Drugwash

Great to see you back! My ASM knowledge already fell back into the well of oblivion since I got other issues to attend to. Hopefully I'll get some spare time in a week or two, to take the rust off again. Oh and while you're playing with the USB stuff, maybe you'll have a look at my Huawei phone driver issue posted somewhere around. Tihiy said it can't be done. A second opinion wouldn't hurt, so I can curse that chinese company at will on my blog, if so.

Version is labeled 0.1.3 and the exe's timestamp is April 14, 2008 12:54h. Path is C:\Utils\RSidebar 0.1.3\ Folder contains: [slide] - 10.bmp - 11.bmp - 12.bmp - 13.bmp - 14.bmp - 15.bmp lclock.bmp bass.dll (alternatively I tried with newer bass.dll, bass_aac.dll and basswma.dll) RSidebar.exe lclock.ini Please read.txt

I attached an archive containing a hardware and a software report. I'm not sure what screenshot you're referring to - there's absolutely nothing displayed after launching RSidebar; the mouse cursor starts stuttering and finally the whole system freezes completely. Only a hardware reset can bring it back. If there's anything else in particular that you want to know, just tell me. Reports:

I put together a bundle of WLL.COM, WLLINST.COM, LogoTool.exe, LogoTool2.exe and SVGA.COM with sources included. Please read all the readme files carefully before installing/using any of the files. Also put WLLINST.COM somewhere at hand, in case computer hangs after the animated screen. If that happens, boot in DOS mode, run WLLINST and everything will go back to normal. The 7-zip archive is here.

So we're back to square one. I've checked the main exe for dependencies and everything looks OK. All files from the zip are in their place... Dunno what else could be wrong. CPU type, maybe...? Or the fact that I'm running in dual-view? Anyway, I replaced the bundled bass.dll with another version I had around (still v2.3 but different filesize and creation date) and will try again after posting this. If I won't edit this post in a few minutes, consider it another failure. Anyone's suggestions are welcome.

Which latest version do you need exactly: WLL, WBL, LogoTool, WLL Installer? Either way, I'll try to reupload all of them one of these days; I just need to remember which are the working ones, as I got some borked versions around that shouldn't go out in the wild. As for WBL, maybe PassingBy will reupload it or he might have some new version (wishful thinking). I haven't been able to work on WLL lately as I've been extremely busy with other things, but I do intend to return to it a.s.a.p. Stay tuned...

You may be right. Can't test now as I'm way too tired, but I'll definitely keep it in mind and test a.s.a.p. I do keep Flash disabled on my system, so this may well be it. Thanks for the hint!

Regardless, the system does freeze. Could be helpful to find out why.

Obviously I don't. But it would've been nice to know why it freezes. Oh well... I'll come back later when you grow (this thing) up.

We have no power... Too many things involved here... too much money... And we're off-topic already.

I'm a bit drunk and tired right now, so forgive my bluntness, but why does this thing freeze my computer as soon as I start it? Does it have any special requirements that I didn't notice (such as KernelEx, SPx.x, RPxx, etc.)? All I have here is a few manually upgraded system files and UberSkin 8.2.1 and the system goes icy the second I start RSidebar... Not that I die to have it, but I wanted to test it out of curiosity...

Personally I've built a couple of test machines out of scrap, because testing in virtual environment will never yield reliable results as opposed to real stuff. So no reason for me to waste time. How expensive could be a Pentium I mobo with a 200MHz CPU and 64 MB of SDRAM, for such tests? As for much newer hardware... that'd also be better to test for real, especially in terms of drivers compatibility and availability. My ¢2 worth of an opinion...

You might have the same problem as I have with stupid Huawei U1220S phone. They just don't want to offer Win9x drivers for their hardware and NUSB can't do anything about it. Memory card storage may be available but other phone-related functions will not.

Why not try it yourself? I've seen too many sites that stopped mentioning any version of Windows below 2000 (even though some are manufacturer sites and are supposed to offer support - drivers - for their products for all OS versions) and still the software listed - in most cases - does work on Win9x. As if someone - we know who - would have grabbed them by the balls and forced them to not even whisper 'Win9x'...

Try here, right below Office Viewers.

Nope, sorry. Could be KernelEx interfering, but the above combination didn't work right and crashed on exit. Qt has issues in Win9x. I'll stick to BSPlayer 2.27 for now, which is working OK for my slow machine.

; This INF file installs Huawei USB modem device on Win2K system. ; This INF file installs a proprietary USB CDC driver [Version] Signature = "$WINDOWS NT$" Class = Modem Provider = %HUAWEI% CLASSGUID = {4D36E96D-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} DriverVer = 03/27/2007,2.0.3.0 CatalogFile= hmumdm.cat <snip> ; This INF file installs a virtual COM port on Win2K system. [Version] signature = "$WINDOWS NT$" Class = Ports Provider = %HUAWEI% ClassGuid = {4D36E978-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} DriverVer = 03/27/2007,2.0.3.0 CatalogFile= hmuser.cat [SourceDisksNames] 1000 = %HWSRCDISK%,"",, [SourceDisksFiles] hmumdm.sys = 1000 <snip> hmumdm.sys dependencies: hal.dll ntoskrnl.exe usbd.sys wmilib.sys None of the above files is present on my Win98SE system. LocateDevice.dll in the setup package is linked to following functions in setupapi.dll, both missing here: CM_Locate_DevNodeA CM_Reenumerate_DevNode Still think it's gonna be a walk in the park?

Coincidentally, I've taken a break myself for a while. That system protection error kinda threw me off, for one. And to add insult to injury, after installing VC6 and PSDK 2003 (needed to compile Miranda), the previous WLL version that used to work fine on both main and Win95 machine, started to throw the same error on the main machine. For that reason, I had to temporarily uninstall WLL (so far, the WLL Installer and LogoTool2 are working fine, but are the only ones working). There's another issue bugging me - namely an occasional BSOD on startup, before explorer kicks in - and I'd like to sort that out if possible, before playing with WLL again. Otherwise, testing in real environment on the main machine would be more of a pain. For now, here's LogoTool2 v2.0.1.0 with automatic watermarking.

Thanks for your kind offer, however I think it's gonna be a bit hard to do that. And I still wanna get some 9x driver for that phone, just to prove those ¤%&"¤# that 9x is NOT dead and their thing CAN work just fine with it. Unfortunately, that .sys driver is completely hooked to the NT system files, as if they're trying to completely discourage any such porting attempt. Which makes me even more mad. My internet bill just arrived today and I can't afford to pay it.

I know what it can and what it can't, it's more like the principle of it. It's not like I wanna listen to my favorite music on the phone, for pete's sake... but I wanna be able to copy over some audio files to organize personalized ringtones and some pictures for the wallpaper. I'm not gonna be able to buy myself a Micro SD in the near future, so I have to rely on that driver. I do have NUSB 3.3 installed and working so that wouldn't be a problem; money is, unfortunately.

Recently I got a mobile phone for free, with the internet connection contract. "Great", I thought. But looking into the manual, I noticed - with no surprise - that there are no Win9x drivers for it - only Win2000, XP and Vista ones, as if it had to do some extraordinary Unicode job, transferring some bloody pictures and sounds to/from the phone to the PC. So, to make it short, would anyone knowledgeable be willing to port the NT drivers to Win9x, so me (and any other potential Win9x users) could connect it to the PC and transfer the little things it accepts? I must mention that the actual driver is in a .sys form, so it may not be that easy (if at all) to port it. If anybody's interested, I can upload the whole drivers folder to a free host. Thank you.

3Com NICs are excellent. Or at least used to be; I had a 10Mbit one in my old 200MHz MMX Pentium and it was just flying. Somehow I managed to fry it - some static electricity through the aerial network cables or something - and I so much regret it. For the rest, that old MMX is still running fine, considering what a cocktail of dlls I stuffed into it. It's been my main machine until 1.5 years ago. Regarding network issues, I'm thinking the 'optimization' I've done with TZ Connection Booster and TCP Optimizer may have added to the situation. I've set options to 'Extreme' in TCP Optimizer, which may be a tad too much for a 400MHz CPU with 256MB of PC133 RAM. If you ever send that thing flyin', please whistle first - I've already got enough bumps on my head. Cheers!

I'm afraid we're going off-topic here... You won't lose the theme if you save it first, after changing fonts. Tihiy mentioned that in the RP thread. Anyway, I really don't think this is a 98SE2ME issue, but more like RP7 one. And for such tests, I think that toy can still be of good help. So please try that 'Compatibility' suggestion for starters. And if won't work, reinstall 98SE with regional settings Romanian from the very setup, install 98SE2ME carefully looking for fonts backup option (and if it's not there anymore, just back'em up manually), restore fonts, install RP7 and look around for Unicode capabilities (I think it was Run > rpconfig at some time) and 'Compatibility' tab in applications' Properties page. Good luck!

Don't worry, this happens to me too on my desktop. It's just a 400MHz Pentium II though, so no wonder it's got hiccups. If you wanna have a quick crash test, try latest version of FlashGet with a few parallel HTTP/FTP downloads and maybe a few torr3nts too (it can work as a torr3nt and eD2k client, if you didn't know it). Currently I'm too busy (and also p!ssed off just like you) to try and fiddle with network settings and whatnot, but I'll keep an eye on your progress here. Oh and BTW, if you ever decide to throw that thing off the window, let me know your address first - I'll be outside tryin' to catch it. Good luck with tweaking!

Make sure your theme fonts (Display > Properties > Appearance) are still the original ones (should be Central European if you installed the OS from the very beginning with regional settings Romanian). AFAIK, RP7 installs its themes with Cyrillic font encoding and that may be the issue. RP7 also has a Compatibility option in file properties, if I'm not mistaken (haven't run it in a while). You may wanna try setting it to 'Windows98' for the affected applications, see if it helps. There's also a tiny quirk in 98SE2ME that MDGx worked around by adding an option to keep/restore the fonts folder. In my experience, with a similar system (English with regional settings Romanian), I had to back up the original Fonts folder in Windows, install 98SE2ME, then restore the fonts folder. Otherwise the CE fonts were replaced by Western ones. This should now be possible from 98SE2ME options.