Drugwash

In first post, links appear to be pointing to old 1.2.1 build, although they show as pointing to 1.3. Could you please fix it? Thank you.

Try EtherDetect (shareware). It also needs WinPCap on Win9x, but it works to some extent, at least for me on (a slightly upgraded) Win98SE. You might consider upgrading some system files on your operating system (as I did), but that's a risky business if you don't know what you're doing. The only advice I would offer you in this matter is to use Dependency Walker to run a profiling on the application(s) that won't work and see what functions/modules are missing and then try to upgrade accordingly. I repeat, this is very risky!

Sorry for barging in, but reading the above made me think of either a HDD defect or a BIOS bug.A clean install on C: would have absolutely no reason to fail booting, unless a hardware failure occurs [HDD sector(s) defective] or the BIOS has a bug in the HDD parameters translation routine. I would do a surface scan of the HDD on another machine (if possible) and also a BIOS update/reflash (careful with that one!). Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't know blade's situation, but in my case it was a fresh XP-SP2 installation. Unfortunately, I can't remember which application I ran when I got that popup, but AFAIR it wasn't a "heavy" one. However, the machine had 256MB physical RAM, and the original dynamic setting for virtual memory was min. 384MB and max. 768MB as default. I changed it to a fixed value of 1024MB as both minimum and maximum, to prevent HD fragmentation. Considering that the fixed value set was much larger than 1.5 x physical RAM amount - as Andromeda43 said above - what would be the reason for Windows to pop up that warning message? Needs mentioned that there was plenty of free space on the hard drive.

Any explanation of why that happens and an alternate solution that would allow keeping a fixed size of the virtual memory? Some guides say it helps preventing drive fragmentation. Freshly installed, XP has a range of ~320MB to 768MB. Setting it to a fixed 1024MB - which should be more than enough, theoretically - still pops up the warning balloon.

This issue should have its own topic (I hope I didn't miss it if it already exists). There are several patched versions of certain files, but there are no patchers. So if one wants/needs two or more of those modifications applied to his/her file... surprise.Not to mention that patchers could be feasible for files in different languages than English, when the patch creator can't/wouldn't waste time with patching each file version individually. As for GetRight, I'm not at all familiar with it, but a wild guess would be that if it's set to move the file from a temporary location to a final one, it may require 2x file length of initial HDD free space.

If you have enough HDD space, you might try the following: download and install FlashGet (adware - banner - unless registered), go to Options > Other > Advanced (branch) --> "Allocates disk space after get filesize" and then add a large file to the list (the same Vista one or similar). Upon starting the download, FlashGet will get the file size from the server and will try to allocate the same size on the HDD as a file called <filename>.jc! prior to starting the download (a very good anti-fragmentation method used in some DC clients too, only that it doesn't move the file, it only renames it when download finished, unless you specifically chose to move it into a certain category). If there's any problem with the patched kernel, something bad should happen at that point (hopefully it won't).

Ivan, I'm by no means a programmer but merely a nosy user. However, I can tell you that I recently installed StrongDC++ 2.01 on my 98SE system and it works just fine. Of course, it's not a vanilla system, but one heavily upgraded, first with the Unofficial Service Pack (an old version), then with the Kernel Update Project patch (both found in these forums), but most of all with various system files from several other operating systems, from ME to Server 2003. Maybe I've been just lucky, but whenever some application crashed on me or functioned improperly, I profiled it through Dependency Walker, noted which modules were missing functions or were not found on my system and upgraded accordingly. Speaking of DC++ clients, unfortunately there are only a few that work correctly on my system, which means that most (if not all) of them will probably fail completely on a vanilla 9x system. The ones currently working for me are: CZDC++ 0.6.6.6 (nasty version number), DC++ 0.689, oDC 5.31 and StrongDC++ 2.01 (older versions crash). I also tried iDC++ 2.0.1, an italian branch, which I found surprinsingly feature-rich and nice looking, but unfortunately some controls in the Options panel will not work at all (the sharing list is the most important of them). I could not get it to work properly no matter what I tried, and the posts in its forums did not yield any working solution. All this said, I think the best thing would be running the compiled DC++ client through Dependency Walker, noting the missing modules/functions and then trying to replace them in the sources with older, Win9x existing modules/functions and maybe using VC6 or MinGW to compile the sources instead of VS2003 or newer that link to VC7 or newer runtimes that usually do not exist on Win9x systems unless they've been manually upgraded. Also the compiling options and optimizations should be carefully considered.

OK LLXX, thanks for some clarifications. So, to get things straight once and for all: if I partition that HDD as described in post #158 with the exception that partition #5 would be FAT32 (not necessarily, as there is possibility to access Linux partitions under Windows) and I would use your patched driver in Win98SE, would I be able to access partition #5 from within Win98SE without any problems whatsoever? I just need to be 101% sure about this before starting messing with the HDD. [EDIT] Oh and Eck, you might wanna check Wim's BIOS forum board I linked to in post #156, as there's chance you might find patched BIOSes for your boards. Check the users' signatures, they'll lead you to a page with patched BIOSes. If you can't find your boards listed, you can make a request in the appropriate forum.

Are you referring to Petr's post or the "wrong gender assumption" one above? If it's the latter, I apologize - I only found out after posting there. I will correct it. As for Petr's post, I couldn't say, because he didn't mention what the respective BIOS reported and furthermore, I haven't tried to install anything on that HDD yet. It's brand new and I'm still trying to find the proper solution, which includes trading it in with a smaller 120GB one that would have no problems with the BIOS. As far as I've read in all threads around that deal with this, all Win9x versions rely on the BIOS' report regarding HDD capacity, unlike NT versions. So I assumed (correctly, probably) that even with the driver patch installed, any Win9x installed on that HDD would mess the primary boot partition if it would have to deal with anything beyond 137GB. The weird thing is that the BIOS is an AWARD 6.00PG which - at least theoretically - should support 48bit LBA, so I thought it might be an easy job to find a possible bug in it and patch it accordingly. Unfortunately, I'm no specialist so I can't say how hard it would be to do that, or if at all possible. It may even be a SiS630 chipset limitation. So if no BIOS patching would be possible, I might settle for a partitioning scheme as follows: 1. 30GB FAT32 - Win98SE 2. 30GB FAT32 - Win2003 3. 30GB FAT32 - data 4. 30GB NTFS - data 5. 40GB (EXT or whatever) Ubuntu Linux I hope the above will work with no problems. (This board has a weird way of formatting the posts when smileys are involved. Every CR adds and etra LF or something; it's probably an ANSI-Unicode thing, since I'm using Win98SE. I had to edit the post text in notepad and paste it back.)

Here's a discussion that should offer all the needed details. What I was thinking about is a BIOS mod - nothing more, nothing less. Any commercial solution is out of discussion. I'd rather set up a Linux partition in the unusable space (which is what I most likely will do anyway).

Hello everybody. I've been following the topic with great interest throughout the threads, as I'm a Win98SE addict. I would hate to hijack this thread though, so I'll only say this: if anybody feels able/willing to help me, please PM or IM me. My problem is that the BIOS wouldn't see the whole capacity of the HDD (only sees 136GB out of 160GB) and there's no other place I can get help from - neither from the manufacturer (replies like "mobo's been out of phase long ago") nor from the guys at Wim's BIOS board. Any details in private, to spare the thread from off-topics. Thank you in advance, and most of all thank you LLXX for your excellent work.

Guys, those of you making super/extra/mega/power packs, why don't you gather in some chat room or something and agree on who/what/when/why puts in his pack? It'd much more elegant than having the same applications throughout all packages or having useless/buggy/crappy ones in any of them. For applications that would be good and usable enough but are either shareware, adware or too big to include into the package, just make a list of links that point to the apps download pages, together with some (brief) descriptions of each application, for those who might not know them already.

I've been reading the whole thread, I've been wandering through the Internet, but I couldn't find any answer to my problem: how do I edit sysdm.cpl in Windows 98Second Edition? ResHacker won't budge; it keeps telling me the file is not a valid Win32 PE, and the guy's right, because quickly looking into it's properties with Total Commander's FileInfo plug-in, I see it's a 16bit New Executable (NE) file, meant for (!!!) Windows 3.x (can you believe that?!?). So dear knowledgeable people here: how do I get around editing that file, to be able to customize the look and feel of that window? One thing: please do not recommend shareware tools. Thanks in advance.

• Install date: November 2004 • Operating system: Windows 98SE • Planned reinstall: when HDD crashes

That is exactly my reason too. Correct, but that is only if the scanning has been triggered. Most antivirus software do a smart scanning as real-time protection; this includes executables -- self-extract archives fall into this category --and some types of documents, but rarely usual archives. Also, most times, even on a powerful machine, the system chokes when a massive file is being scanned, be it only when you explore the folder containing it, which is unpleasant, to say the least.Having the package as a simple archive would allow the user to unpack and scan the desired modules only, which would obviously take much less time and would eliminate the choke(s). If the level of paranoia would reach that high, nobody would ever install any application and probably even the operating system itself wouldn't be installed, in the first place. Being cautious is not a bad thing. It is possible that one has a yet unknown infection, and having the executable package infected on his system, storing it on an optical medium and possibly distributing it around could unknowingly infect other users. Bottom line is - if possible - try to distribute it in both noob form (that is, executable installer) and power-user form (that is, simple archive, whatever type). If I may, personally I use Total Commander as my file manager of choice, and the external commandline archivers linked to it plus the 7zip, ISO and other plug-ins, allow me to handle a vast variety of archives as if they were folders: just a double-click on the file, select the desired files/folders from it and drag'em to the other panel. SFX archives also supported by menu item File > Unpack.

MDGx, do you really think that people who don't know what 7zip is, should handle jimmsta's package? I think that's just asking for trouble. IMO, one must really know what he's doing, or things might just get screwed up (see the guy that hates Revolutions Pack).

To minimize the possibility of an infection and also to allow certain operations on the content (selective extraction, etc.), a simple archive would be preferred. Word goes that 7zip has (almost) the best compression around, so that would be the best choice, which is what I voted for. I agree, however, that a click'n'run installer would be preferrable for the not-so-advanced users, but I'm also unsure if this package (as in "its function") would be indicated for this category of users. If possible, you could try offering both 7zip and NSIS installer at the same time. An eD2k link could help spreading the package(s) and also cut on your bandwith usage, once other users get the complete file(s), although it might be a slower process. Good luck and thank you, whatever you choose.

I've been using 5.50.30.2002 for a while in Win98SE and had no problems with it. Please check the colors of the links in the other older versions. AFAIK, there was an issue with that and it's been fixed only in some of the latest builds. The link color on black (dark) background should become white automatically.

Some tools I've been using for years (and some I just discovered): Ad-Aware (very good) Spyware Blaster (very good) SlimBrowser (very good) CodeStuff Starter - the development version (useful) stupid board script! Replace f*rumer with f o r u m e r. AnalogX Capture (useful) FreeRAM XP Pro (useful) Imagine - available as standalone and Total Commander plug-in (useful) Lavalys Everest Home Edition - whoever has it; it's not freeware anymore (useful) NetMeter (useful) FlashGet (useful) Notepad++ TCP Optimizer TZ Connection Booster (just use Google to find it) VideoLAN Client (VLC) SysClean package + virus pattern file (useful) DM2 (useful) Miranda IM - multiprotocol instant messenger - wait for the 0.5 release (useful)

I've been relying on SlimBrowser since my Win95 days, years ago. I had a 486DX @ 66 MHz IBM desktop with a 12in. monitor (640x480 fixed resolution) and I was the happiest man in the world for having a tabbed browser with FlashGet bar integrated into its toolbar, plus a multiple search engine at hand. Added to the extremely handy translation system, that was love at first sight.

If you are allowed to access the site, download Damage Cleanup Engine/Template (Sysclean) and the latest virus pattern file from TrendMicro, unzip the virus pattern file (lpt$vpn.xxx) in the same folder as sysclean.com and run sysclean.com. Pay attention to the infected files it discovers (if any), and check if they really were deleted from the system. Write down their names and paths, prepare a Win98/ME boot disk, boot from it and manually delete the infected files. Safe mode or fake DOS mode in XP might not allow you to delete those files.

Don't take it so dramatically. Maybe they took some time off, a little vacation after the recent release. Maybe it takes some time to process the request and offer a documented answer. And maybe the forum registration data (your e-mail address) was not correct. These are all assumptions, I know, but if you won't get an answer in a few more days, I'll contact them myself and link to this thread. Deal?

I happen to be an old user of SlimBrowser and also the official Romanian translator of the project. My opinion is that you could send an e-mail stating your request to support (at) flashpeak (dot) com and if reasonable and possible, it may be implemented. A little trick to change the default search engine in the search bar: Go to %appdata%\SlimBrowser\QuickSearch (note: Win9x users will find this file in %windir%\SlimBrowser\QuickSearch) and open menuorder.ini in any text editor. It's a hidden file, so you may need to modify folder properties to view hidden files, first. Just cut and paste the different .qseg entries in the order you like, then save the file. On next start, SlimBrowser will show the first entry in the file's list as the default search engine and all others listed in the order you preferred. Another trick for Win98SE users: unfortunately, SlimBrowser has an old issue that cannot be fixed - according to the author - because of a bug in Windows Explorer, all versions after IE6. I'm talking about the fact that SlimBrowser's skins are incompatible with the autohidden function of the taskbar: if you enable skins in SB and set the taskbar to auto-hide, this one will not be available when hovering the margin of the screen, while SB is in full-screen mode. But, I found out that you can still have the two functions enabled at the same time, if - after installing/updating IE6 or any other component that upgrades Windows Explorer too - you put back the original explorer.exe from the Win98SE install CD to %windir%. Obviously this has to be done in pure DOS mode, after you copied the original explorer.exe from the CD to a temporary folder on the HDD (for example, C:\Temp) and you backed up the current explorer.exe to a folder of your choice, for safety.

How about the newer VC8 runtime library? It's available for Win9x, according to MS. I installed the package some time ago, as it was needed by a plug-in in an application I use (Miranda IM) and recently there's been another plug-in linked to it. Seems to work. Did anybody else test it? Any chance it would make it in beta 5? Now with this VS2005 being more and more used by the developers, I think there will be lots of applications linking to msvcr80.dll and the like.