be a sort of file like one generated by CHKDSK lost clusters, there should be a program that may explore and extract the files from that file, can someone please help...

You are right naughty, the file system is ntfs, but it has nothing to do with it, cause those programs have revived many files that were really deleted before, however not those that were in the missing "My Documents". Thanks to the hints from snafumaster, I tried the WinRAR, it could not open the 20 GB file, then I tried the Repair tool that comes with it, it said there are 2 errors in that archive file, it tried quite long to do the repair, but unfortunately ended up to no avail. Is there any software that could possibly repair that kind of archive file?

After doing "Error-checking" of drive C: in the Windows Explorer, not less than 380 tmp files are suddenly shown up in the folder "C:\Documents and Settings\Compaq_Owner\Local Settings\Temp", 2 of those have very large file size, one 9 MB and the other one 20.5 GB! I can open the 9 MB one with Winzip, it contains <MsnMsgs.msi> and <bootstrap.exe>. Unfortunately Winzip is not able to open the one with file size 20.5 GB. Could it be that the large file is somehow sort of saved encrypted file of the previous "My Documents" or "Documents and Settings" before the partial system recovery? Any hint what software could possibly open that kind of file? Any kind of help will highly be appreciated.

I firmly believe, if we could restore to a point before the System Recovery, those missing files will surely come back, hence I would have thought the same way too, but unfortunately the Restore points prior to the Partial System Recovery are also all gone, i.e., the oldest restore point available is right after the system recovery. What else could I do? The software I have tried to recover the files are a.o. "Easy Undelete", "R-Undelete", "e-Data Unerase", "Recover My Files" and "Turbo File Uneraser", none of those gave any trace of the missing files in "My Documents".

Thanks for the hints. As a matter of fact I have done those, trying to search the whole C: drive, even logon as Administrator in Safe Mode, nothing found. As to the Undelete programs, I have tried not less than 4 softwares, and no single trace of the missing files are pointed out, be it the overwritten ones or the very good ones, all seem to be those that were really deleted from somewhere else, not from "My Doduments". As such I still have a tiny hope, that the missing files might still be hidden somewhere and need some trick (maybe with profile?) to reveal. Can somebody help please .....

The DLL file in a PC running WinXP Home Edition was corrupted or missing, so that WinXP cannot start. The only option is than to do the System Recovery (F10). The safe recovery was selected, and there was a message that said the data files will not be deleted. After the recovery is completed, indeed I found all the data files outside the "C:\Documents and Settings" are intact. But unfortunately all the files that were in "My Documents" which was located in the "C:\Documents and Settings" were completely wiped out! Is that situation normal? If it is then the message that said the data file will not be deleted is really misleading!! Is there any way to recover those files that were in "My Documents" before? Or are they completely gone? Thanks a lot!!

My friend has mistakenly installed NUSB into his Win98 First Edition. Certainly it won't work. BSOD will come up each time a device is plugged in. Any hint on how to uninstall it? Thanks a lot.