Vinnie

I've came up with a media centre solution for our living room. I spent ages comparing components and different prices from different suppliers and then I considered that I could use older computer parts which I have spare around the house. I ended up with the following configuration: AMD Sempron 2600+ 1.6GHz 1GB DDR Ram (Did some googling to make this work properly) ATI Radeon 9550 256MB MSI K8VMM-7 120GB Maxtor Hard Drive Freeview TV Tuner Old Version of Mediaportal Windows 98SE As you could imagine Windows 98 is running very fast on this config. I did a custom install of Windows 98 and removed all of the stuff that I didn't need. Then I installed all of the updates including IE6 and then I replace the main browser with Mozilla Firefox. I then installed various codec packs so I can watch almost anything and then I installed Mediaportal. For security I installed Avast Anti-Virus and Sygate personal firewall. I also have Spybot S&D Which I will run once a month. After tweaking some settings and using MSConfig to remove some statup apps this computer runs very fast and efficient. I would have used OpenSUSE but the ATI Drivers aren't very good on Linux. Windows 98 does the job just as well. Overall this solution runs well for what I was designed for and it is used for the following: Browsing the Internet Watching DVD's Watching TV Recording TV Playing Music

Hey I've got an Asrock Nf3-Vsta motherboard, Sapphire Radeon X1550 (AGP 512Mb) Graphics Card. The card displays an image on the screen & stuff but every time I view properties about the adaptor it says something along the lines of device not found, and I think it reported a code 48 in device manager. I've reinstalled Vista, done updates, tried latest drivers & nothing works. Everytime CCC tries to start it says No ATI Hardware found. Also as far as I can tell there are no N-Force drivers for this mobo in Vista. Is there any way of fixing it. Oh Also it's Home Premium 32-bit.

I've just made this as sort of a list of recommended applications for making your Windows installation more open source. Of course you could use Linux like I do. But some people have little experience or cannot get their apps to work well under WINE. So I've made this guide so that you can sort of semi Open-Source your installation. So here is my guide to open-sourcing your Windows installation just a little bit: Firstly I suggest that you run Windows update & make sure that everything is up to date. Remember this is Semi-Open sourcing so you'll need to keep some of the Windows Applications. I strongly Recommend you do the updates. Remember that Internet explorer should be left on your system, unless you N-Lite it out. If you'd like to keep some things in the Explorer working I'd suggest you keep IE. Just remove the shortcuts. So anyhow here's the list of how I'd do things: Windows Update Remove IE Shortcuts Anti-Virus AVG Anti-Virus (Closed Source But Free) - http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/us/frt/0?prd=aff ClamAV Windows (Opensource) - http://www.clamwin.com/ Anti-Spyware Spybot S & D (Closed Source But Free) - http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html Internet & Email Mozilla Firefox - Internet - http://www.getfirefox.com Mozilla Thunderbird - Email - http://www.getthunderbird.com Graphics & Photo Editing The GIMP - http://www.gimp.org/ Instant Messaging AMSN - http://www.amsn-project.net/ Pidgin - Variety Of IM Networks - http://www.pidgin.im/ Office Suite OpenOffice.org - http://www.openoffice.org Media Player VLC Media Player - http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ As you can see at the moment this is a small list of apps. But If you want to see if theres a open-source app for anything that you do regular ask here & I'll see if I can add it to the list. Hopefully we can get quite a large list going here.

I'm experimenting with Windows 95. I would like to network them but I cannot make them "See" each other. The version of Windows 95 is 95B (OSR2). Is this possible. The Windows XP Network setup that is on the XP Cd is not compatible with Windows 95B. Is it possible to network these 2 os's & share the internet connection from the XP Machine? Thanks Vince

Okay thanks I should check that. This has never happened before. Strange.

Is there any software that you rescently installed? sounds like there is a process running that can't close properly

Hello. Out of all the years I have been installing 9x Systems, this has never happened to me before but, On one of my old machines I decided to upgrade the Hard Drive from 10 Gb to a 30 Gb Seagate Drive. Anyway I'm half way through installing Windows ME. Untill it gets to the stage of Setting up Plug & Play hardware. It does this fine, reboots & then everything goes so slow it's unusable. I let set up complete. Restarted, booting into Windows took around 5-10 minutes. Weird. So I installed all my drivers. I was about to do Windows Update when I thought it's too slow to start that. I tried another hard drive, Installed fine & quick & booted fast, So it's not my other hardware. Made me think it must be the drive thats damaged. So I Ran the Drive test tool on Ultimate Boot Cd. Passed. Installed Windows 98 SE On it. Ran Fine, Tried XP on it, Installed & Ran Fine. The Drive according to the tests I did were all error free. I thought this was strange at this point. So Does anyone know what's causing this, I find this a very strange problem. And It's not my drive at fault, or it seems not. Does anybody know what's going on very strange problem I think, It's not my other hardware as it Installed & Ran fine when I tried another drive. And it's not the drive because the other OS's & Tests I ran were fine. Of all the years of doing 9x installs I have never seen this before. Does anybody know what's going on?

I think they should care. Because it's reasons like this that are in the long run making them loose money. As people are turning to competitors products. Like Mac, Linux, BSD etc. I wouldn't mind so much if the new operating systems they release weren't so buggy. In the first place.

How much memory does your system have. Also if you can right click the flash window & set the quality to low

I sorted it myself now.. I had to install the drivers seperatly on the other Win98 Machine. You are right about the Lexmark drivers being flaky. Thanks for helping me. I Am not used to Networking under Windows. I thought Windows networking was supposed to be easier than Linux but oh well.

Hello. I'm trying to set up a Network Printer Between 2 Computers to test something. I've come to the stage of setting up a shared printer. But I don't k now where to get the Windows 98, ME Etc drivers. Anyway I'm at the stage as above. I've found that it's not the Lexmarks drivers (Is it?) & I can't find the additional drivers on my Windows XP disc. So where abouts are the additional drivers for Windows 95, 98 & ME? Again sorry as I'm not used to Networking under Windows. Thanks

I would give Kubuntu a go... after all the years of tesing I've found that KDE is less of a resource hog than Gnome... Also I find that Kubuntu is extremely nice to use. So give Kubuntu Dapper a try.. or Breezy

Yes... Extracting the .inf files worked .. Thank you guys. I'm kind of a Windows n00b well the early 9x Anyway.. I normally do Linux (Especially RedHat & Debian)

Thanks. jaclaz. Installed the USB supplement. Tried an MP3 player on it.. worked:D.. Now the question is. Is there a way to edit any Hex code in the installer. Or any way to make the Installer "Think" it's running on 98?. By the way the reason this machine needs 95 is because of some programs or something that they wrote & will not run successful even on 98.. apparently. I'll give you the Specs Brian when I have more time

Never thought of doing that... If we had my way i'd be converting everyone who comes to a Linux distro.. But that's not going to happen Thanks

By The Way if you can buy it (maybe Ebay) I think an old version of VMware Workstation ran on 98SE/Me.. I Think it was version 3.5 or something.

First, Sorry if this has already been posted... but the search is not working for me. I'm running a small business upgrading/installing things for people in the local area. I have a customer who is very strong to Windows 95B. They rescently bought a broadband package. It came with one of them Speedtouch 330 USB Modems (The Silver Rev. 4 One). Go to install the software. Of Course it says. Only Compatible on Windows 98SE/ME/2k/Xp. I Know it's a USB device & USB support maybe a little sloppy. But is there anyway that I can mod the installer file so the drivers will install on Windows 95. By the way suggesting a cheap upgrade to even Windows 98SE didn't go down well. I think it's either mod the installer or tell the customer it's not possible.