Dave-H

That's very interesting, in fact I am getting the blank window so presumably need the hotfix! My shdocvw.dll file is older than the one in the hotfix, but as it's a hotfix you need to request from MS and can't just download, I don't think I'll bother!

That's good to know Den! I still wonder why they would update files for IE6 installations but not for IE7 or 8, unless the updates weren't actually necessary in those browsers.

Any thoughts on this Den, or anyone else? Any opinions for or against what I'm considering would be very welcome.

Hmm, I don't think I'll bother doing that then! Presumably these later files aren't that critical for IE7 and IE8 or they would surely have been included in the updates for those browsers.

Thanks Den, good to know that Windows 98SE can run on 64bit hardware. Driver availability is another issue though of course! I've actually found a possible Supermicro motherboard that looks attractive, a X7DVL-E. It's not too different from the one I've already got, and has an impressive amount of expansion slots. It's from 2009, and therefore still has a floppy connector and serial ports (and a header for a parallel port)! It doesn't have on-board sound, which my board does, but it does have on-board graphics, which mine doesn't. It also has one IDE connector, which I can work around. The details are here. It uses an Intel 5000V chipset, which I don't know very much about, but it supports Windows XP of course. Obviously Windows 98 would be a problem, both with the chipset and the graphics, in fact even finding Windows 7/8 drivers for the ES1000 graphics looks a bit dodgy! I could of course just replace the on-board graphics with an add-in card, which I will have to use for sound anyway. My main worry is that the motherboard won't actually support Windows 7 or 8. It's not actually listed as supporting Vista in Supermicro's OS compatibility chart. The only motherboard in that series that says it's compatible with Vista is the X7DVL-L, which is far too limited on expansion slots to be any use to me. The X7DVL-E motherboard is still available here in England for a reasonable price. Any thoughts? Cheers, Dave.

Thanks Den, and sorry for the delay in replying. I must say when I looked at those links my heart did sink a bit! I really don't want to end up having two separate systems, so it looks as if I will have to make compromises, as I thought I would. That Asus motherboard looks very interesting (and is remarkably cheap!) and I do have other Asus hardware (netbooks and monitors) that I've been very pleased with, so it certainly deserves some consideration. I like the fact that it has on-board sound and graphics, which means more room for expansion cards. It doesn't seem to have any IDE interfaces (although I was pleased to see that it still has PS/2!) but I guess that can be added via an expansion card to drive my IDE hardware until I update it all to SATA. One question I still haven't been able to find a definitive answer for is whether Windows 98SE can run at all on a 64bit system. I know of course that there was never a 64bit version of 98, but is the backwards compatibility good enough to let it run at all on 64bit hardware, ignoring the driver problems for a moment?! Cheers, Dave.

Really sorry for the multiple posts guys! I was just getting SQL server errors whenever I tried to post the new topic, and tried multiple times without realising that they'd actually worked! Please remove the duplicates. EDIT: Thanks!

Hi all, I really wasn't sure where to put this thread, as it relates to Windows XP, Windows 98SE, and Windows 7/8! As XP is "piggy in the middle" here though this is where I'm starting it, mods please feel free to move it if you need to. I'm after advice on an upgrade to my system. This has been prompted by the fact that a piece of software I use all the time has just (without any warning) gone 64 bit only. My motherboard (a Supermicro X5DAE) is now over ten years old (2003) but it was very expensive so I have stuck with it. It's a dual processor Xeon server board, and has served me very well for many years now dual booting Windows 98SE and Windows XP. I'm now looking at a 64bit upgrade, and I'm wondering if what I am considering is at all possible (or sane!) Supermicro sell a 64bit equivalent of the board I have, and as I've been very pleased with my current board I'm thinking that would be the obvious route to take. What I want to do, in an ideal scenario, is to have a triple boot machine, with the Windows 98 and Windows XP that I've got, with the addition of a 64bit installation of Windows 7 or 8.1. I of course realise that driver availability will be a severe and very probably insurmountable problem with this setup. I'll probably be lucky to find any XP drivers for the new motherboard, and there certainly won't be any 98SE ones! It is an Intel based motherboard though, and I was wondering how successful I might be with generic drivers, even if there is some loss of functionality. Drivers for the graphics card will be a big problem of course, as will interfacing the rest of my hardware, which includes four devices which use IDE interfaces. Fundamentally, will my 32bit Windows XP work on a 64bit motherboard anyway? My researches seem to indicate that it will, as there is backwards compatibility, but what about Windows 98SE? Will that run (driver problems apart) on a 64bit processor and motherboard anyway? I know I can run it in a virtual machine, but I'd rather run it natively if it's at all possible. So, am I speaking of the impossible here? Of course being a computer hobbyist I really just want to do this to prove that I can, not for any practical reason! If I was being completely realistic I'd just upgrade to 64bit Windows 8.1 only and be done with it, but where would be the fun in that! Any thoughts gratefully received. Cheers, Dave.

Got it now, thanks!

Thanks harkaz! I take it it's not actually there yet. The download link just says "Reuploading the sfxcab installer".

I wonder if the person who had the problem had messed with the "ProductSuite" registry entry. As far as I'm concerned if Windows Update still offers and installs the new patches without changing that, I'm leaving well alone! I have always manually scanned for and installed updates on Windows Update anyway, I've never let it do it automatically as I like to know exactly what's being offered before I allow it to be downloaded and installed. It goes without saying that you must switch off the "Automatic Updates" option in the Control Panel too!

It will be interesting to see if MS do try to block this somehow. It can hardly have come as a surprise to them that people have discovered it! I'm hoping that as long as it's confined to a relatively few geeks like us they won't worry too much, after all we're hardly going to be expecting support for it!

Thanks harkaz, I've re-downloaded the three files you modified which are relevant to my system. Two of them I have re-installed the updates anyway using Microsoft Update, but do I need to manually reinstall KB2931352? It did appear to install OK the first time before you modified it. Cheers and thanks, Dave.

Well I've installed the offered updates using Microsoft Update, carefully one by one, and there has been no ill effects so far! The only one missing that I had installed on my other machine using harkaz's files was the KB2931352 .NET update, which MS Update isn't offering. BTW I was heartened to see in my local supermarket today one of their brand new self-service tills rebooting, and yes, it looked very like XP!

Thanks, that is reassuring! I don't have Security Essentials installed, I use Trend Titanium Internet Security, so it will be interesting to see what that makes of it.

Just added the registry entry on my other Windows XP computer, and Microsoft Update is now offering me four critical updates. KB2932079 (.NET 2.0), KB2926765 (Security update for WEPOS and POSReady), KB2931365 (.NET 4), and KB2953522 (Security Update for IE8). Can someone who's done it reassure me that these are all OK to install?

So do I understand this right? We can get automatic Microsoft updates for our Windows XP systems for the next five years just by adding one simple registry entry, and everything that harkaz and others have been doing towards this has actually been a complete and unnecessary waste of time and effort?! I have to say that it does sound just a bit too good to be true!

Just to report that I have substituted the later version 12.9.5.2 symevent files on my system, with no apparent ill effects. The s32evnt1.dll file, which is also part of the package, is still the earlier 12.8.6.38 version. Thanks, harkaz!

Thanks, that would be much appreciated! They are 32 bit system files I assume? What about s32evnt1.dll, which is also part of it? Cheers, Dave.

Thanks Den! It sounds like I have the latest version of symevent for my 32 bit system then. Just as well I didn't waste ages trying to find a later version. In fact I was thinking of just pinching the later version files from a friend's laptop, which has Norton 360 installed. Just as well I didn't as it's a 64 bit laptop!

Yes, I'd be interested to know as well where that later version of symevent that you mention came from. The latest version on the Symantec FTP site is 12.8.6.38, which I installed thanks to submix8c. If there is a later one I would want to install that of course, assuming that it is compatible with XP! A search for version 12.9.5.2 doesn't find any downloads available for it.

Easiest way is to right click on "My Computer" on the desktop, select "Manage" and you should see the Event Viewer in the console window that pops up.

Strange that they don't appear in your Windows Update history. If you look in your Windows System Event Log however, they should be listed there with the source "NtServicePack".

Thanks den, yes I said earlier that I was a bit suspicious of the .NET optimisation service, which would almost certainly have caused the disk activity and the sluggish startup with the firewall error. I've seen that happen before after .NET updates. submix8c said he always disables it after any updates, but I guess it's there for a reason, and its impact on the system is only temporary. Just on this occasion, it may have generated the first crash, which may in turn have caused the second. Chkdsk ran after both crashes as you would expect, and although it didn't record fixing anything apart from the usual few truncated and cross-linked files that you always get after a stop error, it may have sorted it out. Still keeping my fingers crossed! I have updated Symevent BTW. Cheers, Dave.