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KernelEx 4.5.2


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Hallo Dave-H,

you are right, not everything works. There still lacks some menu items for me, eg.: View > Full Screen or File > Print Preview, but otherwise it looks pretty good. There remain only a few menu errors.

The pop-up at the bottom right of frame when downloads completed appears here on 98SE and ME. :hello:

I've done some more tests, and I'm afraid the notification at the bottom right of frame for when downloads end is definitely not working for me with that configuration.

I assume this applies to all these notifications, e.g. for blocked pop-ups.

If I set the KernelEx mode back to Windows 2000 it starts working again.

I certainly can't use Opera without access to the settings menus!

:no:

I tried the comp. mode on five machines and on one the mode doesn't stick. But I haven't found the reason yet. Does it sticks for you?

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I tried the comp. mode on five machines and on one the mode doesn't stick. But I haven't found the reason yet. Does it sticks for you?

Sorry I'm not sure what you mean by "comp. mode".

If you mean the download completion message that pops up bottom right, as I said it doesn't work at all for me in the "Windows 98SE SP" KernelEx mode.

Also a lot of menu entries are missing for me.

Some of them are just missing their text, but in some places the menu structure seems to be corrupted too.

All this comes good if I revert to Windows 2000 KernelEx mode.

I'm sorry but I really don't think Opera is usable like that, especially if you're a power user as I am.

:no:

Edited by Dave-H
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I tried the comp. mode on five machines and on one the mode doesn't stick. But I haven't found the reason yet. Does it sticks for you?

Sorry I'm not sure what you mean by "comp. mode".

If you mean the download completion message that pops up bottom right, as I said it doesn't work at all for me in the "Windows 98SE SP" KernelEx mode.

Also a lot of menu entries are missing for me.

Some of them are just missing their text, but in some places the menu structure seems to be corrupted too.

All this comes good if I revert to Windows 2000 KernelEx mode.

I'm sorry but I really don't think Opera is usable like that, especially if you're a power user as I am.

:no:

Sorry I'm not sure what you mean by "comp. mode".

I mean my compatibility mode number 11. I believe this mode isn't accepted on your system (doesn't stick) and thus Opera runs with KernelEX default mode.

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Modes 11 and beyond do not work reliably. Delete an unused mode (such as Win2008) and renumber.

That's interesting to know.

In fact by chance I had already re-ordered the options to make them more logically arranged in the list offered.

"Windows 98SE SP" is in fact number 3 in my list, and "NOHEAP" is number 11.

Edited by Dave-H
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  • 5 weeks later...

KernelEx bug(?)

System: Windows 98 Second Edition, 4.10.2222 A. Genuine Intel x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 7, 765.0 MB RAM.

KernelEx: 4.5.2 (core v4.5.120).

Program: Any needing KernelEx, but example is Opera 12.02 installed with opera_1202_int_setup.msi.

Description: Opera will run with compatibility mode default (KernelEx enabled) but with strangely partly unlabled cascading menus. The KernelEx Wiki says setting compatiblity mode 'Windows 2000 SP4' largely resolves this. But compatibility mode Windows 2000 has never worked for me; programs set this way open a window with a title bar but hang on a blank white screen. Trying to find the missing piece, I installed the various KernelEx recommended updates (VC98, MDAC, MSXML, VISUALC, MSIMG32.DLL, GDIPLUS.DLL/XP, DBGHELP.DLL/XP, WINHTTP.DLL/XP, MSVCRT70.DLL as MSVCRT.DLL. None of this changed anything.

Additional: Opera 12.02 did not work at all without KernelEx. Disabling KernelEx in the compatibility tab proves that (the error is that Opera.exe expects a newer version of Windows and a spurious error that a device attached to the system is not functioning). But what is it that is preventing running it in Windows 2000 SP4 mode, as others have done? I also note that the EXE installers are not working for me;
opera_1164_en_setup.exe and opera_1101_en_setup.exe just hang (not even opening a window). What am I missing?
--

walt

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KernelEx bug(?)

System: Windows 98 Second Edition, 4.10.2222 A. Genuine Intel x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 7, 765.0 MB RAM.

KernelEx: 4.5.2 (core v4.5.120).

Program: Any needing KernelEx, but example is Opera 12.02 installed with opera_1202_int_setup.msi.

Description: Opera will run with compatibility mode default (KernelEx enabled) but with strangely partly unlabled cascading menus. The KernelEx Wiki says setting compatiblity mode 'Windows 2000 SP4' largely resolves this. But compatibility mode Windows 2000 has never worked for me; programs set this way open a window with a title bar but hang on a blank white screen. Trying to find the missing piece, I installed the various KernelEx recommended updates (VC98, MDAC, MSXML, VISUALC, MSIMG32.DLL, GDIPLUS.DLL/XP, DBGHELP.DLL/XP, WINHTTP.DLL/XP, MSVCRT70.DLL as MSVCRT.DLL. None of this changed anything.

Additional: Opera 12.02 did not work at all without KernelEx. Disabling KernelEx in the compatibility tab proves that (the error is that Opera.exe expects a newer version of Windows and a spurious error that a device attached to the system is not functioning). But what is it that is preventing running it in Windows 2000 SP4 mode, as others have done? I also note that the EXE installers are not working for me;

opera_1164_en_setup.exe and opera_1101_en_setup.exe just hang (not even opening a window). What am I missing?

--

walt

Hello WaltMG,

If I understand correct, your Win 2000 SP4 mode isn't accepted. That means you can't set Win 2000 mode. First verify the installation (Startmenu). Did you try to reinstall KernelEX? Do you really have unicows.dll version 1.1.3790.0? Did you install windows installer 2.0 for win 98?

Edited by schwups
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The system may be missing other necessary files/packages.

Try running the Opera executable through Dependency Walker and take note of the modules/API that appear in red color in the log window at the bottom (Use 'Start profiling' button in the toolbar and mark all options in the subsequent settings window). Also look in the tree at the top-left for missing files/API marks. That should help you get an idea about what's wrong.

If you have a reliable backup system, you may back up the active partition (Windows folder, etc) just to be on the safe side and install the Unofficial Service Pack 3.x which may solve this (and other) problem. If you do that, remember to first uninstall KernelEx, install uSP3, then reinstall KernelEx.

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Thanks for the suggestions. Dependency walker showed about the last thing that was accessed before hanging was KMW_DLL. Kensington Mouseworks. I almost dismissed that as insignificant. But I went to add/remove programs and removed it (I still have the installer if it was really needed). That fixed things. Now Opera starts right up in Windows 2000 SP4. And the mouse still works perfectly well, as far as I can tell. So Kensington Mouseworks 6.11 is, at least on my system, somehow incompatible with KernelEx. I'll just mention the other things I noted. It said that apphelp.dll and userenv.dll were not found. I guess apphelp.dll is not actually needed. There's a userenv.dll in KernelEx, I got it recognized by adding KernelEx to the system path -- not sure if that's appropriate, but it didn't seem to hurt anything. I also see someone else wrote a userenv.dll, so I'm a little fuzzy as to whether that should or shouldn't be on the system somewhere. My GDI32.dll had file date 1998-01-22 but link date 2012-09-01. That seemed suspicious. It reported the same version as the original, too. I ended up
extracting a clean one from the CAB file. So I may have backleveled a patch I've forgotten about. But it's working fine, so far as I can tell. I never had heard of dependency walker before. Thanks for telling me about it. For backup, I resorted to DFSee and closed my C drive to a USB stick. The big question is whether I'll be able to find the USB stick when it's needed. I didn't think I had installed the Windows installer 2.0, but when I tried to run the installer it said it was already on the system. Unicows.dll is 1.1.3790.0, per Windows Explorer. There's another unicows file, unicows.pdb, sitting next to it. I'm not sure what that's for or if it really came from Microsoft. Anyway, everything is working great right now. Mouseworks was apparently the major issue, and removing it has made my KernelEx work much, much better. Thanks.
--
walt

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:hello: Great you found the culprit. The apphelp.dll isn't required to run Opera 11 or 12. The Dependency walker doesn't know KernelEX and hence it doesn't find the userenv.dll in the KernelEX folder.

Obviously you have the windows installer 2.0 installed. Look for the msiexec.exe (Properties > version > 2.0.2600.2) in your system folder.

The unicows.pdb file is in the original MS unicows package. You don't need it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_database

Edited by schwups
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  • 2 months later...

Hi,

Really appreciating the works of all of you here.

Has anyone seen this symptom before?

KernelEX4.5.2+w98/w98se(kr)+ie6sp1(kr)+firefox3.6.28 -> crash on firefox

firefox crashes without showing main window, just popup says like 'There is a problem on firefox : can't retrive crash dump file'

All of kernelEX compatibility tab option on firefox doesn't work.

Without/before installing ie6sp1, firefox 3.6.28 works well

firefox Installer doesn't seem to show any error or abnormal behavior installing itself on harddisk even with ie6sp1 installed.(only resulting application - firefox - crashes when running after installation completed)

Even after uninstalling ie6sp1 again, firefox crash persists

ie6.0(Non sp1) doesn't seem to show this problem, but I don't have full installation file anymore.

Is this a known setup not working?

Would it be unique to just my language setup(kr)?

Any slightest idea how to resolve or troubleshoot?

Thank you

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Apparently your problem has nothing to do with KernelEx.

The IE6-SP1 setup installs certain updated system files that remain on the system even after uninstalling IE6; that is why you keep experiencing the crashes. Based on your description, most likely one of the updated system files clashes with Firefox or any add-ons you may have installed.

You may obtain a detailed crash log from Dr.Watson after enabling it but even then it may be difficult to pinpoint the issue and fix it.

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(KernelEx4.5.2+w98/w98se+ie6sp1+firefox3.6.28) Found the cause and fixed!

First, Firefox's crash reporter hijacked normal crash report, and unfortunately didn't do its job.

Set environment variable MOZ_CRASHREPORTER_DISABLE=1 to disable that and ran firefox to reveal the real culprit -> crash on usp10.dll(MS uniscribe, v1.408.2600.1020,ie6sp1 for w9x)

Just setting this file to use kernelex's compatibility mode causes another problem(GDI32 stack overflow)

Replacing it with other versions(v1.400.2411.1->ie6sp0 or v1.325.2195.6692->w2ksp4 ie6sp1 or v1.420.2600.6421->xpsp3 security patch) seems to fix the problem without apparent side effect.

Thank you Drugwash, for general troubleshooting idea.

Hope this helps anyone.

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Glad you found the culprit! Yes, disabling Firefox's crash reporter was a good move.

Looking into my system I see my version of usp10.dll is 1.471.4030.0. It doesn't say where it comes from. So far I had no crash that could link to it as the culprit but from now on I'll try to keep it in mind. I do have a certain font issue in Firefox 9.0.1 that may or may not be related to this file.

Thank you for sharing the finding and the fix!

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  • 3 weeks later...

After a visitor gave up using my PC, we finally installed Opera 12.02 (KEX Win 2000 mode). It works indeed surprisingly well after learning what is where.

Although Opera doesn't load and scroll really smoother (accelerated it even makes the screen update blocky) and Twitter website is still awfully slow (try mobile.twitter.com instead), at least it doesn't continuously lock up in eBay page download anymore, nor crash with pages trying to execute a "window.print"(?) javascript command.

Opera can import Firefox 3.6.22 bookmarks, but it was very messy to move stuff around in Opera's bookmark editor to get the tree back to the main folder. Particularly you can not(!) drag & drop them but have to use cut & paste instead. Also the bookmark bar seems unsortable, but the trick is to sort them in its corresponding bookmark folder and re-add them to the bar. Bizarre is that it often fails to load favicons; it takes sometimes an hour for a website to load it for the bookmark (despite the file seems to be in cache). Possibly it is a timeout issue because only sites those make the favicon rapidly appear on its tab also load it well for bookmarks.

I miss AdBlock Plus (fails to install with error), but the Ghostery plugin does its job quite well despite it is rather automatted and you can not manually block things. Instead you have use Opera's internal content blocker from context menu of the website; it lets you click on pictures but then tries to block everything from that subpath. When I want to block only a particular piece of rubbish from a page, I need to cut and paste the URL (e.g. right out of opened Firefox AdBlock Plus) into the blocker.

E.g. with eBay this blocks some annoying banners:

http://p.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/de/RetailEvents/*http://p.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/de/buy/trust/imgEBPFoot2013.gif
Blocking this removes the recommendations but also makes a little mess on "my eBay" main screen:

http://reco.ebay.com/service/plmt/*
To make Opera look more like Firefox I had to enable the classic menu bar. There is also "opera:config" to setup things, but often the bubble help fails to load (I broke it by clearing too many cached internet privacy items?) The only different thing is that tabs stay above the address bar, and that plugin icons and download meter seem to stay in the address and can not be relocated (can they?) to a more reasonable place. Also separate start/stop buttons only exist as add-on. Also browser history displays rubbish when not opened as a separate page.

There is no "Video DownloadHelper" for it. The classic "Youtube Downloader"(?) plugin doesn't work (does nothing). Only the plugin "Download YouTube Videos as MP4" offers a very limited selection of resolutions to download them.

Most annoying is that during in text search (F3) Opera wants to update stray coloured blobs in text and even the entire "opera:config" menu window with each typed letter (does KernelEx accidentally insert a RETURN after each key?), which often delays typing to several seconds per key press to redraw the screen. Is there any setting to kill this bugger?

On MSFN forum I now get an awful WYSIWIG editor. How can I get back the ASCII-only mode by default?

Edited by CyberyogiCoWindler
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