Dave-H

Another update. Tried out Ascii2's suggestion of going through the first stage of a Windows XP install. Unfortunately, no go. Everything went as it should, and I aborted the install at the first reboot stage. I now had Windows XP in the OS startup list from boot.ini, and XP setup was ready to do the GUI stages. Unfortunately, when I tried to run Windows 2000, immediately back came the "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt \WIN-NT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM" message. So, no difference I'm afraid. This is now even more puzzling, as it seems from this that if I really wanted to install Windows XP and have a triple boot system, I would no longer be able to run Windows 2000, which surely I should be able to do. Does this mean that in this scenario I would have to put the Windows 2000 startup files back and boot XP with them?! Surely not! I'm now thinking of asking MS about this, as although they don't give any free support for Windows 2000 now, they should still support XP, and I can submit the question as a Windows XP support query, because dual booting 2000 and XP should surely be possible. If installing XP makes 2000 inacessible that needs to be sorted out. So, back where I started I'm afraid...............

The quickest fix I can think of would be to just put the drive in another machine and reformat it, asssuming you have another machine to do it in of course!

Wow, I didn't think this thread would come back to life! Thanks for the additional information Ascii2. I tried downloading that MS patch, but the NTLDR file in it produced exactly the same result on my system, it wouldn't boot, with an error message about the registry "SYSTEM" file being missing or corrupted. Reading the KB article, it does sound like exactly the same symptoms though. I will try to borrow a Windows XP disk and try your suggested method of doing just the first part of the setup. BTW when you were describing that, were you were talking about running setup from within Windows 2000, or booting from the Windows XP CD? It won't run from a command prompt. I also assume that you would select to do a separate install, not an upgrade, or it will overwrite the Windows 2000 files! I'm not quite ready to give up on this yet..........

It contains (amongst other things) all the hypertext template (.htt) files for the web views of Windows Explorer, Control Panel, My Computer, Printers etc. etc. You might be able to remove it if you haven't got Webview on, I've never tried, but I wouldn't recommend it. Try just renaming the folder (to W~B for instance) and see what effect it has when you restart. If it's disastrous you can always boot into DOS and rename it back again. If it warns you that files are in use when you try to rename it in Windows, I would leave well alone!

I tried out eBoostr on my Windows 2000 system, and it installed and worked fine. Whether it produced any worthwhile performance improvements I couldn't say, as I didn't leave it installed long enough to find out! The problem was that I wanted it to use some of my under-utilised RAM (I have 4GB fitted) so I was setting up a 1GB cache in system RAM. All well and good, but unfortunately this resulted in eBoostr setting up a 1GB eBoostr.dat file on my D: drive, which is where Windows 2000 is installed (dual boot system.) This would have been fine, except that D: is only a 4GB partition, and this was filling the drive! I have e-mailed them to see if there's any way of getting the program to put that file on a different drive, or whether it has to go on the drive where the OS system files are. I haven't had any reply as yet. I was mainly interested in whether eBoostr would speed up my boot time, which is still too slow for my liking, but it sounds as if eBoostr doesn't actually improve that much anyway on Windows 2000.

I have just tried using the December 2008 update version of AP, and I'm afraid that I'm running into exactly the same problem that I had a year ago with the December 2007 full version. It just won't run! I tried running the update version and it told me that it was "missing a file" that was necessary for it to work. (Unfortunately it neglected to mention exactly what file it was missing!) I realised that it actually had to have the full version also installed. I had used the full version when it came out, but hadn't left it installed on the system to save disk space. I reinstalled the full version, and then installed the update version. All fine, but when I tried to run START_ME.bat, I got exactly the same result as when I first tried the full version a year ago. The DOS window just opens and immediately closes again, without any error messages. I solved this a year ago by editing down my autoexec.bat file, and once I'd got it to work I saved the revised file for future use. Unfortunately, if I try to run the upgrade version with the revised autoexec.bat that worked fine with the full version a year ago, it still doesn't work! Exactly the same result as with the normal autoexec.bat. It just runs and immediately closes again. The DOS "mem" command in a DOS prompt window with Windows running tells me that the "largest executable program size" is 572k, which doesn't seem unreasonable. Anyone any ideas? Thanks, Dave. <EDIT Jan 23rd> Well, I finally sorted it after a lot of messing around. It would only run if I completely disabled my autoexec.bat and config.sys files. I'm sure that didn't work last time!

This is an issue, but not an intrinsic irresolvable problem. I have a dual boot system using Windows 98SE and Windows 2000 SP4. I use drives up to 160GB without problems on both OSs (FAT32 of course). It is true that Windows 2000 will not format a FAT32 volume larger than 32GB, but Windows 98SE can. So I had to format the large volumes using Windows 98, but Windows 2000 has never had any problem reading and writing to them, even though it couldn't create them!

Nothing like this on my machine, for what it's worth!

The video on demand service at http://www.channel4.com/watch_online/ says that it needs Windows Media Player 11 rather than 10. Whether that means it uses DRM 3 I don't know, but worth checking out. Any response on the possible inclusion of Revolutions Pack in KDW?

Glad you got things working again! I'm sure you'd like to get your amount of RAM back up again though. I'm running Windows 98 with 4GB of RAM, although I haven't got Office installed! If you haven't already, trawl through these threads to see if there are any tweaks you can try to get the system to still work with your 2GB of RAM now you have got Office installed. http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...118097&st=0 http://www.msfn.org/board/Help-I-need-to-G....html&st=0 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...memory&st=0 Do make sure that your registry is backed up before trying anything though! There should be a backup created automatically every time that Windows boots successfully. To make sure that's working type "scanreg /restore" from DOS, and make sure that you have the necessary backups. Your system.dat size is still small compared with mine.............

The files' contents indeed looks reasonable. Interesting that you have 2GB of RAM. I assume that configuration has worked for you in the past, with any necessary system.ini tweaks applied. At what point exactly did the system stop working?

That does seem to be a very small size of system.dat to cause the same problem I had. Mine is now about 12.5MB and still works OK. Also I never had Safe Mode fail to boot. If you're getting out of memory messages even trying to boot to Safe Mode, I would check that the config.sys and autoexec.bat files aren't full of unnecessary rubbish as the first thing. You can do that by booting to DOS ("command prompt only"). The first thing I'd try is disabling the two files altogether, as Windows 98 should boot without them, using default settings IIRC. Go into DOS and rename config.sys to config.s~s and autoexec.bat to autoexec.b~t. See if you can boot into Safe Mode then. Good luck!

Happy New Year win2000, and everybody! Just a thought leading from what I was experimenting with earlier. As Tihiy has stopped development of his Windows 2000 Revolutions Pack as far as I know, is it something you'd consider incorporating into KDW? Not particularly the new Explorer icons, which I can take or leave, but just support for 32bit icons in the OS generally would be a major enhancement, even if it doesn't actually make the icons work in things like Movie Maker 2! Just a suggestion. Dave.

He probably said to run "sysedit". Just type that in the run box. That will allow you to edit win.ini, system.ini, config.sys, and autoexec.bat.

Hi win2000. I found out why Revolutions Pack wouldn't work for me. It didn't like your user32.dll! If I uninstalled it and rolled back to the original, RP then worked fine. Unfortunately it didn't bring back the icons in Windows Movie Maker, and seemed to be doing nasty things with some of my existing Explorer icons, especially in the Control Panel, so I uninstalled it again. Any other ideas for the Movie Maker icons, or is it a lost cause? Cheers, Dave.

Hi win2000. Did you ever get the Windows 2000 Revolutions Pack to work for you? I notice that you did post some time ago on the thread about it here - http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=93160 I've tried downloading and installing it, as you'll see from the post I made at the end of that thread, but I can't get it to actually work, mainly I think because I'm not installing the files in the right place. The instructions are very vague.......... I realise that it now seems to be a dead project, but if it can get my Movie Maker icons to work it's worth a try. I don't want to use things like Vistapack as they probably do much more than i actually need. I don't want my Windows 2000 system looking like Vista, far from it in fact, I just want 32bit icon support on the existing GUI! Cheers, Dave.

I've just found this Win2K Revolutions Pack, and have been trying to get it to work. So far I've had no success. I am running in 32bit colour on a Radeon 9200 card. When I unzip the downloaded file, what folder am I supposed to unzip it to? I've tried a temporary folder, and the system32 folder. Wherever I put it, when I run the setup file and reboot, I then have no icons (or taskbar) at all, just a blank desktop with the mouse cursor on it! Booting into Safe Mode produces the same result. The only way I can fix it is to rename the RPL2K.DLL and then it comes good. I then have to uninstall RP. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? The instructions are a bit vague............ Thanks, Dave.

There was a very good Autopatcher for Windows 2000, available here. It worked by downloading one big file that contained all the updates, running it and selecting the ones you wanted to install, all while offline. You could then keep it up to date by downloading much smaller update versions. It was in fact, exactly the same in principle as soporific's Autopatcher for Windows 98SE, to be found elsewhere on MSFN. Unfortunately, the Windows 2000 version was squashed by Microsoft, with threats of legal action, as it was redistributing their copyright files. What is now available at autopatcher.com is a version which still automates the downloads, but takes them from Microsoft Update instead of them being included in the Autopatcher file. I haven't personally used any of the later versions.

Hi win2000, I have had another go at getting Windows Movie Maker 2 working under Windows 2000. I found out why the "Import video" and "Import audio or music" buttons weren't working. They were actually trying to look for the "My Videos" and "My Music" folders, which didn't exist on my system. "Import pictures" did work because the "My Pictures" folder did exist, as that is the one that is there anyway in Windows 2000. the others were only added in XP. I used your KDLLINST "SHFolderExREG" function to add the missing folders, and it all came good. Actually once I'd then browsed to other folders, the dialogue still worked even after removing those added folders (I don't actually want them!) So that is fixed, and Movie Maker generally seems to work fine. The only outstanding problem is the missing icons on the GUI. This is what I'm seeing - The red boxes show where there should be icons which are not displayed. Does this agree with what you would expect? I am surprised that the thumbnail icons for the video transitions and video effects are not displayed, as I would have thought that they were part of Movie Maker's own DLLs. Any thoughts on this, and whether it can be fixed? Cheers, Dave.

Ah, right. I have a DV firewire capture card which does exactly that, with avi files. Well none of that it true in my experience. I have two DVD recorders with hard drives, one Liteon 160GB and one Sony 80GB. They are both going strong after several years of use. The Liteon hard drive will hold 66 hours of material at SP, which is quite good enough for ex-VHS recordings. Look on eBay, I'm sure you'll find plenty of DVD recorders at a very good price which will do exactly what you need. Cheers, Dave.

Thanks yet again win2000. Got the mini control panel working, that's great! Now to try Movie Maker 2.0 again...........

I foresee a whole host of problems trying to do this under Windows ME. Is the 750GB drive USB or IDE? Does Windows ME recognise it? Even if it does, will you be able to get ME to recognise an NTFS formatted drive, even with patches? Are there any ME drivers for the USB dongle? Does the capture software even run on ME? Personally I wouldn't even think of trying this, the problems will be horrendous, and the whole setup is likely to be very unreliable for doing long unattended captures, even if you can get it to work. You'd be far better off buying a DVD recorder with a built-in hard drive, transferring the VHS tapes to the hard drive, editing them as necessary, and then burning them to DVD. Much less grief, and almost certanly a better quality result at the end of the day.

Thanks, I'll give it a try! Just as a matter of interest, why are you concentrating on WMP 10 rather that WMP 11? Is there something different in WMP 11 which makes Windows 2000 compatibility imposssible? I only ask because WMP 11 is now the most up-to-date version. LATER EDIT: Just tried your new WMP 10 out, and it does work much better than the first version I tried! The "Portable Media Devices" icon in the Windows Control Panel now works, but only if your kernel32.dll is installed in the system32 folder. I had to do that to install WMP 10, but I have now removed it because if you remember I can't use my AVS Video Converter unless I put the normal file back, and I use that all the time. WMP 10 then won't run. Using a kernel32.dll EzInstall into the WMP folder gets it back again, but the "Portable Media Devices" icon then doesn't work any more. Not actually a problem for me in fact as I don't have any portable devices to use with it! The other thing that doesn't work without your kernel32.dll in the system32 folder is the mini control panel that appears in the taskbar when WMP is minimised. The toolbar appears, but there are no controls in it. That is a shame, as it's a cool feature. Great job!

Thanks win2000, that has fixed the problem. That URL only goes to a directory that won't allow listing. I've looked at the MS FTP site too, but it's not there, or the Windows Update Catalogue. On MM2 I found that "Capture from Video Device" just brought up a message that there was no capture device, which is expected as I don't have a capture device, at least not one that MM can use! "Import pictures" works correctly. The "Import video" and "Import audio or music" buttons do absolutely nothing.

Hear. hear! Windows 98SE will be 10 years old next year, here's to it going strong for another 10! I had my first PC in 1993, and like many others here I'm sure, went from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95, then 98 and 98SE. Although I now use Windows 2000 (also a great OS which is fast becoming unloved and abandoned by the powers that be) most of the time on my present dual boot machine, I have vowed never to abandon Windows 98.