alexanrs

If you have safe computing habits, shouldn't be much of a problem, specially since you are in an university network, which means you are behind a router with a firewall. But I'd install an AV just in case, even if it is a little outdated (old systems, mostly old viruses )

I'v always used AVG in all my computers and never had any trouble, but according to Grisoft's site Windows 98 will only be supported until August 2008.

Applying the Desktop Update is really a matter of taste. I myself constantly use other features like the Quick Launch bar (my taskbar has two rows, one for shortcuts and other for the task buttons, because I hate a cluttered desktop). Also, if he said it used to work, it probably means he used to have it installed, so he's probably used to the slowdown. You do have a valid point, though, and I myself disable the Active Desktop (JPEG/HTML wallpapers and Web Objects) per se, even on Win98/2K/XP, as it is, in my opinion, the most noticeable slowdown of the IE integration. phillip1966: If you want a (relatively) quick way to apply a JPEG as a wallpaper without Active Desktop, open the file with Internet Explorer (if it is not the defalt handler, open an IE window and drag the file there), right-click the image and select "Set as Wallpaper". IE will conver the image to a bitmap file (%windir%\Internet Explorer Wallpaper.bmp) and apply this BMP file as your wallpaper.

Do you have Active Desktop installed? If I recall correclty, most , if not all, themes had a JPEG wallpaper, and these cannot be applied without it. If you need instructions on how to install it, look here Installing Active Desktop Update - Lightspeed's Windows 95 page

Andrew T I think he meant 32-bit icons like in XP, where the alpha channel is used for tranparency. CooledComputer Check out Revolutions Pack in the "Unnoficial Win98se Service Pack" sub-forum. It gives you 32-bit icons, skinning and more

This is just a shot in the dark, because I honestly do not believe this is the cause, but I can't think of much else. There is a possibility you could be suffering from some weird conventional memory shortage randomly exposed by some unrully app/driver (?). Try changing your config.sys to this (comments in italic) And your autoexec.bat

If you haven't done it yet, try removing all PCI/ISA cards, even the video one, if you have one and your motherboard has onboard video to fallback on, and keep testing. I've had some serious issues with a GeForce 4 MX and a PCChips motherboard, although both were perfectly fine. It seems that my mobo had faulty support for AGP fastwrites and my graphics card exposed it, just disabled it in the drivers and it ran fine for quite some time (until I sold it to buy me a better PC). If it still crashes with all the expansion cards removed, I'd format the computer. If it still crashes afterwards, well, save some money because you'll probably have to replace the PC.

You could always export and then import the "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Run" and "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Run", but I don't really think they are corrupt (if they were, the system would just display a message about the specific program not being found). Also, these entries are only executed BY THE SHELL, which means AFTER the GUI boots.

I dont know about win4lin, but in WINE you can set the Windows version it reports to applications

But with separate configurations you wouldn't have to worry about Windows not seeing the XMS memory used by other utilities (which were initialized prior starting windows). Besides, in a Windows-only config you wouldn't need most of your drivers/TSR's, like QCDROM, shsucdx, ctmouse, SBEINIT and others, and would avoid any conficts that might arrise if you decide to add any DOS-based drivers in the future, or if you decide to use other 3rd-part memory managers while still mantaining a nice amout of free conventional memory. OK Actually, you need to use less UMB in DOS mode so you can afford to lose 64KB of contiguous upper memory to the EMS page frame. According to MS-DOS 6.22's help, each buffer uses 532 bytes, so your buffers would use at about 51K (I only took in accout your primary buffers, ignoring the 8 secondary ones, so you probably use more), and freeing that (BUFFERS=10 should fit in HMA, so it souldn't use UMBs) would be a great step towards making room for the page frame. Just out of curiosity, could you post the output of "mem /c" and "mem /f" (in bare DOS)?

Linux is not a compatibility layer, not even a Windows-based software. You don't install in ON windows, it is an Operational System by itself. It runs several Windows-based applications though, if WINE is installed. Orca is only able to edit MSI files (used by some installers), and it can be used to remove (or alter) the OS check done during the install process. If the software itself is really not compatible with Windows98 (uses unsupported functions, for example), there is nothing Orca can do. In that case you could give KernelEx 0.32a a shot. It patches a few system files in order to add some of these functions. Actually, Win2K supports functions Win98 does not.

From QEMM help file: You'll get more free UMBs if you change a few things in your config.sys: FILES=255? Are you sure you need that much? You should try to reduce that to something more reasonable (and less conventional memory consuming) like 60. I myself use 40 and never had troubles. You used NOAUTO, so if you really do not want to go 4DOS (I never had compatibility issues with it), you should check if your COMMAND.COM is being loaded high (if you want it to, of course). I think you can replace SHELL with SHELLHIGH to ensure that. I will insist on this one: I just noticed you use QCDROM.SYS, so you might replace it with UIDE.SYS (in the freedos page I told you about in the last post), which provides cache (from 5mb up to 1GB), CD-ROM support and UDMA. And it uses about 5kb of conventional memory and would allow you to remove your insanely large (and upper-memory consuming) BUFFERS and also QCDROM.SYS, freeing up some more memory. The only problem here would be your SBLive drivers, that require the first 4 MB of extended memory to be free, so you'll probably need to load SBEINIT before UIDE.SYS (there are utilities that allow you to load TSRs from CONFIG.SYS in a DEVICE(HIGH) line, or .SYS drivers from the AUTOEXEC.BAT) One last question: Have you considered having multiple configurations, one for Windows and one for DOS-only programs via a boot menu? If you search through MDGX's site you'll find all the information you need to achieve that.

To be able to help you we'd need more information about your computer and the error, like: 1. When exactly does it hang: Before the video drivers kick in? After entering windows but before loading Explorer? 2. Any error messages? 3. Before changing msconfig startup from selective to normal what is being prevented from starting? 4. Computer specs.

EDIT: (double-post, sorry)

If I recall correcty, the latest QEMM version also works well with Windows 9x (well, I think it was before Windows 98 came out, but it is worth a shot). If it works, it can replace your complicated HIMEM.SYS, EMM386.EXE, UMBPCI.SYS and HIRAM.EXE setup altogether. The only drawback would be your SBLive drivers, that are way too picky about memory managers, and they might not be very happy with QEMM. Another detail: for someone trying to squeeze every byte of conventional memory, it is amazing that you're not using a 3rd part shell like 4DOS. If I recall correctly, 4DOS has a much smaller memory footprint than COMMAND.COM, can handle LFNs in Windows and is way more powerful. Also, if you get some DOS-based cache drivers like SmartDrv, though you should search FreeDOS's utilities page for other/better ones, you can ditch those horriby large BUFFERS to something like 10,0 (that should fit in HMA) and get a performance boost at the same time. Just remember to add you cache driver to the [safeList] section in your %windir%\ios.ini or else you'll loose 32-bit disk-access.

- 1024x768x24 : should need 2.25 MB (therefore, a 4MB card) - 1280x1024x32: should need 5 MB (therefore, a 8MB card) It is impossible for a 2MB card to display such resolutions simply because there is not enough VRAM to store all the pixels. You probably misread the VRAM amount on those computers, or the drivers are reporting the wrong values (?).

1. If you can, get a Sempron instead of an Athlon XP. A 1.4GHz Sempron (2200+) should beat both a 1.4GHz Athlon XP (1600+) and a 1.7GHz Pentium 4. If you cannot, I'd go Athlon XP. 2. 512 MB 3. Probably the GF2 MX because it's AGP, but I'd really try to get an AGP-based MX4000 (or a 6200, if you are willing to pay a little more, though even a GF4 Ti 4200 should be better than both of your options). 4. 80GB WD

Actually I use AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS to reduce boot time and increase the free conventional memory for DOS-based games and programs under Windows instead of disk cleaning. I like using XDMA (from FreeDOS) to speed-up disk access in the DOS part of the booting process (until Windows' disk drivers and cache kick in). It enables UDMA under DOS and, therefore, greatly increases (in most computers) the disk access speed. Here is a generic AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS (whith comments, notice that anything after, and including, '//' should not be copied). Bear in mind that some stuff there are more useful if you like DOS-based programs or DOS-mode, but do not affect performance, so they can be copied either way CONFIG.SYS DOS = HIGH, UMB BUFFERS=10,0 FCBS=1,0 STACKS=0,0 FILES=40 LASTDRIVE=Z DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS // Extended memory. It is loaded automatically, but this config needs extended memory before AUTOEXEC.BAT DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE RAM // Provides expanded memory, also provided by Windows as long EMM386 is not loaded with the NOEMS option, and UMBs, that help increase free conventional memory DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\XDMA.SYS // Or whatever path you copied it to DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\display.sys con=(ega,,1) Country=055,,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\country.sys // Country specific (Brasil), not really necessary AUTOEXEC.BAT @echo off // Prevents command echoing (lines being printed before executed), reduces useless text SET PROMPT=[MS-DOS] $P$G SET WINPMT=[WINDOWS] $P$G // Not really necessary. Makes the prompt to display [MS-DOS] or [WINDOWS] accordingly SET TEMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP SET TMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP SET DIRCMD=/4 /OGN mode con codepage prepare=((850) C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\ega.cpi) mode con codepage select=850 lh keyb br,,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\keyboard.sys // Keyboard layout used in DOS-based programs, mine is br (non ABNT brazilian = US international) // You can append cleaning instructions here, like cache-purging, temp file-removing and etc.

Sorry, but then I can't remember the name of the program (I've used it once), but I do remember it replaced user32.dll (or/and maybe user.exe) and changed the registry settings to assign values to the gradient colors (HKCU\Control Panel\Colors, strings 'GradientActiveTitle' and 'GradientInactiveTitle', I guess), so you might try to do it manually.

I think the program was Desktop Architect, and it should be fairly easy to find.

Honestly I think it would be a better idea to make a list of APIs Firefox 3 needs that are unavaliable in Windows 98, and then help Xeno86 implement them in KernelEx, so there would be no need to maintain a special Firefox version for Windows 98.

If I recall correctly, Windows Vista uses SegoeUI in size 9, instead of Tahoma size 8. Maybe if you change the font size for all elements from 9 to 8 if will help (at least, where it is not hardcoded). About WPF using ClearType, does it happen even if you use MS Sans Serif instead of Tahoma? At least in XP, bitmap fonts can't be smoothed in any way. My idea? You set the font smoothing to standard and the font to Tahoma 8. Then you grab a bitmap font editor (they should exist since Windows 3.0, shouldn't they?), create a copy of MS Sans Serif, change the name, add a size 9 and copy the size 8 bitmaps to it (and set the height too?) and then do that whole delete SegoeUI thing, setting the substitute to the font you created.

Have you tried deleting the SegoeUI font file and setting Tahoma as a substitute (or MS Sans Serif, if you do not want font smooting in the interface) in the HKLM\Software\Windows NT\FontSubstitutes registry key?

Windows NT 4 without the shell update uses icons from cool.dll (if it works like Win95+Plus) due registry settings. When the shell update is installed, it erases those settings and icons are once again loaded from shell32.dll. Also, if you look closely, these icons are NOT 16 color ones, they are 256-color ones, but they do not look as fancy. I could be wrong, of course, and MS added these COLL.DLL icons into the original Shell32.dll, in this case, only resource editing would do... this occurs on nt4 without the shell update but i dont know why and i dont know how to fix it really, can i have some advise on that. I've seen that in WinXP+just about any Vista icon pack. I think it is because it makes SHELL32.DLL bigger, so it uses memory in an address range that overlaps the one that was originally intended for an system dll. Since the shell update replaces the SHELL32.dll with a newer version that contains more icon formats, odds are that it also has a different default start address, and therefore doesn't overlap that system dll. You could try patching SHELL32.DLL to use another start address if it detects the older version. About 32-bit icons, you could try patching gdi32.dll to add an GdiAlphaBlend function. If you go to the Windows 9x forum you might notice a project called KernelEx, it patches the system DLLs and adds unimplemented funcions: if you use the same logic and implement that function, you might as well be able to use that Win2k Revolutions Pack DLL and add true 32-bit icon support to your project Btw, awergh, keep up the good work.

Have you tried Replacer?