Auto-Patcher For Windows 98se (English)

[michael123]

Signed up just to say I used your autopatcher and think it's great. Thanks for all the work on this!

[soporific]

I got my answer under the wrong quote...

So I repeat it:

I have put the new AutoPach.bat in, in place of the old one, and also Manual_Start.bat.

No matter if I run the latter or Startpch.bat, I always get: "Bad command or file name".

I also tried running %COMSPEC% /E:2048 /C "C:\AUTOPACH\CODE\AUTOPACH.BAT" C:\AUTOPACH

from DOS, with the same result.

I suppose that there is a problem with memory handling under Win98SE and DOS in my desktop. Even though I have essentially the same settings in CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT on both computers. If I in SYSTEM.INI leave out MaxPhysPage under [386Enh], Win98SE doesn't boot. If I set it at MaxPhysPage=40000 (which appears to be the maximum accepted), it boots. I tried MaxPhysPage=3C000 (1 GB, using only the first RAM bar), and that was OK. I tried MaxPhysPage=20000 (512 MB) and then Startpch.bat reported that there would be too little memory to run it! But in the lap-top I have only 64 MB RAM... and that works...

One of these days I'll try taking out the second 1GB RAM bar and leave out MaxPhysPage, but I would be surprised if it would help...

One more thing I may try later, not expecting much from it, is this. Just a wild guess. Since I run Win98SE and Win2000Pro in dual-boot, I also have a neat application "MountEvereything 3", which allows Win98SE to both read from and write to NTFS. Thus Win98SE works as a "boot CD on the harddisk" for Win2000. This is a main reason why I wish to have both (it is rarely but sometimes useful for doing something in Win2000, one very simple example: If a file refuses to be deleted in Win2000, being "in use", I can delete it from Win98SE, it can also be useful for certain forms of patching experiments). Who knows how much memory that application uses... I may try to uninstall MountEverything and run Auto-patcher, and then reinstall MountEverything. But again I would be surprised if that works.

Does anyone have any further advice?

Thanks for taking time for meJE

I've run out of ideas --- i tried to install Windows 98 on a Pentium D and it wouldn't install. Yours is a funny one because you got yours to install but you seemt to be having similar problems. I just don't know what else to suggest.

Signed up just to say I used your autopatcher and think it's great. Thanks for all the work on this!

Thanks for the feedback! Glad to see this project draws people to MSFN, a similar thing happened to me.

Edited February 6, 2007 by soporific

[soporific]

Looking through AutoPach.bat, I see you're checking for DUN 1.4 presence by %windir%\msdun\msdun98.cat. One glance and I noticed MSDUNSE.INF in the same folder ...

With regard to Autopach.bat I think you're referring to v1.7 code (i haven't got a copy at hand to check) --- v1.8 onwards already has 2 changes:

* there is now only one routine to check for DUN --- before my code was directing to 2 locations

* I don't use msdun98.cat anymore because its possible the user un-installed DUN at some stage which still leaves msdun98.cat behind. However, MSDUNSE.INF is deleted if un-installed and so the code now simply checks for its existence. I think this should be enough as i think in 99.99% of cases, either the user has installed the latest DUN update or they haven't. Does anyone know how likely is it that the user has a different version of the DUN update on their computer? I ask as I have no idea if one even exists.

EDIT: there is also code for DUN in MainCode.bat but it is not used by any routines anymore. I should delete it from the next release to avoid confusion.

PROGRAM CHANGES: I have disabled the 3rd party apps module because the utility I was relying on to process the code is being problematic. I need a utility to be able to search through all directories to find a particular file. I was using LOCATE.COM but i'm having problems with it. It is reporting that the file isn't found when it should be saying the opposite. The only app inside the module was 7-zip so its not the end of the world or anything. Well, maybe if George Bush gets his extra 900 billion (!!) for the war in Iraq it may just be ...

The report function has also been improved - it was reporting too early into the install routine, some hotfixes weren't going to be installed but the report said your computer was missing those updates. How stupid is that? The user isn't interested in what was NOT going to be installed, only what's missing that WAS going to be installed. This has now been fixed.

Edited February 6, 2007 by soporific

[soporific]

Drugwash: keep digging away, this is really good that someone is verifying my code.

v1.91 is now out

- report function fixed

- report function improved (you will get 2 less "missing" updates)

- other small changes (see first post change log)

[Drugwash]

I was referring to AutoPach.bat 1.90.02, the update that broke the report and... you get it.

I hope you added the missing :MISSING routine in the new version, otherwise there would be some "bad command or file name" when the script doesn't find ASET.EXE, GETVER.EXE, NSET.COM or any of the main batch scripts (AutoPach, MainCode, Run-Mod).

I even started to draw a flowchart for AutoPach.bat, but I got tired after a few hours and also my machine was complaining about too low memory when trying to save it (31MB bitmap). Ask and you shall receive.

That said, let's check on the new version...

P.S. One more thing: don't you dare call for IEXPLORE.EXE directly. Ever! Some users keep IE only for its core, while having other applications that need it and/or a browser front-end to it. IEXPLORE.EXE may very well be blocked in the firewall settings. So better search for default browser setting and launch that one.

I really hate apps that launch iexplore.exe directly.

Edited February 6, 2007 by Drugwash

[allesok]

I got my answer under the wrong quote...

So I repeat it:

I have put the new AutoPach.bat in, in place of the old one, and also Manual_Start.bat.

No matter if I run the latter or Startpch.bat, I always get: "Bad command or file name".

I also tried running %COMSPEC% /E:2048 /C "C:\AUTOPACH\CODE\AUTOPACH.BAT" C:\AUTOPACH

from DOS, with the same result.

I suppose that there is a problem with memory handling under Win98SE and DOS in my desktop. Even though I have essentially the same settings in CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT on both computers. If I in SYSTEM.INI leave out MaxPhysPage under [386Enh], Win98SE doesn't boot. If I set it at MaxPhysPage=40000 (which appears to be the maximum accepted), it boots. I tried MaxPhysPage=3C000 (1 GB, using only the first RAM bar), and that was OK. I tried MaxPhysPage=20000 (512 MB) and then Startpch.bat reported that there would be too little memory to run it! But in the lap-top I have only 64 MB RAM... and that works...

One of these days I'll try taking out the second 1GB RAM bar and leave out MaxPhysPage, but I would be surprised if it would help...

One more thing I may try later, not expecting much from it, is this. Just a wild guess. Since I run Win98SE and Win2000Pro in dual-boot, I also have a neat application "MountEvereything 3", which allows Win98SE to both read from and write to NTFS. Thus Win98SE works as a "boot CD on the harddisk" for Win2000. This is a main reason why I wish to have both (it is rarely but sometimes useful for doing something in Win2000, one very simple example: If a file refuses to be deleted in Win2000, being "in use", I can delete it from Win98SE, it can also be useful for certain forms of patching experiments). Who knows how much memory that application uses... I may try to uninstall MountEverything and run Auto-patcher, and then reinstall MountEverything. But again I would be surprised if that works.

Does anyone have any further advice?

Thanks for taking time for meJE

I've run out of ideas --- i tried to install Windows 98 on a Pentium D and it wouldn't install. Yours is a funny one because you got yours to install but you seemt to be having similar problems. I just don't know what else to suggest.

Signed up just to say I used your autopatcher and think it's great. Thanks for all the work on this!

Thanks for the feedback! Glad to see this project draws people to MSFN, a similar thing happened to me.

Hi again!

I think the Microsoft report 253912 "Out of Memory Error Messages with Large Amounts of RAM Installed" sheds some light on this. I tried the "Workarounds" mentioned, except replacing the RAM bar with a 512 MB one. None of the two other workarounds, nor both together, solved the problem.

There is one trick to install Win98SE on a computer with a large RAM. Take RAM-bars out until you have max. 1 GB RAM. Install. Put the other RAM bars in again. This worked for me. But then it could happen that if you change something essential in CONFIG.SYS it will again not boot and you would probably again have to go through taking out a RAM bar and putting it back in... This happened to me when I added NOEMS to DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE V", so I left that entry out again. You should also add "MaxPhysPage=40000" under [386Enh] in SYSTEM.INI (under DOS with the Editor if Win98SE doesn't yet start), and preferrably also "MaxFileCache=514288" under [vcache]. I have now manually installed all the updates in the Auto-patcher, one by one. Tedious, but what else can I do... By the way: Does Win98SE2ME overcome this problem? Does anyone know? But I suppose you should use the Auto-patcher before you do SE2ME.

In the old days you were happy to have 128 MB RAM... My old laptop, on which I first experiment with these things before applying them on my new desktop, has 64 MB. I tried to put in 256 MB, but then there was no way to make the swap file work! When the RAM was full nothing more worked... The swap file stayed empty. The laptop manufacturer suggested to uninstall Win98SE, put the bigger RAM in and reinstall, but I didn't try that yet. Could it be that a similar thing is happening here? I will have to investigate it...

In my other and newer laptop I also have Win98SE and Win2kPro in double boot (but I didn't yet try Auto-patcher there). There I first had 512 MB RAM, and Win98SE still didn't install. I found a way out how to do it. Later I added another 512 MB RAM bar, and Win98SE still booted.

I installed Win98SE as normal. It did install but the computer wouldn't boot in Win98SE, but gave an error message about some VXD file (I don't remember which one). I installed again, over the first installation, but this time with a switch: "setup /p i". At the DOS prompt write: "X:\setup /p i", where X is the CD-ROM drive letter. Then it worked.

One thing is obvious: Win98SE has trouble with big RAMs. But it seems that many new computers (or many mainboards) are to-day "Designed for Windows XP"... whatever that means... Does it mean that that is another reason why Win98SE is hard to install? Do the manufacturers have a secret deal with MS so that people will HAVE to buy newer OS-es, too, when buying a new computer? Well, I'll switch to Linux one day and in any case XP would be the very last MS OS I would ever install (which I haven't done yet), NEVER Vista...

So I will never buy a computer "Designed for Windows Vista"...! Beware!

Have a nice day everyone!

JE

Edited February 7, 2007 by allesok

[Eck]

allesok,

Greetings!

Heyyy, now that's interesting that you kicked a startup problem by using setup /p i. For those looking in, that installs 98SE as a Standard PC without ACPI support. Another trick for those that WANT ACPI and are sure that the motherboard supports it is to use setup /p j. That forces ACPI support. I have one old computer that had a bios date older than Windows will let ACPI install automatically, even though the original HP system software was setup with ACPI. If I use the recovery cd then it has ACPI, but if I install from a retail 9x cd then I need to use setup /p j to get ACPI. And that board needed it as without it if I installed a videocard to replace the onboard the system would turn off the USB ports. Oh, they would be active and "working properly" in Windows but nothing would be powered or detected if plugged in. With ACPI, it didn't exhibit that problem.

When I played with installing XP on that board (an HP Pavilion 4430(US) with a SiS5598 chip) it didn't even let me force ACPI, no matter what I selected with the F6 option during setup. If I didn't let it install as a Standard Computer it would blue screen when setup ended saying that it was doing that to protect my system. Since Standard Computer left me with no ability to install a videocard, XP was out of the question. That onboard video was just too slow. It's kind of a peppy system with something like a Voodoo 3000 PCI in it.

But your comment interested me because when I use 98SE on my current system it always automatically installs ACPI support, but also always then reports 2 device errors for 2 ACPI Holder for PCI IRQ Steering devices. Everything works, but I have eventually encountered a problem. At some point after a restart after any random software is installed, I get a blue screen (actually a dos black screen) regarding an error loading device IOS, real mode memory allocation failed.

Perhaps I'll try installing as a Standard PC (setup /p i) and see if PCI bus steering is enabled and working properly. It always reports that it is when using ACPI, but it gives those two device errors and eventually craps out. I found that renaming or deleting smartdrv.exe in safe mode fixes it temporarily, but then at some point the IOS bootup error happens again with me having no clue then how to fix it.

I think I remember that I did install twice using the p i switch on another board. Once, it said that PCI steering was disabled due to an unknown problem, but the second time IRQ steering was enabled and working properly. I don't recall whether I got the IOS bootup error on that board when using standard pc. I know I had the error when using ACPI though. I seem to always wind up with that error on 98SE these days. Except on VMWare.

Oh well. Perhaps some time soon I'll try it on this board (the EPOX in my signature) and see what happens.

Too busy playing with Linux now to bother with it but eventually I'll have the calling!

[2Turtles]

Hello Hello

just coming over from my own post/prob which has been solved and where I offered to guinea-pig my new hard drive and fresh 98se install since I'm all backed up and fearless at the moment

I tried to use the Auto-Patcher Beta and heres what happened:

First PowerArchiver (6.1) wouldn't extract it (got the rar from softpedia) I've never had any probs with the prog anywhere else and been using it for couple years - don't know what it means or if it matters to you just passing on the info - anyshoes I downloaded winrar and it came out with that one just fine.

I put the files in C:\windows\AuPchB on my current (albeit old) running fine system

I tried to run it on my current set up from the dos box I got "bad command etc.." this is what I typed:

C:\WINDOWS\AuPchB\STARTPCH.BAT

Then I restarted in dos-mode from the start menu - same error

Next I bootdisked to dos and tried again - same error

C:\WINDOWS\AuPchB\STARTPCH.BAT

Since my current system has all kinds of programs, updates, patches etc I went ahead and formatted my new drive, put on a fresh 98se and tried again - exactly the same thing happened.

I also copied the files to my d: drive and tried from there but same error

It's very likely that I'm doing things wrong or missed some crucial steps, if so I'll be happy to correct my errors and do it again if it would be of help to know how things goes on well-worn vs a spanky-new system.

I have no problem getting my system up the way I like it so I'm not asking for personal reasons - if guinea-pigging this machine serves no useful purpose for anyone I won't be insulted if my offer is passed up - I'm not dumb but this is certainly not my realm so i don't want to waste anyones time needlessly

Please post a step by step if you want me to try again - here's the exact lines I typed in dos and the exact response

a:> c:

c:> cd windows

c:WINDOWS>cd aupchb

c:WINDOWS\AUPCHB\>startpch.bat

bad command or filename

bad command or filename

bad command or filename

bad command or filename

all 4 attempts produced the same thing, with the exception that the time I chose "restart windows in dos-mode" from the start menu it did this

c:WINDOWS>cd aupchb

c:WINDOWS\AUPCHB\>startpch.bat

bad command or filename

bad command or filename

bad command or filename

bad command or filename

windows is restarting...

Sorry I couldn't give better feedback, I really wanted to be of return service because this place really helped me out - cheers all!

[Drugwash]

Thanks for trying. I'm afraid you missed a very important step that might have been mentioned in the first post: you need to download the full v1.8 first (~233MB), download the 1.91 beta update, run the 1.80 installer that will unpack the files to a folder of your choice and then manually unpack the files in 1.91 on top of the freshly unpacked 1.80 (overwrite everything).

The installer will create a desktop shortcut that shall be used for starting the actual program. First recommended step would be to choose reporting from the auto-patcher menu, to see what it detected. If you know for sure of any of the modules reported as not installed as being installed, please let us know.

On a second run you may choose what to install or just choose "fully auto-patch". When all operations finished (many reboots will be involved), it's recommended that you run the report again and compare the report results with the options you chose to install. Please report any mismatch - that's the idea of testing it.

[soporific]

P.S. One more thing: don't you dare call for IEXPLORE.EXE directly. Ever! Some users keep IE only for its core, while having other applications that need it and/or a browser front-end to it. IEXPLORE.EXE may very well be blocked in the firewall settings. So better search for default browser setting and launch that one.

I really hate apps that launch iexplore.exe directly.

OK OK I will add a check to make sure that the file exists, I will see if there are better alternative browsers to use, I will even make the earth spin backwards to save Lois Lane, if that's what it takes to please everybody. Just try not to use words like "dare" preceeded with phrases like "don't you" -- you sound like a nagging mother when you do that!

v1.92 has been released.

Change log for v1.92:

- you get a message explaining what's going on if you try to run the beta upgrade without installing the main program first.

- nothing else is different so if you have 1.91 working then stick with this until the next release.

[Drugwash]

Welcome back! For a while I thought some croc made himself a new belt out of your skin.

Quote: [...] you sound like a nagging mother when you do that!

More like a father, I'd say... He-he... I like people with a good sense of humor, coz I got lots of it.

BTW, that part with spinning backwards to save Lois is one of my favorites throughout the story. I like to think there are still people who would do that; this world needs some good things going on, for too many bad things have been happening lately.

Back to our "business": I noticed quite a lot of fallbacks to :ErrChoic, which frankly could be avoided; it's pretty silly to abort the program just because the user pressed a wrong key in some menu.

And still :MISSING was not present in 1.91; didn't get to download 1.92 yet, will do after posting. But if "nothing else is different", then the issue is still there.

And I still need to build that testing machine, darn it...

[EDIT]

OK, I got in the mood for playing, so I modded StartPch.bat and AutoPach.bat a bit. Please have a look, maybe you'll like what I did.

The zip also contains an old report and a new one, freshly created with 1.92.

First off, I think the report is missing the version of the Auto-Patcher that created the report. It may be useful for comparison. I added that in the modded AutoPach.bat.

New updates that appeared as uninstalled:

- kb929969: Hotfix for Vulnerability in Vector Markup Language (was it added recently?)

- Unicows: Layer for Unicode version 1.1.3790.0 (correct, was replaced by some stupid app with an older version)

Updates previously reported as uninstalled, now apparently installed:

- kb918144: Unofficial Hotfix for various issues in the Jet 4.0 data engine (not sure if I ever installed this manually, recently)

- DirectX9: DirectX 9.0c (October 2006) (correct, I manually installed December2006 recently)

- q314941: Hotfix for Vulnerability in Universal Plug 'n' Play (reported as not necessary as UPnP is not available on my machine)

- q301540: Unofficial fix for bug in Installable File System Manager (reported as not necessary as there are no zero-byte INF files on my machine)

- 7-ZIP: 7-Zip 4.42 (file archiver) (correct, as third-party apps were pulled from the auto-patcher)

Edited February 10, 2007 by Drugwash

[2Turtles]

I'm not dumb...

Maybe I'll take that back

Okay so I did what you said and this time all worked well - (on my current system which is "well seasoned" and has been running fine) There are things reported as not there that are in fact there...

I know these are on here:

- DirectX9: DirectX 9.0c (October 2006)

- 48BITLB2: Unofficial Update for Drives over 137gb (for IBM portables)

I definately have this!!

- NPUpdW98: Unofficial Update for Windows Notepad

If this means "Metapad" then it doesn't see it

(it actually opened the report in Metapad)

- Win982Me: The core of Win98-to-Me by MDGx

If this is the bit from SP2.1a that spiffs up things I have it on here, if it's the whole

shebang where you need the ME disc then I do not...

There are other things that seem familiar from my own Update kit but I

can't be sure (like MDAC and VB6 entries) because I have VB6 sp5 but may not be relating in the proper context - my files still have the numbers on them from the original download-

So for example the "Shutdown" one looks like this to me - Shutdownsup4756US8.EXE but the report has q239887: Windows 98 Second Edition Shutdown Supplement - it could be the same one but I'm definitely not the one to say so LOL! (the bold is all I added to the original file name so I'd know what it was for, the numbers I left exactly as they were downloaded from microsoft)

My kit has 48 files from microsoft, I could zip it with the report if you'd like to compare? As for the SP2.1a files well I couldn't say if auto-patcher detected those proprly or not the best I can offer is to type beside the things I know I don't have at the moment like "Net Meeting" or IE6 or WMP or Dial Up Networking because I don't use them.

I'm going to go run "patch everything" on a clean install but first I'll do a report and see what it says is missing from a virgin environment compared to this one.

[soporific]

Back to our "business": I noticed quite a lot of fallbacks to :ErrChoic, which frankly could be avoided; it's pretty silly to abort the program just because the user pressed a wrong key in some menu.

Yeah I agree. Originally it was to notify me to an error in setting up the choice function, but why should the USER suffer for my coding bugs ... I'll still notify about the error, but the program will try to continue.

And still :MISSING was not present in 1.91; didn't get to download 1.92 yet, will do after posting. But if "nothing else is different", then the issue is still there.

And I still need to build that testing machine, darn it...

OK let me put this one to bed ... you are referring to making sure that vital program components exist and coding for situations where they are missing? ie all the files in the BIN directory? This is actually what v1.92 checks for to determine if v1.8 has been installed ... I will implement this fully in the next release. If this is not what you are referring to, please enlighten me

OK, I got in the mood for playing, so I modded StartPch.bat and AutoPach.bat a bit. Please have a look, maybe you'll like what I did.

Thanks, i'll check it out. And I'll also review your latest findings --- thanks heaps for this, you're making a real difference in the development - i'll have to elevate your honour roll status now

Okay so I did what you said and this time all worked well - (on my current system which is "well seasoned" and has been running fine) There are things reported as not there that are in fact there...

I know these are on here:

- DirectX9: DirectX 9.0c (October 2006)

- 48BITLB2: Unofficial Update for Drives over 137gb (for IBM portables)

I definately have this!!

- NPUpdW98: Unofficial Update for Windows Notepad

If this means "Metapad" then it doesn't see it

(it actually opened the report in Metapad)

- Win982Me: The core of Win98-to-Me by MDGx

So for example the "Shutdown" one looks like this to me - Shutdownsup4756US8.EXE but the report has q239887: Windows 98 Second Edition Shutdown Supplement - it could be the same one but I'm definitely not the one to say so LOL! (the bold is all I added to the original file name so I'd know what it was for, the numbers I left exactly as they were downloaded from microsoft)

Glad to see you got it working ... and thanks very very much for reporting the inconsistencies. I promise to address every single one ...

re 4756US8.EXE and q239887 -- I go by the kb article number for naming the hotfixes - 4756US8.EXE is the file for the update referred to in q239887

- I just recently changed the code for checking for the existence of this update - it looks like it was a mistake to do so. I'll reveiw the code yet again.

re DirectX 9.0c (October 2006) --- I'm pretty sure i got this one right, the code checks for the existence of d3dx9_31.dll which should be in the %windir%\system (ie c:\windows\system) directory. This file only exists in the October 2006 package and is not in any of the other Direct X installation packs, so if you don't have it that tells me you most likely have an earlier version - maybe August 2006? -- but I could be terribly wrong about this. Maybe. --- How about running the DirectX module by itself and see if the October 2006 update installs, and then do it again and see if Auto-Patcher thinks it is installed. If if it doesn't, then my code is wrong.

re - 48BITLB2: Unofficial Update for Drives over 137gb (for IBM portables) --- do you know there are 2 versions of this update? The other one is the 48BITLBA: Unofficial Update for Drives over 137gb (not for IBM portables) --- what you report doesn't make sense because if you had 48BITLB2 installed you SHOULD be reporting that you DON'T have 48BITLBA: Unofficial Update for Drives over 137gb (not for IBM portables) installed. And, just out of interest, do you have Windows 98 installed on an IBM notebook or laptop?

re NPUpdW98: Unofficial Update for Windows Notepad --- no, this is not related to MetaPad (an app of which i'm aware of) -- this update fixes a bug when there's more than 64kb of text. I was just about to point you towards my Complete list of updates for Win98 but it wasn't on the list! It's now there. Go here for more info

re The core of Win98-to-Me by MDGx -- i'm sure about this one as well. The code checks for the existence of user32.dll (4.90.0.3001) -- if you have an eariler version of this file, then you don't have the core of Win98-to-Me by MDGx as I offer it. The only problem that could exist is that the report function fails to report that this update is missing when in fact it is, ie you could have user32.dll (4.90.0.3001) but for some reason none of the other two files in the update. But you are reporting the opposite. Please check the file version of user.exe (4.90.0.3001) and also explorer.exe (4.72.3612.1700) and report back.

[2Turtles]

Well I'm Back, here's the skinny:

From the virgin machines initial report there are a few oddities:

These were not found on my patched machine, but apparently found (as in they weren't reported as missing) on the virgin which had nothing on it when tested... curious

- kb918144: Unofficial Hotfix for various issues in the Jet 4.0 data engine

- kb904706: Hotfix for Vulnerability in DirectShow

- kb925672: MSXML 4.0 SP2 Update

- NetFrame: Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0

After a 37 minute update from v1.91 to do everything (taking into account that I didn't install IE6, WMP, I have no modem/dial up, and opted out of the tweaks section) there remain 26 updates not found/installed but I'm not sure if they should have been:

The following list of updates were not found on this computer:

18:20:06 -- AutoPatcher has started compiling the report.

- q239887: Windows 98 Second Edition Shutdown Supplement

- q329115: Hotfix for Certificate Validation Flaw Vulnerability

- kb816362: Hotfix for Bug in Mshta.exe With Multiple Modal Dialog Boxes

- kb886677: Unofficial Hotfix for DBCS Corruption in MLANG.DLL

- kb888113: Hotfix for Hyperlink Object Library Vulnerability

- kb891781: Hotfix for DHTML ActiveX Control Vulnerability

- kb905495: Hotfix for Vulnerability in the Windows FTP Client

- kb908519: Hotfix for vulnerability in Embedded Web Fonts

- kb913433: Hotfix for Vulnerabilities in Flash Player

- kb918439: Hotfix for Vulnerability in ART Image Rendering

- HHUPD141: Unofficial HTML Help 1.41 Update

- RunHelp: Unofficial HTML Help Expired Security Certificate Update

- un924191: Unofficial MSXML 3.0 SP7 Update

- kb929969: Hotfix for Vulnerability in Vector Markup Language

- W98MP10: MDGx's WMP Replacements from WinME & WinXP

- kb920670: Unofficial Hyperlink Object Security Vulnerability Fix

- UShell98: Unofficial Fix for Bug with Windows Explorer and numerous large files

- MMC12: Microsoft Management Console 1.2

- NetFrame: Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0

- NetMeet3: Microsoft NetMeeting 3.01

- SysPolEd: System Policy Editor for Windows 98se

- VBRUN100: Visual Basic 1.0 Runtimes

- VBRUN200: Visual Basic 2.0 Runtimes

- VBRUN300: Visual Basic 3.0 Runtimes

- VBRUN400: Visual Basic 4.0 Runtimes (16 & 32 bit)

- VBRUN500: Visual Basic 5.0 sp3 Runtime Files

18:23:06 -- AutoPatcher has finished compiling the report.

I have many cheers and only one cringe after trying it, first the cringe...

Something altered my screen and it is a truly ugly task bar grey (as in the entire background) with red and white checkered dots outlining the taskbar itself - the spiffy ME look never took and the ok 98 has been eliminated... FYI it looked fine through all reboots right up until the win 98>ME module part ran (I took notes so I wouldn't screw my feedback up )

On the Beauty side:

I like the language/comments on the initial setup screens - it will make a difference to not so tech savvy folks in feeling comfortable using the update. Why? because it feels like a person helping you along and reduces the "novice intimidation factor" 10-fold. Simplicity and a little sense of humor go a long way towards putting people at ease - I think you did a great job of that - intentional or not

Ditto on the DOS box screens - they're a little bit more intimidating if you're not used to them but seeing things like your 3, 2, 1 countdown is an effective reminder that at the core it's a person behind it all, not some scary unknown entity.

IMHO the batch files info is just right - I like an idea of what's going on, but as my understanding of things wouldn't benefit from more info, and I imagine tech people already understand what's going on so they'd like faster - I'll vote just right

I found it logical and easy enough to follow - everything was pretty straight forward. All the choices were good to have - easy to make - a very well laid out application!

May I offer this observation (only because there are so many people who could use and benefit from Auto-Patcher) the option to "toggle the choice" is good... unless you are working with english as a new or second language - the definitions for toggle are many, and even dictionary.com lists the one this is intended as in the 7th position - and still not all that clearly. I know people can just figure it out for themselves, but you did design this with a spirit of helping and upgrading to make a good thing better - so it couldn't hurt to give an english term a little "hotfix" for the folks who might need it too

Maybe "Press the appropriate key to toggle your choice between "Install" or "By-Pass"

Just a thought, by no means a criticism or a demand lol! Anyway I think it's great so far even though it didn't quite work for me - I'll give it another go if you'd like me to try something else - I have a day and a half left before I'll have to transfer this system to the new drive permanently, after that I won't be able to risk the stable setup as I'll be on a shared system with no backup for a few weeks.

cheers!

ps almost forgot - it did see the 48lba patch on this old system, what it didn't see was the 48lba (for the ibm portable) I missed the bracketed bit when I read it the first time, sorry, sorry

[2Turtles]

greetings...

"re DirectX 9.0c (October 2006) --- I'm pretty sure i got this one right, the code checks for the existence of d3dx9_31.dll..."

you were right, I must have the earlier one as that file was not in my system folder

-When installed by auto-patcher it was found correctly

"re The core of Win98-to-Me by MDGx -- i'm sure about this one as well. The code checks for the existence of user32.dll (4.90.0.3001) -- if you have an eariler version of this file, then you don't have the core of Win98-to-Me by MDGx as I offer it"

again you are right, I have user32.dll, user.exe v4.10.2231 from sp2.1a

Unfortunately it seems that when I let auto-patcher install 98-to-ME I get the evil grey breakdown - the sp2.1a works fine on here and it gets all prettied up...

Extra info: since I don't use the things I mentioned in my previous post it wasn't a complete test for you, so I re-ran Auto-Patcher on the virgin install and let it fully-automatically install and update everything available in the program(IE6, WMP, dial-up, TweakUI et. al) then ran again to see what it detected.

-when it put dial-up on there were numerous files reported as being replaced by older versions than what i had already on here - so I took note of the ones being replaced and then let it overwrite it to see the difference, ie:

original: msafd.dll 4.10.2223

replaced with: msafd.dll 4.10.1998

There were 11 files that were over written in this sequence, I think this may have happened because other updates were installed before the dial-up thingy since I didn't install dial-up during the original 98install purely out of habit. (I did write them all down if you want specific names)

Near the end there was one more version conflict overwrite where configmg.vxd v4.10.2222 overwrote v4.10.2225 - I presume this had to do with the install order as well (mine not yours)

At the end of letting it go full-auto there were still files not found, but you would know better than I if they should have been found;

The following list of updates were not found on this computer:

22:43:35 -- AutoPatcher has started compiling the report.

- EnabMenu: the Enable Boot Menu tweak

- Perform: High Performance Tweaks for Fast Computers

- WMEncode: Windows Media Encoder 7.1

- W98MP10: MDGx's WMP Replacements from WinME & WinXP

- LC3codec: Unofficial MP3 codec for WMP9 & WMP7 from WinXP WMP10

- UShell98: Unofficial Fix for Bug with Windows Explorer and numerous large files

- 48BITLB2: Unofficial Update for Drives over 137gb (for IBM portables)

- MMC12: Microsoft Management Console 1.2

- NetFrame: Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0

- NetMeet3: Microsoft NetMeeting 3.01

- ieak6: Internet Explorer 6 Administration Kit

- SysPolEd: System Policy Editor for Windows 98se

- ChgOwner: Username & Organisation Name Change Tool

- VBRUN100: Visual Basic 1.0 Runtimes

- VBRUN200: Visual Basic 2.0 Runtimes

- VBRUN300: Visual Basic 3.0 Runtimes

- VBRUN400: Visual Basic 4.0 Runtimes (16 & 32 bit)

- VBRUN500: Visual Basic 5.0 sp3 Runtime Files

22:46:13 -- AutoPatcher has finished compiling the report.

Hope it's helpful,

Cheers folks