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Suggestions on creating a program for 98/ME/2k?


tmontney

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I have a strong affinity for the legacy OSes, since that's what I grew up using. I've been creating a tweaking utility for XP and above (registry tweaks and such). I'd really like to create something useful for the legacy operating systems. Does anyone have suggestions on what I should create? Even if it's outside my scope, I'm happy to learn.

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Windows ME could use an easier way to format floppies, create system disks, and do floppy disk "stuff" in general. Microsoft burried that option for making system disk in the Add/Remove area of control panel for some reason, where nobody can find it.

Just an idea :-)

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Can you make the driver for my gts 250 xD?

Might... be out of my scope :P

As for the floppy option... I might be able to do that. Keeping hitting me with ideas. Where do you think would be a good idea to put it? Or just to have a program dedicated to doing floppy stuff?

I'm thinking of making an unofficial service pack for XP. I don't know the status of previous OSes though. And the unofficial service pack could include official and unofficial updates, too.

Edited by tmontney
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??? WinME "System Disk"??? You're referring to the EBD then. I see no problems with FDISK and FORMAT unless you're talking about HDD sizes. As for Floppies, really? A problem using COMMAND.COM+FORMAT? (SMH...) What kind of -general foppy disk "stuff"- would you mean? Could you elaborate by listing the missing/failing features?

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Sure, I would be happy to.

Windows ME doesn't have the "format a: /s" command. Hence, no going into DOS and creating a boot disk! Simple as that. You can do that from 98 and 95 (I presume), but not from Windows ME command prompt.

Also, Format.com is not included when building a system disk via control panel (the only way to make a boot disk in WinMe), it must be copied manually later. It kinda defeats the purpose of having a system disk.... when you leave off format.com. Does it not?

"Diskcopy.exe" is included in the c:\windows\command directory, but unless you go into DOS, there's no easier way to copy a bunch of floppies from Windows.

Windows ME lacks a simple GUI tool that has these various features.

Edited by LostInSpace2012
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This I was not aware of - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/254959/EN-US

FORMAT.COM is in EBD.CAB, so...

..and SYS.COM is as well, so...

Booting to the EBD with a "new" HDD, I

1 - use FDISK and reboot (naturally)

2 - In the D-Drive (whichever is the RamDisk) is FORMAT and SYS

2a - Format C: - fine

2b - SYS is giving me fits. IO.SYS is Hidden/System and is "not found" somehow. ATTRIB will not reset it.

DISKCOPY.EXE has always been an independent program. Not sure what you mean by "go into DOS" (you mean Command Prompt?). I've never been aware of it doing anything other than "cloning" Floppy->Floppy.

http://www.computerhope.com/diskcopy.htm

So, until I have time to dink with it, I'll have to revistit this topic. l8tr...

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Why microsoft decided to drop the "/s" switch from Format.com.... who knows. It's one of those quirks/annoyances of Windows ME.

DISKCOPY.EXE has always been an independent program. Not sure what you mean by "go into DOS" (you mean Command Prompt?). I've never been aware of it doing anything other than "cloning" Floppy->Floppy.

Yes, I meant using the command prompt when "going into DOS." Also, I'm suggesting it would be nice to have a windows version of Diskcopy :-)

What I originally meant, and should've explained better, is that it would be nice to have a simple "all-in-one" type floppy utility for Windows ME. Without having to use the command prompt. (But as we've already discussed above, it would be sort of pointless to create boot disks in a DOS shell - command prompt - in Windows ME, because there's no Format /S option anyway.)

There probably are old 3rd party tools that do exactly what I'm thinking of, I just haven't seen any... and it's not like Freeware websites care about floppy disk utilities these days.

Oh and, if you did use the plain standard Windows ME boot disk, and if you use Fdisk to delete/add partitions, those partitions still have to be formatted. And since there would be no Format.com available on the boot disk, you're only option would be to use the Windows installation CD - assuming you don't have a copy of FreeDOS laying around, or else install a whole different OS altoghter. You couldn't just leave the hard drive/partition "blank" or empty. It would still needed to be formatted by something to be of any use. Sorry for the confusion, but it's just Microsoft's bad idea for crippling the user and leaving off important utilties from the system/boot disk.

See the problem that that creates, is they put Fdisk on there, but no Format.com.... so then, why add partitions or try to do anything like multi-booting? There wouldn't be anything to format other partitions with. It's like they don't want you to be able to do anything but just have one partition, one operating system, and that's going to be Windows ME only.

Edited by LostInSpace2012
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Don't want to gatecrash the party :), but maybe if we could talk of actual problems (as opposed to non-problems ;)) we may go further :whistle:.

http://www.mdgx.com/web.htm

Unofficial Windows ME Boot Disk Maker v1.2 32-bit</A> [603 KB] creates a startup floppy containing Windows ME boot files.

link is broken, but the tool can be found - example - here:

http://www.freewareweb.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?ID=1130

jaclaz

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Thanx, jaclaz for a reminder/link. Gatecrash away! :yes:

@LostInSpace2012 -

Oh and, if you did use the plain standard Windows ME boot disk, and if you use Fdisk to delete/add partitions, those partitions still have to be formatted. And since there would be no Format.com available on the boot disk,

Did you miss the post I made before yours? :unsure: Using the Boot Disk (It's called an Emergency Boot Disk aka EBD) I was fully able to both FDISK and FORMAT. The PROBLEM appeared to make a SYS'ed one. So, your statement is, errr, erroneous. Yes, I have Windows ME and used it "for a while". My main heartburn with it was driver availability - you sometimes had to "argue" with Win98 ones to work.

Edited by submix8c
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I suggest you write a program that make it possible to use multiple CPU cores so I could upgrade to a dual-core CPU and watch any 1080p video without problems for example. ;)

I have the Multi-Core API. I will let someone else write the Video Driver.
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Can you make the driver for my gts 250 xD?

Might... be out of my scope :P

As for the floppy option... I might be able to do that. Keeping hitting me with ideas. Where do you think would be a good idea to put it? Or just to have a program dedicated to doing floppy stuff?

I'm thinking of making an unofficial service pack for XP. I don't know the status of previous OSes though. And the unofficial service pack could include official and unofficial updates, too.

I think that everyone will be happy if you make some drivers for the new video cards XD I beg you

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I think that everyone will be happy if you make some drivers for the new video cards XD I beg you

Sure, just imagine the popularity of such drivers among the users of gts 250 video cards running NT 4.0, all 1 (one) :w00t: of them ;).

More seriously, whatever is a gts 250, have you tried the Vbemp drivers with it?

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/171307-video-card-driver-for-windows-nt-40/

jaclaz

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