Dave-H

Sorry for the delay in replying, but I've been experimenting, both with Plop and Grub4DOS! Where I am now is that I've managed to install Plop to the MBR of the flash drive, so Plop is now the first thing that appears when I boot from it. I select USB, and it appears to be loading some files, presumably to support USB 2. I then select the drive, and it checks the MBR and says it's fine, but then checks the boot sector and says "No valid bootsector signature". If I tell it to carry on it just goes to a flashing cursor and goes no further. Any quick pointers to fixing that, preferably without destroying all the data on the drive?! Cheers, Dave.

I Googled the error number (as I'm sure you've already done, but just in case, miss off the minus sign or you won't get any results!) Most of what I found was way over my head, but that error number seems to be mainly related to an invalid path somewhere, so maybe that should be investigated. Sorry to not be of more help.

What you probably have is SP 2.1a, which was the last stable final version of SP 2, which was produced by Gape, a member here who we haven't heard from now in quite a while. That SP was posted around in quite a few places. Gape started producing a SP 3, but disappeared before the project reached final version. PROBLEMCHYLD, another very active member here, picked it up relatively recently and is getting very near now to producing the final version of SP 3.0. It has many security and stability updates over SP 2.1a, as well as extra enhancements which are optional installs. If your machine has had no further updates at all since 2.1a i would recommend installing SP 3.0 when the final version is released.

That sounds like a great idea, then I could presumably just load up Windows 98 from the memory stick and then actually run it using a RAM drive. I want to be able to do this in a worst case scenario where I have no access to any of the hard drives on my system. Obviously I would then lose the OS completely if I had to reboot or the system crashed or froze, as the RAM drive would disappear and I'd have to load it from scratch all over again, but I will certainly investigate this option as it looks very interesting. Thanks.

I've been running an installation of Windows 98SE from a bootable flash drive memory stick, more as an experimental exercise than anything else, and also to give me a way of booting my machine without any hard drives connected so I can reconfigure them easily if necessary. It works fine most of the time, but it's very slow and freezes up sometimes, as you might expect! Just wanted to check with the experts here that I'm not missing anything that might make it perform better. The main problem seems to be that the system drive (the memory stick) is running in compatibility mode. There's probably nothing that can be done about this, but I am puzzled that the drive doesn't appear in the Device Manager at all. Would that be expected? The system has 4 GB of memory installed, so I'm using Rudolph Loew's RAM limitation patch. There is no swapfile usage so I assume the OS is running completely in memory. I cannot allow the system to install any USB controllers, as this immediately crashes the system, presumably because the drivers are trying to install on the system that's hosting the system drive! The USB controllers still appear in Device Manager but I've removed the INF file information for them so they cannot install. All other USB devices apart from the memory stick have to be removed (I have to use a PS/2 mouse). I was pleased that I got it working at all, but just wondered if anyone else who's done it has any more insights into how the configuration could be improved. Thanks, Dave.

Ah the memories. My first PC in 1993 had Windows 3.1 on it, and it was the wonder of the age at the time. It had a 120 MB hard drive "more than you'll ever need!" I still have the machine now, and I don't think I could ever bear to part with it. It was used by a friend of mine for some years, running Windows 98, but when he updated (to a Windows 7 laptop!) the machine came back home. I was really sorry that I'd actually junked my 3.1 installation disks, as I would have put it back on there. As it is it's dual booting with Windows 95 OSR2 and Windows NT 3.5. The latter still gives me the Windows 3.1 experience as it's the same GUI!

A service pack should enhance the stability and security of an operating system. KernelEx allows some software that was not designed to run on Windows 98SE to run on it. Revolutions Pack allows for some of the user interface enhancements of later operating systems to be used on Windows 98SE. We could argue forever on whether it's appropriate for these and similar items to be included in the service pack, and we will certainly never get a final version. Things like WIA are Microsoft technologies, so I think there is a much better case for including them. I would now say leave things like that in, but as optional installs of course, and leave things like RP and KEx out for the moment. Once we have a stable final SP 3.0, we can build on that, but we must have a fixed base to build on, and we're never going to get it if we keep on debating on what should or should not be included! The ball's in your court PROBLEMCHYLD, it's your baby. You decide what you want to include in the final version, and publish it as the final version. Once that is set and locked, we can move on to the next version, which may or may not include some of the things that we've been talking about!

I agree with this, but please don't add anything more, no matter what it is that people find and recommend, unless it's a real show stopper.. Every new addition has to be tested and this will result in never getting a final version because as soon as you verify something as safe and include it, someone will find something else that they think you should include! Include RP and KEx, (and WIA too) as options for later manual installation subject to any necessary warnings, as Drugwash says, but leave it at that. Future additions can always be added in SP 3.1 etc.

I installed the unofficial WIA update for Windows 98SE quite some time ago. I've never actually used it with a camera or scanner (I installed it just because I thought that it would be a good thing to have!) but I do also have TWAIN which I do use with my old Epson SCSI scanner. The presence of WIA on the system doesn't seem to have affected the working of the TWAIN drivers at all, the scanner still works fine with TWAIN as it always has.

Looks good to me! DirectX 9, Internet Explorer 6 SP1, .NET Framework 1 and 2 and Windows Media Player 9 are very large updates which would make the SP unwieldy IMO. They are readily available elsewhere anyway. If you add WIA and MDAC that will be pretty complete as regards the important official and unofficial update available for Windows 98SE. If you go final and "lock" this version as the baseline for SP3, you can still then carry on developing and updating it, but under later version numbers. Thanks as always for doing this for us.

Thanks PROBLEMCHYLD. Glad to hear you're working again BTW!

I think Fredledingue may have mis-read WIA as WMI!

Well I don't know what criteria they use for blacklisting sites, but it certainly doesn't seem to apply to all sites that have executable files for download. I can only assume that someone reported the site to them, but why I cannot imagine.

You may be interested to know that htasoft.com is being blocked by my Trend Micro Internet Security program. I get a warning that "Trend Micro has confirmed that this website can transmit malicious software or has been involved in online scams or fraud." I have asked them to review this. Sorry for going off topic.

I seem to remember a bit of bother here in the middle of 2009 with people attacking this thread and its participants. I do hope it's not them back again trying to disrupt things for us.

Thanks Problemchyld! Just one thing I spotted in your information, in the USB 2.0 notice. You say at the end - "Rename USBEHCI2.SYS to USBEHCI.SYS and replace it with the version in the WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS directory." I think you actually mean - "Rename USBEHCI2.SYS to USBEHCI.SYS and replace the version in the WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS directory with it."!

My version is 1710. That explains it!

Ah, indeed so! What I was really trying to point out was that my EXPLORER.EXE only contains the newer icons, whereas LoneCrusader said that the version that comes with NUSB contains the old ones. I have NUSB installed (it was installed long after the Service Pack) but still only have the new icons. Perhaps my installation of NUSB didn't replace EXPLORER.EXE for some reason, or something else subsequently replaced it again! I've never had any problem choosing whichever icons I want for all the desktop icons. They're all still in the version of SHELL32.DLL on my system.

My EXPLORER.EXE only contains the new ME/2000 style Computer and Recycle Bin icons. I have Gape's SP 2.1a installed, and NUSB. However, my SHELL32.DLL contains all the old Windows 98 icons. Easy to change them of course just using Display Properties Effects tab. Personally I like the newer Computer icon, but not the Recycle Bin one. I was dual booting with Windows 2000 for many years, and I didn't want the desktops looking too similar!

Thanks, that explains it!

Hi Problemchyld. Thanks for all this. Today's latest SP3 version file seems to have suddenly got a lot bigger. Is that because the versions for those without IE are now included in it, as they don't seem to be offered as separate downloads any more?

Not sure I agree with that. If you start putting that sort of thing in, it becomes more of an enhancement pack than a service pack. I think things like that should be included in a separate package.

Thank you PROBLEMCHYLD. I'm glad things are getting better for you now. Please don't ever think that what you're doing for us here is taken for granted by any of us. Love the new avatar!

Thanks!

Sorry to hear that PROBLEMCHYLD. I read of your personal circumstances on another thread, and I really hope that things are OK for you. Thanks for everything that you've done here.