Drugwash

OK. If you open a new topic, just drop a line here coz I'm bad at finding new topics.

@ Tihiy: Talking about debug - is there (or could it be) a way to log to file all GDI exceptions complete with applications/modules that raised them? I haven't yet tested that Nero button issue I reported some time ago and I want to know if I can somehow catch what exactly raises the exception, in case it happens again. On the same line, how about a GDI objects count per application, similar to the XP feature? Could be useful in debugging too. Have a great week! P.S. @ RodgerOver: no worries, your observation was perfectly valid. Sorry about your icons, I know how it's like.

Your hardware should be recognized if the inf was properly modified. I suspect something is still missing from that inf (some other sections might have to be modified too). There are quite a bunch of topics around describing how to modify an inf to add hardware IDs; I don't have a link at hand but hopefully you can find something on a search. As long as the dependencies appear to be satisfied, you might get lucky so don't abandon hope and dig this inf issue further.

You probably have the dreaded Intel 815 integrated graphics. I have that chipset too in one of my test machines. That one indeed cannot go higher than 24bit, but hopefully it's the one exception. Obviously, people that know (from the display properties panel) that their card can't take 32bit, shouldn't attempt changing those settings manually, because not only the attempt would be futile but - as you mentioned above - could lead to undesired behavior. Thank you for pointing that out.

Wrong! Actually, that's what they do, because they're being taught so all the time. The advertising crap that's pouring out of every kind of media tells people they "have to get the newest because it's the best thing ever invented". And they always fall for it.

Let's not bash Revolutions Pack - one doesn't have to install it strictly to get an XP/Vista look - I built my own theme which doesn't look like any other OS. It's just a means to enhance the visual experience, if so desired - much like an alternative to WindowBlinds, if you want, but with added usability features.

@ slhk: just to be on the safe side, please check if BitsPerPixel is set to 32 at both these registry locations: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Config\0001\Display\Settings HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG\Display\Settings and also Shell Icon BPP with the same 32 value at: HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics

Vista is the Millenium Edition of the NT generation. Just that ME was actually better and way faster, at the time.

Maybe it's HH.EXE itself performing the call. Have you tried any other chm file to see if it has similar behavior?

And that's exactly my point: when web sites will be forced - by any means - to use Flash for most or all useful content, and that Flash will be incompatible with 9x even with any unofficial update, then 9x users will be left with advertising only to access.That's exactly what they want: deprive users of the ability to choose what to display in a web page and what not by means of filters, added to unverifiable/unstoppable checks as the one already mentioned in a previous post. As I keep Flash disabled as default, not once did I stumble into sites that simply displayed an empty square and some copyright info below. Now that's the same as having an incompatible version of Flash. Hack that page to display, if you can! On top of this, dunno why the discussion has dropped into web-side only, since the issues with 9x vs the world are generic and I tried to delve into this by presenting the doc vs docx example. There will be more such incompatibilities in time, rising from Unicode-only documents that can't be converted up to completely new file formats - also Unicode-based - that will be completely out of reach for 9x users. I'm a 98SE user and will always be so please don't consider me as talking from somewhere above these issues, because I've taken my share of mocking from the NT "elite".

No NUSB in the list, but if you wanna see all the loaded modules, select EXPLORER.EXE (and others like MPR.EXE, MSGSRV.EXE, etc) in the top list and have a look at the modules list at the bottom (in the Processes window). A detailed Dr.Watson report would also show the currently loaded modules and running processes.

Didn't know there were P I CPUs above 233MHz. Admittedly, I'm not very familiar with the AMD family - always used Intel CPUs (actually I've also used Cyrix ones back when tinkering with P I machines).A quick googling revealed the conditional move CMOVcc has been implemented in Pentium Pro so maybe that AMD already has some support. They also say that particular opcode is quite useless nowadays. Regardless, GOMplayer - which I use on a daily basis - is quite "heavy" even for my P III 667MHz machine where for some reason DVD playback is choppy therefore unwatchable. Not to mention it does require some RAM for a decent AVI playback. I wonder how much RAM can that old board support - none of my P I boards could take more than 128MB. cannie, I hope you wouldn't expect every Win9x user to actually buy a licence for a copy of a soon unsupported OS (that is XP) or even worse (Vista, 7, etc) just to be able to run their 9x. That solution is only for people who like to play around and reinstall 5 times a day or so.

If you don't mind the unresolvable conflict in Device Manager due to missing drivers (see above regarding Motherboard resources) then yes, it should be possible.

TFT displays usually have an Auto-adjust button that may help with this issue. I don't think a CRT would make any difference, unless you take a screwdriver and tamper with its internals (totally NOT recommended!!!). Well, actually CRTs may be more responsive to different refresh rates and screen resolutions so you may be lucky.

You don't seem to know what you're talking about. HTML has always been backwards-compatible, and HTML5 will be backwards-compatible as well. The web browser does not need to know anything about PHP and ASP. They're server-side scripting languages that output file contents. In most cases, HTML. Flash is not part of the web, and I'm not sure if backwards-compatibility is even in its nature. It's a proprietary framework that doesn't even run all that great on GNU/Linux. You really think the Win9x community can't do it itself? That it's a talentless bunch? When I look at the history of HTTP, HTML and CSS, I see this isn't true at all. They 'change' quite slowly. Nonsense. There are routers that can do 6to4. That is, to be connected to an IPv6 Internet while being part of an IPv4 network. I think I know what I'm talking about. Few days ago I stumbled into a post regarding the impossibility of accessing a gaming site (somewhere in this thread). I quickly replied: spoof your User Agent and went away. But curiosity made me come back and try that myself - result: no dice! The site wouldn't budge with any type of user agent I tried (and other registry tweaks as well). And guess what: it's Flash. The OS/browser check is all embedded in Flash, so it's impossible to just load the page source and search for a hole to squeeze through.Second round: while spoofing user agent, I had the curiosity to log into my GMail account. Oh well... I was a Vista user with IE8 for Google and they tried hard to let me log in but... no, it wouldn't - the browser would just sit and wait. I then lowered compatibility version until something finally loaded. Needless to say the page was all screwed up, supposedly transparent items were pink (best way to check for badly designed sites and/or bugs is change default white color to something else) and some elements were not working at all. Now with both the above explained, tell me what will happen when 50% of the sites will use that Flash check and the other half, code similar to GMail's? I could throw in doc <-> docx, software built with VS2008 (direct dependancy on VS2008 runtime that doesn't work in 9x) and many others that I'm too tired to discuss now. As for IPv6 routers... not all of us can afford one and if we do, we may have surprises (as I did, seeing my Edimax BR6214k wouldn't connect to MSN messsenger regardless of the settings) and not all of us can return them or scrap'em and buy another one and so on. The pressure to get rid of Win9x worldwide is obvious and it won't take long until any and all hardware produced anywhere in the world will explicitely refuse to interface to a Win9x machine by design. And there is no KernelEx for hardware... Oh, BenoitRen... maybe the Win9x community will step into self-building their own hardware.

Yes, 5.6.2.8 should be the last available version. Apparently, development stalled (or stopped). Sorry for not replying earlier, have been busy all day.

Sorry, I was thinking of TFT.

Could be a bad driver, a hanging background application (antivirus/firewall/service), a system library conflict... Even Explorer may hang sometimes; you can kill it with Task Manager and restart it (CTRL+ESC or a shortcut from within a running application). First of all, check your running processes, see if there's anything suspicious and if there is, kill it and observe behavior. Uninstall, if necessary. See if there's any hardware conflict in Device Manager - try to resolve, if any. Check RAM memory with MemTest86+ as suggested before (leave it running for a few hours).

GUI-wise, it's much easier to use a macro language like AutoHotkey, especially when there's a GUI creator that helps putting together elements in a couple minutes. The official SmartGuiXP does not support Win9x but I have modded it and it does work fine on my 98SE. Anybody willing, here it is : SmartGUI XP Creator mod 4.3.25.15 As to the task at hand, regretfully I voted No, since the XP start menu is the first thing I disable when I get to an XP machine - I'd rather see the options than guess where in the world they might've thought of hiding them. On the other hand, customizable side/app-bars with skins and auto-hide would be easy to create and IMHO more usable - I've had such thing in mind myself but no time to get down to work. Anyway, good luck in your learning endeavour, whatever the outcome may be!

Dunno, you may be right regarding 98 (even 95?). Never tried it myself since there's no IPv6 network in the surroundings that I know of. Should work fine with NT4 since it was designed for it, though.

As I've already mentioned a few times in these forums, Codestuff Starter - albeit old - is pretty good at managing startup/running items (under 2000+ it can also display/manage services):

Changing standards is what will eventually kill the 9x community. When HTML, PHP, ASP, Flash and all others will no longer be backwards compatible, none of the 9x users will be able to browse the web anymore. You'll say there's KernelEx - it can only do so much and it's a one-man show (more or less), can go down at any time. You'll say there's convertors - soon there won't be people to build/update them anymore, so they'll lie down and die. They are changing standards too fast and too deep. There is unspoken pressure to take the 9x network down - I have never ever seen such a concerted action as this dissapearing of 9x drivers (for one) and 9x-compatible software; this almost looks like the works of a magic wand but I'm too darn old to believe in magic. Final blow will be the introduction of IPv6 which will definitely kill all 9x web activity unless any of the well-known to us genii will take the Hitachi IPv6 driver for NT4 and bring it to 9x usability. And then all that's left for us is sit quietly at home, isolated and alone, playing old DOS arcade games on whatever 9x-compatible hardware may still be alive at the time. Fade to black...

Changing refresh rate may help too although usually old games use their own timings.

I've had my share of experience with that thing, few years ago. Tried to make it work as I needed and failed - the syntax was too... let's call it "odd". Wouldn't wanna go back there. And I definitely don't fancy installing demo software, especially when there's chance it won't work for the desired purpose; KernelEx would be a better solution considering it's free software.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent Add/modify the following STRING values accordingly: Default -> Opera/9.x Compatible -> compatible Platform -> Windows NT 5.1 Version -> MSIE 7.0 Save a copy of the original values before modifying them (Registry > Export registry file)! Later edit: I've tried that myself and didn't work, they must be performing some dirty tricks. Interesting thing is, if I disable Flash through TurnFlash, the game page gets displayed but the actual game is an empty rectangle where the Flash window was supposed to be. My guess is that the tricky check is done from somewhere within the Flash application itself. The only thing I haven't tried was to install KernelEx and put the browser in WinXP compatibility mode, but I'm not gonna do that, it's not worth the effort.