Jump to content

Making Windows 98 look like XP.


Nerdulater

Recommended Posts

433083790_Windows98-2022-07-27-16-15-09.thumb.png.a137cdd2c156748c007b86682820c35f.png

Do you think this is Windows XP? Well, if you were to ask a random joe they would say yes. Having MS-DOS Prompt in my start menu doesn't help make it look like XP but I don't care. I want to show you guys how I managed to do it as I quite proud of how convincing this is.

I started with a old version of ObjectBar for Start Menu. While when changing some settings it caused my VM to crash but it went well.
Then I used the Revolutions Pack 7 for the Title Bars.
Revolutions Pack 7 changed the icons to a Vista/7 appearance so I used TuneUp Styler 2007 (Part of TuneUp Utilities 2007) and Shell32.dll from XP to change all the icons back.
While there is still some parts of Vista/7 from the Revolutions Pack and i have a annoying message from ObjectBar every time I started it up, I am satisfied with it.  

Edited by Nerdulater
Link to comment
Share on other sites


1 hour ago, awkduck said:

Looks like you had fun.

Reminds me of CalmiraXP for Win3x.

I haven't gotten around to it, but eventually I'd like to mess around with BlackBox4Win and LiteStep.

 

Had a bunch of it. Wouldn't recommended this as i get a crash every 20 minutes or so.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Nerdulater changed the title to Making Windows 98 look like XP.
On 7/27/2022 at 2:16 PM, Nerdulater said:

Had a bunch of it. Wouldn't recommended this as i get a crash every 20 minutes or so.

I haven't used BB4Win much. But LiteStep never caused me any issue. There are other shell replacements I've tried, that had many issues. But I imagine if a person's Windows configuration relies heavy on explorer, they would be much happier using the explorer shell.

I run a pretty lean install. Long ago, I used to run with Program Manager as my Win98/XP shell. With XP I had to save the XP original  progman.exe file, since SP1 replaced it with a non working version. But I had no systray, when using Program Manager. I found something called "Rocket Tray". Or I think that was it's name. But Litestep had it's own systray and on the whole was quite light.

But none the less, your XP like start menu, with the MS-Dos Prompt, deceptively looks like an improved version of XP :) Or maybe not so deceptively ;)

Edited by awkduck
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think there should be a Windows XP transformation pack. This is off topic, but I'm also wondering what alternative shells there are for Windows 10 to make it like Windows 9x/XP. Pd. I'm not a big fan of Classic Shell/Open Shell programs, I would prefer to run directly the XP explorer, but never figured how to run it in Windows 10. Apparently someone managed to do it. The last thing, would be interesting to make Windows 9x look like Windows 10/11! Would that be possible?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Only for the record (and only as pure anecdata), in the (good ol') times I used extensively BBlean/BB4Win for a minimal XP project ideated by Dietmar[1] and it was very stable (though possibly it was due to the overall minimization of the install).

jaclaz

[1]  http://reboot.pro/index.php?showtopic=3717

that later evolved - thanks to Misty - into the MiniXP

http://reboot.pro/index.php?showtopic=16765

http://mistyprojects.co.uk/minixp/docs/files/index.html

 

Edited by jaclaz
Link to comment
Share on other sites

51 minutes ago, jaclaz said:

Only for the record (and only as pure anecdata), in the (good ol') times I used extensively BBlean/BB4Win for a minimal XP project ideated by Dietmar[1] and it was very stable (though possibly it was due to the overall minimization of the install).

jaclaz

[1]  http://reboot.pro/index.php?showtopic=3717

that later evolved - thanks to Misty - into the MiniXP

http://reboot.pro/index.php?showtopic=16765

http://mistyprojects.co.uk/minixp/docs/files/index.html

 

jaclaz, thanks for the excellent reading material. Lots of good energy in those posts!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/29/2022 at 4:55 AM, MrMateczko said:

Why not use the latest version 9 of Revolutions Pack?

I used the copy of the revoultions pack off my Windows 98 UBCD CD, but the fact i am using a old version may cause some of the crashes.

On 7/29/2022 at 5:57 PM, Sergiaws said:

I think there should be a Windows XP transformation pack. This is off topic, but I'm also wondering what alternative shells there are for Windows 10 to make it like Windows 9x/XP. Pd. I'm not a big fan of Classic Shell/Open Shell programs, I would prefer to run directly the XP explorer, but never figured how to run it in Windows 10. Apparently someone managed to do it. The last thing, would be interesting to make Windows 9x look like Windows 10/11! Would that be possible?

Do agree, there should be a transformation pack. Don't agree with the off topic. Windows 98 is the base os.

On 7/29/2022 at 8:47 AM, awkduck said:

I haven't used BB4Win much. But LiteStep never caused me any issue. There are other shell replacements I've tried, that had many issues. But I imagine if a person's Windows configuration relies heavy on explorer, they would be much happier using the explorer shell.

I run a pretty lean install. Long ago, I used to run with Program Manager as my Win98/XP shell. With XP I had to save the XP original  progman.exe file, since SP1 replaced it with a non working version. But I had no systray, when using Program Manager. I found something called "Rocket Tray". Or I think that was it's name. But Litestep had it's own systray and on the whole was quite light.

But none the less, your XP like start menu, with the MS-Dos Prompt, deceptively looks like an improved version of XP :) Or maybe not so deceptively ;)

Well, XP's version of MS-DOS Prompt is called DOSBox. 

ObjectBar goes over the explorer start menu, making the explorer one auto-hide, never to be touched again. (Well untill you unload the start menu) I tried replacing explorer with ObjectBar directly as the shell, but that caused lots of problems.

Edited by Nerdulater
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Nerdulater said:

Well, XP's version of MS-DOS Prompt is called DOSBox.

Actually, that has been a real annoyance for me. Its been called a "dos box" for awhile. When researching Windows internals (Win3x-9x) many books do refer to it as a dos box. It can make using google almost pointless, as DosBox/DosBox-X will return in most of the results. It makes trying to understand what happens when you run command.com very obscure. This since command.com is ran inside the dos box, not the actual dos box itself. I guess there is a ReactOS cmd.exe, for Win9x, that initializes a similar environment. Reading the source code for that might give me some clues. 

I have so many projects, that I haven't continued to research it. Looking to get three books, Undocumented Dos/Windows and Unauthorized Windows 95. Maybe they'll give greater detail. But, in this case, it is the win32 side of things I'm interested in.

Quote

ObjectBar goes over the explorer start menu, making the explorer one auto-hide, never to be touched again. (Well untill you unload the start menu) I tried replacing explorer with ObjectBar directly as the shell, but that caused lots of problems.

The same problems you had when running shell replacements?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Sergiaws said:

If you want an MS-DOS on XP, you should put the cmd.exe as the Windows shell! That's even possible in Windows 11.

MS-DOS is a completely different system from what a cmd.exe (running inside a NT based OS) is, I posted earlier how a minimal XP-based system with cmd.exe as shell has been developed :

 

(and the command processor in DOS is command.com, that is different from cmd.exe), the fact that in cmd.exe you can run (some) DOS programs doesn't mean that it is in any way a MS-DOS.

 

@awkduck

In the contest of Win3.x/9x, it is actually a "dos box", in XP it is NOT.

JFYI, there are a couple "improved" command processors for 9x that bring to it some features of the cmd.exe:

https://msfn.org/board/topic/100861-winxp-cmdexe-renamed-to-commandcom/

http://reboot.pro/index.php?showtopic=2392

 

jaclaz

Edited by jaclaz
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, jaclaz said:

 In the contest of Win3.x/9x, it is actually a "dos box", in XP it is NOT.

JFYI, there are a couple "improved" command processors for 9x that bring to it some features of the cmd.exe:

https://msfn.org/board/topic/100861-winxp-cmdexe-renamed-to-commandcom/

http://reboot.pro/index.php?showtopic=2392

 

jaclaz

One day I'll dig my hands into those features ;)

So much to do, so little time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...