Dave-H

Yes, you're right of course. In fact I did unpack the new installer (using Universal Extractor in fact) looking for the usual msi file, which wasn't there. I'm sure that would work OK to upgrade, but I'm not sure how it would work if you didn't already have Opera installed. I assume that Opera would create all its other folders, and any necessary registry file associations etc. when it was first run, but I've never tried it.

Looks rather as if our problems with Opera on Windows 98 aren't over. The latest version, 11.01 just released, won't install even using the automatic update option. The installer downloads, but when implemented, Opera just closes and doesn't update. Any attempt to use KernelEx on the installation files in the temporary folder allows it to go further, but it still fails with an error message. I'm OK as I have a dual boot system, and if I install the new version on XP it still works in Windows 98 with KernelEx applied, but where that leaves people with Windows 98 only systems I don't know. Opera seem to have dropped the use of the Microsoft Installer with this version. I can only find one version of the standalone installer, and it doesn't seem to use msi any more, which version 11.00 did. It now writes no entries to the Windows installer folder.

I've installed Windows (Desktop) Search 4.0 on my XP SP3 system. It has always worked OK, but I've been annoyed that it never seems to update the information about the files on my local drives after the initial crawl (which takes ages of course). Finally today, after yet another search to try and find the reason for this, I came across the information (which I think has been pretty well hidden by MS!) that the automatic immediate update of drive contents only works with NTFS drives. All my drives are FAT32, as they have to be because my system is dual booted with Windows 98, which can't work with NTFS drives of course. I've tried installing an add-in, UNCFATPHInstaller.msi, which I thought might resolve this, but it hasn't. I suspect that it only allows notifications on remote FAT drives, not local drives, which is really annoying! It may be that I can't do anything about this, but the MS article I found, in the "File Systems and Removable Media Support" section says that with FAT local drives " WDS periodically crawls the drive looking for changes in data". Well, I've no evidence that WDS on my system ever does this. When I search there are files listed that I deleted or moved or renamed weeks ago, and "can't be found" if I click on them in the list of course, and files added weeks ago aren't there. It comes good if I rebuild of course, but this takes a very long time! (BTW I realise that the MS article is for WDS 3, but I assume all this applies to WDS 4 as well.) Anyone any idea exactly how often the index crawler should look for changes in FAT local drives, and whether the period between checks can be changed? As I said, I don't think WDS on my system ever does it at all! Thanks, Dave.

Wow, now that's what I call service! Thanks MDGx.

Yes, thanks Den. As the OP I was starting to think that the title of the thread was getting a little out of date, although relevant when I started it of course!

All the versions of Firefox are available here if you do need to roll back.

Yes, thanks from me too guys for getting the release out. The Opera 11 downloads window still has the same display problems as before with the "size" "speed" and "transferred" progress readouts, but everything else seems to work fine. Strange that there should be a problem just with that one section. Still many thanks for taking the time to work on the Windows 98 compatibility of a browser with such a small user base, it's much appreciated.

So, it might be similar with the anormal characters bug in the download page. EDIT: Here we are: [bUG] Opera 11 pinned tab look fat tab. Just for information, there is no problem with the downloads page display running under Windows XP on my system, so it is a Win98/KEx compatibility problem, not an Opera problem. As you say Charles, under Windows 98 with KEx there is no size information, either in the main display or at the bottom in the progress section, and the speed display is garbled characters (it's not Japanese as I thought, that was just because a few Japanese characters came up the first time I saw it!) The pinned tab behaviour is exactly the same in XP though, so that is an Opera issue, whether a bug or by design I don't know.

Thanks Charles, all now working fine! The only thing I've noticed, and I spotted it doing a download, is that the speed readout on the downloads page seems to now be in Japanese instead of English! Not a big deal, but can anyone else confirm that? Also just updated to java 6 update 23, and all is working fine (except in Opera of course! ) Awesome work guys!

That's good news! Where is this "RC-6" though? I certainly can't find it on Sourceforge.

Yes, that's what happened for me too. I think the trick is to let Opera do an automatic upgrade, rather than downloading and trying to use the standalone installer. Click on Help>Check for Updates and if the update is offered, say go ahead and do it. That worked for me. I suspect that if you extracted the msi installer file from the installation package with Universal Extractor or similar, it would work too if run by itself. Once you have it installed, you will need to apply the Win2K compatibility mode to the opera.exe file.

Maybe, although I don't think Firefox 3 is without its issues on Windows 98, even with KernelEx! As I said, I'm a longtime Opera user and fan, and although I have Firefox installed on the XP side of my system for web page testing purposes, I've seen no reason to start using it as my primary browser. I'm just very grateful to the KernelEx developers for working to allow Opera to still function under Windows 98, considering its small user base compared with Firefox.

I can confirm most of the minor issues reported with the current Opera version under 98SE with KernelEx 4.5 RC 5. The only one I'm not sure about is the cursor problem, which seems to be fine for me. It's not only the "About Opera" page that doesn't render properly, it's also the plugins and cache pages. They look like they've lost their fancy formatting, although they seem to be functional. Strangely, the plugins page (only) seems to appear correctly the first time it's accessed in a session, but fails on subsequent views. The others are displayed incorrectly all the time. The browser is perfectly functional as before however, and as a longtime Opera fanboy, I'm very grateful for that! The only significant things that don't work at all are java and widgets.

Opera 11 seems to be working fine here! Thanks guys! :thumbup :thumbup The standalone installer doesn't work, as you say. I usually use the installer rather than do an automatic upgrade, but this time I let it do an automatic upgrade and it did work. Am I right in assuming that if I extracted the msi installer file from the install package, that would work too? P. S. Once again, isn't it about time that this was a final release of KernelEx?

Thanks for the heads up Den. Working fine here too!

Probably if you put the HP driver CD in again and run the installer, it should give you the option to uninstall the drivers. I have an HP printer too, a Photosmart 370 photo printer, as well as my main Epson A4 printer. The software that came with the HP printer was an absolute pig to install and get working, especially in Windows 98, although the Image Zone software that came with it is really good.

No, but my message box was full! Try again.

Which to my understanding is an intrinsic problem with Firefox 3 under Windows 98, even with KernelEx installed, nothing to do with the printer driver itself. I don't think it works with any printer drivers. Personally I think it's been a great achievement by the KernelEx devs to get Firefox 3 to run under Windows 98 at all! IMO getting the Firefox printing to work comes under the same category as getting Java to work in the latest Opera versions. Something to investigate for the next version of KernelEx, not something to delay the release of this version for!

I've been following the "printer problems" with some interest, as I use an Epson USB printer myself. Are people trying to get XP or later only printer drivers to work in Windows 98 using KernelEx, or are they saying that drivers that are supposed to work under Windows 98 aren't now working because of KernelEx!? My printer (Stylus Photo R285), supplied with Windows 98 compatible drivers, works fine, both before and after applying KernelEx.

Of course. I was going to suggest that Frogman and I take it up on a new thread if it had continued any longer. My apologies. To get back to KernelEx, can I ask that the developers make it a priority now to get this new version actually made an official release, as soon as any regressions have been sorted out. Trying to make more programs compatible with it before then will only result in it never being released. New compatibilities can surely wait for the next version!

Yes, http and https protocols are associated with *.htm and *.html files. That's why Opera is still claiming them. However if you set Firefox to be your default browser Firefox should take them over. Tools>Options>Advanced>General Tab. Press the "Check Now" button.

Go to Preference Settings in Opera, ans click on the Advanced tab. Select "Programs". Un-check "Check if Opera is default browser on startup". Click on the "Details" button and it will show what Opera is associated with. Check or un-check the ones that you need, and then run Firefox and make it your default browser. It should then open htm files again, and Opera won't steal them back.

What is not said above is that both those types are cumulative, so that a GDR file contains some new and all previous GDR fixes, while a QFE (= LDR) contains all that the GDR does, plus some new and all previous QFE fixes, being thus more completely fixed, but perhaps more prone to give problems, because less well tested. Moreover, once a QFE file gets installed, all the future updates to it will always be taken from the QFE branch, too, automagically, from that point onwards (until the next official service pack, which, for 9x/ME, 2k and NT4 or older, will never be issued). Hope this digests better. So the QFE/LDR versions of files contain further fixes, which are not completely tested and now never will be completely tested, or officially issued for systems where support has ended? That implies that MS have abandoned fixes in mid implementation because the systems they were intended for went out of support. Seems a strange thing to do, but that's MS for you!

I did. I now need to go and have a little lie down. My brain hurts.

Sure. I did that, too, already. But while you're at it, do also do update mshtml.dll once more. WildBill just correct a bug in it. KB2360131-v2, which contains it, is in the same place the original one was. Thanks Den, I've now got the new version. As you rightly surmised, I had also installed KB896156 at some point, hence my later version of mshtmled.dll. I'll probably stick with the version I've got rather than the 1502 version, as I've never had any problems with it.