Unofficial Windows 98 Second Edition Service Pack 3.66

[RandomInternetUser]

My experience from a fresh install on real hardware:

System: Gateway 2000 G6-300
CPU: Intel Pentium 2 300MHz
RAM: 128mb SDRAM (1 stick)
HDD: 5GB + 2GB (C: and D:)
Video: Mpact2 3DVD onboard AGP video (drivers were a pain to find)
Monitor: Dell 1905FP Monitor via VGA
Misc: DVD, Creative onboard sound, floppy, usb keyboard and mouse

Formatted both internal hdd on another PC because old school formatting takes forever. Installed Windows 98 SE, installed all my drivers via network share (was able to turn on SMBv1, etc), rebooted until no more reboots were needed.

Attempted 3.66 Unofficial SP3, hang at installing main. Saw 3.65 was working so installed 3.65 main, rebooted until it was done. Installed 3.66 SP3, this time it worked as stated.

Rebooting says it's missing "Enable.vxd". This didn't stop the machine from booting, just had to confirm once. Found a post from 2021 that briefly mentions it and included the file in an attachment. Copied that over and rebooted again. All is working.

I'll remove the drive and image it, then go back and install extras.

Thanks to all for their hard work on this.

[tcsenter]

Receiving a malware/trojan (most severe rating) detection in Malwarebytes and Microsoft Defender (Windows 10) for DYNWRAPX.DLL located in the compressed file SUPP.CAB that was introduced on or around release version 3.34. I searched for other cases but found none.

??

[PROBLEMCHYLD]

I would never harm anyone or their system.

[Steven W]

I wonder if V1c0 will ever come back. I found a few files while poking @ the Web Archive, I think the NT Option Pack was available in Spanish:

https://web.archive.org/web/20000510072 ... is4_04.cab
https://web.archive.org/web/20000510083 ... is4_07.cab
https://web.archive.org/web/20060509101 ... mqfixi.exe

Unfortunately, that's all I'm finding. But, it's probably out there.

[Steven W]

I would never harm anyone or their system.

Heh, I ran a bunch of old (and, yes official) Microsoft EXE files through ClamAV, many of them set it off.

[tcsenter]

I would never harm anyone or their system.

What about the author/developer of that code, a Yuri Popov from Russia? Roughly half of 75 security software vendors have flagged or detected this as malware/trojan with a high confidence score. e.g.

VirusTotal Report

Joe's Sandbox Automated Report

It's obviously not code from Microsoft or distributed in any updates for Windows. What does it do and why do we need it?

[Steven W]

I would never harm anyone or their system.

What about the author/developer of that code, a Yuri Popov from Russia? Roughly half of 75 security software vendors have flagged or detected this as malware/trojan with a high confidence score. e.g.

VirusTotal Report

Joe's Sandbox Automated Report

It's obviously not code from Microsoft or distributed in any updates for Windows. What does it do and why do we need it?

Dude, take deep breath. You posted a link that describes what the thing does:

DynamicWrapperX is an ActiveX component (COM server) inspired by DynamicWrapper, which I wrote as an attempt to better implement the idea. It allows to call functions exported by DLL libraries, in particular Windows API functions, from scripts in JScript and VBScript.

Personally I would add something after allows:

allows you
allows people
allows one
allows script-writers

I have no clue which API calls ProblemChyld uses in his various scripts, but it's not difficult to see why that could be useful. That said, it has the potential to be abused. It likely has been by other people. The ping tool in Windows could be abused. The command prompt could be abused. Scripts could be abused. Basically, Windows itself could be abused. Now, in the modern day, MS and various freaks who play nursemaid to everyone have decided that the techniques used to employ such a useful tool is bad. That's all you're looking at.

What I'm attempting to point out:

Heh, I ran a bunch of old (and, yes official) Microsoft EXE files through ClamAV, many of them set it off.

Essentially things that MS used to do / techniques MS used to employ, as a matter of course, are now getting flagged as bad/malware/viruses...
The older this stuff get, the more it's gonna get flagged. Also, Winders Defender previously would go off if you downloaded SP3 and, if you read why, it was basically labelling it 'Abandonware'. Microsoft is a fucking joke.

Also, this has been going on for a while:

viewtopic.php?p=18633#p18633

[Steven W]

Christ almighty -- That DynamicWrapperX hasn't been updated since 2008! Microsoft and the various nursemaids decided it was malware last week! Head for hills! A Russian?! A RUSSIAN! TO TEH BUNKER!

singing.gif (276.9 KiB) Viewed 44243 times

[Steven W]

@ProblemChyld and '!':

I guess I'm understanding why you didn't give a fuck last time. I've known for a while how bad and overrated some of the built-in 'protection' browsers use is. I'm beginning to see how bad anti-malware and anti-virus software has become. Heh, search for people who wrote programs years ago (some of them for their own use) upgrading to Win10 or 11 and having the stuff flagged. "reputation-based protection"

[Steven W]

Avast labels this 'PUP' - Potentially Unwanted Program
Trendmicro labels this 'PUA' - Potentially Unwanted Application

I get why they do so. Some of the labeling by others is so generic as to be useless. I don't know what else to say, so I'll just leave it at that.