Service Pack Really Doesn't Like MDAC 2.8

[Eck]

Hey,

On either of the computers that I have used whatever service pack was the latest at the time (recently SP2 RC3), I have had Windows die after MDAC 2.8 and the service pack were on the system together.

It didn't matter which one was installed first. As soon as both happened to be installed, then I rebooted, I would get this:

WINDOWS

Invalid VxD dynamic link call from VWIN32(01) + 00000714 to device "0009" , service 1

Your Windows configuration is invalid. Run the Windows Setup program again to correct this problem.

To continue running Windows press Y or ENTER To quit the current program press N. If you continue running Windows, your system may become unstable. Do you want to continue? Press Y for Yes or N for No: Y

If I press Y, it loads a buch of IRQ holder for PCI IRQ steering's then it stops, needing a CTRL-ALT-DEL to reboot. It reboots to Scandisk, then it runs Registry Checker and replaces the registry, then, at reboot, I get:

WINDOWS NETWORKING

The following error occured while loading the device VNETSUP Error 6101: The string specified by the COMPUTER NAME Keyword was not found.

Then it repeats it all again.

If I press N for No instead, it just shuts down the computer. When I boot up, it goes through the whole process again.

Now, if I don't install MDAC 2.8, everything runs great!

I used to think it was installing the old Microsoft Security Updates cd that screwed up the service pack. I haven't touched that in the longest time (unneeded with the service pack, 982ME, and Windows Update!). But I now see that the thing it has in common with this latest crash is MDAC 2.8.

I should tell you what I did. Following mostly the guide to the order of installation in the stickied link, just before running the service pack I thought I might as well update MDAC. I installed MDAC 2.5, rebooted, installed the Jet Service Pack, rebooted, installed MDAC 2.6, rebooted, installed MDAC 2.8 and rebooted. So far, everything is going fine. I then rebooted again before installing the Service Pack 2.0 RC3. It installed completely without any errors and I rebooted. To the errors listed above! Goodbye Windows!

Has anyone else experience this? Without my messing with MDAC I can run the Service Pack and 982ME and life is great. Any installing of MDAC 2.8 and Windows dies.

[Gape]

I should tell you what I did.  Following mostly the guide to the order of installation in the stickied link, just  before running the service pack I thought I might as well update MDAC.  I installed MDAC 2.5, rebooted, installed the Jet Service Pack, rebooted, installed MDAC 2.6, rebooted, installed MDAC 2.8 and rebooted.  So far, everything is going fine.  I then rebooted again before installing the Service Pack 2.0 RC3.  It installed completely without any errors and I rebooted.  To the errors listed above!  Goodbye Windows!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Eck,

It seems a registry corruption problem according to MS KB article. Did you installed IE 6.0 SP1? Because IE 6.0 SP1 contains MDAC (I'm not sure about the version).

Installing only MDAC 2.8 is enough. You should not install old versions before installing the new version.

[Eck]

I just got back from experimenting with an older board.

Nice kb article, but usually one would rather install from scratch again than deal with restoring a registry built before thousands of system files and program installations were done. Besides, Windows kept restoring a the registry backup I had made before doing the service pack and it didn't help as the same loop of errors occured.

I follow the order in your guide, so yes IE6SP1 was there. Interesting that it installs an MDAC. However, as I said, when I used to let the old Windows Security Cd install MDAC 2.8 the service pack would hiccup my system the same way.

Personnally, I'd rather keep the service pack and forget about MDAC. I could never figure out what that thing does anyway. Just a bunch of cryptic items in the Control Panel. I figured they did something good so I might as well have the latest version. I'll leave that alone from now on.

I did like to install the older versions first because then you'd get Jet (whatever that is).

Just trying to use the most up to date files of stuff on the system since I figure they must fix bugs and support more features. I hate when they break Windows though.

The older board experiment I just did went okay, but 2 things made me come running back to my spanking new box tonight. First, the 2 ISA ports had never been able to send audio from an ISA soundcard to my speakers. I bought a new board of the exact same and it also wouldn't let me use the SB16WaveEffects I have. (The card works fine on the single ISA slot of my Abit KT7A. I guess it's a SiS 5598 design flaw. The board is an ASUS SPAX-M from the HP Pavilion 4430, 4440 boxes.

The second problem was that my relatively new Liteon combo drive that works fine on my original Pavilion 4430 (same model board), as well as my KT7A, had serious problems on this SPAX-M board. The HP BIOS was the same last 1.04 version as my other one. I reinstalled Windows twice, tried using a both a 40 pin and 80 pin cable, tried setting it to Master instead of Cable Select, tried uninstalling it from Device Manager. It was real sluggish in moving data files to the hard drive, at times freezing but would recover if I waited (like 10 minutes). Then, once I got to the point of testing music WMP couldn't play cd's whether digital or analog extraction was used. The files would show in Explorer. I could move them to the hard drive. But no playing them from the cd. Although the properties page would open in Device Manager, clicking properties in WMP in options\devices resulted in the window just blinking at me as if it tried to open it but there wasn't anything there.

Besides those things the board is pretty peppy with 256MB memory and a 366MHz K6-2. I just stuck the old Riptide Audio/Modem thing in there as that gives good Dos gaming and is fine on all 9x OS's.

The only ways to test would be to replace the cd-rw/dvd-rom with an old cd-rw I have to see if the board behave nice with that one, then put the combo drive into a different computer again to see if it really is a dying (really quite new) drive.

I was just really tired of all this and wanted to get back here and other places to see what was doing, and just relax a bit. I'll save system building for another day. I hope I don't have a dead cd/dvd drive though. I've got to replace a HD and install Windows for a friend this week. Jeez I'm sick of that at the moment!

[Eck]

Just to report on the MDAC thing and the other problems I brought up.

Heh. It seems that ZoneAlarm can fubar things if it doesn't recognize certain things have changed. I just went through fully installing 98 and the service pack on my KT7A. Right now, it's all up and running along with the 98SE2ME as well!

But...what it took to get here! First, I suspected the IDE's on the 2 SiS5598 boards were both from some kind of bad batch. Every cd drive I tried would have the poor file transfer and no digital problem. However, I discovered that I got the same problem on the KT7A. What the?

Heh. In all these cases I had been trusting Adaptec's official ASPI installer with their latest offering. Big mistake! All the drive's needed to get them working was ForceASPI 1.7. Well, with a little help. I needed to go to command prompt only to copy one of the files (wnaspi32.dll I think). Windows was protecting the thing. Or..I might of just let the service pack do it but at that point I had already installed it. I didn't want to run into the problem of the service pack not being able to find its extracted files if it's being reinstalled.

On that same point, I noticed installing Quicktime 2.0.8 (don't ask, I have an old game that needs that), that it replaced Explorer.exe with another version and I lost only the My Computer icon. I just extracted the service pack, then the cab file in there, and went to the command prompt only to copy the service pack's explorer.exe back to Windows/System. This also had the cool effect of restoring the neat "Windows98SecondEdition" to the side of the Start button popup that 98SE2ME always removes. (It returns it to the original light blue "Windows98.") A little playing between 98's Theme manager and Display Panel's Effects panel (Large icons, then back to normal) and I was back in business. (The old Quicktime had messed with the shortcut arrow's on the icon's as well.)

Okay, ZoneAlarm. I had gotten all the way through installing WorksSuite2005. My next step would have been installing the service pack. However the reboot from the Works install brought back the destroyed Windows. What?

The same darned thing happens after RealPlayer installs. If I don't follow installing RealPlayer with disabling the Ethernet and telling ZoneAlarm not to run at Startup, the reboot will be fatal for Windows. If I don't have ZoneAlarm startup with Windows (I disable the internet only because the firewall won't be there), then the restarts work fine. I can then turn ZoneAlarm on from the Start Menu, reenable the Ethernet card and reboot and everything is fine.

Mind you, this is not a problem on Windows XP. It's just the combination of ZoneAlarm and Windows 98. I sure wish I knew all the program's that may just cause ZoneAlarm to fubar Windows98 startup. I now know of RealPlayer and WorksSuite (which contains system updates that apparently confuse ZoneAlarm). And, apparently MDAC stuff in combination with the 98SEServicePack. (There, it's in caps-I forget sometimes.)

So, I don't know if there's anything you could change in the Service Pack. There's usually some cryptic message including one of ZoneAlarm's files that says it can't start it while the destroyed Windows is frantically (and, heroic like) trying to recover itself from being raped by ZoneAlarm.

Well, I put 2 and 2 together and this time turned the internet off and had ZoneAlarm not load at startup after anything I guessed might hiccup ZoneAlarm. This included WorksSuite, the Service Pack, the 98SE2ME, and of course I turned the thing off after loading Real Player!

Breezing, listening to an mp3 of Evelyn King as I type. Cd's play fine. (Stupid Adaptec!) The SBLive gives me DOS. 98 is running smooth as silk. I'm kind of happy about putting the KT7A in. The SiS board is nice, but while it may be good to be slow for DOS, it's really annoying for DVD stuff (and other new type things that use processor cycles). And, those darned ISA ports that won't produce audio mess up my plan to use the SB16 on it anyway. The Riptide doesn't compare to what the SBLive can do, especially with the old vxd drivers. These are from the last cd they made with the SB16 stuff in device manager. (It came with the SB0100.) All the old bugs had been worked out, and the audio quality is like what users of the KxDriver Project drivers get. They max the card's abilities.

The only annoyance now is that I know VCD mpeg encoding takes like double the time that my Asus A7V880 does. I know. I did it this way for years on this board. I was astounded at how the AthlonXP3200 zipped through things. I guess I can swap boxes and unplug, plugin all the wires for doing that stuff. The system is intact. Didn't rape it to set these others up. I just gotta plug it in and rip!

Thanks so much for these Service Packs, yours and the 98SE2ME project. Microsoft would have users call up and pay for all these hotfixes you've got here, bringing 98 up to date and fully functional. I was really afraid there that I would need to only use the official Microsoft channels and knew I wouldn't get all that the OS needs that way. I'm a happy troubleshooter! (It's a pain in the butt to figure out though!)

[erpdude8]

Thanks so much for these Service Packs, yours and the 98SE2ME project.  Microsoft would have users call up and pay for all these hotfixes you've got here, bringing 98 up to date and fully functional.  I was really afraid there that I would need to only use the official Microsoft channels and knew I wouldn't get all that the OS needs that way.  I'm a happy troubleshooter!  (It's a pain in the butt to figure out though!)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Uh, yeah there's always the email method of asking for Microsoft hotfixes. I got some of the Win98 & ME hotfixes by MS for free by emailing them. Search this forum on how to request hotfixes by email.

As for MDAC, you can find different versions of MDAC here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/data/mdac/downloads/default.aspx

I would install MDAC 2.5 SP3 first on a Win98 system, then install MDAC 2.8.

You can download MDAC 2.5 SP3 here:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/e...cf/mdac_typ.exe

As for MS Jet, MDAC 2.5 & higher have Jet 4.0. Install Jet 4.0 KB837001 security update here:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/2...B837001-ENU.exe

MS says its for NT4 but it can also work under Win98.

[Eck]

Thanks for the links! I already had them though. Messing with MDAC made my system go nuts however. I think I'll stick to the Service Pack and 98SE2ME. I like the "duh, press this and your system will be automagically updated!" I used to apply them all manually in when I had dialup to save time. This is so much more complete and easier.

It's possible that between whatever WorksSuite2005 installs (it has Word2002, so it contains some parts of Office and perhaps MDAC), and my installing the MDAC's manually, confused the registry. Or perhaps ZoneAlarm is the culprit. I don't know, but if that thing is running at startup after certain installs Windows registry is trashed.

I just bought an OEM never opened version of WorksSuite 99 (with the licence). I downloaded the service packs for it from Microsoft. I bought it because I first learned to do stuff on Works 4.5a. I kind of liked that layout, but still wanted access to Word. On my next install I may forgo installing the newer version. I've already installed and activated Suite 2005 on 2 different computers about 6 times. Microsoft may lock me out soon. I'd like to keep that for my XP computer. I'd hate to lose access to something I paid so much for just messing around with my computers! I only use one computer at a time, but that activation system doesn't know that.