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2012 Project Wish List


jumper

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Win 2k and XP drivers are WDM, all right. But the implementation of WDM differs somewhat between those NT-Family OSes and the 9x/ME-Family. So sound drivers and USB drivers are the most likely to work, although some need WDMSTUB.SYS to work correctly. Video drivers are among the least likely to work across families, because the video subsystem implementation is hugely different across families, I'm sorry to say.

<sigh> I was skeptical about it but seeing that tool I thought we might just pull it off with a wrapper.

Anyway, thanks for the clarifications ! I've heard about this problem for quite some time but I never managed to find any detailed information about it. Would you happen to know where I can find more details as to why 98/ME supports only a subset of the features specified in the WDM model ? The DDK had lots of info on supported stuff, but nothing regarding why video drivers don't work.

PS: For clarification : I understood what you said only that I'd like to read the technical details so-to-say.

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Wish list ? First thing, a happy and peaceful year for everybody !

As for Windows 9x (and DOS) enhancements : support for hard disks with 4 kilobyte native sectors, whether ATA, SATA, USB or otherwise connected.

I have got such a USB disk appliance - that I can't use in our beloved "older" OS :(

I am aware of Mr Loew's commercial patches - do they include support for USB attached 4k-sectored disks (or cooperate with third party USB mass storage support ?)

My TBPLUS Package supports all of the interfaces you listed. USB support requires generic drivers such as NUSB, my free Lexar based Drivers, or Windows ME derived support.

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I understood what you said only that I'd like to read the technical details so-to-say.

Well, the bible of WDM is Walter Oney's book, Programming the MS WDM, but his site has a lot of interesting info, too.

This old version of WDMSTUB, when it was still a VxD, is also interesting. Then there is his classic article on WDM: Part 1, Part 2 and Errata. Enjoy!

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Great ideas! :thumbup

KernelEx is crucial to most of our wishes, so I'll add it as a separate category. It is already accumulating many wishes of its own.

Java is one I had thought of but completely forgot. Printer/printing is another--hardware and software issue here.

I'll review all discussion and update the Wish List tonight!

-jumper

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... analyze it the using wdmcheck.

From missing imports names reported by wdmcheck...

Quite interesting trick... I'll sure try it next time I need to find why some driver is refusing to work on XP.

@jumper: BTW, WDMCHECK's companion, Walter Oney's WDMSTUB.SYS, can make some WDM drivers work with 9x/ME, and might be updated to include more stubs inside it. It's like KernelEx, but caters for .SYS WDM drivers, specifically. it could very well be the long sought-for solution for getting the printer drivers to work. The sources are provided in Oney's drivers book.

Note that the "printing problem" often mentioned regarding KernelEx is specific to the printer driver being used, and not a universal problem. In my case, I was able to identify the offending DLL from the printer driver and disable KernelEx for it, so now printing works fine for me.

Wish list ? First thing, a happy and peaceful year for everybody !

As for Windows 9x (and DOS) enhancements : support for hard disks with 4 kilobyte native sectors, whether ATA, SATA, USB or otherwise connected.

I have got such a USB disk appliance - that I can't use in our beloved "older" OS :(

I am aware of Mr Loew's commercial patches - do they include support for USB attached 4k-sectored disks (or cooperate with third party USB mass storage support ?)

But - this is wish time isn' it - can't we work towards a free/libre solution ?

And why not hope R. Loew could generously release his big sector patches - or otherwise contribute his knowledge of undocumented DOS 7 / Windows 9x disk structures.

Well, if I remember correctly, USB drives with sectors up to 4K are already supported. I had an MP3 player with 1K sectors and that worked fine on W98 (until it developed a hardware fault).

Any yes, let's wish for a better, peaceful world!

Win 2k and XP drivers are WDM, all right. But the implementation of WDM differs somewhat between those NT-Family OSes and the 9x/ME-Family. So sound drivers and USB drivers are the most likely to work, although some need WDMSTUB.SYS to work correctly. Video drivers are among the least likely to work across families, because the video subsystem implementation is hugely different across families, I'm sorry to say.

<sigh> I was skeptical about it but seeing that tool I thought we might just pull it off with a wrapper.

Anyway, thanks for the clarifications ! I've heard about this problem for quite some time but I never managed to find any detailed information about it. Would you happen to know where I can find more details as to why 98/ME supports only a subset of the features specified in the WDM model ? The DDK had lots of info on supported stuff, but nothing regarding why video drivers don't work.

PS: For clarification : I understood what you said only that I'd like to read the technical details so-to-say.

As far as I could understand what little I've read, WDM drivers share common source code for bot W9X and WNT, but use some different build setting or libraries or some such.

Joe.

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Well, if I remember correctly, USB drives with sectors up to 4K are already supported. I had an MP3 player with 1K sectors and that worked fine on W98 (until it developed a hardware fault).

IKB yes. 2KB yes. 4KB no.

There is also the issue of Partitioning and Formatting them as well.

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Well, if I remember correctly, USB drives with sectors up to 4K are already supported. I had an MP3 player with 1K sectors and that worked fine on W98 (until it developed a hardware fault).

IKB yes. 2KB yes. 4KB no.

There is also the issue of Partitioning and Formatting them as well.

I stand corrected. I guess MS were catering for CD-ROM support, where 2K sectors are the norm.

BTW, I finally found your previous comment on this 2K limit :

Joe.

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Well, if I remember correctly, USB drives with sectors up to 4K are already supported. I had an MP3 player with 1K sectors and that worked fine on W98 (until it developed a hardware fault).

IKB yes. 2KB yes. 4KB no.

There is also the issue of Partitioning and Formatting them as well.

I stand corrected. I guess MS were catering for CD-ROM support, where 2K sectors are the norm.

BTW, I finally found your previous comment on this 2K limit :

Joe.

Apparently. You can stick a 2KB Sector FATxx Partition on a CD and it is recognized.

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Hello,

my little wish is to able to boot and run Win98Se from a external USB HDD drive at USB 2 speed. That would be wonderful.

Happy new year 2012 to all!

I41Mar

Edited by I41Mar
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Boot the HDD to DOS, load Grub4DOS, chainload Plop at USB 1.x speed, then have Plop boot Win 9x/ME at USB 2.0 speed. It's tricky to implement, but quite possible to do. You'll will have to live with having no USB hot-plugging, however, because if you let the USB drivers load Windows will hang up in mid-boot. It seems it's possible to exclude just one hub, but I've never tried that. If you decide to try this, open a new thread about it, and we'll help you along the way.

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A complete up to date Windows Millenium service Pack would be nice. Also intensive support for Windows 95-98 in general. But if I want to be honest, everything is already fine, great support,great projects! Here is the home of the Windows 9x user. :yes:

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We seem to be getting more coders and additional talent here (with more of the discussions going beyond what I understand). And since this is a wish list, how about the ability to at least partially take advantage of dual or multi core processor or multiple processors? Even if this was limited to being able to dedicate or assign the 2nd processor to a single demanding application.

I have written an API that supports multi-core. At present it does require that Applications be written to use the API.

I was looking at the idea of running Virtual PC (or a better option if Kex and Import patcher make that possible) on its own processor while the rest of the system runs on the first processor. Would this require a complete rewrite of VPC?

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Win 2k and XP drivers are WDM, all right. But the implementation of WDM differs somewhat between those NT-Family OSes and the 9x/ME-Family. So sound drivers and USB drivers are the most likely to work, although some need WDMSTUB.SYS to work correctly. Video drivers are among the least likely to work across families, because the video subsystem implementation is hugely different across families, I'm sorry to say.

Is there some way we could implement Nt kernal into win9x/ME family ? There is a number of ideas to go off.

1. Replace win9x/ME kernal with Nt kernal from win2000 ( Probably would work the best )

2. Dual Kernal program could be created, it could manage kernal support modes, 9x/NT.

3. Combine two kernals into one stable/fast kernal thus improving many areas of performance with drivers and programs.

I think it would be a great idea to have one of these ideas made availible. However, I would not sacrifice any of my current performance just to have

NT.

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We seem to be getting more coders and additional talent here (with more of the discussions going beyond what I understand). And since this is a wish list, how about the ability to at least partially take advantage of dual or multi core processor or multiple processors? Even if this was limited to being able to dedicate or assign the 2nd processor to a single demanding application.

I have written an API that supports multi-core. At present it does require that Applications be written to use the API.

I was looking at the idea of running Virtual PC (or a better option if Kex and Import patcher make that possible) on its own processor while the rest of the system runs on the first processor. Would this require a complete rewrite of VPC?

It may be possible to push Windows 98 entirely into another Core. I was able to push DOS, except for Interrupt Code, into any Core I wanted.

I'm not sure there would be much advantage to running VPC in another Core. Windows XP and up support Multi-Core so they would run VPC in the Base Core and push everything else into the other Cores producing the same result.

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