Running Windows 98 in 2020 and beyond...

[Dave-H]

12 hours ago, Bruninho said:

What happened here?

When Wunderbar98 started this thread, I came here precisely because it was about running "vanilla" Windows 98 editions without anything like KernelEx.

Just the same pure experience of doing it the first time we did in 1998 and later.

I feel like his thread was "hijacked" by people with different Windows 98 experiences that have nothing to do with the goal of running it the vanilla way.

You are perfectly entitled to start a new thread for users of 'vanilla' Windows 98 only, if you feel it to be necessary.
This thread had gone far beyond that, to the point where trying to clean it up would be pointless and would make a nonsense of it.
Any new thread must be kept strictly on topic though, or it will go the same way!

[Tripredacus]

The rationale for removing vanilla from the thread title was because Vanilla implies completely untouched and that such an OS is likely extremely rare. Modifying or adding things makes something no longer vanilla and it doesn't matter if it is a KernelEX or not.

[loblo]

You guys have lost your mind completely.

[D.Draker]

4 hours ago, loblo said:

You guys have lost your mind completely.

Elaborate.

[D.Draker]

On 12/10/2022 at 6:51 PM, Wunderbar98 said:

Hi @D.Draker. Sorry you missed my post, my PM is disabled as i don't frequent here much. First third without cheats then with cheats i finished SpellForce: Order of Dawn, it was good fun. Level 26 character, two-handed weapons, more force than spells. All SpellForce related data was purged to effectively full-return the game to you. Thanks for lending it to me and your help and patience setting up the game. Take care.

Acknowledged, admitted.

[Gansangriff]

@UCyborg: For Armagetron, it's different. The developers don't test it specifically on old computers. Armagetron is rather old in its codebase and is based on an old version of SDL. There is a plan to upgrade things, but hopefully the main developer will be as slow as ever!

You probably have to tune down the graphics on a Pentium 3 to make it look fluent, but firstly: Armagetron has lots of options in the graphics menu and secondly: In such a low-poly game, there is not much lost.
100 FPS on the P3 is possible!

[legacyfan]

ive gotten windows 98se to sort of work on an e6430 I use to have before it broke a few months ago and it worked great accept the mouse went crazy

[BengalEmpire767]

On 6/17/2022 at 4:02 PM, Wunderbar98 said:

A few years ago i coded by own browser in Bash script (bsurf - Bash Surf), including a scratch coded HTML parser and viewer. It doesn't do JavaScript and is text-only, keyboard commands, from a terminal. It has basic features: bookmarks, search engines, history, page search, file downloads, image popups (external viewer, eg. feh). It doesn't do tabs. To avoid new terminal popups for another page, hyperlinks can be preloaded in the background while reading the existing page. Upon page exit, all preloaded pages are listed on the main screen, below the bookmarks, ready to be instantly viewed. Fun but lots of work, still needs bug and speed fixes. The world has changed so much and i'm older, don't work on it anymore but still use it for some sites.

oh cool, can you give a link? im sure everyone else would like using it... no promises tho.

[FranceBB]

On 5/6/2020 at 9:21 AM, MrMateczko said:

Use AMNHLTM instead of Rain and other such software (run bat to install and accept the registry change, then reboot):
http://web.archive.org/web/20060212132151/http://www.user.cityline.ru/~maxamn/amnhltm.zip

I know I'm late to the party, but thank you for the wayback machine link.

I replaced Rain with AMNHLTM and it works like a charm. Not only it does what it's supposed to do, but now I can finally see the right CPU usage with process explorer, while with Rain it was always displaying it as 100% as Rain was "eating up" all the available CPU time to make it idle.

[bphlpt]

@Wunderbar98, Sorry I'm very late with this comment, but as to the thread renaming, perhaps renaming the thread something like "Running Windows 98 in 2020 and beyond, without anything not officially released by MS specifically intended for Win98" would satisfy your requirement to distinguish this thread from others, yet remove the "offending" term "Vanilla". As thread creator, I assume you can do this.

I hope you are well, my friend.

Cheers and Regards

[Dixel]

Why not simply call it Windows 98 RTM then, to satisfy everyone?

[UCyborg]

On 10/9/2023 at 12:44 AM, FranceBB said:

AMNHLTM

Why is this needed exactly and what does it do? Run CPU's HLT instruction when CPU has no other work? Windows 98 can do that on its own, though if it fails to detect it can do that on its own, there's a special command-line parameter accepted by installation program that will install/setup the OS in a way that it will use it (setup /p j).

Maybe you can make it work even post-install.

http://www.helpwithwindows.com/windows98/tune-37.html

[FranceBB]

2 hours ago, UCyborg said:

Why is this needed exactly and what does it do? Run CPU's HLT instruction when CPU has no other work? Windows 98 can do that on its own, though if it fails to detect it can do that on its own, there's a special command-line parameter accepted by installation program that will install/setup the OS in a way that it will use it (setup /p j).

Maybe you can make it work even post-install.

http://www.helpwithwindows.com/windows98/tune-37.html

Yes, Windows98 indeed supports ACPI, however this is a very very very old installation and the initial setup didn't really install the ACPI support. Reinstalling isn't really an option as I keep it alive (cloned and virtualized) mostly for historical reason as it being my (almost gone) childhood OS from my first PC. I tried the post-install ACPI registry trick, however it sadly didn't work and the CPU was still being used at 100% when it wasn't doing anything. Rain has been my go-to for quite some time (actually many years) as it was indeed executing the HLT instruction when the CPU didn't have anything to do, thus keeping the fan quiet and not wasting unnecessary current, however in the resource monitor Rain was being displayed as the one always using 100% of the CPU (albeit running the HLT instruction) which was one minor inconvenience that always bugged me a bit. Now, with AMNHLTM, the solution is much "cleaner" as it's just a vxd file and once you install it, it just performs its job. No skewed % in the resource monitor, no toolbar indicator/autostart program (unlike rain) and it works like a charm. Indeed, if people can make the official Win98 implementation to work it would be better, but for those who can't for whatever incompatibility reason, this is probably the best solution.  

Edited October 10, 2023 by FranceBB

[pangoomis]

It is highly recommended (outside of VirtualBox I think) to use "setup /p i" rather than "setup /p j" regardless of how old or new the PC is.

[SweetLow]

On 10/13/2023 at 11:49 AM, MrMateczko said:

It is highly recommended (outside of VirtualBox I think) to use "setup /p i" rather than "setup /p j" regardless of how old or new the PC is.

Why so? The PCs from 98-ME era are supported ACPI that is working in 98-ME, eh.