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XUSBSUPP - eXtended USB Supplement for Windows 95 OSR2


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I just wanted to say a big Thankyou for developing this and making it available. It's an absolute godsend to someone like me who's just rebuilt an old P233 from bits & pieces to run some old music software on W95, and who completely forgot USB wasn't supported. Transferring files via CDRWs wasn't an inspiring prospect.

As warned, my USB MIDI keyboard won't work but it can at least be powered via the USB lead while using a different MIDI cable. Windows uses the supplied drivers but installs it as a USB control device rather than a Sound, Video & Game controller (which I think is the case under W98). I tried doing it manually but I expect you could've told me that would be a waste of time too!

Anyway, thanks very much!

 

You're welcome. Glad you found it useful! :thumbup

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  • 1 month later...

Bad luck!

Memory problems came back.

I went the way down till 32MB. The strange thing is that at some settings under 768 it works whereas if you lower it it doesn't. And then you go more down and it works and then more and it doesn't... This doesn't make sense. There must be something else there besides the MaxPhysPage barrier.

 

So I will keep it 32MB and another 64 for swap and see what happens.

 

Also SB (CT4750) 'worked' even though installations crashed (first due to insuf. memory) then due to lack of internet-I suppose it affected only update. '' > because DOS mode legacy device doesn't: aka you cannot configure it because resources conflict with PCI bridge resources-here is the missing mobo drivers for W95 we were talking before-another time I will try with those infs and see if I can do something.

virtual memory shouldn't be disabled in any circumstance in win95 / 98, from what i gathered, every build i had that i disabled virtual memory to see if it would fix anything would actually mess up everything and crash almost anything i ran. if your using 2 GB of ram, regardless of limiting the maxphyspage and min/maxfilecache will probably still give you a malfunctioning computer or insufficient memory errors because for some reason, even though the extra ram is limited, it still seems to interfere within the operating system. try to see if you can run only one stick of ram if your using 2 sticks of 1 GB so you only have a max of 1 GB, although every windows 95 i worked with would not boot with more than 512 MB ram from the start, only windows 98SE would. all my recent windows 95 builds had the ram limited to 384 MB with one 512 MB stick of ram ( which is how much you would have to begin with in the first place ), any more than 384 MB, like 392 MB or higher would make the computer malfunction / give out of memory errors, and i think virtual memory even got disabled. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Thank you - we had a win95 computer that was tied to specific manufacturing hardware that needed to be able to move large-ish amounts of data during a test.  This worked great (we needed to turn the hardware on in the BIOS as the final step), looking at old floppies or even a CD burner would have been much more difficult.  

 

 

 

 

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Thank you - we had a win95 computer that was tied to specific manufacturing hardware that needed to be able to move large-ish amounts of data during a test.  This worked great (we needed to turn the hardware on in the BIOS as the final step), looking at old floppies or even a CD burner would have been much more difficult.

You're welcome! :yes:  Glad it helped you!

You may want to check out rloew's homepage for other bits of software that may help you continue using Windows 95/98 machines with your manufacturing hardware.

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Thank you for creating the extended USBSUPP.  It looks like a wonderful solution to the persistent problem of how to connect USB drives to Win 95 machines. 

 

Having a little difficulty getting my portable USB hard drive to connect, but I think the problem can probably be worked through.

 

I  am following the XUSBSUPP readme.txt instructions for machines in which Win95 is already installed.  In my case it is a refurbished Dell C600 laptop.  We bought this computer to gain access to some old book manuscripts written in the 90s on DOS word processors and stored on 3.5 inch floppies.. 

 

Here is the difficulty.

 

As a preliminary step I uninstall the pre-existing USBSUPP. Worked okay.

 

Then the instructions suggest I go into the device manager and delete the "other" devices and the existing USB devices.  This is where the trouble starts.

 

There are no "other" devices listed, but there are some listed under USB. In each case, when I remove the device, it asks me to reboot.  Catch 22.  Upon reboot Windows of course rediscovers the "new" USB port hardware and tries to install it. Naturally, the USB device reappears in the device manager listing.  It cannot find a driver, by the way, and always appears along with a yellow exclamation point. . .

 

Rarely, however, do I get to the reboot stage. It is possible to remove the USB devices, but only in Safe Mode.  In Window's normal mode, in most cases the system freezes up solid as soon as I click "remove."   The only way out is to cycle power.

 

Maybe I am missing a step.  If you have successfully connected a USB drive, I would appreciated your help on how to get past this hurdle.

 

Thank you for your insights,

 

John

.

 

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Sounds like uninstalling the existing USBSUPP is not removing all of the USB related files, particularly USB.INF. This is why the USB devices get redetected every time the machine restarts.

 

Uninstall USBSUPP (you've already done this)

Boot into Safe Mode and remove all USB devices and Unknown Devices.

While still in Safe Mode go to the WINDOWS\INF folder and WINDOWS\INF\OTHER folder and delete USB.INF if it exists.

In the \OTHER folder it may have a different name such as "MicrosoftUSB.INF" (INF's are sometimes copied and recopied here each time a device is installed) - just be sure you eliminate any and all copies before you reboot.

 

This should clear out the problem and the USB devices should not be automatically reinstalled on each boot. When you reboot you should be able to simply cancel the driver install requests and get to the Desktop in order to install XUSBSUPP.

 

Let me know if this works or if you have any more problems.

Edited by LoneCrusader
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Hello LoneCrusader,


 


Many thanks for your time and suggestions.  This is extremely helpful. Here is an update on progress so far.


 


I began by uninstalling XUSBSUPP.  I then followed the detailed instructions, as follows.


 


"Boot into Safe Mode and remove all USB devices and Unknown Devices."


 


Done. There were no Unknown devices listed in the device manager, but under Other I found an Unsupported device. I deleted it.


 


"While still in Safe Mode go to the WINDOWS\INF folder and WINDOWS\INF\OTHER folder and delete USB.INF if it exists."


 


I did not find USB.INF in WINDOWS\INF directory.


 


 "In the \OTHER folder it may have a different name such as MicrosoftUSB.INF"


 


Yes, sure enough, exactly. I found and deleted MicrosoftUSB.INF.  I also deleted an INF file called usbstw95.INF.  This is probably a residue from a program I found online and tried called USBSTR95.exe.  It apparently installs drivers, but did not do anything for my particular situation.


 


"This should clear out the problem and the USB devices should not be automatically reinstalled on each boot. When you reboot you should be able to simply cancel the driver install requests and get to the Desktop in order to install XUSBSUPP."


 


On reboot after the various changes I made in Safe Mode, the system identified new hardware quite specifically. This might be helpful information. It found an Intel 82371 AB/EB/MB PCI to Universal Host Controller.


 


I defaulted past several pop up messages. These concluded with the admonition that "this device cannot be used unless you install a driver using the device manager." 


I then re-installed XUSBSUPP.


 


When the installation was finished I plugged in my USB hard drive. The system did not detect any new hardware, so I went to Add Hardware and scanned for it.  When the scan was concluded it reported that it had found no new hardware.


 


I then tried a manual new hardware install. I selected from a drop down menu the Intel 82371 Controller, and sent the system looking for a driver.  No luck.  In the end it reported that "setup has detected a decoding error .. cannot read the setup (CAB) file: usbd.sys cannot be found. 


 


Maybe I could solve or improve this by downloading and installing the driver for Intel 82371 AB/EB/MB PCI to Univeral Host Controller.  The Win95 computer has no online access, but I could download one with my Win7 machine and deliver it to the old computer on  a floppy, provided it is a small file. 


 


I have been trying this and that, with no very clear plan, for a few days now, and it may be that the best course would be to run a clean reboot and start over.  At some point I got a message that I needed a file called USBIMW95.SYS.  I downloaded one (to the Win7 machine) and transferred and copied it into the Win95 machine's SYS files. Did nothing, so I subsequently erased it. 


 


To make the Win95 computer really functional, for our purposes, I need a way to move large files in and out of it.  By "large" I mean larger files than fit onto 3.5 floppies.


 


For example, I have downloaded to the Win7 machine a word processing conversion pack for Word 2000.  The pack contains converters that enable Word 2000 to read old WordPerfect and AmiPro files, among others.


 


The Converter Pack is too big for a floppy.  I tried to transfer it to the Win 95 machine via a burned CD-ROM but the Win 95 machine was unable to "see" the file imprinted by the Win7 machine.  This is one example. Moving book manuscripts is another major issue.  USB storage devices could solve these problems easily.   


 


Thank you so much for your help and insights, and for analyzing and solving the Win 95 USB storage problem.  It seems like a very promising approach. 


 


Best, John  


  


 


 


 


 


 


 


Edited by John Harrii
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I began by uninstalling XUSBSUPP. I then followed the detailed instructions, as follows.

"Boot into Safe Mode and remove all USB devices and Unknown Devices."

Done. There were no Unknown devices listed in the device manager, but under Other I found an Unsupported device. I deleted it.

The unknown devices get listed under Other devices, my mistake for not being more clear but you figured it out.

 

"While still in Safe Mode go to the WINDOWS\INF folder and WINDOWS\INF\OTHER folder and delete USB.INF if it exists."

I did not find USB.INF in WINDOWS\INF directory.

"In the \OTHER folder it may have a different name such as MicrosoftUSB.INF"

Yes, sure enough, exactly. I found and deleted MicrosoftUSB.INF...

"This should clear out the problem and the USB devices should not be automatically reinstalled on each boot. When you reboot you should be able to simply cancel the driver install requests and get to the Desktop in order to install XUSBSUPP."

On reboot after the various changes I made in Safe Mode, the system identified new hardware quite specifically. This might be helpful information. It found an Intel 82371 AB/EB/MB PCI to Universal Host Controller.

I defaulted past several pop up messages. These concluded with the admonition that "this device cannot be used unless you install a driver using the device manager."

Since you uninstalled USBSUPP and XUSBSUPP and then subsequently removed the devices and deleted the INF's, then Windows 95 should not have been able to identify the controller specifically.

Somehow an INF for the USB devices still exists. This is what is used to identify the controller and load the other drivers. It sounds like the INF still exists, but the actual .SYS driver files are missing or not where they are expected to be in order to copy. Did you maybe install an Intel chipset driver at some point that provided an INF for USB?

Once you clear the rogue INF you should be able to Cancel all of the driver requests during boot, as 95 will not be able to identify the controllers. Then reinstall XUSBSUPP.

 

I also deleted an INF file called usbstw95.INF. This is probably a residue from a program I found online and tried called USBSTR95.exe. It apparently installs drivers, but did not do anything for my particular situation.

USBSTR95 was an unfinished project by another member here, and it was part of my inspiration for this project. I wanted to see it complete, but its author vanished and took his knowledge and source code with him. Problem is, I'm no programmer, so I had to get my friend rloew to basically recreate the entire package from scratch. Then I repackged it integrated with the USB Supplement.

The original USBSTR95 works for a small handful of devices, mostly Flash Drives, but most USB Hard Drives do not work with it.

 

I then tried a manual new hardware install. I selected from a drop down menu the Intel 82371 Controller, and sent the system looking for a driver. No luck. In the end it reported that "setup has detected a decoding error .. cannot read the setup (CAB) file: usbd.sys cannot be found.

Maybe I could solve or improve this by downloading and installing the driver for Intel 82371 AB/EB/MB PCI to Univeral Host Controller. The Win95 computer has no online access, but I could download one with my Win7 machine and deliver it to the old computer on a floppy, provided it is a small file.

XUSBSUPP provides all of the necessary drivers for USB controllers and USB storage. Adding any other package such as the original USBSUPP or a package from Intel, etc, will only complicate things further. Another reason I created it.

 

I have been trying this and that, with no very clear plan, for a few days now, and it may be that the best course would be to run a clean reboot and start over. At some point I got a message that I needed a file called USBIMW95.SYS. I downloaded one (to the Win7 machine) and transferred and copied it into the Win95 machine's SYS files. Did nothing, so I subsequently erased it.

To make the Win95 computer really functional, for our purposes, I need a way to move large files in and out of it. By "large" I mean larger files than fit onto 3.5 floppies.

For example, I have downloaded to the Win7 machine a word processing conversion pack for Word 2000. The pack contains converters that enable Word 2000 to read old WordPerfect and AmiPro files, among others.

The Converter Pack is too big for a floppy. I tried to transfer it to the Win 95 machine via a burned CD-ROM but the Win 95 machine was unable to "see" the file imprinted by the Win7 machine. This is one example. Moving book manuscripts is another major issue. USB storage devices could solve these problems easily.

Thank you so much for your help and insights, and for analyzing and solving the Win 95 USB storage problem. It seems like a very promising approach.

Best, John

You're welcome. XUSBSUPP should provide a solution for you. Just remember that Windows 95 cannot read NTFS partitions or use files >4GB without other third party programs.

I'm sure you can get it sorted out. Try to find the rogue INF file and eliminate it. If that doesn't work, I will try to provide some more thorough instructions.

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Not to shift the topic or anything but until the USB issue gets fixed somehow wouldn't it be a good alternative networking the Win95 machine via cable with any nearest machine for this file transfer? An (old) network card could be found and installed (if not already present) along with its drivers - Realtek 80xx-81xx do have drivers for all OS versions starting with DOS, AFAIK - and the shared folder(s) or partition(s) could be read and written to by any other Windows version.

This would also eliminate the wear of the USB devices and cut at least into half the transfer time.

 

That said, in order to completely eliminate any driver that interferes with USB, you'd have to:

- find out the exact VendorID and ProductID of the Intel 82371 AB/EB/MB UHCI controller by looking in the registry or using any device detecting tool (such as my HDDB - see signature below)

- perform a search for the text VEN_xxxx&DEV_yyyy in the Windows INF folder and its subfolders (where xxxx and yyyy are the found VendorID and ProductID, respectively)

- remove the found file(s) or change their extension(s) to something bogus like .000

- remove the unknown device(s) from Device Manager and follow the rest of the procedure as explained above by LoneCrusader

 

Good luck!

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Thank you for these excellent suggestions.  The Win95 Dell laptop had no network connector, so a week ago I ordered a PCMCIA card with both a modem and an ethernet connection.  Still waiting for delivery.

 

Meantime, I think it is worthwhile trying to set up the USB drive, both for myself and for other users who may encounter similar obstacles.

 

In searching for the rogue USB.INF files, I found two directories -- outside of the Windows directory -- that seemed suspect. One directory was labeled Us95msd  This one was a leftover from my experiments with a downloaded copy of USBSTR95.exe.  It contained an INF file called USBstor, and a couple of other INFs.  I erased all the files in the directory and then erased the directory itself.  

 

The second curious directory was labelled Usb95.  Maybe this one came with the computer. It contained two INFs, which I erased. I changed the extensions to 000 on the remaining files.

 

Suddenly, I noticed everything was working much better. I found I could work inside the device manager, removing hardware, without locking up the system.  It was no longer necessary to operate in Safe Mode.

 

The fresh installation of XUSBSUPP seemed to go smoothly. On reboot, the system found and fully installed 1) the USB Controller (i.e., the Intel 82371 AB/EB/MB PCI to USB Host Controller) and  2) a USB Root Hub.

 

That seemed to be the end of the processes driven by XUSBSUPP.exe.

 

At this point I plugged my USB portable drive into the USB port.

 

Its status LED lit up green, and I can see its hard disk controller listed in the device manager along with a yellow exclamation mark.  But at this stage it does not yet work. No driver, apparently.

 

This is a USB 2.0 drive, but I think it should be backward compatible with a USB 1.0 port. Specifically, it is a Seagate 9SD2A2-500 250GB.

 

A setup program from Seagate was on the drive, and I copied it to a floppy (on the Win 7 machine) and then ran this Setup.exe on the Win95.  It splashed the screen with messages about a missing kernel dll, but it was obviously not about to install a driver.  Also, this seemed like a divergent path to follow, since I believe XUSBSUPP already contains drivers for USB portable drives.

 

So that's where we are today.  A lot further along than yesterday, I think, but not quite there. The concept of the "rogue USB.INF" was absolutely right.  The machine was spattered with them....

 

Thank you again for your time and insights.

 

John 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

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Oh, my apologies - somehow I missed the fact that it is a laptop not a desktop, so installing a regular network card would not be possible. A PCMCIA card would do, but it has to be compatible in terms of drivers. Hopefully it will be.

 

Apparently this time the installation of the XUSBSUPP package went fine, but just as a double-check, could you please verify the version numbers and dates in the driver files listed by Device Manager and compare them to those of the files included with the XUSBSUPP package? That would certify (or not) the succesful installation.

 

One thing to mention is the device may require external power in order to be properly detected/operated. Some devices may work only with the power provided by the USB hub but that depends on many factors.

One other thing is the device may be backwards compatible with USB 1.1 but not with 1.0 (if the laptop only has 1.0 USB then that may be the issue).

 

Lone Crusader should know more about the drivers' compatibility with such external drives/enclosures.

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The fresh installation of XUSBSUPP seemed to go smoothly. On reboot, the system found and fully installed 1) the USB Controller (i.e., the Intel 82371 AB/EB/MB PCI to USB Host Controller) and 2) a USB Root Hub.

That seemed to be the end of the processes driven by XUSBSUPP.exe.

At this point I plugged my USB portable drive into the USB port.

Its status LED lit up green, and I can see its hard disk controller listed in the device manager along with a yellow exclamation mark. But at this stage it does not yet work. No driver, apparently.

This is a USB 2.0 drive, but I think it should be backward compatible with a USB 1.0 port. Specifically, it is a Seagate 9SD2A2-500 250GB.

A setup program from Seagate was on the drive, and I copied it to a floppy (on the Win 7 machine) and then ran this Setup.exe on the Win95. It splashed the screen with messages about a missing kernel dll, but it was obviously not about to install a driver. Also, this seemed like a divergent path to follow, since I believe XUSBSUPP already contains drivers for USB portable drives.

So that's where we are today. A lot further along than yesterday, I think, but not quite there. The concept of the "rogue USB.INF" was absolutely right. The machine was spattered with them....

Thank you again for your time and insights.

John

Good progress so far. Sounds like you probably had a USB.INF that was provided with the Intel Chipset driver from the factory.

What is the error given in the Device Manager?

Did you reboot again after the USB controllers and hubs were detected and before connecting your USB HDD? If not, this may have led to the error. I may need to make a note about this in the instructions...

You will probably need to manually remove the USB HDD from the Device Manager before connecting it again. If the drive is not connected you will need to do this from Safe Mode, as installed devices not currently connected will not show up in Normal Mode.

Once you have done this, it should work. If not, please post any error messages that are displayed in the Device Manager.

Edited by LoneCrusader
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Good Morning Conner, thank you again for your time and help.  I disconnected the USB drive, booted into Safe Mode, removed the UBS hard disk controller from the device manager, and then rebooted.

 

This was the reboot operation I skipped in the previous installation.

 

When I plugged the USB drive into the connector, the system immediately detected the new hardware.  There ensued a series of on-screen prompts while the system sought and quickly found a driver for the Seagate USB drive.  The driver installation was successful. 

 

However (always a "however" in these narratives) the USB drive did not become visible in My Computer. I was expecting to see something like Drive D: or perhaps Expansion Drive, but there was nothing new in the enumeration of disk drives: just C:  and the floppy drive.

 

Rebooted, USB drive still not visible. 

 

Rebooted into safe mode and studied the listings under USB Controller and under Hard Drive Controller.  Here they are:

 

USB Controller:

- Generic USB mass storage class  device

- Intel 82371 PCI to USB controller

- USB Mass Storage Class Device Controller

- UBS Root Hub

 

Hard Disk Controllers:

- Intel 82371 AB/EB/MB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller

- Intel 82801BAM Ultra ATA Storage Controller - 244A

- Primary IDE Controller (dual fifo)

- Primary IDE Controller (dual fifo)

- SanDisk Cruizer Titanium USB Flash Drive

- Secondary IDE Controller (dual fifo)

- Secondary IDE Controller (dual fifo)

- OPTI Dual PCI IDE Controller

 

Some of these must be legacies from the Dell's previous owner.  For example, I do not own a SanDisk Cruizer Titanium USB Flash Drive. (I think he was running XP incidentally, not Win 95). I also notice duplications in the list of the Primary and Secondary IDE controllers.

 

There are many Hard Disk Controllers listed in Safe Mode, but I am not sure any of them are the USB drive controller that I installed.  A USB Mass Storage Class Device Controller is listed under the USB Controller column, however.

 

Net of it, we keep getting closer and closer to Eureka, but we're still just a little short. 

 

Many thanks for your insights.  John Harris

Edited by John Harrii
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Are you certain that your USB HDD is formatted with the FAT32 file system and not NTFS?

If it is formatted as NTFS, then Windows 9x cannot read it and will not assign it a drive letter.

Connect your USB HDD to your Windows 7 machine and check the hard drive properties. I'm not familiar with what the exact steps would be under Windows 7, but we need to know what file system the drive is using.

A couple of third-party drivers for reading NTFS under 9x exist, but it would be risky to use these if you happen to have any files larger than 4GB stored on your HDD, since 9x cannot support files greater than 4GB without other modifications.

If your USB HDD is formatted NTFS, then you would need to back up your data and reformat it as FAT32; or, if you don't want to do that my advice would be to grab a cheap Flash Drive and format it as FAT32 in order to transfer the files.

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Bingo. Thank you again. Everything works now!

 

Using a Seagate wizard, I re-partitioned the NTFS disk drive as FAT32.  Plugged in the drive and it was immediately added to the Control Panel as Drive D:

 

Looking back on this thread it seems like a long and winding road but in fact there are only three steps:

 

1) Jettison all pre-existing USB.INV files.  This is what took all the time and caused the most puzzlement.   It is because this Dell must have a history of USB or would-be USB drive installations, and because I had myself run quite a few USB installation experiments before I discovered XUSBSUPP. 

 

I guess the observation is that USB.INV can be disguised by other names, and can lurk in directories such as USB95. The common naming themes are 1) the INV extension and 2) the letters USB or usb, sometimes masked by a prefix or suffix, as for example, USBstor.INV  or MicrosoftUSB.INV

 

2) After XUSBSUPP has been installed, it is necessary to reboot before attempting to plug in the disk drive

 

 

3) The disk must be partitioned as FAT32, not NFTS.

 

The USB external storage disk works great, and now I have a way to move substantial files in and out of the win95 computer. 

 

Finding some old friends from antiquity in this pile of old 3.5 floppies.  QBasic, dbase II, and a DOS Lotus 123.  Nice to have a real fully functional DOS.

 

Cannot thank you enough for XUSBSUPP and for your time and patient, accurate help  -- this is a breakthrough program for me.

 

John Harris

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