KernelEx 4.5.2

[Dave-H]

@toughcustomer

Sorry to hear what happened to you, I learnt the hard way too years ago that you should always back your computer up before making any change that affects the whole OS!

There was, of course, no reason for you to think that installing KernelEx would wipe any of your Opera data, and I must say that I have no idea why that would have happened.

Anyway, the files you need to restore are bookmarks.adr (if you want your bookmarks restored), notes.adr (for notes), and global_history.dat (for history).

If you had passwords saved, they are in wand.dat.

These files should be in your profile folder if you have Opera set to single user.

Search for them and you'll find where they are on your system.

If you're very lucky there may be backed up versions of them in the folder, which earlier versions of Opera used to make.

If not, you could try an undelete program (just Google, there are good free ones around, some of which at least should work under Windows 98) and see if you can undelete earlier versions of those files from the drive.

As with all undelete operations, the success will depend on how much free drive space you have, and how much you've used the machine since the problem happened.

If you have little drive space free and have used the machine a lot, there is a much higher risk that the data you want will have been over-written.

Good luck!

Edited December 11, 2012 by Dave-H

[rainyd]

Latest update of Flash Player (11.5.502.135) for plugin-based browsers (like Opera) working OK with KeX 4.5.2 and Win98 SE.

[toughcustomer]

@ Dave-H

Thanks much for trying to help! I went to C: Windows/Application Data/Opera/Opera/Profile. I forgot to mention that all of the sites I had blocked were also wiped out.

Anyhow, I followed your advice. When I clicked on wand.dat, I get a pop up from Adobe Download Manager that says "Error parsing voucher. Download cannot continue."

There should be some serious warnings to people thinking of downloading KernelEx. And very detailed instructions of what to do and what NOT to do. I know the screen shots provided are supposed to spell it all out. But I think relying on just screen shots to instruct in how to use KernelEx is rather inadequate.

Well, what to do next? I guess I will look for an undelete program.

Edited December 11, 2012 by toughcustomer

[Zollex]

How can I disable KernelEX for incompatible application?

[schwups]

There should be some serious warnings to people thinking of downloading KernelEx. And very detailed instructions of what to do and what NOT to do. I know the screen shots provided are supposed to spell it all out. But I think relying on just screen shots to instruct in how to use KernelEx is rather inadequate.

Hello toughcustomer,

KernelEX doesn't delete data. There are many possible reasons for data loss. Maybe KernelEX has awakened a malware on your system. Some weeks ago my wife has a Backdoor-Server (logonmuser.exe) on her Win XP. This rascal destroyed the Firefox profile. Did you download KernelEX on sourceforge.net ?

Piriform Recuva free version 1.31 recovery tool is one that supports Win98 or TuneUp Utilities Undelete (30 days trial) up to 2007. Many recovery tools don't work anymore on Win9x. Often older versions work.

Edited December 11, 2012 by schwups

[schwups]

How can I disable KernelEX for incompatible application?

1. right click on the app (file)

2. choose properties 

3. go to KernelEX TAB

4. check "disable KernelEX extensions"

5. Apply    B)

[Dave-H]

@ Dave-H

Thanks much for trying to help! I went to C: Windows/Application Data/Opera/Opera/Profile. I forgot to mention that all of the sites I had blocked were also wiped out.

Anyhow, I followed your advice. When I clicked on wand.dat, I get a pop up from Adobe Download Manager that says "Error parsing voucher. Download cannot continue."

There should be some serious warnings to people thinking of downloading KernelEx. And very detailed instructions of what to do and what NOT to do. I know the screen shots provided are supposed to spell it all out. But I think relying on just screen shots to instruct in how to use KernelEx is rather inadequate.

Well, what to do next? I guess I will look for an undelete program.

You can't just open wand.dat by double clicking on it.

It does contain your password data, but not in any readable form, for obvious reasons!

Only Opera can open it for editing.

The notes and bookmarks files can be read in notepad as they are plain text.

Good luck with the undelete!

[Windashnet]

HELP! Is my lost Opera data really lost?

1. Windows 98 Second Edition

2. KernelEx 4.52

3. Opera 10.63

4. After downloading & installing KernelEx, I clicked on Opera desktop icon on screen. Opera opens, but where is everything?! Lost my tabs, sessions, theme, toolbar settings and buttons. Then I discovered that History (about six months worth) and NOTES(!!!) were gone, Are you an Opera user, btw? Had to reconfigure toolbars & buttons. Had about 25 tabs open, some of which I valued the history of, such as wikipedia, allmusic and amazon. Lost. Bookmarks seem to be ok. But Notes!! I had hundreds of valued quotes, snippets etc.... all gone!

Also, all saved passwords were lost. It's the Notes that eats me up the most.

Anyhow, is there ANYTHING I can do to recover my Notes. Or my saved sessions that were lost as well? Maybe they are still somewhere to be found. Why did my Notes vanish?

I am too overwhelmed to even feel depressed.

5. First I downloaded Microsoft Layer for Unicode (MSLU). I wish I had known that KernelEx takes care of that automatically! Didn't know where to put it, so I put it in the C: Windows folder. (Why is the MSLU link even there if KernelEx handles that? It's just going to confuse people.) Then I clicked on Download for KernelEx 4.52. Then opened and installed. Screen flickered and then I clicked on Opera desktop icon. Tabs, skin, toolbar settings gone! Plus the other stuff I soon found missing as described in point 4 above.

6. Opera was working like a champ prior to downloading KernelEx.

7. Disabling had no effect. Seems the damage had been done already.

So, I uninstalled KernelEx. I'm guessing the lesson is to never download without backing up browser. Didn't see too many instructions or guidelines anywhere. I realize you're not getting paid for this but...Maybe doing something like this was over my head....

I would doubt KernalEx is the problem that caused the Opera to get messed up.

I don't use Opera but if its like most browsers, it creates backup files, look in the Opera dir and in the windows / application data / Opera dir and subs under that and you can look for files like bookmarks.bak, history, config......

You can zip up both the main Opera directory and the opera directory under windows and then you can reinstall opera after loading KernalEx so everything works right and then you can copy the files like bookmarks from the new Opera and then paste the bookmarks.bak into the opera dir you found the bookmarks file in and change the extension to what the main bookmarks file extension is. An example in Firefox the bookmarks.htm is the main file and bookmarks,bak is the older saved one, so I would end up replacing bookmarks.htm in a new version with the old backup file with the extension changed from .bak to .htm.

In the future you can get util's to backup Operas settings files.

Anyway I hope this give you a few ideas.

[CyberyogiCoWindler]

I am no expert in this, but if your Opera version is incompatible with KernelEx, have you tried to rightclick the Opera Binary (and possibly its DLLs etc.) in the explorer to disable KernelEx for it? Possibly nothing was deleted but Opera only fails to load and display certain files due to incompatible components.

[Zollex]

How can I disable KernelEX for incompatible application?

1. right click on the app (file)

2. choose properties 

3. go to KernelEX TAB

4. check "disable KernelEX extensions"

5. Apply    B)

So easy? Woow... thanks!!!!

[Dave-H]

I am no expert in this, but if your Opera version is incompatible with KernelEx, have you tried to rightclick the Opera Binary (and possibly its DLLs etc.) in the explorer to disable KernelEx for it? Possibly nothing was deleted but Opera only fails to load and display certain files due to incompatible components.

I don't think that toughcustomer's Opera version (10.63) need KernelEx at all to run.

That version works on Windows 98 anyway IIRC.

It is a mystery why installing KernelEx (if indeed that was the cause) should have corrupted it.

[Greenpalmer]

I could not get the latest (2.2) "regular" version of SumatraPDF to install with Kernelex, but in the SumatraPDF forum I found a link to a version of 2.2 which is compiled for Windows 2000. I installed it and ran it using Kex 2000 sp4 compatibility mode and it works very well. It even installs as an option a PDF plugin for Opera which works as well. Here is the link: http://www.zeniko.ch/#SumatraPDF

Edited January 2, 2013 by Greenpalmer

[rainyd]

New version (11.5.502.146) of Flash Player for non-IE browsers is still OK with Win98 SE+KeX 4.5.2.

Btw, I can confirm that SumatraPDF 2.2 indeed working - both installer and portable version.

Edited January 9, 2013 by rainyd

[jumper]

I, too, was able to run SumatraPDF 2.2, but printing didn't work (page fault). I didn't install, but ran the 7-Zip-extracted version as usual. 2.2 is loading very fast once again like 1.9 did (2.1 was much slower to load).

BTW, printing works in 1.9 and 2.1 with the help of the updated COMDLG32.DLL.

[schwups]

I, too, was able to run SumatraPDF 2.2, but printing didn't work (page fault). I didn't install, but ran the 7-Zip-extracted version as usual. 2.2 is loading very fast once again like 1.9 did (2.1 was much slower to load).

BTW, printing works in 1.9 and 2.1 with the help of the updated COMDLG32.DLL.

Confirmed: The method of the Kext topic post 58 fails for the new versions 2.2 and 2.2.1. The other method of (topic) Printing with KernelEX - post 27 is still working for me (tested for single app).

Edited January 15, 2013 by schwups