Dave-H

Well, tried it tonight, and in fact it seemed to work fine. Replaced all the system files with the new versions, and the system rebooted fine, with no BSOD. How it got round the System File Protection is anyone's guess! I did have two consequential problems though. Firstly, I was immediately nagged by Windows Update to install the last cumulative security update for Internet Explorer. KDW had replaced some files such as SHLWAPI.DLL which are part of those IE updates. As it was seen as an earlier version the update was flagged again. Also, I have Norton Utilities (2002) installed, which includes a utility called "Norton Protected Recycle Bin". I started getting error messages on boot-up that the Norton Protection service couldn't start because it couldn't determine the operating system version. Another consequence of the system files replacement I assume. The only reason I wanted this really was to install Quicktime 7.5. In fact even with the new system files, and hacking the MSI file using the KDW utility (or indeed with Orca) it still wouldn't install, with an unspecified error. I've decided to leave things as they are. I was pleased to find that the KDW uninstall routine did seem to do its job, and restored all the system files so my system seems to be back to as it was before.

Thanks for that. Sounds like I'm wasting my time even investigating this, which is good to know! I won't bother taking it any further. Interesting about the Vista "suspend-to-RAM" recommendation. If that really is what MS recommend instead of shutting down properly, that doesn't sound very environmentally friendly. So much for Microsoft's "green" credentials!

I'm very interested in this too, and I'm going to try it out over the weekend. I'll let you know if I hit similar problems! I'm going to completely back up my Windows 2000 folder first.................

Indeed it is, but I do remember reading somewhere that MS had changed the startup routine in XP to make it start up faster, which is why the ntldr from XP could be used on 2000 to get at least some of the benefits of this. This is something I've never been able to try out, for the reasons given in my OP, so I've no idea if it works, and how much effect it actually has if it does work!

Shockwave 11 in my experience doesn't even work on Windows 2000, let alone Windows 98!

Just tried that, extracting with Universal Extractor. Exactly the same result. an "internal error" message when dxsetup.exe scans for items to update. Very strange, whether it's necessary or not, I still don't understand why this package won't install on an operating system that it says that it's compatible with!

I have .NET Framework 1.1 installed, and the update still won't work for me. I did have 2.0 installed as well, but I removed it to clear the registry a bit. I doubt if that has caused the problem though.

Indeed not, Windows 98FE is the earliest OS quoted on the MS download page.

Thanks very much, let me know how it goes. I still don't understand why we are having problems with this upgrade, when MS clearly state on their download page for it that it is compatible with Windows 98! I could understand it if one of the unofficial upgrade patches had broken compatibility, but if it won't install on a clean new vanilla install of Windows 98 that is really puzzling.

Thank again RetroOS! I found a copy of ADVAPI32.DLL version 4.90.0.3000 and put it in my windows\system folder. Unfortunately, still no difference! I'm still getting exactly the same error message when I run dxsetup.exe. I tried the version from my Windows 2000 installation too, which is 5.0.2195.7038. Windows 98 wouldn't even start with that installed, just BSOD........... Incidentally, the 98SE2ME pack doesn't actually seem to include the ADVAPI32.DLL file, it seems to assume that you have a Windows ME installation disk, which I haven't! Any more ideas.................?

Soporific, does AP June 2008 contain the June 2008 Update to DirectX 9.0c Runtime? The reason I ask is because I've been having trouble installing it (see here) This hasn't been resolved as yet, and I was hoping that AP might succeed where the normal install routine is failing! Thanks, Dave.

I have dual booted Windows 98 and Windows 2000 for years now. I've never had any problem with keeping FAT32 drives. Being able to repair one operating system using the other has always been one of the main advantages IMO.

Thanks RetroOS. My Windows 98 version of cabinet.dll is 5.0.2147.1, which looks like a Windows 2000 file to me! I tried the version of cabinet.dll from my Windows 2000 installation, which is 5.0.2195.7000. That didn't work! I then tried version 5.1.2600.2180, which I downloaded. The version in 98MP10 seems to be the same. That didn't work either! Exactly the same error message. Even with my original cabinet.dll file, all of the cabinets in the Windows\Temp folder after extraction seem to open OK if I double click on them, with no error messages. Any more ideas?

This is the autoexec.bat file that I had to use to get Autopatcher to run. @ECHO OFF CLS PATH C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND;C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM MODE CON CODEPAGE PREPARE=((850) C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\EGA.CPI) >nul MODE CON CODEPAGE SELECT=850 >nul KEYB UK,,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\KEYBOARD.SYS Rename your autoexec.bat to autoexec.old, copy and paste the above into notepad and save it as autoexec.bat in c:\ Reboot and try Autopatcher again and see if it now works. It will set up things for the UK, as that's where I am! No harm in giving it a try, and if it fixes the problem you can then modify your own autoexec.bat accordingly so AP works with your USA settings. If this doesn't work by itself, you may need to do the same with your config.sys file. Here's mine - SHELL=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM /E:768 /P DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\ANSI.SYS COUNTRY=044,850,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\COUNTRY.SYS DOS=HIGH,UMB,AUTO Good luck!

I had a lot of trouble getting Autopatcher to run the last time I used it too. It didn't actually crash, it just wouldn't run at all! This was due to a lack of environment space, caused by me having too much rubbish in my autoexec.bat file. It needs to be a "bare bones" one. Unfortunately I'm not in front of the machine in question at the moment, so I can't tell you what I ended up with, but I'll let you know if you like so you can try it.

Thanks RetroOS, that's good to know. As I said, my error log files gave no clue at all, and didn't appear to have even been written to! If you can isolate the dll(s) that needs to be updated for this to work that would be great.

Just tried downloading and installing this. Did have the August 2007 version installed already. Won't install. It extracts OK, but when I run DXSETUP.EXE and say OK to the legal stuff, I then get an error message - "An internal system error has occurred, see the files dxerror.log and directx.log in your Windows folder for more details" Needless to say, those files tell me nothing, because neither of them have been updated since 2006! Tried installing on Windows 2000 (dual boot machine) and needless to say it worked fine. Tried reinstalling the August 2007 version on Windows 98, also worked fine. Anyone any ideas? The MS download page says quite clearly that this update still supports Windows 98. I am using the offline installer package.

I'm a great fan of Opera, and have used version 9.xx ever since it came out, with 9.27 the latest version of course. My only problem is that it is very slow to start up and close down on Windows 98. It's much better on Windows 2000 (dual boot machine.) Apart from that it works very well, and does everything I want it too in a way that I'm very happy with. Unfortunately, IMO 9.50 was rushed out much too quickly, with a lot of serious, and known, bugs still in it. For me the killer was that it doesn't work properly with Quicktime plugins, a serious issue for me as I regularly use several Quicktime sites. I tried 9.50 and backed off back to 9.27 pretty quickly!

From personal experience I would definitely recommend the dual boot option. I never want to lose Windows 98 either, but now that disk space isn't an issue, I see no harm, and many advantages, in having a more up-to-date NT-based OS as well, in my case Windows 2000. I have no inclination to go to Vista, or even XP! Do be aware that a modern motherboard may have problems with Windows 98 due to lack of suitable drivers. My motherboard is a server board from 2003, and that was never tested on or claimed to support Windows 98. I was lucky though, it does work fine.

So if you double click on one of the IE favorites folder files, what happens? Does Opera open but not display the page?

If I go to my Internet Explorer favorites folder using Windows Explorer, and double click on one of the files, Opera opens and displays the webpage that it's pointing to. Those are internet shortcuts, and are actually .url files, although they show no file extension. Looking at my file types, .url fines are associated with this command "rundll32.exe shdocvw.dll,OpenURL %l" (without the quotes.) See if this is the case on your system.

Ah, so your problem is related to .url files, which are internet shortcuts (as used by IE favorites). The registry keys you quoted were only relevant to .html and .https files, which are quite different. Try this, go to Opera Tools>Preferences>Advanced>Programs and select the "Details" button. Check "URL shortcuts" on the left hand side and see if that does the trick.

Yes, if they are brand new disks they almost certainly will need to be formatted before they can be used. Put one in the drive, and double click on "My Computer" on the desktop. The A: drive should be shown along with at least the C: system hard drive. Right click on the drive A: icon, and select "format". Follow the instructions and format it to 1.44MB, using full format. Don't bother to transfer the system files. When the disk is successfully formatted, try writing to it again.

Are you trying to save from Excel itself, or using the Windows Explorer? Can you see the A: drive in "My Computer" and read the cointents of a disk that's in it?

I'm wondering Sfor, does your problem happen with .htm files as well as .html and .https files? I ask because your registry entries don't show any data for .htm files. I don't have an entry for .https files, but I do for .htm and .html files, and they are both of type "Opera.HTML" The entry for that, which is generated by Opera of course is - REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Opera.HTML] @="HTML Document" "EditFlags"=dword:00000000 "BrowserFlags"=dword:00000008 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Opera.HTML\ScriptHostEncode] @="{0CF774D0-F077-11D1-B1BC-00C04F86C324}" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Opera.HTML\shell] @="" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Opera.HTML\shell\Edit] @="&Edit" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Opera.HTML\shell\Edit\command] @="\"C:\\Program Files\\Office XP\\Office10\\msohtmed.exe\" %1" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Opera.HTML\shell\open] [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Opera.HTML\shell\open\command] @="C:\\Program Files\\OPERA\\OPERA.EXE \"%1\"" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Opera.HTML\shell\open\ddeexec] @="\"%1\"" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Opera.HTML\shell\open\ddeexec\Application] @="Opera" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Opera.HTML\shell\open\ddeexec\Topic] @="WWW_OpenURL" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Opera.HTML\shell\Open in Internet Explorer] "EditFlags"=hex:01,00,00,00 @="Open in Internet Explorer" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Opera.HTML\shell\Open in Internet Explorer\command] @="C:\\Program Files\\Internet\\IEXPLORE.EXE %1" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Opera.HTML\shell\Print] @="&Print" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Opera.HTML\shell\Print\command] @="\"C:\\Program Files\\Office XP\\Office10\\msohtmed.exe\" /p %1" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Opera.HTML\ShellEx] [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Opera.HTML\ShellEx\IconHandler] @="{42042206-2D85-11D3-8CFF-005004838597}" Ignore the entry for Internet Explorer, I just added that manually so I can right click and choose to open the file in IE instead of Opera if I want to. The Office XP entry was put there by Office XP itself! Apart from the times when Opera is a bit too slow starting up, and opens with a blank page, this always works. If I double click on an htm or html file in Windows Explorer, or on a link say in an e-mail, Opera opens and displays the page as it should do. Although it sounds a bit drastic, I would uninstall Opera, and go through and delete manually all registry entries referring to it if any remain. Then make IE your default browser, assuming that you have it, and make sure that works with the file associations as it should. Then reinstall Opera and make that the default browser and see if it behaves any better.