Drugwash

Try playing with TZ Connection Booster and TCP Optimizer.

Here are some screenshots for the tests in Miranda IM. They are self-explanatory. The options on the settings page were exactly the same for both tests. First test was run with riched20.dll v5.30 installed in %system%, while for the second test I just dropped riched20.dll v5.40 in Miranda's main folder.

Not being a programmer but merely a tester/user, I couldn't offer specific technical details, but during testing one of the plug-ins created for Miranda IM - namely spellchecker - I noticed that the wrong words that should have been marked with red wave, dotted, thick or other kind of underscore were only marked with thin line having the same color as the font. Replacing RichEdit v5.50 with v5.40 exhibited the same behavior. Downgrading to v5.30, the underscore immediately started to behave normally as selected in the plug-in's options. So this is not a problem of wrong characters being displayed, but rather one of missing/wrong features. One other issue that I noticed was in the official eMule client: on the Servers page, at the bottom, there's a tab called "Server info". In there it's a link called "Click HERE to check for a new version" (or similar). With RichEdit v5.40 or 5.50 installed, the link was not clickable, there was only a line of simple text. Downgrading to RichEdit v5.30 fixed that issue too - the line became a link again, that would open the project's main page in the default browser. Bottom line is that it may be possible to be a bad implementation of some features in certain applications, where programmers have used only RichEdit v5.30 (at most) to test them. But it may also be that RichEdit versions above v5.30 have different implementations of some functions (or even bugs, why not?) that make them slightly incompatible with previous ones. After all, if those versions would have been 100% safe and compatible, I suppose MS would have shipped them as system upgrades. Instead, they preferred to ship them only with the Office suite, which may offer a clue regarding their limited compatibility. Anyway, this is just a supposition of mine, so if anyone knows better, please disregard my posts on the matter. Petr: Miranda IM is open-source and so are it's plug-ins (with very few exceptions). You're welcome to test it in any combination you wish, to confirm or deny my allegations. Please note that some of the alpha-staged plug-ins can only be found in their dedicated forum threads. Personally I've used a nightly v0.7 build for testing, available from the Development page.

I agree with having them all in one pack. After all, the files are not that big (around 1MB each or so) and there still are applications that do not provide them optionally. I'm thinking about gdiplus.dll being added, as it's needed by some newer applications (I know for sure some of Miranda IM's modules need it). However, you will have to pay attention to VC2005, because that one is a lot different than the previous ones: it creates %windir%\winsxs with a few subfolders and installs its stuff there instead of %windir%\System. While VC6/7 can simply be dropped in the System folder even without registration, the VC2005 files will never work that way. Also a good idea might be upgrading RichEdit (riched20.dll) to 5.30.23.1226, as it may be needed by recent applications. Personally I tried to use a more recent version of it (5.40.x.x and 5.50.x.x) but I found them to be faulty regarding a few functions while testing in Miranda IM, so I had to downgrade to 5.30.x.x, which is working fine for me. Speaking for myself, I think the biggest, the supreme achievement for all 98SE users would be to have absolutely all possible updates/upgrades/patches/whatnot in one single pack - be it a modular or integrated one - and best of the best, integrated with the Unattended Boot Disk project, so that everything would be on one single CD, installable when selected in the UBD menu. But that would require cooperation between certain wise people around here. Could that be achieved? I surely hope so. Because time is running away, and Win9x is dying a bit day by day...

Nice idea of a plug-in, but after installing it, when trying to open an exe it crashed my TotCmd. It might need some updating.

So many thoughts running through my mind... My opinion is that MS will not take a step towards prosecuting any alleged copyright breakers here unless they feel seriously threatened. And I believe this will never be the case. Why? First reason is because of (almost) natural selection: old hardware that allows running any of the 9x versions of Windows is slowly dying. No matter how great the efforts to maintain those systems - be them unofficial service packs, patched libraries/kernels, etc. - soon the day will come when the current functional hardware will simply refuse to install those OS versions. Second reason is because the software released currently and in the future will be bound to NT-specific libraries that would make them unusable under 9x systems, no matter how upgraded and patched. Obviously, most fields of activity will require the newest software versions - you may run Win98SE 10-20 years from now (assuming you'll still have compatible hardware for it), but when you won't be able to open documents created with Office 2007+, watch media created with WMP 11+, burn CD/DVDs with Nero 7.5+ or browse websites optimized for IE7+, you'll face the choice of giving up computers forever or find a suitable alternative. It's that 'suitable alternative' that we should think about, right now. As long as current and future hardware and software are intentionally created to only support NT-based OSes, and keeping in mind that Win2000 and XP will soon 'kick the bucket' just like their not-that-older 9x brothers, logic and common-sense tell me that efforts should be channeled towards developing a Vista+ compatible open-source OS. It's only then that MS will blow steam off their ears and send out their army of jackals in a furious attempt to stop the freedom movement, because that would be the only real challenge for them. Until then, creating and maintaining all kinds of unofficial patches, service packs, updates and whatnot is like injecting morphine to terminal-phase cancer patients. All that said, I have to mention that I have the deepest respect and admiration for all the people out here that voluntarily offer their time, knowledge and efforts, day by day, to keep our beloved dying 9x systems still alive for as long as possible. As mentioned in a previous post, I myself am a Win98SE user and in no way am I trying to mock these people's work; on the contrary - I'm trying to help them with my little knowledge and testing, whenever possible. But time has come for us to broaden our horizons and look forward to the future.

Don't forget the essential ingredient: a Bullet-time button on the keyboard. Because by the time the assumingly handful of part-time disassemblers/reversers/coders would finish open-sourcing Win98SE, the army of MS programmers would have released a couple of other OS versions that would even be incompatible with Vista and any 32-bit CPU. Given that most software producers already forgot about Win9x (probably intentionally or forced) and the old hardware is dying (you wouldn't expect nowadays' HW to last 50 years as the old one did, would you?), you'll only end up with grey hair, wasted time and an obsolete Win98 perfect clone. You see, I have no issues with IF and HOW - when there's a will, there's a way; my only question is WHY? But don't mind me, I'm just... nobody.

Eck: AFAIK, the official explorer.exe is in %windir% only (usually C:\Windows). I suggest you remove any other copies of it from your system (rename or delete them) and only place the appropriate one (the one with the newer icons, if that's what you want) directly in the Windows folder (%windir%). You'll have to do that in DOS mode.

Am I too deep? Let me try again: here's a quote from X2 - X-men united, a talk between Kurt Wagner and Mystique:- Excuse me... They say you can imitate anybody, even their voice. - [imitating his voice] "Even their voice" - Then why not stay in disguise all the time? You know... look like everyone else. - Because we shouldn't have to. Steven W: so this is all about DRM, isn't it? MS wants to stick a tag to my ear, hang a cowbell onto my neck and watch each and every step I take. Well, I'll refrain from expressing all the nice words that come to my mind related to this and I'll just say: "no, thanks".

Modifying a cable is not that easy, as you would have to replace the RJ45 outlets each time. You can find documentation on Standard ad Cross-over cables here. As for Nero's multisession, I don't know what to say, it always worked for me in v5.5, 6.0 and 7.0. Not sure if it could have something to do with your particular burner hardware, I tested with a TEAC CD-W552 CD-burner and a Samsung SH-S182D DVD-burner. Just make sure you don't mix sessions burned with different types of software. I had some multisession CDs destroyed long time ago because first session was burned with Roxio and second one with Nero.

Thanks, but that would be cheating. There's lots of software saying they don't support Win9x and when you mess with winver and make it report you're running 2k or later, they install and run flawlessly. It's like admitting myself as guilty to escape capital punishment in favor of life sentence, while in fact I'm completely innocent. Does that seem right?! I havent' messed much with my system (yet) except for a few system files that I had to upgrade. I'm testing an application in its alpha stage and I need the OS to be as basic as possible. Will upgrade it after I build a test machine. Meanwhile try subscribing to vh1.com and see if you can access their videos or whatever other online content linked to in their newsletters. I'm curious if you'll get rejected too.As for Y!MailBeta... Yahoo is vital for me to get replies from forums posts, friends, etc. I always rejected their upgrade offers, but I know there will come a time when it'll be forced upon us. I wonder which would be the needed system upgrades that'll allow running it safely on a 9x system. And how long will it take until Win9x will permanently be banned by everybody, heavily upgraded or not...

Beats me... MS can do about whatever they want. We can only keep barking at the moon.

It's the "unusual tweaks and updates" that I was thinking about, when mentioning Gape's pack. DUN 1.4 is needed by other updates or upgrades (such as IE6 SP1 if I'm not mistaken) and I always install it after a vanilla 98SE setup.As for the ME GDI updates, curious as I am I manually extracted the files and ran the inf, which properly installed the two files. So far I haven't noticed any issue, except for the old accumulative effect on transparent pictures which is unavoidable.

What kind of s*** is this? The Internet is platform-agnostic! If you're talking about things like Flash, well, they're proprietary, and not in the spirit of the web. Tell that to the guys at VH1.com. I had a subscription to their site but have been visiting it very rarely. Recently when I tried to follow a link in one of their e-mails, I got a nice message saying "sorry but your operating system is no longer supported by our site" or something like that. I have no idea if it was about Media Player version or anything else, they just said my OS was bad. So I said "f*ck them" and sent an unsubscribe reply (as instructed). At least twice. They still send me those stupid news e-mails and I keep marking them as junk. As for Flash... that's funny, but I currently have installed v9.0.28 and it works fine. But I disabled it in my browser using Nir Sofer's TurnFlash, and enable it only when needed. And no, that was not the reason for the VH1.com rejection.

First of all, thanks for the link. Second, there's been some time since I replaced original 98SE gdi32.dll and msimg32.dll with the ME ones, as required by some Miranda IM modules in order to function on my 98SE system. If the 4.90.3000 build of gdi32.dll works, I see no reason why 4.90.3003 wouldn't. Will test it these days anyway. Third - different people, different needs. Personally I thought that as long as the Autopatcher aims to collecting most (if not all) updates into one big package, it might as well add those improvements found in Gape's pack as well as those in 98SE2ME. Of course, there have been complaints about the package size, but then there's the second possibility: just have a script that checks for the presence of USP and/or 98SE2ME (and possibly others, such as 98SE2XP) in the same folder and present the user with the choice of automating all the installs in one click. Call me lazy.

1. Ever heard of CD-RW (rewritable CD)? 2. I get TDK DVDs here for less than $1/pc. Jewel case included. CDs are about 5pc. for $1. 3. Crosslink cable is what you need for connecting both machines' NICs. Make sure you set IPs in the same class (i.e 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.2) and workgroup is identical on both.

Could you please provide a link to where this update could be discussed? If the WMF update is critical, I'd like to have a way of having the WinME GDI files patched rather than downgrading to 98SE files, reason being the project I'm involved with needs the ME files for at least one module to work under Win98SE (as I wrote in this post).soporific, everything sounds great so far. Haven't tried the package yet, gotta get myself a test machine, some spare time and the right mood, all at once. I'd have a few questions, though: • Which exactly are the components of IE6 SP1 that are installed (or present in the package)? You may remember my old question regarding additional languages and all other stuff, from the '7 years later' thread; • Will you include Visual C runtimes v6, v7.0, v7.1 and probably v8 (Visual C 2005) as well? • Could you tighten things up a bit, so that string of extra operations wouldn't be necessary - I mean "install DUN 1.4 manually, install Gape's USP, install Autopatcher, install 98SE2ME full version, install yada-yada..." ? It'd be nice (and useful for many) to have it all in one shot - either in one package (yours) or at least to have the user put all separate packs together in one folder and go through all operations from a single script, be it a batch or whatever else. Personally I'd rather have it all in one package, like 1. Install Gape's USP............is set to INSTALL 2. Install Autopatcher....[m]..is set to INSTALL/FORCED 3. Install 98SE2ME................is set to INSTALL and whatever else mentioned by users in the posts above. I hope you get the idea. Looking forward to v1.7. Keep up the good work!

1. Current hardware doesn't support Win9x anymore 2. Current commercial software doesn't support Win9x anymore (with few exceptions) 3. Open-source developers don't support Win9x anymore (also with few exceptions) 4. Online content started not to support Win9x anymore Conclusion: either join forces and create a Windows-compatible open-source OS with a light, fast and powerful kernel that will be compatible with current AND future hardware/software, or just drop the subject. I'm a Win98SE addict myself and it hurts to say, but Win9x's time is over. MS killed its children.

I just tried the zipped 1.4.2 version and it did work on my 98SE! At least for a couple of INNO Setup and 7Zip SFX that I tested with. Thank you very much for looking into 9x issue, your efforts are really appreciated!

@ MDGx: thank you for the fix and congratulations for the recent Mod assignment.

I don't think you need to be connected to a network to test the respective icon. Just right-click a folder, select Sharing > Shared as: , then click Apply and OK. If everything went fine, you should see a blue hand over the folder's icon, looking like it's offering the folder to someone (pretty suggestive, huh?). If the folder was correctly shared and the icon has not been changed, then the issue is valid and needs to be fixed.

Oh yes, my bad: it's not a fix, it's a workaround. However, it's a nice one. Worth having, IMHO. B)

Hey, MDGx. I noticed your recent IE922760 cumulative update installs PNGFILT.DLL. I happen to know there's an older version of that file floating around (in the RPLite thread, IIRC), patched by Tihiy, that fixes the "transparent PNGs" issue. Could you talk to Tihiy so he would patch this newer version too (and you re-release the package) or - alternatively - create a standalone patcher that could be used on any current (and hopefully future) version of PNGFILT.DLL? This way, both users that have/had the patched version and those that didn't, could benefit from it. It would really be nice if these fix/patch/update/etc activities would be a little better coordinated. Wishful thinking, I know...

That was quick. I have to apologize, I'm having a bad time currently, can't quite focus on anything. I see you added the backup option, but I have no machine to test on, right now. I'll try to build one these days, if I feel up to, and I'll let you know. Regarding font names, that might be a bit complicated, because I have installed OfficeXP and IE6 SP1 with all language display options, which added to the Fonts folder and it'd be hard to tell which is which. I would also need some directions regarding the specific registry keys to look for, as I'm not that familiar with it and some other users that use different regional settings and have problems with the fonts might wanna share in their experience and settings. I know, I'm not being very helpful right now, sorry for that. You're doing a great job, as always.

MDGx, at first sight everything's fine for me, except for one thing that's been bothering me ever since I first tried 98SE2ME: fonts always get back to Western after installing 98SE2ME. I have Win98SE English installed with Regional Settings set to Romanian at install time. That sets codepage, keyboard layout and all stuff. Apparently, 98SE2ME copies a different set of fonts from the ME CD, when installed, which makes all Romanian characters look weird. I have found a simple workaround that could be used by the installer: backup the FONTS folder in %windir% to FONTSBKP or whatever name, install whatever selected option in 98SE2ME, then restore the fonts folder, overwriting the newly copied fonts with the ones in the backup. A better solution would be to read the regional settings, figure out what fonts are needed and then copy the right ones from the ME CD. But the workaround above would do as well. Thank you for all your work.