I love graphic viewer Irfanview. Up to now it worked without any limitations on Win98. But since 4.50 the Win98 is not more supported. However even the 4.50 works with KernelEx without problems.

However there is a issue with addon plugins. They simply don't work. If I want to use any function which is implemented in some pluggin DLL it just writes a error message - something like "Unable to load \plugins\altlux.dll"

Does some solution exist?

> even the 4.50 works with KernelEx without problems.

I've found that not to be true, at least on my system. There are display glitches in some of the response boxes on the toolbar, and it doesn't seem to be able to read (or save?) the .INI file -- i can't make any changes in Preferences stick. Can you test if this is also true on your system?

I've gone back to v4.44, the last that supported Win9x -- everything works ok on that ver.

> I love graphic viewer Irfanview.

Me too, so discontinued support for 9x is disappointing.

- Doug B.

As seen on the official changelog:

Quote

IrfanView and many PlugIns ported to Unicode!
The INI file will be converted to Unicode if you call the "Properties" dialog

That's why plugins and INI file don't work anymore.

Whats the point of upgrading.  From version 2 to 4 over the years I have seen very little difference.

> Quote
>> IrfanView and many PlugIns ported to Unicode!
>> The INI file will be converted to Unicode if you call the "Properties" dialog
> That's why plugins and INI file don't work anymore.

Yup, but i have UNICOWS.dll installed (required for KernelEx). While i realize that UNICOWS is a limited fix as far as Win9x unicode is concerned, it does allow some programs to function well enough to be usable. Just not IrfanView anymore. Hey, i tried....

> From version 2 to 4 over the years I have seen very little difference.

Agreed, at least as far as general appearance and interface is concerned. Under the hood is a different story -- check the changelog. IV is my default image viewer (fast and capable), so i'd hoped to keep it up-to-date... just in case. Oh well....

I only really use it to open images like jpegs, pngs, gifs.

Edited December 22, 20178 yr by Destro

1) Why to upgrade?

It is always nice to have a living program in last version. And it is pity to use IrfanView only for basic functions like JPEG or PNG imaging. It has many nice features, it can do some editing and much more. But many of these advanced functions are not in the main program but in the plugins. And the plugins strictly need the Irfan version what they were designed to.

And in this 4.50 version is fixed the annoying bug when Irfan didn't understand very well the folders with non-english chars.

 

2) And what about the running IW 4.50 on Windows98?

You must have installed Unicows and KernelEX. Then it works OK. So it is the reason why I think that even the issue with plugins could be somehow solved. But maybe it is rather question for people from KernelEx project...

A customer of mine had success using my Unicows Wrappers instead of KernelEx. He did not mention if the Plugins worked or not.