Installation, updates, general problem solving and assistance.
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Steven W
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2015-01-13 00:39 »

Why the hell would they want the opinion of Solicitor General? The law is the law and their job is to interpret and/or apply it. This county is going to Hell in a hand basket. We'll probably end up with even more fucked up laws.

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PROBLEMCHYLD
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2015-01-14 00:44 »

Do you still have the msgames.cab file? If so, can you send it to me. Thanks

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Steven W
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2015-01-18 23:48 »

Heh. Well, tried replace the 3 files mentioned, but thought I'd try replacing them with updated versions. I got comctl32.dll from Microsoft's 50comupd.exe and shell32.dll from Q313829.exe. As for Explorer.exe, let's just say I got a version patched for the 256 color icons. Now explorer.exe won't load. No worries really, I have the originals backed up.

One of the things I used to delete from Windows 9x was the old Program Manager. I thought it was kind of valueless on a 9x system. After running in to Explorer.exe not loading through either my stupidity or causes unknown, I've come to reevaluate my opinion of it. Changing the "shell=explorer.exe" to "shell=progman.exe" in the System.ini can be a Godsend.

no_explorer.jpg
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Such is life. I will keep on tryin'.

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Steven W
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2015-01-19 00:00 »

While I'm here thinking of it, the old Windows 3.1 File Manager would be something nice to have in circumstances such as mine. They did put out a Y2K update for the thing:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/ ... WY2KUP.EXE
WFWY2KUP.zip
(105.38 KiB) Downloaded 564 times

Might be a nice thing to add the the Unofficial Service Pack. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. :lol:

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Steven W
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2015-01-19 02:01 »

Keep in mind that I installed 98 SE, applied most of the Unofficial Service Pack and am now trying to remove IE and go back to the 95 shell. I copied the files from the 95 CD and had to extract and copy another -- comdlg32.dll. It's now bootable and doesn't give error messages, but a lot doesn't work. Right off the top of my head, some programs refuse to run, much of the Control Panel stuff doesn't work and when I right-click on an empty spot on the desktop and choose Properties, nothing happens (that's really a Control Panel extension). Anyhow, I'll try to keep posting here as I work through this. Had to use Firefox 2.x, as Opera wouldn't load. :smile:

Here's a fun screenshot:

95_98.jpg
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Okay, back to workin' it! :wave:

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Steven W
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2015-01-19 06:16 »

A brief update:

I got w95powertoy.exe and installed it's cabview files, because I lost the ability to open CAB files as folders. Also reinstalled tweakui, because that was non-functional. During installation of each, if the computer reported a newer file was on the drive I kept it. In addition to all the files mentioned before, I copied notepad.exe, write.exe and wordpad.exe to the hard drive. Knew those would be problems from the CNN link show previously. I got Opera to work I ran it's setup and chose the remove option, delete its folder in Program Files and its profile folder (forget where that was at the moment). I reinstalled and it wouldn't open giving an error regarding profiles, but in its main folder there's a file, operaprefs_default.ini, and if you edit the line 'Multi User=1' to 'Multi User=0' it runs again. Anyone using 9x as a multi-user system, unless not at all concerned with privacy with those their sharing it with, is a damned fool.

I've also cleaned up a bunch of stuff, some files, some folders. Found folders with a server relating to IE somehow and old stationary for Outlook Express among other things. One thing I found a bit odd was the fact that if you delete a folder, you don't see it in the recycle bin, instead you see the files that were in the folder. Did Win95 do that by default?

I cleaned some registry entries regarding Favorites, Temporary Internet Files and Cache (IE related), but still have much work to do there. I also see that somehow a 0-byte file named Favorites was created in the Windows directory that I can't seem to get rid of. Also thinking that Mplayer2 needs to go.

This experience has brought back some memories of running Win95, I had forgotten that you don't have the right-click context menus on the Start menu without the IE shell integration. I'm also remembering why I used to put a shortcut to Explorer on the desktop instead of having to deal with that crippled My Computer BS. Those "panes" make for less pains.

Anyway, as for the files I deleted and the obligatory screenshot:

More_panes_less_pain.jpg
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Don't mind the mess on the desktop, that'll get cleaned eventually.

P.S. As for the request regarding Windows 3.1's File Manager, nix that. I forgot about WinFile.exe

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Steven W
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2015-01-19 16:51 »

Access to all items (I think) in the Control Panel have been restored using Comctl32.dll and Shell32.dll from the Windows 95 Y2K update. I got a couple of error messages on boot, I think Avast anti-virus crashed.

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PROBLEMCHYLD
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2015-01-20 02:06 »

Winfile is already in SP3. Thanks though. Why not use 98lite?

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Steven W
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2015-01-21 01:20 »

Yeah, I finally noticed that WinFile was there. As for doing this by hand...the know-how would be nice.

I haven't completely failed in this as Windows is functional now, but think I'm gonna start from scratch as I've gotten a couple of ideas. This little program has come in handy:

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

Pointed me to removing Shdoc401.dll and a registry entry needed to completely remove shell integration. I kept having some IE related files/folders keep reappearing, although they would appear inside the C:WindowsTemp folder. Specifically IE's cache (Temporary Internet Files) History, and Cookies would appear there. I'd find desktop.ini and index.dat files there. I'm thinking killing IE's checking for revocations might be good to do before starting this. Finding the files responsible might help too.

I also can't help but wonder how thorough 98lite is. Does it really remove IE, or just remove enough of it and mask the rest? Then there's some of the updates from MS too. Even for Windows 95 was the same file(s) provided for both those that did and did not install shell integration? Was some "functionality" not used if you didn't have the integration? That seems a likely scenario. Perhaps MS is right -- you can't fully remove IE.

By the way, I did reinstall IE 5.5 SP2 without the shell integration.

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Steven W
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2015-01-22 02:51 »

Just rediscover an old program called Revenge of Mozilla that removes IE. I'll say this, the results look very thorough. I don't think this really had anything to do with Mozilla.org.

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