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Running Windows 98 in 2020 and beyond...


Wunderbar98

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Goodmaneuver IpTest.exe works as advertised on vanilla Windows 98 SE. The program provides the registry merge and i believe a reboot, not just logout, was required. On reboot the network activity icon magically appeared in the system tray.

Your comments regarding high CPU usage are interesting. My system shows high CPU, even when the system is resting with no running applications. This is confirmed via TinyResMeter and sysmon.exe, both show ~ 50% CPU usage.

Despite this, running Microsoft WinTop shows the system is >99% idle and the system is very responsive. Similar to your comment, wiggling the mouse cursor around brings the reported CPU usage down.

I know with Windows XP when gaming, launching a windowed-mode game will show 100% CPU usage on SysTrayMeter just accessing game setup screens. The system otherwise is performing fine and the CPU remains very responsive.

Wish i could find the link, read this issue may be related to system registry calls. To me this is just normal behaviour for Windows, unless you are experiencing other symptoms, others would know best.

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Yes but not on my WinME build, it may be because of my registry though. The programing is setup in the registry. I might do a new install one day with updated files in the WinCab folders.

Process Explorer vs 10.20.0.0 is a good tool and is vanilla Win98 compatible. It will show CPU usage accurately & minimizes to tray.

There was a lot of talk about System Monitor in Tihiy's tools topic. I tried updated MESP1 SysMon with no noticeable differences.
 

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On 11/22/2019 at 9:41 AM, Goodmaneuver said:

Drugwash, would Bittorent file sharing work? I can confirm your latest NetMeter vs & Mempanel works without bugs with AHK 1.0.48.5.
 

Oh, that's an idea I hadn't thought about. I just built a torrent file out of the scripts folder (it also contains some extras, ~124MB all in all). Hope it's OK to attach it here. File removed, added a Dropbox link a few comments below.

21 hours ago, Gansangriff said:

We have trouble here with sending .EXE files in the mail, too. [...] You have to try a little bit to find some compatible options.

I did try to pack something recently using password and filename encryption but sending failed just as well so I gave up. Torrents are a good idea though.

21 hours ago, Wunderbar98 said:

My system shows high CPU, even when the system is resting with no running applications.

I vaguely remember Tihiy saying this got fixed in some tool of his - maybe RP9 or something else. On my old 98SE CPU usage was accurate but I did have a lot of enhancements there including RP 9.7.2.

 

Edited by Drugwash
removed torrent file attachment
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I have one peer located but not connected just yet. Strangely my WinME did not like the file directory setup it seems. It said it was in use by 220A9.... I tried deselecting some files and the decimal number in brackets after the 220A9.... hash number changed, it may not like the file allocation directories naming. Anyway it seems to be OK with Win7 so far. I would have expected to find a seed though. China was very slow bit rate in general from AU using torrents several years ago. Nothing downloaded just yet. If you can download some other file then perhaps it should upload. I have installed qBittorrent. 0 out of 3 peers now.

Edited by Goodmaneuver
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Could be a Linux/UTF8 issue or something in qBittorrent. It was the first time for me building a torrent file so it could also be my fault.

Did you manage to get anything at all? I see 2 seeders and 3 leechers but none are actually connected/downloading. My connection is quite weird too (an USB 3G/HSUPA modem that acts like a LAN!) so anything can go wrong.

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Thanks for the tip Goodmaneuver, Process Explorer v8.52 was on my keep or delete shortlist, never new about it's built-in systray CPU meter. It works great and appropriately displays no CPU usage when the system is 99% idle. This is all very functional, nice eye candy and runs lean.

My system tray looks like the helm of a starship. Makes one wonder what this OS could have become, given time to develop and mature versus modern quick change business models.

Edit: Added Process Explorer version number. Will try to post version numbers when applicable so anyone who runs vanilla Windows 98 SE knows a minimal version number that works. This has been one of the more frustrating aspects of getting this old OS tuned and running. There is lots of great advice on this forum but so many system variants from years or tuning and tweaking.

Edited by Wunderbar98
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I have linked in v10.2 direct down load https://sysinternals.d4rk4.ru/download.sysinternals.com/Files/ProcessExplorer9x.zip it is better than v8.52 it has memory graph when enlarged.

Gansangriff & Drugwash checking on sent mail; it has been an insight for me. The service providers would not do it unless they had to, it is extra expense and equipment. Privacy is out the window & possibly a sign of things to come for the rest of the world. They would be checking on all internet traffic, the torrent has got all the information in it of what the files are. We in AU have mandatory metadata checking now as a form of security. One other way they might not complain is to host our own web server there are are few free already programmed ones that can run on Win9x, one I am trying to think of starts with X. Although; internet traffic would have to be encrypted at the highest level, even our government wanted a back door into this, they wanted it for the police in the finish but I am not sure it happened. The whole idea of protecting data in transit may be lost.

Drugwash your torrent should be unique do you think? There has only been one download so far. Are the 3 peers and 2 seeds a form of spy by security equipment I wonder? Perhaps, should we encrypt the torrent?

Edited by Goodmaneuver
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Playing around with proxies. There's a long Windows XP thread entitled Problems Accessing Certain Sites HTTPS aka TLS. Mathwiz proposed a solution on January 5, 2017 about three-quarters down the page:
https://msfn.org/board/topic/176344-problems-accessing-certain-sites-https-aka-tls/page/3/#comments

It appears to fizzle out, another adventure down the rabbit hole. Upgrade this, try that, recompile, mix up various software, probably won't work on SSE only processors, etc. Since this thread is related to Windows 98, even more problematic.

On vanilla Windows 98 SE, Privoxy v3.0.10 works well. My notes indicate trying newer versions less than v3.0.21, which failed, but i ended up removing the software as for me it did not provide any additional functionality, just another layer of complication.

Although Privoxy worked as intended, it does not provide increased access to sites due to Windows 98's security limitations. Of course, Privoxy is about improving privacy and security, there's no magic setting to decrypt the data and send it on over.

As this is just a hobby system, i would be happy if sites could simply deliver flat-sheet HTML pages, forget about certificates and protocols, just serve the data.

There were other proxies mentioned on the thread linked above and others, Burp Suite, ProxHTTPSProxy and WinProxy. Tried WinProxy but it ended up being a trial version, unknown at the time. Upon reboot it requested registration, even before initiating the one month trial. Removing the software in haste resulted in a non-working network connection. Easy to fix as Windows 98 provides the tools to easily restore a previously good working registry.

So for me, giving up on proxies, aside from the wonderful web-based proxy sites mentioned in earlier posts, which hopefully won't be too fleeting. Maybe that's as good as it gets. Even with unrestricted internet access, these old SeaMonkey and Firefox JavaScript engines don't work too well on the modern web. And personally i would still not be logging into secure sites or performing sensitive work on this system. Just bugs me when stuff doesn't work. Darn it, this OS is only 21 years old.

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Msvcr80 is vanilla friendly so if some other programs are compiled to use msvcr90 sometimes all that is needed in registry KnownDLLs is msvcr90 = msvcr80.dll check with Dependency Walker. Try Wyzo 3.6.4, it uses a different exe and different xpcom than FF if that works then then use Roytam1's files. Go back in time with scanreg /restore to clean up registry if it doesn't. I talk about it in How you really browse the web on 98/ME in 2019. Cannot use too high a value of cache in options use up to 100MB only, default 50MB. Opera 10.70 Build 3488 should work. I have not used plain WinME for some time so I may be rusty. Here is a link that I think is Opera 10.7 http://ftp.westnet.com.au/pub/opera/win/1100/autoupdate/Opera_1100_int_Setup.msi it has TLS1.2 selection.

Edited by Goodmaneuver
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4 hours ago, Goodmaneuver said:

Drugwash your torrent should be unique do you think? There has only been one download so far. Are the 3 peers and 2 seeds a form of spy by security equipment I wonder?

Yes, it should be unique. No idea who could be the others - may even be a bug in the application considering I'm running an unstable build.

I built another torrent file, this time it's only one archive inside (118.7MB), maybe it'll work.

Please note there's other code and binaries inside that do not belong to me, such as Leaks (binaries are built by me but the code is M$'s), 7-zip, Miranda IM, so do check any licences pertaining to them.

 

Edited by Drugwash
removed torrent file attachment
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@Drugwash and @Goodmaneuver: I tried to get DW's files via torrent. The torrent link downloaded fine, and loaded quickly onto my torrent client of choice [ Tixati v2.57 Portable on Win7 ] I see the list of all of the files, but I don't see any peers, seeders, Trackers, or any activity whatsoever. DW, are you still seeding? GM did you ever get anything downloaded? If the answers to those questions are yes and no, then I think something went wrong with the torrent creation.

EDIT: Similar with the new torrent. I see the file, and I see who I assume is DW as a peer (from Romania), but it doesn't connect, the connection just times out.

EDIT2: It looks like I can connect to Goodmaneuver, (from Austrailia), when he is trying to download, but I haven't been able to connect with Drugwash yet.

Cheers and Regards

Edited by bphlpt
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7 minutes ago, bphlpt said:

are you still seeding?

Theoretically yes, both of them, but strangely enough I can't see myself as a seeder. I didn't add any trackers in the torrent file though, no idea which ones to add. But I've seen trackerless torrents before.

16 minutes ago, bphlpt said:

it doesn't connect, the connection just times out.

Maybe your IP range is being screened somewhere along the way. I do have a couple other uploads right now so something works.

I even restarted qBittorrent, and for a brief moment I saw a connection attempt from Taiwan. But nothing seems to stick. :(

 

 

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