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GoogleEarth on Windows 98!


kristobal

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fwiw & fyi...

~I updated from v81.98 to v82.16 and GE still works okay, but the shutdown protection error is still there too, as well the Sachs SereneScreen Marine Aquarium still won't display correctly. Otherwise the drivers work fine for 9x and add more card compatibility.

~I then updated to MDGx driver version hoping for that to do better, but actually GE won't work with it and the protection error was still there as well Sachs still won't display right, otherwise the driver worked well and I saw the few extra settings besides what coolbits functionality we had before..

~To confirm I went back to my original v77.72 drivers and now no protection error and Sachs works fine again, but GE won't work just like originally.

I haven't decided which way to solve this little drama yet - but I'm done with for the week now..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now dtamonis this may interest you since you brought it up before about DirectX verses OpenGL on GE, and you know you had something there which I did not catch at first and I did try it, but I see that changing that setting to run GE on Directx Will let it work okay and log on with like for example with my v77.72 drivers installed, although it is true it doesn't render quite as fast, but yes it does work, and so if you can't get yours started to try that, if that's your problem, then use this info below and make you own reg file in notepad and you can set it to DirectX before you even open it... I've confirmed it works.

...this will turn OpenGL off and turn DirectX on GE on!

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Google\Google Earth Plus\Render]

"RenderingApi"=dword:00000000

Alternately this turns it off and sets OpenGL back on.

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Google\Google Earth Plus\Render]

"RenderingApi"=dword:00000001

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After I typed my above post I see now dtamonis you posted a new post about kmz files, which is just and icon file btw, and I don't know why it's prompting you for that non-issue.

More importantly do you get Protection Errors when you shutdown you computer with v81.98 drivers installed?

I'm back to v77.72 drivers at the moment, and I can now fully run GE with the DirectX setting turned on as mentioned above, and everything else works fine too unlike with the newer drivers.

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So far, I only shut down my computer once after installing the drivers. It was a normal shutdown, with computer turning off by itself. I downloaded 81.98 drivers from Nvidia's site and installed exactly like described in the text file: first changed the adapter to standard VGA, rebooted, then pointed to the inf file via "Have Disk", rebooted again.

Now, I answered my part and I want to know how kmz files open at your end :) I didn't quite understand what you meant by icon files (probably you referred to kmz.ico and kml.ico files in GE directory), but kmz files are files which show various paths, areas and other things overlayed on the map in GE. In particular, I want to use this file, which shows lightning strikes in Europe nearly in real-time (and updates itself every minute). But when I try to open it, I receive the above error, and it's the same with every kmz or kml file that I tried. Can anyone open kmz files on win9x?

BTW: I'll keep in mind that registry trick to switch modes, thanks.

Edited by dtamonis
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Yes I get the same error as you on 9x but realize in context GE was not crafted to work on Wn9x and you won't be able to use many of the extra features on it like you can in W2K/WXP. kmz files are in essence zipped kml files that when GE is installed on 2K/XP knows how to extract/process and bring you to the target. Your Blitzortung.org fancy projects can not be properly seen on Win9x, however yes I can open them in 2K/XP and see it okay. However for W98 you can rename the kmz extension to zip, and then unzip them and the resulting doc.kml can on 9x ..sometimes.. be navigated, however your Blitzortung.org needs the full install of GE on 2K/XP to function properly afaict. I can see when tracking the install on either W2K or WXP that there are literally a thousand registry entries tied to itself besides the regular ones auto created when we do what we do by manually placing on Win9x and starting it - and so the hundred CLSID entries and the two hundred Interface entries, and more, that are not properly associated on 9x and so their functions are not active - and is why you can't use GE on 9x to it's fullest extent.

You can use GE on W98 for standard searches and creating placemarks and making your tour just fine, and then saving your MyPlaces (myplaces.kml) to view your tour at anytime. GE is best used on W2K/WXP and is where I mainly use it myself really; I just enjoy playing with W98 at times too.

Bottom line - GE v4.0.xxx works on W98 but with limitations, and is certainly not supported.

That's my take on it..

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FWIW I can open and navigate this kmz file without problems with both GE 4.0 and 4.1 on Windows ME.

I must say though that I have installed GE 4.1. It's an MSI installer now in the exe. It has been quite easy to hack it with Orca so that it does install under ME.

Edit : OK I have uploaded a working msi installer for Google Earth 4.1.7087.5048 for Windows 9x. The ANSI version of atl71.dll and the hacked base.dll and googleearth.dll are included in the zip.

http://rapidshare.com/files/43381739/Googl...n98-ME.zip.html

Edited by eidenk
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Hey eidenk thanks for working the installer, nice work.

Yes it does install on W98SE, and I see it installs the full registry needed for everything to work jusk like on 2K/XP, however unfortunately it won't actually run on W98SE when you try to start it - I just tried it on two different boxes, and it does the same thing it did before for v4.1 which is pop up these two errors straight away..

errorswi8.gif

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Oops I forgot to include the hacked GoogleEarth.dll in the zip. I'll reupload a package in a few minutes.

Edit : Allright, I have updated the download link in the original post with a package which also contains the hacked googleearth.dll. Let me know if everything is OK now.

Edited by eidenk
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Mmmh I thought I had hacked it but I didn't in fact. Did the install a few days ago. Here it apparently works with the unhacked file because of KernelEx that is installed on my machine.

Sorry about that guys.

I have hexed that function now and reuploaded again a package. Hope it will work on your machines now.

http://rapidshare.com/files/43381739/Googl...n98-ME.zip.html

Edited by eidenk
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After downloading, I didn't install the whole thing again, just replaced the dll. It still displayed an error. However, I installed KernelEx and now it works and opens kmz files :) It's my happy day today, thanks :) Actually, it's past 3AM and now I'm going to sleep. But thanks again :)

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OK, I had to hex another function in googleearth.dll and it seems to work now in a virtual machine without KernelEx installed so hopefully it is now working on any 98/ME system.

http://rapidshare.com/files/43381739/Googl...n98-ME.zip.html (previous links updated)

Edit : I have noticed a little problem with opening kml and kmz by double clicking them in explorer. It launches the installer instead of opening the files. Merging the registry file below should fix it. I'll include it in the zip if you have the same problems as well.

REGEDIT4

REGEDIT4

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Google Earth.kmlfile]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Google Earth.kmlfile\shell\Open\command]
@ = "\"C:\\Program Files\\Google\\Google Earth\\googleearth.exe\" \"%1\""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Google Earth.kmlfile\DefaultIcon]
@ = "C:\\WINDOWS\\Application Data\\Microsoft\\Installer\\{407B9B5C-DAC5-4F44-A756-B57CAB4E6A8B}\\_2B2C7EB3_CABE_4D93_A602_E713B4B70BF9,0"

REGEDIT4

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Google Earth.kmzfile]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Google Earth.kmzfile\shell\Open\command]
@ = "\"C:\\Program Files\\Google\\Google Earth\\googleearth.exe\" \"%1\""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Google Earth.kmzfile\DefaultIcon]
@ = "C:\\WINDOWS\\Application Data\\Microsoft\\Installer\\{407B9B5C-DAC5-4F44-A756-B57CAB4E6A8B}\\_4D974FE5_6550_4B16_A023_891582A344B2,0"

Edited by eidenk
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Yes it does install better now, it's not flawless as you pointed out, but nevertheless it does work. Thank you eidenk for your hours of efforts. Nice job.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I found out some important things about GE today 'not related' to the work you have done.

I've come to notice issues with GE on W98SE that I may have not realized before, where before I always copied my dbCache.dat , dbCache.dat.index & MyPlaces.kml saved from my own touring operations on W2K/WXP over to Win98SE everytime and then I just watched the tour, but this time in playing with your install I did not do that and started with fresh caches allround. I soon found out (for my 2 test setups anyway) that GE may seem to work just fine, but when it comes to you actually going somewhere on a tour I soon noticed as it downloaded data it left undownloaded data areas (blurry areas) randomly on whatever portion of the map I was looking at, and on zooms in seemingly random places it would not finish downloading final data to clear it up leaving portions blur'd (no the issue is not related to video drivers) This does not happen on 2K/XP so there must be more to running GE 'properly' on 98 than I had realized.. On successive tests I even installed the KernelEx to see how that was and yes it did let the install process work better for v4.1, but here too it does not solve the poor imaging operation of GE on W98SE that I just mentioned ..again this is on my setup(s) and so as always, ymmv.

I've been using GE ever since it came out years ago and at that time I first installed it on my W2K partition... iow in time I've become fairly familiar with GE and how it works which is great on 2K or XP, but I've now come to realize that for me anyway, unless it's a transferred cache already made up, the touring and it's overall data cache imaging ability as compared to 2K/XP is very poor.

I think I will just let it be as is working fine on my W2K & WXP partitions, but leave it alone for W98SE

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I soon noticed as it downloaded data it left undownloaded data areas (blurry areas) randomly on whatever portion of the map I was looking at, and on zooms in seemingly random places it would not finish downloading final data to clear it up leaving portions blur'd (no the issue is not related to video drivers) This does not happen on 2K/XP so there must be more to running GE 'properly' on 98 than I had realized..

Yeah I experience this issue as well, it's quite annoying.

Edited by eidenk
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