Differences since installing 98SE2ME

[horsecharles]

edit: ..... the title of this thread should additionally contain: "And the ME Shell'", as per Tihiy--- separate and extra from 98SE2ME...

Hi, thought i'd start this as a reference area. The point is not to document bugs, but rather to document changes-- good & bad: new features present, old ones gone.

BTW To the powers that be: if this is out of line or in the wrong area, feel free to change as needed.

We can note for everyone's benefit: pitfalls to avoid, ways to accomplish old tasks when settings have been altered or removed, and the converse-- new & improved methods we can accomplish with new/changed settings & features... all of which we may not be aware of.

I'll start of w/ some:

On bootup desk icons appear quickly but load their image very slowly.

Sometimes the QuickLaunch Bar disappears(taking with it systray/taskbar & start button)-- if you click open any desktop icon, it re-appears. btw i've dragged mycomputer icon to the top, creating a thin, vertical bar(width adjustable by you) on top: gives immediate access separately to any drive, disk, & some system folders-- less clicks than using explorer/mycomputer/start buttons.

My Briefcase not listed separately outside C drive in Save to/Browse to Dialog Boxes.

If you have MyBriefcase open and simultaneously start a download AND your downlad settings are either to use it as default OR to the last saved location(which was coincidentally MyBriefcase): you will get a message that it's being used by another computer & get prompted to use a different download location.

(BTW i use it as default download location-- with several computers & its sync feature, i can think of no better location: of course, i've migrated it<actually the whole Desktop Folder, where it resides> out of Windows folder-- in case of future problems with OS<where a format of the OS partition & reinstall is called for>)

Web Folders icon not in My Computer anymore, this not changed by applied MS WBFLDRS update listed on MDGx site.

Disk Cleanup detailed settings(scheduled cleaning & related details, recycle bin size, etc.) gone from Properties.

MSConfig has many added features-- take a look... you can use it in addition to SFC to extract an install file.

CD drive is listed as compact disc in explorer/mycomputer. Speaking of these: in View/Choose columns/ extra features you can choose. No way to get around though, after having booted out of safe mode, these & other folder settings have to be re-enabled. Also can't seem to get around some of the icons in both quicklaunch bar & favorites don't stay where one wants them: mini-groups of these get alpha sorted, others stay random.......

Start/Documents: that recent shortcut view, default & max 15 in w98, can be 0-to whatever now-- X-Setup has a setting tweak for this, & i posted reg change earlier somewhere. MaxRecentDocs is the Dword value.

Search is so improved-- & it seems to auto/default also do a text search inside windows cabs/inf files w/o needing to use the text search line directly beneath.

ok, enough rambling for now......

[horsecharles]

Explorer/View/thumbnails: thumbnails get created too big & explorer crashes. Just re-open it & the folder will have more normal-sized thumbnails.

As with any IE crash-- give it one second or two before re-clicking. During that time the icon does not respond to clicking-- clicking multiple times will result in several instances opening once it's recovered.

I actually consider this an improvement over 98 in the way a crashed app is handled-- it seems that some sort of (successful) correction / memory recovery is attempted after a crash: there seems to more certainty that no matter what, there'll be enough resources left to continue running other apps. With 98 sometimes there wouldn't be enough resources left to save all work in progress; Task Manager(the Vulcan Salute) seems to be more stable/useful when low on resources.

Also different/better with ME: when a browser(IE) page has an error that triggers closing it, only that one page closes, it doesn't take down all other pages open.

BTW i'm talking about heavy simultanous use here: several programs & many browsing sessions ongoing...

conclusion: Me handles memory / resources better, protects from total outage, recovers from crashes a bit better.......

Explorer folder view settings don't seem to apply universally-- each new folder you open in explorer would require the settings adjustment........

Look in start/settings/taskbar & start menu/advanced for some extra stuffff...

I had mentioned elsewhere that start/documents # of shortcuts could be increased to whatever one chose-- i made the reg change by creating maxrecentdocs-- this worked for one day, then the view returned back to 15(win98 default)... but the registry keys have not changed...the recent folder has over 50 shortcuts, 98 never kept so many. X-Setup's confused about which OS is installed for some tweaks....

.

[horsecharles]

Nix the slow icon load at startup-- took a few days on its own, no tweaks/changes on my part-- but now it's instantaneous(& i have a ton of icons).

AND..... the title of this thread should additionally contain: "And the ME Shell'", as per Tihiy--- separate and extra from 98SE2ME...

[horsecharles]

Update on # Recent Docs in Start Menu:

reg key is set to 30, actual number visible climbed to 32-- by coincidence decided to change the icon size in start menu from large to small, and this triggered the # recent docs shortcuts to reverse to 15.... this did not change by reversing icon size setting-- nor by opening more documents. Suspect that as last time, on rext reboot the number will climb above 15. Will experiment by totally emptying recent menu.

Of note, before starting all these upgrades: shortcuts there for ms word documents would return 'sometimes' a not found error-- but this was likely Office's issue re when one makes changes to a document and saves it under a different name.

[horsecharles]

Help does not run-- described here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=37302&st=80&

[erpdude8]

are the Copy To Folder and Move To Folder commands added in 98SE2ME?

I'll have to ask MDGx on that. You need IE 5.5 or higher for those two commands to

show up when clicking on a file in Explorer. It won't work if IE versions earlier than 5.5

as I have recently found out.

[horsecharles]

HHmmm, they worked for me for sure in the 5 & 5.01 days.... unless if there are different versions of them.... In fact, it was with 5.5(sp2) & 6 that i began hating IE because of lost 'functionalities'(i know, unrelated-- but still...)...

[horsecharles]

Search/Find does not scan Windows Folder first, like 98's...... looks like it's done in alpha order....

New shutdown menu forces extra click...... & yes, creating shutdown shortcuts is fairly easy, but quicklaunch crowded.....& yes, increasing the width of quicklaunch is an easy option, but that decreases window screen space....

There is one quirk: when extracting zipped files(with a third party zip client) to windows folder(open receiving folder after extraction is enabled), a folder called WinME is opened in Explorer instead(it holds image of winme install disk, a few winme updates)....

Musing: it'd be real useful if either a Tool Tip or Explorer Details provided file version-- save a lot of clicking.... i have InfoTag, which displays a highlighted file's info in status bar-- though not for all files & not convenient when comparing identical versions...

btw that app is very useful: advanced file info popup, peer at first few lines of text files w/o opening, quickly run mouse over the various browser tabs in taskbar area-- those tool tips save a lot of time....

and the beat goes on.......

[horsecharles]

update on: when extracting zipped files(with a third party zip client) to windows folder(open receiving folder after extraction is enabled), a folder called WinME is opened in Explorer instead,,,

now it opens to Desktop(this when extracting the new regenv)......

[horsecharles]

Updates re opening message:

On bootup desk icons appear quickly but load their image very slowly.

Fixed-- load instantaneously now.

Sometimes the QuickLaunch Bar disappears(taking with it systray/taskbar & start button)-- if you click open any desktop icon, it re-appears. btw i've dragged mycomputer icon to the top, creating a thin, vertical bar(width adjustable by you) on top: gives immediate access separately to any drive, disk, & some system folders-- less clicks than using explorer/mycomputer/start buttons.

still happens, right-clicking, selecting properties, closing also restores it(calling up any menu / dialog box & closing it, or only opening any app, makes it re-appear(the whole line of start/quicklaunch/systray).

My Briefcase not listed separately outside C drive in Save to/Browse to Dialog Boxes.

fixed.

If you have MyBriefcase open and simultaneously start a download AND your downlad settings are either to use it as default OR to the last saved location(which was coincidentally MyBriefcase): you will get a message that it's being used by another computer & get prompted to use a different download location.

still occurs-- likely a default behavior..........

Web Folders icon not in My Computer anymore, this not changed by applied MS WBFLDRS update listed on MDGx site.

still true.

CD drive is listed as compact disc in explorer/mycomputer. Speaking of these: in View/Choose columns/ extra features you can choose. No way to get around though, after having booted out of safe mode, these & other folder settings have to be re-enabled. Also can't seem to get around some of the icons in both quicklaunch bar & favorites don't stay where one wants them: mini-groups of these get alpha sorted, others stay random.......

all still hold, except for when coming out fo safe mode-- this after applying the option to view all folders like the present one.

Start/Documents: that recent shortcut view, default & max 15 in w98, can be 0-to whatever now-- X-Setup has a setting tweak for this, & i posted reg change earlier somewhere. MaxRecentDocs is the Dword value.

Worked for awhile with a higher number(set to 30)-- not anymore: only shows win98 max of 15

Search... seems to auto/default also do a text search inside windows cabs/inf files w/o needing to use the text search line directly beneath.

Not true anymore.

[horsecharles]

Before I go repairing the wrong cause-- anyone suffering this(after applying service pack or ME replacements):

clicking the arrow to open Address Bar dropdown menu freeezes/locks IE mid action..... only a hard task bar close exits this dilemma (freeze does not affect other open IE sessions, but the task manager close shuts all them down, even though listed separately)....

thanx.............