Dave-H

Hi Andre! I've uploaded another trace here. This one has the REGISTRY parameter added. It seemed to work OK. It was taken on a normal shutdown, with everything running that's normally running on boot. I can do another one from a minimal startup if that will make things clearer. Thanks for sticking with this! Cheers, Dave.

Thanks Andre, I really appreciate everything you've done so far! There is another memory dump here. This one was taken after using msconfig to run the system with a minimum of programs and services running. The dump was initiated later than the first one too, while the sysem was hung on "saving your settings". I hope it may be more useful. Off to bed now (1.30 am here in England!) Thanks everyone who has helped with this so far. I've never had a problem with my system yet that hasn't been solved with the help of MSFN, and I'm sure that this won't be the first to not be solved! Thanks guys and good night! Cheers, Dave.

OK, the complete memory dump is here. I generated it as soon as the system was told to shutdown, as I didn't think it would work if I left it any later. It's pretty big, even zipped up! I hope it gives someone a clue as to what's happening here. Thanks, Dave.

OK, all third party processes killed in Task Manager. Another trace here. Even killed Explorer before running the trace. Shutdown still slow...........

OK, there's another trace here. This is with Norton Unerase Protection disabled, Trend Internet Security disabled, and the Windows Search Service and Indexing Service disabled. The file seems to be a lot smaller! The shutdown is still slow. Thanks for sticking with this, I wish I could look at these traces myself! Cheers, Dave.

Thanks, very interesting. I disabled the Norton Unerase Protection service, which didn't seem to change the shutdown problem, but I've run another trace without it enabled. It should be here. Has this changed things much, if at all? Rapport is an on-line banking login security program, from a company called Trusteer. It's been on my system for some time, and never caused any problems as far as I know. It is another program that auto updates itself though.

Thanks guys! Glad to have it confirmed that extracting the files from the 32 bit installer and replacing the ones in the folder with them would work. Thanks MagicAndre1981. I did just that, and it did work! So, I've got the trace. As I expected from what I'd read, I can't view it myself, as xperfview.exe does not work (it doesn't generate any error messages, it just doesn't do anything!) so I hope someone else can look at it for me. Unfortunately, I can't attach it here, as it's too big! Even zipped up it's 8.5MB. I've uploaded it to a website I maintain. It should be there if you right click and save here. If someone could analyse it for me I'd be very grateful. Thanks, Dave.

I have actually already done all that, and I think I've narrowed it down to Explorer being the process that's causing the problem. As I said, I've run the computer with a bare minimum of processes running, and the shutdown still isn't normal. It only becomes fast again if I kill explorer.exe before I shut down. I don't think there's any doubt that Explorer is causing the problem, the only question is why would it suddenly start behaving that way?!

@ allen2 Surely they are Windows core processes that should always be running? They are running under SYSTEM user name, not "Dave". Is that not correct? @MagicAndre1981 I managed to install the Performance Tools, but when I run XBOOTMGR I just get a message that it's not a valid Win32 application. I think that the trouble is that the Windows 7 laptop that I used to install it on and copy the files from is a 64 bit Windows 7 system. I tried to install the 32 bit version, but it wouldn't let me, so I had to install the 64 bit version. Is this why it won't work on my XP system, which is 32 bit? If that is the problem, the only thing I can think of trying is to extract the files from the 32 bit installer using UniExtract (or hope that they're all sitting in the temp folder if I don't complete the install) and then just copy them over to the folder on my system. It does actually install on XP anyway, but only with a very limited set of options, basically just the WPF Performance Suite. None of the other options that are there on the Windows 7 installation appear.

Thanks guys! To respond to you all in order - @MagicAndre1981 I have access to a friend's laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium on it, so I will try what you suggest and report back. @dencorso Hi Den! Unfortunately although I now back up my system regularly, I didn't become aware of this problem until after I'd done my last backup, and I only keep one, so I'm afraid that isn't an option this time. Believe me, I would have done it by now if it was! @allen2 Thanks, I do have autoruns installed and will check things on there. I have tried closing things down one by one to try and track down the culprit, but with no luck. As I said in my OP I've done a diagnostic startup using msconfig, and that didn't clear the problem. In that mode I've got down to just the following still running in Task Manager - LSASS.EXE SERVICES.EXE WINLOGON.EXE CSRSS.EXE SMSS.EXE 2 x SVCHOST.EXE (This I assume is the Remote Procedure Call and DCOM Server Process Launcher services, which are the two services which seem to have to be running.) Also Task Manager itself of course, and Explorer. As I said, if I kill Explorer in this mode, the shutdown is then normal, which I am assuming means that it is the culprit. Shutting down Explorer when the system is running normally with everything loaded does not cure the slow shutdown though, which I don't understand! I use Trend Internet Security, which has been working fine for ages, although an automatic update could have caused the problem of course. However the problem is still there even with all its processes shut down, so I don't think it's got anything to do with it. @Joseph_sw I did check the permissions on the HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders registry key, and everything seemed to be what I would expect. BTW I should have mentioned in my OP that the system shuts down fine from Safe Mode, but I expect you all assumed that anyway! Thanks, Dave.

I hope I can get some advice here as to where to proceed. My XP SP3 system, after running pretty flawlessly for 18 months after being upgraded from 2000 SP4, has suddenly developed the dreaded slow shutdown problem. It's hanging on "saving your settings" for ages before shutting down, and writing event 1517 into the Application event log on every shutdown or logoff. I've had this problem before when I was running Windows 2000, and as all the web searches on this problem recommend, I installed the User Profile Hive Cleanup service. This solved it, although I've never considered it to be a cure, more a workaround, which does nothing to remove the original cause of the problem! Anyway, this time it doesn't actually help! I updated the version of UPHClean that I already had, and activated it again (it had never been used on XP). All that resulted was that this caused shutdown to hang completely and permanently every time, either on "saving your settings" or on "Windows is shutting down". I'd then have to do a cold reboot. UPHClean wrote nothing into the event log. I then found that UPHClean could be put into a mode where it only logged the errors in releasing the registry keys, but without forcing them to be released. This allowed the shutdown to complete, and I was amazed to find that on every shutdown UPHClean was logging multiple events into the Application event log, sometimes as many as 24 events in quick succession! Each event contains a huge number of entries, in fact a couple of reboots cleared my log completely even though it's set to 2 MB maximum size! This is just one of them - Event Type: Information Event Source: UPHClean Event Category: None Event ID: 1501 Date: 26/07/11 Time: 14:00:05 User: AshfieldCourt\Dave Computer: AshfieldCourt Description: The following handles opened in user profile hive AshfieldCourt\Dave (S-1-5-21-1343024091-1757981266-1417001333-500) are preventing the profile from unloading: System (4) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x58) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x60) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x74) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x98) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0xd0) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0xfc) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x118) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x12c) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x144) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x158) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x174) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x184) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x1b4) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x1cc) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x1d4) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x1e0) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x1fc) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x224) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x22c) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x240) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x258) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x260) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x274) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x290) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x2a0) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x2b4) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x2d0) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x2e0) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x2f8) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x308) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x320) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x334) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x34c) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x3d0) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x3e8) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x3ec) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x420) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x434) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x448) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x44c) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x540) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x5f8) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x604) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x614) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x620) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x640) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x64c) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x67c) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x738) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x764) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x77c) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x798) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x7c4) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x7e0) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x7e8) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x7f8) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x810) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x81c) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x824) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x834) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x84c) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x85c) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x860) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x888) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x898) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x8a4) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x8a8) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x8cc) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x8d8) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x8f4) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x8f8) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x928) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x934) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x944) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x950) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders (0x96c) There are another 23 of these events, each one the same except that the hex numbers after each line are different. I've never seen anything like this before, and I have no idea what's caused it. The first entry of error 1517 was on July 17th, and I checked back and couldn't see that I changed anything on the system that day which would have triggered this. I been trying to diagnose this, but I can't now get any further. If I use msconfig to start the system with minimal services and items, the slow shutdown still happens. If I use Task Manager in this setup to close explorer.exe however, the shutdown is normal, so it looks as if explorer is the culprit. However on a normal startup with everything loaded, killing explorer.exe doesn't stop the slow shutdown from happening! I don't have any system restore points that go back before the 17th, so couldn't try that, but I did have an old registry backup from before then, but restoring that made no difference. Does that prove that the problem isn't in the registry? There are four profiles on my machine in "Documents and Settings". They are "All Users", "Dave"(the one I always use and the only user profile), "LocalService", and "NetworkService". The last two I assume are part of the Windows setup. I tried making a new profile, which I was told had to be the Administrator, although I am already the Administrator, just re-named to "Dave". I made a dummy temporary profile to test, and that shutdown OK, so it looks as if it must be something in my profile that's causing the problem. The system then wouldn't let me delete the test profile I'd made, so I had to restore a registry backup to get rid of it, and delete all the unwanted folders it had made! So, the problem does seem to be in my "Dave" profile, but how can I find out what exactly is causing explorer to suddenly lock all those registry keys open at logoff? I have Process Explorer, and Regmon and Bootvis, but they only seem to lock startup sequences, not shutdown. Is there anything I can use to monitor the shutdown that would tell me why explorer is suddenly behaving like this? I have of course scanned for viruses and malware, and the system seems to be clean. I should also mention that the system seems to be functioning normally in every other respect except for the slow shutdown. Sorry this is so long -winded, but I felt I needed to detail everything that I'd already done to troubleshoot this. As I said, I'm now at a loss, and would appreciate any advice. Surely we're not looking at completely reinstalling Windows to cure this?! That would be my very last resort, as it would take me ages to get the system back to how it was. Thanks, Dave.

Java 6 works fine with Opera, it just doesn't under Windows 98. Current versions of Opera will only use the "new style" java plugin, and it's that which won't work in Windows 98. Apparently this will not be easy (or even perhaps possible) to resolve.

Only installed Opera 11.50 yesterday, but it seems to be working fine for me too.

Installed and working fine here on 98SE, using the msi installer.

There is no 16MB limitation on the Registry size. I just tested an 18MB Registry. The 16MB limit occurs when the Registry and/or Gigabit Ethernet Drivers take up too much of the lowest 16MB of Physical RAM. I added the /M Patch to my RAM Limitation Patch to insure that this did not happen regardless of Registry Size or type of Ethernet. I wasn't expecting a reply to this after two years, but thanks Rudolph!

Indeed it does!

Buy it, you won't regret it! It cured so many problems on my 98SE system. It's worth every penny!

Print preview and printing seem to be fine for me with Opera 11.11 and KernelEx 4.5.1. Using an Epson R285 printer. In fact the issue with printing which I reported here in Windows XP, doesn't happen in Windows 98! The print preview is still useless, but it does print. Don't have Acrobat PDF Writer so I can't test that.

Opera 11.11 just released still working fine. Installer now works too as long as set to Windows 2000 mode before running.

Thanks Xeno, that's great! Sorry the project has stalled, but even if there is no further development at all, it's still been well worth having, and thanks for all your efforts, and thanks to any others involved of course too! Thanks for fixing the download display in Opera 11, it was only a slight annoyance, but great that it was fixable. The only thing I'd noticed which is still outstanding is that the keyboard shortcut underlines on the Opera drop-down menus seem to be fixed on, which is not the case when running it in XP. A very minor cosmetic thing though, so don't worry about it unless it's a symptom of a more serious problem. Thanks again, Dave.

Now that's just showing off!

Yes, that's the latest version. If you are happy to pay for QuickTime Pro, I would say it's well worth it, but if you only want the free player, I would agree with rainyd, there are better "alternatives". If you just want to play later QT files, such as HD files which QT 6 won't play, use QT Alternative or indeed the VLC Player. The last version of VLC for windows 98 (0.8.6i) plays HD H264 files quite happily.

The latest version of QuickTime that supports Windows 98 is 6.5.2. I don't think anyone has got any version of QuickTime 7 to work on Windows 98, and the latest version even for Windows 2000 is only 7.1 (current is 7.6). Later versions can be made to work on Windows 2000 using the KDW extensions, but I don't think the KernelEx extensions will allow them to work on Windows 98 I'm afraid.

Glad you got it installed! Does it work on the java test page at http://www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.jsp?

The files you need should be in C:\Windows\Application Data\Sun\Java\jre1.6.0_24 If they're not there after you run the installer package I don't know why. When you say the error message appears straight away when you run the installer, do you mean the msi installer or the original package installation file?