bsperan

Please forgive my ignorance as I've not used Xpize before and have limited knowledge of customized installation utilities like nLite, but: Is it possible to slipstream the installation of Xpize?

Here's another NTFS project I found: Captive: The first free NTFS read/write filesystem for GNU/Linux Admittedly, this is NTFS support for Linux. And while they did succeed in full implementation, the project appears to no longer be maintained. Though, the source code is still available. I thought it was interesting that they implemented this via WINE, which is the Linux Windows emulator program. Perhaps it would be possible to modify this into a hack to get NTFS support for Win9x? Though, again, a person would still need the original Windows ntfs.sys driver file in order for this to work.

Some of you guys just aren't listening/reading to the words I wrote... Yes, I've already mentioned (and provided links) for both "NTFS for Windows 98" and "NTFSDOS" (for DOS). However, again, neither of these program solutions will provide what I'm looking for. Furthermore: 1) Winternals Software is no longer providing any support for these products. In fact the company was bought by Microsoft and has since removed all traces of these. Try www.sysinternals.com and you will see that you end up at a microsoft.com page instead. 2) While both DiskInternals' "NTFS for Windows 98" and Winternals' "NTFS for Windows 98" are/were available as free downloads, neither of the free versions provide write access. These function as read-only. And, obviously, they don't provide full integration into Windows 98. Even the commercial products do not provide full integration. Admittedly, the Win9x family is considered not only obsolete, but very obsolete by many. I don't see many new commercial software packages or hardware targeted for Window 9x anymore. (Probably none at all.) However, there are still many millions of Windows 9x users worldwide. And the many amazing member projects here on MSFN and elsewhere shows that, while official support for Windows 9x has been dropped, users do and will continue to develop their own support and software for the OS they love. Besides, if someone did implement and code a full IFS for Win9x, I'm sure they would not have to test and debug all on their own. There would be plenty of us willing to test and write bug reports for them. Why the interest in NTFS for Win9x? I've got several reasons: 1) Some of us prefer the lightweight footprint, speed, and familiarity that the Windows 98 family provides over the sluggish, cumbersome, resource-hog that is Windows XP and especially Windows Vista. And then there's the whole matter of security flaws and trust of XP/Vista... And some of us can still find a great deal of use left in old, obsolete systems. Such old PCs may not be able to run Vista adequately, but they are more than capable of running Windows 98 - with plenty of horsepower left for Win9x apps. Unfortunately, all new computers come installed with XP or Vista. Increasingly, even XP is hard to find as it seems like most everyone is forced into Vista. And, remember, both XP and Vista rely on the NTFS file system. You see, some of us often find ourselves in need of a method of transferring files and other data between a Windows 98/SE/ME machine and an NT/2000/XP or Vista machine. Say you have a friend that came over with his laptop and you want to exchange a lot of large files without burning CDs or DVDs or repeatedly swapping your USB data stick? Or perhaps your friend's new 4 GB USB data stick is not supported in Windows 9x? (I'm quite familiar with both situations.) Or perhaps you are the one who purchased a new Vista/XP laptop and you need a way to share files with your Windows 98 machine(s)? 2) As I mentioned earlier, if full integration of NTFS in Windows 9x is made possible (without the use of an expensive commercial product), then it may be possible for a project such as "KernelEx" to more thorougly emulate and support XP applications in Windows 98 (via a kernel replacement). Wouldn't that be cool?! Perhaps NTFS is not a perfect file system, and perhaps a Win9x implementation would not be able to support the security features and extras that 2000/XP/Vista natively sports, and for all I know Linux's ext2/ext3 file system may be enormously more efficient and more secure. However, all this is beside the point. NTFS for Windows 9x support would enable more compatibility and ease of file sharing between Win9x and the more "modern" OS's. And, while not perfect, NTFS is widely regarded as being more secure and superior to FAT16 and FAT32 in several different ways.

Well, at least I now know it is possible. You said that "...in theory, some Windows 9x NTFS driver will load itself and disable int 13h hook. And on shutdown, it will write updated registry back into image." Could you be more specific on how this might be accomplished? Is it just a matter of properly setting up say, NTFS for Windows 98, and the grub loader? I have a desire to see NTFS used on the C: drive. If this could be easily demonstrated as feasible, then perhaps it would be possible for "KernelEx" or a similar project to one day more thorougly and accurately integrate support for XP applications. Some XP applications require support for NTFS and will not function without this.

Despite the lack of official NTFS support, I still think the best hope of integrating NTFS might be through FreeDOS. It sounds like the NTFS Wikipedia article used to state "The read/write NTFS-3G driver has been also ported to FreeBSD, Mac OS X, NetBSD, Haiku and FreeDOS..." Looking on the NTFS-3G website, one does not find a simple download solution for FreeDOS. However, someone asked about this on their forum. Apparently, it can be done, but it needs to be compiled from the library. NTFS-3G > Forum > NTFS-3G and FreeDOS Also, searching through the old FreeDOS news archives, I found this mention of NTFS: Perhaps it would be possible to compile NTFS-3G to work under MS-DOS and Windows 98? If not, it has already been shown to work under FreeDOS, provided it is properly compiled. And while FreeDOS by itself may not be able to replace MS-DOS under Windows, it can run alongside MS-DOS. And with additional free software, FreeDOS can support Win32 applications - including limited support for Windows. On the FreeDOS Wikipedia article: This HX DOS Extender is free, by the way and source code is available. And their website states "Furthermore HX implements - limited - support for windows, DirectDraw, GDI and even OpenGL graphics." There is also the FreeDOS-32 project, which also supports Win32 applications. Wikipedia > FreeDOS: Unfortunately, looking at their website, it seems they're still in the pre- beta stage and the last update to their news archive appears to be from December of 2005. Still, it looks like open-source solutions for NTFS integration into DOS are available. So what's stopping Windows 98 integration?

Is it theoretically possible to implement support for the NTFS format under Windows 98/SE/ME? And if it is possible, then why hasn't someone taken this up yet? By "implement" I mean full integration - full read/write access in a way such that it is almost indestinguishable to Windows from a FAT-32 partition. And by "support" I mean 80% or more of the NTFS functionality available in Windows 2000. I do know there are a number of applications available and projects underway to provide support for NTFS in other operating systems and some have been around for several years. Some examples would be NTFS-3G, which is a stable, open source, freely available read/write NTFS driver for Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, NetBSD, and Haiku. And there's Linux-NTFS, which is an open source project to add NTFS support to the Linux kernel. With regard to the problems of NTFS compatibility on older Windows, this Wikipedia article on NTFS explains: Still, there are several different software packages available which provides NTFS support for the Windows 98 series: DiskInternals > NTFS Reader for Windows 95, 98, Me NTFS for Windows 98 (v1.03) (Sysinternals) Paragon > NTFS for Win 98 Purenetworking.net > NFTS FOR WINDOWS 95/98/ME The first two links above are for freeware. However, the second two are commercial products. And they can be rather pricey. ($79 or more?! ) In some cases the software only allows reading and/or writing of files through an explorer-like interface, but some have more to offer. I noticed one of the commercial products claims "NTFS drives behave just like regular FAT and FAT32 drives." Unfortunately, several of these packages require files from either Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 in order to work. BTW: One of the freeware NTFS for Windows 98 solutions above is originally from a website called "Sysinternals" and a company called "Winternals Software." However, the company was bought out by Microsoft a couple years ago and several of their free programs have been removed from the site, including the NTFS for Windows 98 software. (So now we have to dig around for old copies.) Anyway, if it is possible to implement NTFS into Windows 98 itself (through a major hack), I doubt it could support the extra file security that NT/2K/XP boasts. But it seems the biggest obstacle to such an implementation is the fact that the Windows 98 OS is still actually MS-DOS underneath. So it seems that NTFS support would have to be provided on the DOS level first, before Windows boots. From an archived copy of the original Sysinternals description of their program I found this: Archive.org > Sysinternals.com >NTFS for Windows 98 I do think it is technically possible to integrate at least partial support for NTFS to the Windows 9x family, but it would be a lot of work. To start with, I think you'd need a DOS implementation of NTFS. I was thinking about the possibility of installing FreeDOS underneath Windows 98, thinking that perhaps the FreeDOS team may have implemented NTFS already. But then I read this: Wikipedia > FreeDOS and this: Once I read that, I vaguely recalled reading about such products several years ago. Wikipedia > NTFSDOS This, however, was another product of Winternals Software. Microsoft bought them out recently and this was another program that was removed from their website. It is now considered abandonware: Avira > Avira NTFS4DOS This company does provide a "Personal" edition as freeware, provided it is only for personal use. And it does allow both reading from and writing to NTFS partitions. Though I'm not sure of the extent of its functionality. For the business environment they are selling their "Premium" edition. Their site says it "has the same functional range as the Personal version," so I wonder if this means the Personal version has nearly the same features.

Hey, thanks for the reply! It's much appreciated. : Would you elaborate a bit on this? Pretty please?

I loved being able to tweak my Windows 98 SE installation with the "UNOFFICIAL Win 98SE Service Pack" (v2.1a). (Kudos to the author! ) It added a LOT of much needed fixes for critical problems - essentially functioning as the Service Pack that MS never released (and then some). It was much, much easier than seperately installing all the individual file updates and fixes! And now it doesn't crash very often. I've also played around a bit with the 98SE2ME installer and Revolutions Pack Lite, with mixed results. I realise that the Windows 98 family is an orphaned child now, that such packages as the Unofficial Win 98SE Service Pack were created out of necessity (esp. considering how flawed and unstable a stock installation is). In comparison, the Win XP family is pretty stable and still being supported with new Service Packs. (Though probably not for long.) My Question: What equivalents are there for Windows XP? I've looked back in this forum and the closest thing I could find was nLite. I haven't tried it yet, but it sounds very promising. I'll admit: I'm new to Windows XP. But months ago during my hours of daily surfing, I could have sworn I saw something else for XP that reminded me of The UNOFFICIAL Win 98 Service Pack and others like it. Unfortunately, I can't remember the name and I didn't exactly place priority in bookmarking such things because I did not have XP at the time. I was still relying on 98. What am I looking for in a tweak package for XP? Of course SP2 is a great start. But I'm looking for something more. (And I hear SP3 is not due to be finished until 2008.) I'm looking for a package that automatically installs both official (beyond SP2) and unoffical patches. This includes bug fixes, privacy and security fixes (including things that MS does not consider security risks), tweaks for performance, etc. I could just scour MSFN and the Internet as a whole while downloading dozens of files and installing them individually. But that sounds a bit tedious, especially if I ever find myself needing to add XP to another PC, or doing a re-installation. If such a package does not exist, would it be possible to create it with some basic scripts or code? Perhaps written in Java? Or perhaps similar to how 98SE2ME was created? But I also want to 'trim the fat', so to speak. There are many "features" that I want to uninstall and nLite may do this for me. But are there any alternatives? What about XPlite? This is published by LitePC Technologies, the same group that published the infamous 98lite package. Is anyone here familiar with this and, if so, would they recommend this solution?