Molecule

great work multibooter!! I (a late-bloomie noobie to digital cameras) am trying to figure out what I need to retrieve pictures out of a digital camera with w98se ... It may be my ignorance, but as the word 'camera' is not mentioned on the last 10 (of 23) pages of the Maximum-Decim USB driver project, and since cameras are such a huge area, and, since the card reader is apparently the critical item required to use a modern cameras with w98se (since they don't come with w98se drivers), it looks to me like this topic, on card readers and 98se, should be (or become) a pretty important one ... So, from me, your work on adapting card readers to w98se is (and will be) much, much appreciated ... regards molecule

here's an interesting one, but it is a linux bootcd that runs a program designed specifically to backup c-drives on XP machines. CDriveBack -- sourceforge project -- http://www.lccdigital.com/content/view/65/62/ PING sounds interesting -- will it "kiosk" an XP machine? I'm using 98se happily now in a 733P3, but would like to move to new hardware. I am reluctant to move to XP until there was a way by which I can sector-by-sector restore my C-drive on every shutdown (from MBR to ORIGINAL swap file to the last slackspace). In my dream, a normal shutdown would (1) shutdown XP and reboot to a new os, then (2) run a restore image program on a minimal c-drive (c-drive has os and programs only), then (3) restore default boot to XP for next startup and then (4) turn off. An optional shutdown would make an new reference image, built after adding new software while not connected, with full awareness and knowledge of the machine's owner. Every startup would be absolutely identical, no matter how many personalities (unauthorized by me) have been fudging with my bits 'n ... while connected. I don't care about any of Bill Gate's illusory conveniences. Any data to be retained would be on other drives (which is not hard to do). If I can reboot the same everytime, thenI don't care what "other powers" want to do to my HDD while connected -- they can have at to their heart's delight. But when I go to sleep at night, I want to know that come morning, my machine starts off right. Has anyone done this? Deep Freeze looks interesting, but it's my suspicion that they have back doors too, and if they were discovered, no one would ever know, nor would it be in their interest to announce it.

computerwizkid-- I have no kernel type programming skills but I like the idea of this project and have no doubt it will have a long and strong future ... IMHO every release of a MS product since 98se has been a greater and greater threat to humanity ... back doors are opened to "internet insiders" and they become harder and harder for a user to shut down (not accidental) and the EULAs become downright insulting and demeaning ... I'd love to see a 2k8 kiosk version, where on shutdown, the owner has the option to have physical device HD0 (C-drive) wiped clean (reformatted at the bios level and then reformatted at the dos level), and then have the operating and program file systems copied over from clean sources on a second physical device, HD1 (D-drive). shutdown would probably take two hours or so ... that's not the point. the point is that when users turn their computers back on, they will know that they are starting from a pristine C-drive. I know this sounds radical, but with all the deep hacking of personal computers coming from ***extremely well financed operations (hacking personal computers is a form of domestic terrorism, financed by Federal Reserve Marxists and big business fraudsters heaving their last gasps in search of a domestic cash flow), the time will come that either we admit that we own nothing whatsoever in, on or about the computers that we pay for (because our purported control over use of is file systems is totally illusory... absolute control being voluntarily surrendered by the EULA to higher powers at the other end of "that wire") or ... someone is going to come up with an OS that boots ***everytime the same set of files, from a set of files over which a user can have some degree of control. linux is not quite ready yet, and most of the larger distros have been taken over by Marxists ... sorry for the rant, but a 2k8 distro which gives the owner the ability to restore to pristine condition all operating and program files during shutdown, would be gain a reputation as a distro that return control of the computer back to the owner, or at least that diminishes control from "big-boy" stuff that gets slipped in by wire at the back end.

I have a Microsoft link -- http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/express/aa718401.aspx -- to download manual installation ISOs of free express editions of VB, VC#, VC++ and VJ#. But they are the 2005 versions -- will they work with w98se? Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition 449,848 KB .IMG File | .ISO File Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition 445,282 KB .IMG File | .ISO File Visual C# 2005 Express Edition 445,282 KB .IMG File | .ISO File Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition 474,686 KB .IMG File | .ISO File Visual J# 2005 Express Edition 448,702 KB .IMG File | .ISO File If not, are there any archive links to "express"-type editions of VB and VC for W98se ?

a while back I saw a link to a MS giveaway on Visual C++ and Basic, but as I remember it, the offer had an expiration date and the programs required w2k and up... perchance, anyone have an archive link to the last edition of VB or VC++ studio that runs on w98se? wild perchance, a Fortran interpreter with IDE, and compiler?

XML parser is needed by TeXnicCenter - http://www.toolscenter.org/downloads.html an editor used by proTeXt - http://www.tug.org/protext/ which is a 98SE compilation of MikTeX MSXML 4.0 Service Pack 2 (Microsoft XML Core Services) http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en

awesome to see you're back! one might even say that sp21a (after thinking about it, and on how much I use my computer) has become ... (choke choke (harhar) ) an important part of my life!! I'm on dialup, so I use a Kingston thumbdrive to transport large files that can be easily uploaded/downloaded at my public library -- now I'm totally addicted to USB drives. MaximDecim's USB driver didn'twork on my sp21a machine, nor did Kingston's drivers (also very large) But ... an Italian programmer fixed my problem with a 10k zip, by posting a small no-frills generic USB thumbdrive driver that is only 10k with no registry alterations. It's only 10k in size -- please consider adding it. Here are some links: driver homepage (in Italian) -- http://www.wintricks.it/faq/usbpen98.html download page -- http://www.wintricks.it//download/wtgenusb.zip jaclaz posted a translation of the webpage here -- http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2411 pat98usb did some more hacking described here -- http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...st&p=664191 don't know if Jesus is in his office or not, but it's good to see you back ... please include the thumbdrive if you can. regards... theMolecule

I DL'ed QTLite111, but the installer requires w2k. I have 98se. QT-Alternative, for version7, also requires w2k. Adobe QT requires XP. I tried QT Alt-ver 6 (legacy) -- the video decodes just fine, but the audio comes out garbled. Then I tried MP Classic -- the audio decodes just find, but the video system complains can't find [the same codec used by QT alt-v6] I wouldn't even have a clue how to go about finding out if I have all the required codecs. I know that MPClassic is able to find an audio codec that works, so I assume that somewhere I have an audio codec -- but it can't find a video codec. On the other foot, QT Alt v6 is able to "find?" a video codec that works, so now I assume that I have one of those in my system, but then it can't find an audio codec. Real Audio is probably the problem -- although I will never allow RA anywhere on my system, I am so paranoid about multimedia that I assuem it went ahead and hijacked my codecs just for spite. When this .mov is fed into Bill's media player 6, bill tries to automatically install a codec which I stop, because I believe that MS was ab initio an operational front for what is now known as "Al Qieda" -- which, translated means "outhouse toilet seat (crapper) over a deep well of cool fresh water in the desert" e.g. a deeply mined database, run by clueless racists and eugenicists, trying to implement a program of radical global genocide, while putting all the blame on little Osama bin Mickey House, who spends all his days and nights shivering in caves. Any suggestions -- for the codec (not the paranoia)?

thanks awergh, downloaded latest version -- strong project unfortunately, the sound comes out garbled -- like the speakers were under water -- but the video plays just fine (I have the suggested unicows files in my Windows\System subdir.) VLC media player also plays a working mp3 with the same under-water sound effect -- Media Player Classic plays the .mov sound track just fine -- but it won't display the video. So my solution is play the video in VLC and the sound in MP Classic -- works ok for me if I set one about one-click's time ahead of the other and then start them both. (Amongst other things, the predatory multi-media we-need-to-know thing (Real Audio etc.) turned me off long ago ... (seems Poindexter's aQ db has more of a need to know than I do ... arghh)

Anyone know a way to play a local .mov QuictTime 7 file on w98se? (found on , dl'd from http://www.pinkyshow.org/archives/archivesdate.html)on my dialup internet connection, the embedded QT 7 file plays in a embedded window in Mozilla browser, which I think plays it through a Macromedia flash plugin instead of a quicktime browser plugin. (how can I find this out?) I have the QT7 .mov file locally, but cannot play it (Apple QuickTime downloads only offers v 7.2 which requires XP or above so I was trying to embed the local file as follows: <html> <body> <!--this is the oridinal utube embedding code: <object width="425" height="350"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1Khut8xbXK8"></param> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1Khut8xbXK8" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed> </object> --> <p>hello world</p> <!-- now see if it will embed and open a local file, thus using the Mozilla to call plugin to open the file --> <object width="425" height="350"> <param name="movie" value="file://e:/1fils/PinkyShow/070525_iraqwar.mov"></param> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param> <embed src="file://e:/1fils/PinkyShow/070525_iraqwar.mov" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed> </object> </body> </html> Afterdawn.com has QT7 alternative, but it requires w2k. Their earlier version runs on 98, but plays QT6 only. http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_so...alternative.cfm Anyone have any suggestions?

Does the image include, and will the image restore, all date information on subdirs when they are "restored?" -- obviously same for files too? (Possibly called "forensics" -- but forensics might include much more than just preserving/restoring file/subdir dates.) In some cases I have so many subdirs under a dir I need to sort them by date of origination to locate a file (I can remember "about when" better than I can "a specific name"). ---- I was thinking of the 1.44 FD DOS versions. (I can't imagine how a restore could be considered secure when MS Windows is running.)

I don't know if this is the area you are going to be working in, but Kroll Ontrack has a dos (6.2) based disk image tool. It is typically shipped as "software" when you buy a retail HD. Maxtor has MaxBlast (by Ontrack), WD has DataLifeGuard (by Ontrack), Seagate has ?? (by Ontrack). I understand that the DOS versions included on the CDs are all just versions of Kroll Ontrack's dos-based image copier and restorer. They just do a sector by sector copy (sector 0x0123456... source HD gets copied to sector 0x123456... target HD), so source HD and target HD need to be healthy, and target HD needs to be larger than source HD. It is reported to be fast because it uses only BIOS. If I may make a request along this line -- I'd love to figure out eventually how to add a kiosk feature to my w98se. On shutdown, reboot to dos 6.2, run an image program, and shutdown. On next bootup, I would be back to c:\ (OS and programs), and it would be at the pristine image condition. All email, personal files, etc. would be on D: to whatever. But C-drive would remain virus free. Do any of the above image programs have a image restore, kiosk capability?

Nitro, I tried this Kingston 98se USB-memory stick driver, to no avail (it produced 0-byte inf files) and so I tried to extract it using UE1.5. It has an older (2000?) InstallShield installer. I forget exactly how it hung up on UE15 -- each of two options (can't remember their names) opened a dos window, which had to be ^C'd, and the UE15 message box needed a ctrl-alt-del process shutdown. Also, the .cab files which it produced during the partial extraction were corrupted as per WinRAR and 7zip Love your little tool, so thought you might like to know. http://www.kingston.com/support/downloads/...atatrav/DTI.EXE 1,236,215 bytes md5: f4f22f8195bbc067937f14c4dbc055f8 *Dti.exe http://www.kingston.com/support/downloads/...I_v2.34r020.exe 5,426,763 bytes md5: fcb50c941520cfabe2865c9afe67326e *DTI_v2.34r020.exe

thanks Fred. I gave up on the bloated 1.2 and 5.4 meg Kingston drivers after 20+ reboots, of every combination and permutation I could think of. In the aftermath of rage and envy, I found this 10k generic USB driver for memory sticks, from WinTricks. Nothing fancy. But --- IT WORKS!!! faq for driver is here (written in portugese I think -- google translation of a cut and pate, spanish to english, returned garbage) http://www.wintricks.it/faq/usbpen98.html Click through the pages for screenshot sequences of install & unistall. Download link is on last page (6). Download the generic driver -- http://www.wintricks.it//download/wtgenusb.zip (Only 10K, and no registry installs -- nice!). Unzip to a safe location because it has a remove.bat file you might want. Remove the Kingston drivers (that I couldn't get to work) by running the installer on top of itself. The installer will detect a previous install, and uninstall it, requiring a reboot. During reboot, plug the Kingston memory stick into a USB port. Windows will detect an unknown device, and put a yellow-? on the devices list. Open My Computer, properties, Device Manager, right-click properties on the Kingston DataTraveler memory stick, and install driver using WinTricks generic USB driver, WTGenUSB.inf from the zip. My memory stick immediately shows up as a device under hard drives on Device Manager, and it is immediately available for use as a drive (without a reboot). Works great for me. (win98se with SP2.1a, on p3 on ASUS CUV4x mobo) This tight little generic gem might be a something for MGx to know about (maybe he already does?), or for Soporific to include in his next package. Based on reports from several threads on this site, http://forums.driverguide.com/showthread.php?t=21792, this driver seems to work for all 98 systems, including memory sticks, photocards, etc. and it works where others fail.

help! when I revert back to original version of oleaut32.dll, the InstallShield program runs ok. according to their instructions, what is supposed to happen is: (don't insert stick) run expanded DTI.exe, reboot, w98 rebuilds device db and get message "insert datatraveler at any time" (don't insert), click finish to reboot, then use datatraveler. the stick still doesn't work. (t's not the stick because it works on another computer) when w98se is running, inserting (or removing) the stick and removing the stick does nothing ... no popups, no changes in My Computer, devices, etc. if I insert the stick prior to boot up, I get new device dialog. according to the Kingston FAQ, I'm supposed to update using the have driver option, using an inf file located at the installed location. The installed location is c:\program files\KINGSTON TECHNOLOGY CO INC\DataTraveler 2.0 (install default). It has three files: dokhdc.inf, 0 bytes, today's date dokusb.inf, 0 bytes, today's date SafeEject.EXE, 188416 bytes, 01-23-2005 None of the infs work. If I continue, then w98se installs an unknown (?) device, which when opened in My Computer, properties, devices, shows the DataTraveler 2.0. If I right click on that to install or update driver, the above 0-byte infs still don't work. I also tried the older version of the driver, and it produces the same results. any one have any idea on how to help me?

thanks fred! DTI/XX - USB DataTraveler I drivers default Windows 98SE Driver (12/16/2005) http://www.kingston.com/support/downloads/...atatrav/DTI.EXE (1,236,215) the FAQ page, has this alternate driver for earlier versions of memory stick http://www.kingston.com/support/downloads/...I_v2.34r020.exe (5,426,763) if after unpacking, InstallShield returns error "unhandled exception 0x80070725, incompatible version of the RPC stub, setup terminates" see Kingston Knowledgebase Q105810 according to Kingston Q105810, version of oleaut32.dll from DCOM package has an incompatibility. download a compatible dcom98, http://support.installshield.com/kb/files/Q105810/dcom98.exe, reboot to dos, cd to windows\system rename oleaut32.dll to oleaut.old, reboot to windows, run the dcom98.exe from kingston, and reboot again. Then install DTI.exe per instructions. Then reboot to dos, cd to windows\system rename oleaut32.old to oleaut.dll, and reboot to windows.

Jump to last post: I need some guidance on how to use a USB memory stick. I have a 733-P3 on ASUS CUV4X mobo with 512m. Will a usb memory stick (a 1G "Kingston" - I think) work in w98se, with Gape's SP2.1a? do I have to turn the 'puter off first? what happens next, after one is inserted into a USB port my computer, properties, devices, shows 4 USB icons and 2 USB driver sets ... 1-USB Root hub MS 4-23-1999 v 4.10.2227 in \system32\drivers\usbhub.sys and in \system\vmm32\ntkern.vxd 2-VIA Tech 3038 PCI to USB Universal Host Controller, v016 in (4 files listed) drives c thru o are taken (3-ide hdds, 1 scsi w/ 2-cds + 1-zip), so the next available drive letter is p. cds and zip are x,y,z I have a USB-mouse on one of the USBs are there any "dont dos" to make sure I don't do to lose my work, or damage the stick? like plug in while running, or, unplug while running, or plug and unplug too quickly (can you treat them just like ... oh, never mind), or ??? thanks

I'd like to do something similar -- to prevent viruses, or any other form of outside manipulation. To operate w98se in Kiosk mode -- I'd like to be able to shutdown w98se, execute a reboot to Linux or Dos8.3, autoexec in Linux or Dos8.3 with LFN, and use maxblast, or seagate or other opersource equivalent of ontrack command line disk imager, and sector-by-sector copy my 98se C-drive from a protected hdd. This means that I lose all the gruuvy conveniences which Bill Gates and friends have designed just for me, like ability for anybody to modify my registry, and etc. -- and that's exactly just what I want. (This potential is also one reason I consider w98se to be far superior to w2k or xp or vista, which only a clueless zombie would believe cannot be modified at will by its original programmers.) All I want to be able to do, is start my computer from a C-drive (which has windows plus proggies installed by me from disk) which was reformatted to a "pristine condition" as a part of its prior shutdown, and where I selected the option to restore pristine. By pristine, I mean with approved (approved by me, not by Bill Gates and friends) installation of windows plus the proggies that I installed. Obviously, if I just installed something, I want to keep I would have to have an option to update my safe disk. I have the last version of Ghost, but that is a Norton product -- end of story. For some reason, this idea of a kiosk mode for w98se (which I suspect is what neo is getting at) totally freaks out many people -- and I cannot for the life of me figure out why.

Wwwwow! I can hook a USB HDD up to w98se!! Didn't think I could do that I have an ASUS CUV4X mobo with P3-coppermine and VIA VT82C694Z NB (AGP4x + 133 FSB) and VIA VT82C686A SB (UDMA and USB). The features and setup pages don't say specify USB 1 or 2. However, the appendix gives a definition of USB with "supports synchronous and asynchronous transfer types over the same set of wires up to 12Mbit/sec. USB 2.0 provides twice the transfer rate of USB 1.0" The driver is VIA Tech 3038 PCI to USB Universal Host Controller by MS, dated 4-23-1999, file version 4.10.2223 (system32\drivers\uhcd.sys, usbhub.sys, usbd.sys ; system\vmm32\ntkern; system\usbui.dll; system). ---- What do I have to do? Are any features a must for 98se? Do they require their own proprietary drivers (probably not available now)?

got it! very nice -- much appreciated.

Can I make explorer popups for file-save and file-open dialogs, always open in details mode with date and time columns (sorted on date) and with larger box width, to view extra columns? I remember seeing a post to this effect somewhere, but now cannot find it?

I think xplorer² pro has a pdf preview ... I use the lite-free version but it does jpg-text previews only nice product : http://zabkat.com/x2facts.htm

In my 98se puter, I tried running UE_1.5 on soporific's autopatcher 98se and got the following response [i tried uploading 2 png screendumps with Mozilla javascript on, but the code hangs my Mozilla 1.7.12]: [first title bar: Universal Extractor v1.5] Scanning file to determine filetype. [second title bar: AutoIt Error] (x) Line 0 (File "C:\Program Files\Universal Extractor\UniExtract.exe"): runwait($cmd & $trid & $f & ' "'& $f & '" >' & $debugfile, $filedir, @SW_HIDE) Error: Unable to execute the external program. A device attached to the system is not functioning. [ OK ] I saw in a prior post in this thread that AutoIt has some conflicts with 98se ... so I fed it a straight zip file and it handled it great. So, that means that it's not my 98se and AutoIt-UI. Rather, it must be something peculiar to this particular file. The target file, www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Auto-patcher-for-Windows-98SE-Download-64269.html, is a 230meg dos-window excutable, with cool interface to unzip(?) files to a user selected directory. A small hex dump of the header of the 230 M file follows, if that helps. offset 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F 00000000 4D 5A 90 00 03 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 FF FF 00 00 MZ..........ÿÿ.. 00000010 B8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ¸.......@....... 00000020 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00000030 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 E8 00 00 00 ............è... 00000040 0E 1F BA 0E 00 B4 09 CD 21 B8 01 4C CD 21 54 68 ..º..´.Í!¸.LÍ!Th 00000050 69 73 20 70 72 6F 67 72 61 6D 20 63 61 6E 6E 6F is program canno 00000060 74 20 62 65 20 72 75 6E 20 69 6E 20 44 4F 53 20 t be run in DOS 00000070 6D 6F 64 65 2E 0D 0D 0A 24 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 mode....$....... 00000080 ED 4E CB 43 A9 2F A5 10 A9 2F A5 10 A9 2F A5 10 íNËC©/¥.©/¥.©/¥. 00000090 C6 30 AE 10 AB 2F A5 10 2A 33 AB 10 BD 2F A5 10 Æ0®.«/¥.*3«.½/¥. 000000A0 C6 30 AF 10 93 2F A5 10 CB 30 B6 10 AC 2F A5 10 Æ0¯.“/¥.Ë0¶.¬/¥. 000000B0 A9 2F A4 10 F7 2F A5 10 FD 0C 94 10 AA 2F A5 10 ©/¤.÷/¥.ý.”.ª/¥. 000000C0 6E 29 A3 10 A8 2F A5 10 52 69 63 68 A9 2F A5 10 n)£.¨/¥.Rich©/¥. 000000D0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 000000E0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 50 45 00 00 4C 01 04 00 ........PE..L... 000000F0 59 45 6D 41 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 E0 00 0F 01 YEmA........à... 00000100 0B 01 06 00 00 50 00 00 00 C0 00 00 00 00 00 00 .....P...À...... 00000110 9D 1D 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 60 00 00 00 00 40 00 .........`....@. 00000120 00 10 00 00 00 10 00 00 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00000130 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 01 00 00 10 00 00 ......... ...... 00000140 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 10 00 00 ................ 00000150 00 00 10 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 ................ 00000160 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 90 66 00 00 3C 00 00 00 .........f..<... 00000170 00 B0 00 00 30 69 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .°..0i.......... 00000180 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00000190 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 000001A0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 000001B0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 000001C0 00 60 00 00 40 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .`..@........... 000001D0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 000001E0 2E 74 65 78 74 00 00 00 9A 48 00 00 00 10 00 00 .text...šH...... 000001F0 00 50 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .P.............. 00000200 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 60 2E 72 64 61 74 61 00 00 .... ..`.rdata.. 00000210 64 0D 00 00 00 60 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 60 00 00 d....`.......`.. 00000220 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 40 00 00 40 ............@..@ 00000230 2E 64 61 74 61 00 00 00 00 33 00 00 00 70 00 00 .data....3...p.. 00000240 00 30 00 00 00 70 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .0...p.......... 00000250 00 00 00 00 40 00 00 C0 2E 72 73 72 63 00 00 00 ....@..À.rsrc... 00000260 30 69 00 00 00 B0 00 00 00 70 00 00 00 A0 00 00 0i...°...p... .. 00000270 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 40 00 00 40 ............@..@ 00000280 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................

there is a predicate inside MGDx' post that I sort of like … and that is the idea that windows 98 is definitely not being put to bed just yet … I have no doubt that there will definitely be updates in the future. so, setting aside the flak I may take for this … because what I'm going to do is suggest that as Autopatcher98se gets finalized, its one-gulp format (which is excellent for consolidating development overview but at 230M gives everyone on dialup heartburn) will cause accessibility problems and a reactionary political pressure. Might I suggest that AP98se be eventually merged with DefinitiveList98se … in the manner of jcarle's wonderful msfn project called Windows Update Downloader for Unattended CDs see http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=147 For w2k, the WUD Windows Update Downloader reads a text-based updatelist .ul file (contained in a zip .ulz), and maintains a homebase directory of patches and add-ons for 2K-autopatcher. The homebase directory is divided into sensible categories, each category maintained in its own directory, specifically, [.NET Framework 1.1] [.NET Framework 2.0] [Critical Updates] [service Packs] [Windows Media Player] [Other]. "Other" contains things like Windows Rights Management, Windows Installer, etc. etc. The .ul updatelist file is a text-based xml file, which for 98se is almost already prepared from soporific's update list. An example of the first listing in the current .ul file is <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <updatelist product="Windows 2000 Professional" platform="x86" language="ENU" lastupdate="2007-03-13" xmlns="http://wud.jcarle.com" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://wud.jcarle.com http://wud.jcarle.com/wud.xsd"> <!--Generated file by Rj's ulTranslate v1.6, translated from w2k-v3.xml (2007-03-13)--> <categories> <category id="1">Critical Updates</category> <category id="2">Service Packs</category> <category id="4">.NET Framework 1.1</category> <category id="5">.NET Framework 2.0</category> <category id="7">Windows Media Player</category> <category id="9">Other</category> </categories> <updates> <update id="KB928090" category="1" publishdate="2007-02-13" article="http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=928090"> <!--http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=D9E4181A-05F9-4186-BDCA-C95351983844&displaylang=en--> <title>Cumulative Update for Internet Explorer 6 SP1 (KB928090)</title> <description>This update addresses the vulnerability discussed in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS07-016. To find out if other security updates are available for you, see the Additional Information section at the bottom of this page.</description> <filename>IE6.0sp1-KB928090-Windows2000-x86-ENU.exe</filename> <url>http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/2/c/12c22818-1b18-4f7b-88b6-e17c97a98bc8/IE6.0sp1-KB928090-Windows2000-x86-ENU.exe</url> </update> jcarle's WUD, if fed an updatelist for the 98se patches, could be used by any user to automatically maintain his or her homebase of update files in 1-10 Meg chunks. The schema for 98se would obviously differ from that for w2k, so I'll outline the w2k process: the user downloads the latest .ulz (10k), unzips it to a .ul (53k), and opens it in WUD update downloader. WUD reads the home directory of the user, and compares its filelist to the latest update. It graphically gives the user the option to select which files needed, and then downloads them (a nice feature). It can delete the unwanted files from the home directory. For w2k, different .ulz files can be maintained for different languages too, which might be nice for 98se too. After soporific finalizes Autopatcher98se technology (for which for testing he obviously needs total control of patches available on the computer and their locations), I would love to see his technology compressed to a zip file and then combined with a companion .ulz file. The companion 98se.ulz could then maintain the precise directory structure on the user's computer, exactly to soporific's specifications, through the WUD downloader. That would solve the problem of the big-endian 230M one-gulp, and it would solve MGDx' softly expressed concern that room be left open for future growth -- it might be one way to make soporific's technology a part of the future of 98se.

though Iz feelz like a total noob -- me trying offering "advice" on file sharing services -- ha! This site http://www.openomy.com/ which has a free version which gives 1GB file size, 10GB/mo bandwidth, and a download link to files (so that users don't have to open a free account and log in). Other file sharing sites were http://www.dropboks.com/ which offers 1GB storage and unlimited BW, and operates on donations; and http://www.omnidrive.com/ which offers 1GB storage, 5GB BW, and java based interface. I got the links from http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2098950,00.asp. Can't remember how I came across that. anyway, if this helps, great.