98SE Tips & Techniques

[citizeneman]

Ok, ive been browsing through the threads the last couple days and have noticed that there are alot windows 98 guru's around so from me and all the other newbs I was wondering if you could share some must know tips & techniques that every 98 user should know, maybe some tips on speed? Thanks in advance.

[awergh]

My suggestion is visit http://www.mdgx.com/ which is a vast resource of tips and tweaks for DOS and Windows

[citizeneman]

thx awergh!

[miko]

press CTRL NUMPAD + in Details view

theres a tip . . .

[citizeneman]

ok go into start menu while holding CTRL then go into settings, then while still holding CTRL, click TaskBar & Start menu, if done correctly there should be an additional Tab called DeskBar Options, but all options are disabled... spoooky . Yes I must be the first person to find this.

Edited April 4, 2006 by citizeneman

[Andromeda43]

Isn't that like re-designing the latch on the barn door after the horse has broken out and run away?

Just kidding!

For old and slow PC's, Windows 98/SE is still king IMHO.

Always MAX out the ram whenever possible. Then clean up and defrag the HD.

I take great pleasure in tweaking an old 98/SE PC and making it run better than it did when new.

That's really not too hard, because none of them old PC's were ever set up right from the git-go.

Installing the unofficial Sp2 is a great place to start. That greatly improves SE.

Then there's the tweaks that I've been doing for many years that improves efficiency by about 15 to 30 %.

Here they are, FYI.:

**************************************

Tweak Win 98,or '98/SE, to make it run more effeciently:

1: START---Settings---Control Panel

Double Click "System"

Click "Performance" tab

Click "File System" Button

Set, "Typical Role of this computer" to 'Network Server'

Click the Apply button

Then:

Click the "Floppy Disk" tab

Un-Check the little box in 'Settings' window

Click "Apply",,,,,,then click OK

Click OK again

(this change will become permanent after a Re-Boot

2: START---RUN--- type in Sysedit , and then press ENTER

Maximize the "System Configuration Editor" window

Maximize the "System.ini" window

Scroll down till you can see the entire [386Enh] grouping

Place your mouse cursor on the first blank line at the bottom of the group

Then, type in the following line....

ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1

(type the line exactly as shown,,,with NO spaces and caps where I've put them)

Then press enter.

The above line will help Windows to use RAM more effectively.

Click "File" in the upper left corner of the Editor window. Then click "SAVE"

Close the Editor window and Re-Boot your computer.

After a re-start, windows will now operate at 15% to 30% faster and more efficient than it did before.

****************************************

That's a real good place to start.

Then, go to My Webpage

and download Hoover.bat

This little batch file will clean out all the garbage from your HD.

If put in the Startup folder, it will give you daily "Maid Service".

Then you can download the Windows ME defrag program Here.

It runs about 10x faster than the old defrag from 98.

Also from that site, you can get "Safe Clean Util's" which scours your hard drive for 'junk' files and then removes them.

Then, using Google, look for and download "Easy Cleaner" (from, 'ToniArts') to clean your registry and you can also get MS's little "RegClean" program. (I use them both to clean up 98 or ME registries)

(heck, they both work equally well in XP)

I do this stuff for a living and I've been doing this package for six years. My customers are just amazed by their "NEW" pc's.

That download site is a work in progress....I'm adding files to as needed. Take what you need.

I sure hope that helps you. Was that kind of what you're looking for?

98/SE can be made to really FLY.

Cheers,

Andromeda B)

EDIT: It's five years later, and things have changed dramatically.

My old web site is GONE and so are the programs "Safe Clean Utilities" and "Regclean".

If anyone needs the other programs that I mentioned in my post, please drop me a PM.

I'll try to find them for you.

Andromeda

Edited January 14, 2011 by Andromeda43

[citizeneman]

Andromeda43 thanks for the great tips, and yes it was exactly what I was looking for.

P.S.

The Windows Me defrag is great.

[citizeneman]

Ok one more thing, could someone point out the best tricks from http://www.mdgx.com/ , its kind of overwhelming. Thanks in advance.

[PROBLEMCHYLD]

The LOCK DESKTOP ICONS is relly cool.And I use all of the reg.files except for the aol 1s.

Andromeda43

And that Hoover.Bat is crucial.

Edited April 7, 2006 by PROBLEMCHYLD

[Andromeda43]

P.S.

The Windows Me defrag is great.

When I first installed Windows ME, years ago, I did a defrag after the upgrade and I was blown away by the speed of the ME Defrag program. Heck, it looked exactly like the old 98 defrag, but the Defrag.exe file is about 50 bytes smaller and the program runs about 10X faster. I guess some programmer at MS took out some of the redundancy. That program really had not changed since Windows 95 days.

Ok one more thing, could someone point out the best tricks from http://www.mdgx.com/ , its kind of overwhelming

I have not looked at that site (sorry) but all too many help sites are exactly that.....Overwhelming!

I've been to so many sites that give me a bad case of "Information Overload".

I hope that I've been of some help here without creating any 'overload'.

Y'all have a great day now, Y'hear?

Andromeda

[blindcattleclub]

Ok one more thing, could someone point out the best tricks from http://www.mdgx.com/ , its kind of overwhelming. Thanks in advance.

MDGX and his site simply goes above and beyond in providing tips,tweaks,links,dloads..U name it..And I agree with your overwhelming statement. Forget about goin click happy..browse with care and dont skip details or any README.TXT files

Backup your registry and then create a MDGX folder to keep track of all the goodies

Dloading&Installing the W95-11D file is a best bet for accessing all Files and Tips from your own PC

OR

Browse the site for your particular File wants and/or needs

My brief list of installed noteworthy files:

98SEMP10

SCANFRAG

908519FX (T2EMBED FIX)

U891711

98KRNLUP

and

I Dloaded 98SE2ME for possible future install

>98SE2ME is MDGXs' KILLER unofficial Replacements

98 SE -> ME "transplant" operations

>>USE WITH CARE

Like the Man says..Start a pot of coffee then sit back and relax

Edited April 9, 2006 by blindcattleclub

[EAT MY DUST]

Use resource hacker to mod explorer.exe and give your start button a new name and the Second Edition logo that microsoft was to lazy to design and install.

Make a copy and mod away.

You can save the bitmap icons and open them up with paint and flip the image and type "second Edition" or whatever you want.....fool your friends with you new 98 Platinum Gamer Edition or what have you.

Best to get a explorer.exe from here with 256 color icons.

Use dos and COPY to insert your modded explorer.exe

Here's one I made with windows 98 "Athlon Edition" on it.

Here's another for system performace tab

Copy and paste this to a text file and save it as something.reg and then double click it.

Then reboot and check it out.

This gives GUI 2.1MB of ram instead of 64KB on super cache setting.

Something mentioned here

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates]

@="Max Cache"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates\Super Cache]

@="Super Cache"

"NameCache"=hex:00,ff,00,00

"PathCache"=hex:ff,00,00,00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates\Max Cache]

@="Max Cache"

"NameCache"=hex:00,18,00,00

"PathCache"=hex:c8,00,00,00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates\Huge Cache]

@="Huge Cache"

"NameCache"=hex:80,13,00,00

"PathCache"=hex:90,00,00,00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates\Large Cache]

@="Large Cache"

"NameCache"=hex:a0,0f,00,00

"PathCache"=hex:80,00,00,00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates\Medium Cache]

@="Medium Cache"

"NameCache"=hex:20,0f,00,00

"PathCache"=hex:50,00,00,00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\control\FileSystem]

"NameCache"=hex:00,18,00,00

"PathCache"=hex:c8,00,00,00

Edited April 16, 2006 by EAT MY DUST

[PsycoUnc]

-yup, MDGx is GOD of 98se knowledge and power, lol!

...

-and ESPECIALLY his 98se2me project...

(you need to have the windows ME install cd handy, or at least the install cabs)...

...

-my GOD, the incredible stability and performance gains! -EXACTLY what we've always wanted/needed from good ol' win98se... his project (which he keeps updated constantly, including new ME updated files as MS releases em, + ) replaces some 710 old buggy 98se system files with newer fixed faster ME files (only the GOOD ones, not the notorious BAD "ME" system stuff!)

-check out his 98se2me thread in these forums, the guy's been doing that project for something like 6 yrs now, and it's down to an art form... an absolute MUST HAVE for 98se-lovers!

-u WON'T be disappointed!

>;]

(ps: all his tips/tweaks are great, too, but nothing compares to his 98se2me project's incredible stability+performance gains... awesome... my 98se is absolutely rock-solid and instant-fast now, and I'll NEVER get rid of it...)

...

(pps: another sweet little tweak of his: shave off 20 secs of bootup time by gettin rid of registry references to tape controller/backup stuff... talk about really ancient... w98se spends 20 secs just lookin for old obsolete tape backup/controller stuff, every boot... I've got my boot down to 42 secs now! and that's using a lousy Celeron 1.8 ghz w/only 128kb bottle-neck cache and a cheap crappy 4-yr old Matsonic MS9327e+usb mobo )

Edited April 16, 2006 by PsycoUnc

[Andromeda43]

In poll after poll, ME always comes out on top,

as the worse OS ever.

If someone gives me a PC with ME on it, I either put it back to 98/SE or I upgrade it to XP, but I never leave it in ME. I might even just dismantle it for parts.

Having said all that, I have to admit that there actually were some admirable attributes to ME.

1. It had a greatly improved Defrag program.

2. It would search a CD for a driver without you having to look for it.

3. The FDISK and Format commands in ME would set up a much larger HD than those of 98/SE.

I used my ME boot disk to set up my new 160 gig SATA drive.

If you're someone who messes around with hard drives or you just need to set up one over 40 gig's, then you should download my ME boot disk from My Download Webpage

It's there in both floppy and CD formats.

The floppy version is on a self extracting and running .exe file that will automaticly make a boot floppy for you. Floppy drive required!

The CD version is an .iso file easily burned to a CD with Nero or any decent CD burning software.

For a tech who still works on the older PC's, this is one of them "Must Have" things.

I've put everything you need to set up and maintain a 98 or ME hard drive, on the one disk, with a neat little color menu.

Look around the site. Take what you need,,,,,use what you take. Share with friends or colleagues.

Happy Computing,

Andromeda43

Edited April 16, 2006 by Andromeda43

[LLXX]

3. The FDISK and Format commands in ME would set up a much larger HD than those of 98/SE.

I used my ME boot disk to set up my new 160 gig SATA drive.

Beware of 24-bit LBA! If you copy past 128Gb (~137......... bytes) with the default driver it will wrap around and trash the FAT and boot sector!

Edit: My machine mysteriously rebooted just as a clicked the submit post button... then booted it again and it rebooted again shortly after finishing loading Windows. Third restart, seems to be working fine right now but...

Edited April 17, 2006 by LLXX