Cairo and Win98?

[SFan00]

BTW Would also be nice to know if there is a location where

all the Windows98 'offical' updates are, so that I can put these

into my 98SE install from clean....

[LLXX]

You can try the Kernel Update Project in the service pack forum...

But if I were you, I'd just find some other software. I stay away from any software that requires extra libraries.

[CLASYS]

BTW Would also be nice to know if there is a location where

all the Windows98 'offical' updates are, so that I can put these

into my 98SE install from clean....

That all depends on what exactly you mean by "official". The unofficial 98SE service pack is primarily derived from official MS updates, placed all together in a way that makes it easy to appy them, or so goes the theory.

In a few cases, some have been "synthesized" due to MS's lack of any true support for 98SE for literally years, virtually from inception. [And don't think that XP support currently is all that good either! There are literally HUNDREDS of unfinished fixes for it currently!] In recent several years, support seems to be to always mention 98, 98SE, ME, and then point out the way that they bamboozle you into NOT providing an update at all. [And sometimes to irrelevantly mention the 9x systems in situations that don't even apply!] For the most part, the code was written and it does appy to 9x, but the provided updates are in a form that checks for and rejects attempts to install in 9x, but if that check weren't there, it would work perfectly fine! Thus, synthesized updates based on the original MS code get the job done.

In a still fewer number of cases, MS releases only work on ME for no good reason at all. By using the "innards" of the update, it can be applied to 98 or 98SE without problem. The restriction to ME is erroneous and apparently the result of an overzealous manager dictating MS policy in contradiction to company policy. [Note: 9x support ends, or so it seems, in July. However, it once was true it ended in 2003, different months for different systems, but all the same year. At a time clearly in the previous year, this a-hole manager declared 98 and 98SE obsolete but not ME. Clearly he is totally wrong! Circumstances changed still later to make him even more wrong.

To date, no one has yet updated the installer packages of these updates to correct these problems, but the official packages are vital security updates quite needed. The unofficial SP provides them if you don't want to tackle the problems of the "official" updates, etc. But these would be on the list of updates to be synthesized eventually. Just that the ones that are harder to install are more important. This means ones where you have to manually patch in files while running from DOS as opposed to something you can do totally from Windows itself, just not the minimal way you expect to run updates typically, etc.

The active players [my lowly self being one of them] of the 98SE project have been gathering up the underlying updates, and various people have packaged them in various ways. You could consider this a collection of "official" updates. However, there are known problems:

1) Some "official" updates have "official" bugs! Yes, they are official and are non-functional; their installers are broken code never fixed! In some cases, this means that you have to apply them in a certain order, or at least avoid certain known defective interactions of order, etc. [The unofficial SP avoids much of this because it uses its own composite mechanism based on what's in the updates to apply them as an aggragate, thus avoiding the problems.]

2) Some of them are just plain broken! You need to judiciously appy PARTS of these updates because the non-broken parts are beneficial, and is better than to ignore totally the broken update.

3) In one sore case, someone, presumably a noob at MS, designed an update in a manner inconsistent with all other updates, creating pointless compatibility issues and actually non-functionality in certain circumstances.

A user on this forum has created an alternative that applies the typical way MS does these things, totally straight-forwardly instead of the bizarre "official" release. His non-"official" version works perfectly fine, the way you woud EXPECT MS to have done it, and avoids all of the consequential bugs, etc.

4) Some updates exist, but never packaged stand-alone, such as you must accept a package you might not even want in the main. But as a side affect, it applies a beneficial "official" file update. But since MS never packaged them separately, there isn't an "official" update to merely apply the fixes, not the superfluous packaged app. The SP applies them as miscellaneous improvements to relevant system files, but cannot attach them to a particular update, other than make reference to the package they came from. Some of this includes such as Win2K server provides 98/98SE apps complete with these sort of fixes to system files considered as a mandatory portion of the app.

[Here's a specific one not in the SP, but none-the-less totally official: If you use an app derived from the WinXP official CD, you can apply UPnP to 98 or 98SE just as it exists in ME and XP, and just as broken! Once you have done this, you need official updates to correct these problems. In one case, Windows Update currently correctly points out your need for the update which they can provide.]

The unofficial SP also has OPTIONS that go beyond merely adding in the updates, and you can argue about their unofficiality, but just about all of them are check-off items and can be prevented; most users don't want at least some of these frills. None of them introduce bugs, just predictable alternative behavior or cosmetic look changes, etc.

Additionally, the SP, by adding in all of them at once, has the added benefit of not loading down the system with file or registry bulk that would accompany installing all of the updates, and this might be of concern to you. This is part of why MS creates SP's in the first place, to effectively erase all of the cumulative overhead of the updates/hotfixes by wiping that part of the slate clean at each release of an SP, etc.

Many of these "official" updates have "official" overhead associated with cached files [to be applied on a subsequent reboot] or seldom-needed uninstall file overhead you likely wouldn't ever care about. [There are a few crap cleaning programs that can rid you of some of this overhead, but better to have never had the crap in the first place!]

Lastly, Windows Update offerings define "official" for some. Problem is, Windows Update itself "forgets" many of the updates historically it had. I am not referring to cumulative updates merely offering the latest and greatest, I mean non-cumulative updates that fell through the cracks and are now lost - well lost to Windows Update!

Windows Update seems to run more like a "popularity contest" for updates, the older ones get forgotten about, even though the fix is just as necessary as ever. And some are security updates too! Generally lacking a replacement [which would be fine if so, etc.]. [Note: This is also true about Windows Update and XP, perhaps more so than in the 9x cases!]

I would suggest you carefully think about just how "official" you want to be!

cjl (contributor to the 98SE unofficial SP, currently Ver. 2.1a)

[eidenk]

Latest stable build :

http://kent.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge...2.2-1.win32.zip

Runs normally.

Current stable build :

http://kent.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge....43-2.win32.zip

Crashes in pango.

Current Beta

http://kent.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge...re4-1.win32.zip

Runs but there is a problem with the font display which makes it quasi unusable.

PS : all the big runtimes it uses are contained in Inkscape folder or its subfolders. There is no need for installing GTK or Python separetely to run it.