Drugwash

Not turn off, but set explicit compatibility. I had an issue with some application where it wouldn't work with compatibility disabled and required strict 98SE compatibility. I just checked, apparently sys files can use KernelEx compatibility mode. Do try setting it to 98SE. Such kind of issues may be the reason I stopped using NTFS driver long long time ago - can't even remember if it was Sysinternals' or the other one (forgot its name).

Probably the driver and the utility check for the presence of certain NT-only components in the system and they modify their behavior on-the-fly accordingly. Which means you can't have both the wireless and the NTFS driver at the same time. Do you happen to have KernelEx installed on that machine? If so then try to set explicit 98SE compatibility to the utility and any related driver library that allows it. But that's a long shot.

Yeah, I have a pretty old MSI board - something with 845P Neo - that used to boot only once in a few dozen attempts, then more and more rarely. At some point I tried a BIOS update which I can't recall if it went through or not, at which point the board died completely, the diagnostic LEDs on the bracket stay constantly lit green. BIOS chip is soldered on the board so no way to take it off and do a hot flash. While it did work, the external SATA controller chip used to get quite hot which I don't know if it was normal or not. Disabling it in the BIOS appeared to improve board's stability but only temporarily. Capacitors were all looking good, no bumps or leaks, but no way to know if any of them were dry unless I had unsoldered them, which I didn't. Other than that there's a weird chip on the board called "MSI core cell" with a small cooler on top, which I have no idea what it does. First of all you should measure all the voltages from the PSU and make sure they're within the acceptable margins. Then examine carefully all the (large) capacitors on the board, see if there's any gonflated and/or leaky; those would have to be replaced before damaging anything else. The BIOS chip may be failing, but you can't know that for sure unless you replace it with same or directly compatible model flashed with the correct BIOS version. Other possibilities may be bad contact in RAM or CPU sockets. Sometimes RAM pins may get burned due to such bad contacts so pull them out and examine the pins at both RAM sticks and board memory sockets. Clean RAM stick contacts with a pencil rubber. Loose contacts in CPU socket could also lead to weird behavior - take the CPU out, find yourself a good magnifying glass, gently and carefully remove the CPU socket cover and examine the contacts, see if there's any loose ones and if found use a thin needle to bend very gently the loose pins back to their normal shape. Please be extremely careful when you remove the socket cover, it can easily break. Same with the contacts. So don't try it if you're not sure you can handle the operation and the possible loss of the board.

I just watched again last night the 1999 movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley". Reminded me how Billy got the richest "kid" (at the time). Thing is, Microsoft are greedy - they don't want only the revenue from the OS, they want it all! Their apps, their office suite, their browser, their everything should be used exclusively and all other software - usually much better/bug-free/feature-rich/etc - should just die by simply shoving it off the users' systems every few months. Isn't that how cancer cells work, by eating the good ones? There's a reason why alternative software exists: because all people are different, think differently, act differently, have different needs and different preferences. When an operating system is so anal that it doesn't even allow a large diversity of themes unless it's being hacked - as was the case starting with XP - then that should already raise a red flag as large as Billy's house. Reverting all user settings, file associations and uninstalling or blocking legitimate applications should raise a red flag as large as the continent itself. But is God still watching - assuming He does exist…?

OK, now approximately how large would the Windows 95 OSR 2.5 installation kit would become if all of its icons would be replaced with scalable 256x256px images (assuming it could decode PNG)? No, better let's take Windows 98SE which is already larger. Would it get to the current size of Win10 which is about 6GB if I'm not mistaken? Of course, you'd say there are lots of new drivers inside and all… but what else is it there that is actually useful? Actually, what else should it be in an operating system, other than rudimentary means to access local or remote resources? Because the OS is not obligated in any way to provide a full set of professional tools. It should only offer the ability for the user to navigate their internal/external fixed/optical/flash/etc drives as well as the local network and the Internet in order for them to retrieve the desired software and install it, at which point that software would take over the file types designated for it. That would be a normally set up system. The user should have unlimited options to install/uninstall any applications as they see fit, without the operating system denying it or reverting the changes through a forced update, as Windows 10 does. When an operating system acts as if itself should be the only software running on a give computer then something is very wrong with whoever designed it. It's a cancer!

I started with a Z80 computer and stuck my nose in a lot of its games. Those were complex enough already and they also fit in 48kB of RAM (as the rest of 16kB were reserved for BASIC and the video memory). I always considered machine code as the best language because there is no room for error there, everything must be perfect and done manually instruction by instruction. Nowadays, with all different instruction sets and even hardware bugs in CPUs, everything relies on compilers which is the first possible source of bugs apart from human error in the code itself. If it weren't for the money people would create out of sheer passion and creativity, they'd compete for the best, smallest, feature-richest and so on while at the same time helping each-other. Everything would be better, close to perfection. Or at least let me dream it would.

I remember the times when programmers actually could code. Anybody recalls kkrieger, the 96kB 3D first-person shooter game? Bigger is not better - bigger is lamer!

Programming is not a walk in the park. I'm an amateur programmer (at best) and even simple scripts I build for my main 98SE system sometimes require major tweaks in order to be able to run (correctly) under XP, 7 or later. A project as complex as a modern browser would require much more for an (almost) perfect behavior under different OS versions, especially considering security. Of course, some of us don't care much if at all about that, we don't do online banking/shopping/etc., we don't keep critical/private data on our (browsing) computers but many people do and they need to be safe. For now there is the Atom/XP build of Pale Moon and that should be enough for us. Alternatives are provided on the very page linked above. Anyone up to maintaining a full-XP compatible fork of main-line Pale Moon in a long term…?

Check this list out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units Look for PCI in the 'Bus interface' column. Best you can get for a Win9x system appears to be GeForce 6200 PCI, lower are 5200/5500/5600. These all suport DirectX 9. You can go even lower but none of the Ti4xxx supporting DirectX 8.1 have PCI bus so skip them and go even lower. The MX series only support DirectX 7.0 so you'd have only have limited access to newer games. The whole issue here is what exactly does your motherboard/chipset/BIOS support in regard to PCI videocards and I have no idea how to find this out other than by trial and error. But it's not worth wasting money for that.

They're both either incompatible or defective. It's up to you to perform tests in another (newer) machine and find out. There's nothing more I can do from out here. Once you find a good working card we'll see about the corresponding drivers, but right now we're stuck on hardware issues.

Thank God, never! Imagine how much they would've charged for such things, if they've been thriving for so long on Windows and Office only!

Here we go. I fired up my Deskpro. In BIOS there's an Advanced menu item. Under it there are a few options as seen in this screenshot. Those are the regular options with no additional videocard in any PCI slot. When a (compatible) videocard is mounted in a PCI slot, the same menu is modified as seen in this screenshot. Note the presence of an extra item called PCI VGA Configuration. If that item is not present after mounting the card then something is wrong. That is, assuming your BIOS works like mine. Now, if that menu item is present, opening it will display a dialog similar to the one in this screenshot. I've used an S3Trio64V2/DX videocard. The only alternative would have been a more obscure Alliance Semiconductor AT24 card; I don't have any newer PCI videocard around. In that dialog the preferred video can be set as Primary VGA Device. The BIOS does not allow both videocards to be enabled. The preferred videocard will be enabled while the other one will automatically be disabled, as can be seen in this screenshot. In that same dialog (Advanced > PCI Devices) the videocard IRQ can be chosen from a few available options if there are problems with the operating system or the driver. When I first mounted the S3 card and powered up the machine, the built-in video was automatically disabled. There also was a beep sequence (one long three short, I think). It took another reboot to actually get video output from the S3, then I went into BIOS and tweaked the few available settings. So you should try again with the Sapphire, make sure you connect the monitor to it before powering up and reboot again if you don't get any image at first boot. When you mount the card, look if it's fully inserted in the PCI slot - you may gently bend the metal bracket if the card is not correctly aligned (sticks out a millimeter or two at the rear end). Be careful with the riser slot, look at the contacts and if they look dirty/oxidated take a pencil rubber and clean them up, then push it down firmly but gently to make sure it's fully inserted. You can do the same to the videocard if needed, but careful not to break any components. My riser only has two PCI and one ISA (the ISA and one PCI are shared so there's only two avaialble bracket holes at the rear). If none of the two videocards works then try to find a very old one (such as the S3 I used) just to verify that the PCI slots work and the BIOS recognizes a videocard and offers the options. Then try to test both videocards on a slightly newer machine with a "sane" BIOS that should accept them without problems and see if they actually work or are defective. That should definitely shed some light on where the problem lies and what to do further. I need some sleep now, it's 2:30 AM here. Good luck!

That may be the AGP aperture or the amount of RAM it takes for the built-in video. Either way, that means the internal video works with an AGP bus which is superior to PCI. It just doesn't have an external AGP slot for an alternative card. I think my board may be similar to yours; I'll see when I open it.

True that, sadly! I'm only hoping enough people will escape the "program" and start using their brains so they can emerge as a true power and set things on the right track, not only software-wise. I also am a huge fan of science-fiction. Actually was, because reality is now beyond comparison.

Secure from everything Microsoft don't want or allow. That's the whole point. Alternatively, they may push this whole security hype so aggressively so that people at some point would burst into "enough with this, we don't want any security anymore!", at which point… well, feel free to improvise on the rest of the scenario.

The PCI Sapphire card I've seen on a quick search is 64MB not 128MB. Only the AGP versions were 128MB. Are you sure your cards are PCI? Don't mess with the IRQs in BIOS, there should be - if available - only a PCI/AGP selection for video initialization. Otherwise either the BIOS won't accept a PCI videocard or it should switch to it automatically when detected. The fact that the Sapphire doesn't allow output video on the built-in could mean that the BIOS recognizes it and accepts it but either it can't power it up, can't fully communicate with it or the card is defective. A 32MB videocard should be acceptable for old games so at this point either card would be fine if only it worked. Let me see if I can start my machine one of these days and look in the BIOS for useful settings. Don't break anything in the mean time!

According to BIOS Central: 1 long, 2 short | Video error | Check the video adapter and ensure it's seated properly. If possible, replace the video adapter You said you had an old PCI card that you tried before getting the new one. Do they both exhibit the same behavior? Do you get the same beep sequence with both cards? Since Windows is starting and not detecting the videocard plus the soundcard was moved - if I understand correctly - from one slot to another and it still works, that means the PCI slots are in good shape but either: - both videocards require a newer PCI version - both videocards are defective - BIOS does not allow video other than the built-in - BIOS is not set to initialize video from PCI first One of these days I'll have to pull my Deskpro from under that pile of thingies and fire it up, see what it can (and cannot) do. Right now I'm out of ideas other than what I said above.

Guess I'l take the Robin Hood approach.

Thanks. Could you take this shift, please? I'll have to catch some sleep, it just got 'tomorrow' here on my side of the world.

OK; then replace "Win10" with "Win98" in my comment above and tell me what happens after you do what it says: - did you get any visual output (even if only the POST screen) from the ATI card on that 98 system? - did you find any setting on the Deskpro that can select PCI for video initialization and have you selected PCI there? - did you get any visual output from the ATI card on the Deskpro after connecting the monitor to it and powering up the system?

I just noticed there's a new subforum out there for XP Embedded/POSReady systems, as promised: link. Maybe the original poster could add this link to first post of this topic so people having trouble with PaleMoon 26.0 and later would know where to head to. If hope is a b!tch then hoping is b!itchin'…?

It all depends on what the user wants or needs to do on their machine. In my opinion, an operating system: - must be a simple but solid framework, built with flexibility and extensibility in mind, but most of all with compatibility - should never be allowed to refuse an application built for it, regardless of that application's initial compatibility - should always adapt to whatever hardware it's being run on and should never be allowed to refuse any particular piece of hardware as long as it's compatible - should always be in user's control, not the other way around - should be completely standalone, never tied to remote resources or require confirmation from remote third-parties - should never waste any kind of resources "just in case" or "because there's plenty at hand" and I could probably list a few more ideal characteristics of an operating system but we already realized that the world currently does not have a real operating system. Unless it's so well hidden that we never heard of it. But even so, I bet it's not in Microsoft's locker. Because they just can't code.

You don't necessarily need drivers for that card if you only want to check if it works or not. Especially on a Win10 system. Once again I'm telling you what do do in BIOS on both machines: search through all possible option screens, find a setting that allows you to select where to look for a videocard first (ISA/PCI/AGP/PCIe) and choose PCI if available (not PCIe). Then if you connect the monitor to the new videocard's output and reboot you should see the POST sequence and maybe the Windows boot sequence, possibly also the desktop in low colors/resolution. But as long as you see the POST sequence it means the card is (mostly) OK so you can mount it in the Deskpro, where you have to do the BIOS thing above too. If you don't change the videocard lookup priority, the system will always use the built-in and ignore the PCI card (although there are boards that allow both the add-in and the built-in at the same time). That may be the only reason why your previous card didn't work (and the new one might not work either). Once you see it working on the Win10 machine you'll know whose fault is.

it just dawned on me: - what if they don't want regular users to go creative? - what if they want to get and hold monopoly to everything software-related? - what if they want to turn user devices into read-only dumb terminals than can only play back their content, under strict supervision? Scenario: - turn on device - access Store - pay for <content> - download <content> - consume <content> - shut down device Real computers would only be built and delivered to specific, approved persons/enterprises. The rest of the world will only be able to take photos, record private videos and buy buy buy buy buy coyprighted <content> for their dumbed-down hand-held devices running crippled wannabe operating systems. Sounds utopic? Wait and see. EDIT: Yes, Agorima, that's the one!

Looks like the guy is not that stiff after all. Too bad we had to do harsh talk and all that stuff to get him take the right decision where there is a choice and responsibility is entirely on the user for unsupported configurations. Now let's hope there won't come the usual trolls/shills that fill their board with POSReady-related alleged bugs that would make him flip the switch again for good. But you know hope is a b!tch so… (typos, as always…)