Auto-Patcher For Windows 98se (English)

[soporific]

Something to look into with your scripts.

I will check it out, thanks heaps for the feedback.

[Eck]

Hi again. I guess its gonna be an end of August, early September full version?

Not wanting to deal with all the separate upgrading needed by the use of other methods, I'm just sitting back and waiting for your next full version. I'll try that. If 98SE blows up on me again I'll try a format and Gape's pack. If that blows up I'll just try again with the Maximux-Decim version of these things.

It's likely not the update packs, but some weird interaction of unknown different things I've tried to troubleshoot in the past but with only, at times, short lived success and other times, no recovery possible.

I'm not asking for help here as you'd probably need to be sitting at my system to figure it out, but just telling what I'm brainstorming about. You know of my travails! Kind of impossible to figure out exactly what causes the problems. I suppose with mass Windows 98SE usage a lot of people with similar hardware to mine would encounter the same things. In that case big companies would put techs on call to test out why they're happening and how to prevent/fix the bugs. Not gonna happen.

I'll just try installing less bloatware than I would normally do with an operating system I'd use as my main one. It doesn't look like any version of Windows will replace Linux as my main operating system anymore, just different Linux distro's perhaps. Though I seem to be loving Debian Lenny enough these days not to stray from that for too long.

I just want to replace Vista on my Windows hard drive with something I can stand to boot into. 98SE was always my favorite. I've got 250GB to deal with so I'll likely do a 98SE/XP Pro dual-boot. I'll put my bloat onto XP and use 98SE for my old games.

Which reminds me that I'll likely need to reinstall Linux too as there ain't no DriverCleaner for that and I'd like to replace my Audigy 2 ZS with my SBLive so I can get the nice VXD MS-DOS within Windows sound drivers. People on the Debian forums could likely redo the Alsa Kernel modules quick as a flash but I'm rather clueless. Don't know. I'll ask over there if I could just keep things and just run alsaconfig or something to get it to load the stuff for the different card. I have a feeling it's more detailed than that.

I must be stubborn! With all the trouble I've had I just may try this 98SE thing again.

[soporific]

Hi again. I guess its gonna be an end of August, early September full version?

Hey there ... i read your stuff even if i don't reply to it ... so'kay ... if its not completely obvious to all and sundry, my AP releases sort of exactly match the release cycle of the irreplaceable MDGx, when he gives us a swag of new updates, i usually get my act together and pump out another version. You'll notice there 'asn't been any movement on the updates front since the 18th of July (or so the thread says). And i've also got my hands full with a couple of other projects ... so i guess the next version may as well be September ... no, scratch that, i'll just end up having to release a service pack ... it'll still be August 2007. out soon ... or soonish ... or (update to MDGx's updates post + 7 days) --- also haven't checked out Gape's new baby yet ... that's going to be fun but time consuming ...

[Eck]

I see. Yeah, it's already got just about everything and you're pretty much together as to how it functions too. Unless there's a lot that's new there really isn't a point to repackaging everything again. The full one plus the update is fine.

Gape back and working on things again is great since it was his putting together a stable updater including all vital packages to install in one step was the start of this whole 3rd party forum to take up and fix what Microsoft left broken or fixed incorrectly for Windows 98SE. An open communication and sharing of knowledge between the projects can only help make things better.

While I was involved many of the other projects focused more on eye candy but I have noticed that they more often include improvements that help run XP installers and allow many newer programs to run on 98SE. I've stayed away from both in the past, even back when it was mostly eye candy and I had things working stable. I just didn't want to mess with new bugs caused by too many changes to a 98SE base system. I just wanted what was there to work correctly.

I still feel that way, especially since I just intend to use 98SE for software that was designed for it and I've always been pretty much satisfied with the standard tools and the normal themes if I wanted to change the look once in a while.

So, if I can just get your pack, 98SE2ME, Explore98.exe (your pack might already have that?) and the 98MP10 or whatever that's called now (keep forgetting the name), running fine I'll be happy.

Edit - I see in your modules file that you do include Explore98.exe. Cool. Printed that thing out so I'll know what's going in.

I got reminded of MDGx's recommended order of installation by his partial post of his readme in the 98SE2ME thread the other day. Hmm, I recall that the last time my system blew up and I gave up the ghost I had waited until installing the AutoPatcher before installing the motherboard drivers and those drivers destroyed my partition table upon reboot. Previous to that time I had always installed the Via Hyperions first thing, and while that went well something down the road would give me that Error loading device IOS real mode memory allocation failed. I would get rid of smartdrv from the Windows folder from either safe mode or the command prompt only and then it would be fixed until it would suddenly happen again and I would have no clue as to what to delete at that point. System hosed! Goodbye 98SE!

I see he suggests waiting until all is done including 98SE2ME before the 3rd party hardware drivers. Um, judging by what happened the last time I think I'll install the Hyperions first thing. I'll get all the via stuff out of the way, like the Hyperions, the USB 1.1 patch, the USB 2.0 Drivers. Then I'll run the Autopatcher and install the rest of the hardware drivers and whatever Office software I want to use, then finish off with 98SE2ME and the 98MP10 stuff.

Edit - Ah! I see you've got the 98MP10 thing in your optional Windows Media section. Hmm, maybe I'll just use that. I'll trust that it's included because it works right when your AutoPatcher installs it so maybe it's best to go with the flow.

Makes me a bit unsure what 98SE2ME will do afterwards but perhaps they're not related that much. Just some XP bits of Internet Explorer and the WMP10 things get installed by this I think.

Edit - Belay that last order Mr. Sulu! I see MDGx updated that 98MP10 again. So I'll make sure that's off in Auto-Patcher and use the new one. Whew! No stopping MDGx, eh? (Thank goodness.)

Who knows? Maybe something will be patched better than the last time I tried so the system will remain functional?

Edited August 29, 2007 by Eck

[Max_04]

This Auto-Patcher can run some risk?

Read here:

http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=42266

[Eck]

Sheesh!

Fine! Make your updates complete and have them fix what they are intended to fix. If they did those things nobody would need the 3rd party tools. As it is many updates say they install correctly but don't. And many updates are withheld and you need to call them and sometimes PAY for them.

At this point, the Auto-Patcher in this thread is not a target for removal by Microsoft as far as I know, and neither are the other packages and tools available from here or from the mdgx.com website. They specifically went after the Auto-Patcher for XP as distributed from the neowin website.

I don't think they care what is installed into Windows 9x systems. Windows Update for these systems had been broken for a while now and when it did work installed buggy patches. It was much safer to install the Unofficial 3rd party packages than to use Windows Update.

Hmm. I wonder what's going to happen to the RyanVM Unofficial XP integrator? I slipstreamed that into my XP installs for a long time whenever I installed XP.

Maybe it's another ploy to get folks to upgrade to Vista? You can't use a good updater so XP will remain broken so you'd better buy a new computer with Vista or buy it and upgrade.

Safe? If people want safe they're going to need to switch to Linux. Vista needs all sorts of 3rd party security software to be somewhat safe. Heck, Windows 98SE is safer than Vista. Well, I'm only a little bit carried away there, eh? But in some ways it is. FAT32 file systems are less software dependent than NTFS. And it's software that gets infiltrated by nasties. Direct hardware operating system control as 9x has is less prone to malicious attacks.

Yeah, I'm sure they're worried about security. (Sarcasm.) What they're worried about is helpful DRM work arounds that could possibly be integrated along with these 3rd party packs and become native to the operating system. They're not included in the Auto-Patcher (XP) but can be added by integrators. Then they might have to answer to the mighty Hollywood and recording studios as to why users are being allowed to watch movies and listen to music without their getting a cut. And heaven forbid they might be able to install copying mechanisms to backup their purchases and their software wouldn't be able to turn them off or break things with possible 3rd party patches.

I think it's another DRM thing. Not that the updaters include anything like that, but they could potentially be installed along with them and Microsoft wouldn't have a way to remove what is a protected part of the operating system.

Windows needs to be treated like a toy. You only install it to run certain personal favorites but otherwise never to be used on a regular basis. A nice Linux distro for your main system. And not one that has a deal with Microsoft.

That gives us a lot of choices.

[soporific]

This Auto-Patcher can run some risk?

Read here:

http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=42266

I've just read the FULL-ON NEWS !!!!!

Having thought about this for 10 seconds, my initial reaction is this ...

Auto-Patcher for Windows 98se will continue to be developed in the same way and same fashion as i have done so far. Nothing will change if i have anything to do about it.

I haven't received any legal type emails ... i feel left out! Where's mine?

Edited August 30, 2007 by soporific

[MichelleD]

Just got a new computer with Vista home edition already installed

Acer Aspire E700

Vista Home Premium

Intel Quad Core

2030 MB Ram

32-Bit OS

Radeon X1650

Found a lot of my Adobe Software doesn't run, or doesn't run well in Vista so I installed Virtual PC and Win 98 SE with an old Win 98 CD... it had a hole in it and still ran. Anyways I was looking for updates and found this site. Thanks for all the hard work.

I used the June auto update on the first page... I assume thats the most recent, but I can't see the last time the post was edited.

I will install July next.

Edited August 30, 2007 by MichelleD

[soporific]

Anyways I was looking for updates and found this site. Thanks for all the hard work.

i'm just chuffed you chose this thread to say hello ... for this i say thanks, and can you now please excuse me while i go and scratch another "1st poster to MSFN" on the side of my car ... i've got quite a collection but there's others who ran out of space a long time ago, so please check out any projects or web pages by messers Gape and MDGx ... and there's others as well i can't list you all

I used the June auto update on the first page... I assume thats the most recent, but I can't see the last time the post was edited.I will install July next.

to clarify:

-- the June sp2 is latest FULL release

-- July is latest UPDATE release

-- August FULL coming within the week ...

[briton]

This Auto-Patcher can run some risk?

Read here:

http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=42266

If you look at the fact that Microsoft are fully aware and in touch with sites such as WindizUpdate, you will know that they are not trying to stop "3rd party updating". Naturally, they are concerned that if they endorse/allow/ignore any sites which actually store the updates themselves on 3rd party servers (as opposed to Microsoft servers (1st Party) or the user's own storage (2nd Party), they will end up being involved if malicious code gets into the updates.

As Microsoft don't provide official support for Win98 and earlier versions of Windows (even though you can get tons of Win98 stuff from their servers which is nice of them), they are hardly likely to attempt to shutdown this kind of autopatcher site ESPECIALLY if there is never a report of malicious code emanating from here!

Conclusion? Get your autopatcher etc from the links here and not from some helpful site elsewhere.

[Max_04]

@ Soporific:

Remember also to fix loop bug with these updates:

HTMLCert

kb933566

Servic9x

I haven't solved with your corrections through email.

[RetroOS]

Something to look into with your scripts.

I will check it out, thanks heaps for the feedback.

Any discoveries regarding Q891711 (Unofficial) installing even when it's not selected?

On another note, it would really suck if M$ one day tried to shutdown Auto-Patcher 98...

[soporific]

Any discoveries regarding Q891711 (Unofficial) installing even when it's not selected?

Thanks for reminding me ... at the very least i can add a check to see if the user has the correct companion files for the update. But i will try to find out why its not working as expected.

EDIT: i found the problem. To fix your current version immediately, please do either of the following:

solution 1

- search for AUTOPACH.bat and open it in a text editor.

- search for

:RESTART3

and then scroll down until you find

echo Y> "%LOC8%\markers\@_OP0603.skp"

(make sure you are still in the :RESTART3 section of the code)

and then insert the following two lines directly after it:

echo Y> "%LOC8%\markers\@_OP0801.skp"
echo Y> "%LOC8%\markers\@_OP0802.skp"

OR

solution 2

- download the attachment, extract the archive, and replace the old file with the new one.

AutoPach.zip

Edited September 1, 2007 by soporific

[Max_04]

@ Soporific:

Few days ago I've had a new test with Auto-Patcher (ita) updated to july sp2 (currently in testing).

In this test it is been used a laptop machine but during installation of laptop hotfixes these are been skipped because for Auto-Patcher it was a desktop computer.

Do you want more details about?

[Eck]

Ah ha! So this is what Windows 98SE was like!

After some thrills and chills that I will somewhat describe in another one of my long line of book-like posts, I am posting this evening from my computer that, temporarily, has only good old Windows 98SE installed on it.

I needed to wipe out both hard drives since I changed from an Audigy 2 ZS Platinum to an SBLive 5.1 Platinum. I was clueless as to how I would readjust my Debian Linux installation to deal with that change as well as the big Windows change so I just wiped it all.

The first thing I discovered was something that was possibly the reason why a Linux Kernel boot message had always had a line that stated, "Broken Bios detected, using work-around blah, blah," that I never figured out. Apparently XP and Vista can deal with a somewhat buggy Sata controller but Windows 98 would immediately lose the partition table as soon as I installed the actual Via Sata/Raid drivers in the Hyperion set. If you'll recall that had happened to me the very last time I attempted a 98SE install. It was simply the last straw for me at the time.

98SE had run perfectly well on my now back in its retail box for quite some time Asus A7V880. My replacing that board with the Epox EP-8KRAIPRO board was both because that Asus model is known (and happened here as well) to freeze a lot when using an Athlon 3200XP and operating with 3200 SDRAM memory at the top 400MHz FSB speed. Games froze and DVD encoding froze with all the adjustments tried.

The other thing was, and was the reason I own 2 of these Epox boards, the Epox board is compatible with the SBLive MS-DOS driver's requirement for non-maskable interrupts. Hence my switching over to the Live card at this time. As long as I'm putting 98 on it I wanted the whole effect. Dos games within Windows and in MS-DOS Mode, along with the awesome sound of the old VXD Creative audio drivers.

Of course I broke a pin that comes out of the Audigy breakout box where it connects to the floppy power cable. Thank goodness it was only connected to a splitter. But that breakout box is now damaged. Wonder if I take it to one of the local Mom and Pop computer repair places whether they'll be able to solder a new pin in there without damaging the rest of the thing? I also wonder why the floppy power connectors are designed so that you need to yank them out with all the strength a human can muster. What, do they want you to break the pins? Anyway, I just switched the box with my Live Drive and put the SBLive in.

My first attempt of installing 98SE to the SATA hard drive that had contained Vista previously (and Vista just was too annoying to stick with on this old but still spiffy computer, churn churn of the hard drive, etc. Vista had already given the original drive it was on an early grave through its constant writes to it), immediately ended as soon as I installed the SATA driver. The message was that Windows requires VMM.VXD to be in the path. What that really meant was there was nothing there as the partition table was gone. I knew that from the last time so I didn't waste time wondering.

I bought a new normal ATA Seagate hard drive (nice sale at the store) and got back to work. I still (even now when most of my stuff is installed and working) wonder when I'm going to get the "Error loading device IOS, Real mode memory allocation failed" death message, but so far so good.

98's got 114 (really 110) GB of my 250GB hard drive now and I'm debating XP/Vista for the rest. Likely XP since I couldn't stand how Vista ran, but I sure hate wasting a lot of money AND I HAD PURCHASED 2 RETAIL VISTA UPGRADES!!! Oh well, maybe someday I'll use them. I'm almost 100% decided on XP. My 2nd hard drive is formatted FAT32 and empty except for the recycle folder 98 put in there. I have kept it hooked up. I hope installing Linux on it later won't mess up 98SE/XP when it erases whatever they put on there. But both ATA this time. I just deactivated the SATA controller in the Bios, which is a nice feature of this Bios. The Asus didn't have an off switch. Then again, that board's SATA worked on 98SE (albeit with no SBLive Dos support) whereas this one gets broken as soon as the driver is installed. But now there's no SATA recognized by the operating system so no driver can screw it up! Strange that this broken SATA isn't broken for XP, Linux (albeit for that broken bios message), but is for 98SE.

I used the Auto-Patcher and it worked great! Nice improvements since long ago when I last saw it. I did do the Via Motherboard Hyperions, USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 drivers beforehand. I just had to see that Windows would startup and not have a broken partition table after the driver install before I took the trouble of running the whole Auto-Patcher process. But I took MDGx's advice of waiting for all the rest of the hardware until after Explore98, 98SE2ME, and 98MP10 were installed.

The only hiccup was "A required DLL file was not found: MSASN1.DLL. This occurred 2 times and the 2nd time I took action. I think it involves running those pretty splash screens that programs have because as soon as I used System File Checker to extract MSASN1.DLL from the 98SE install cd to the Windows/System folder, the next bootup gave me the stupid music and, "EAX," announcement from the Creative splash screen that was missing before. It also got rid of, "Ctavstub-illegal operation exception in MSDXM.OCX." The first time I had the MSASN1.DLL message was at the beginning of the SBLiveware install where the splash screen with the thunderclap didn't happen. Then after the reboot and having the errors again I just did the System File Checker thing and all was solved. I think it was caused by 98MP10. But extracting the file fixed it.

The other hiccup was the old problem of 98SE2ME where the bootup afterwards left all of MDGx's lines still in AUTOEXEC.BAT. I just deleted them as everything in there had happened correctly and all 98SE2ME stuff had been installed correctly. For some reason it just doesn't always clean up AUTOEXEC.BAT when it's done. I you leave the lines there it will keep trying to run that stuff on every bootup!

Oh yes, the Auto-Patcher. Not much to report, unfortunately. It was simply perfect, except for having 891711 installing even though it was deselected. But the unofficial one installed too, so I don't mind. And I do toggle on and off stuff so any of the other choices I made were respected.

To Max_04, I went in to that laptop stuff as I did for all the potential toggles just to see exactly what they were and whether I wanted/didn't want them. I believe you can respond, while you're setting things up to run, that you want the laptop stuff installed anyway even though it detects your machine as a desktop. I answered no and it listened, but if you run it again try to specifically go to that section and allow it to detect, then answer its question that you do want them installed. If left automatic, I guess it won't install them unless it successfully detects automatically that you have a laptop. By going in there yourself it looks as though you can toggle it on anyway.

So far I don't have that destructo IOS Error message that seems to always signal the end of my use of Windows 98SE, but you can understand why I always grit my teeth everytime I start up the system! Yes, I've had that happen on any board I've tried in the last few years and not only with SATA drives. It was only the Via SATA driver install that would actually destroy partition tables while on the SATA drives. At least I licked that problem by turning off the SATA controller and using ATA drives. But the IOS error is non motherboard specific. It even happened to me on an Intel 440BX!

I gave up on the McAfee stuff. Just Avast and ZoneAlarm free (last 9x ZoneAlarm) right now, and I'll add Spybot S&S to it. Nero 7.2.3.2b installed and runs fine. MSN Mess 7.0, fine, WorksSuite 2005 plus the Digital Image Anniversary Edition, fine. Firefox, Thunderbird, Acrobat Reader, Flash, Shockwave, QuickTime 2.1.2.59 and 6.5.2, RealPlayer10 fine. WMP 9 with the MDGx 10 upgrade fine (except for my needing to extract that file). All is just running smooth! This is too good to be true.

I did need to uninstall all of Flash and Shockwave as the Microsoft suites install Shockwave 8 which substitutes Flash 7 for the nice version 9 that Auto-Patcher installs. Installing them again after all is wiped works fine. See why I said not to bother installing Flash as part of Auto-Patcher? I have to remove it all anyway.

Can this stability last? It sure would be nice!

Edit -

Oh yeah. Stupid NVidia driver and the shutdown problem. But, no wacky strange resolution changing during the 98SE startup bootsplash. So that's nice. But I can restart the computer, but not shut it down without holding the power button.

And another thing. I had thought that the old problem I had in the past of the My Computer Icon remaining the old Explorer.exe one even though the new one appears in Display Properties was back, but as soon as I installed the NVidia drivers the one on the desktop changed to the newer one. I guess that one needs better than the standard PCI VGA driver to appear? Don't know. Removing shelliconcache hadn't fixed it but when I finally got to installing the NVidia driver that did.

And, why does the right click My Computer Properties page show different amounts of memory all the time. I mean, it's jumped around from 1024 to 1023, to 1011, and to the current 1005 MB of RAM. What's up with that?

I used the Tweaks in the Auto-Patcher after initially just setting the MaxFileCache to 524288 just to keep things booting right until I got all these packs with their tweaks installed. I saw a bunce of stuff that's new to me in the Auto-Patcher's tweaks so I gave them a go this time. When MDGx's 98SE2ME added MaxPhysPage=40000 I just deleted it. No sense limiting it to a gig when that's all I'm using in the first place. Might as well leave that without that setting.

Can you explain what some of your additions to system.ini do? They're in there, but I just have never heard of some of them. Oh, when 98SE2ME changed the upper MaxFileCache limit I just left that. Your's were in the 100,000 range and his is the old 393216. I just figured bigger was better and left his in there. But what are some of the others that you put in there for?

I noticed the Auto-Patcher does its thing a lot quicker than the old days, and so does MDGx's 98SE2ME for that matter. Speed is good so no problem there.

Okay, that's it for now.

Edited September 2, 2007 by Eck