Installation, updates, general problem solving and assistance.
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Steven W
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2014-03-30 04:16 »

Okay, very soon I'm going to mess about with getting several Operating Systems going on this PC. One of them is going to be 98 Second Edition. I'd like to hear from those of you who've used 98lite and/or IEradicator. I know one of the "consequences" for this would be the elimination of the back and forward buttons in plain old Windows Explorer. Are there other consequences? Does some software "require" IE? If I use the "core files" from the 98 SE USP, how much of IE will actually be there? I figure the positives (especially security related) would outweigh the negatives -- any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Those of you who know me from MSFN, know that I'm not completely clueless about installing this old OS on more modern hardware. There is that thread about installing 98 SE on my Intel 945. Even though I'd have figured out the issue was with the hard drive eventually, I am grateful to dencorso for speeding that up dramatically. Well, this one should be even more fun (headache inducing) its more modern and has more RAM. I'm not going to put up the details just yet, as I want to attempt it entirely on my own. I'll eventually get the details out, if I get it going or run into problems I can't resolve. I will say this though, I do not plan on buying any patches or drivers. If I can't accomplish this with freely available software, it ain't gonna happen. Paying for such things just to run an ancient OS is, in my eyes, foolish.

Now, I'm going to go a bit off-topic. I can do this because ***IT"S FOOLSDESIGN!***. I've used XPlite to remove Windows Media Player from XP before. When I did, I ended up with an odd issue. When adjusting the volume using Window's Volume control, releasing the mouse would result in the PC speaker beeping loudly. Any thoughts on that issue? I'm debating removing Windows Media Player from 98SE, but I do like Windows Media encoder for doing things like screen captures et cetra. Here's an example of something I did with Windows Media Encoder (although on XP) that I think it does a really good job at:



I was demonstrating an issue with LibreOffice's toolbars (since been resolved). Windows Media Encoder is nice in that it allows me to configure it to capture a selected area of the screen and the codec, while not my favorite and a bit old, still compresses enough to result in a small file size. Do you guys know of any other software compatible with Windows 98 that meets those two criteria? A fairly common codec H264, VP8, etc, would be nice. Being able to convert other files (AVIs, et cetra) to a different format would be a bonus, although not necessary. If you know of one that 2000/XP compatible only, sing out too. I'll be looking for that in the not-to-distant future.

Scorpius

2014-03-30 15:30 »

Steven W wrote:...Now, I'm going to go a bit off-topic. I can do this because ***IT"S FOOLSDESIGN!***...

Indeed. ::thumbup::

As a side note, please post your PC specifications. Things like that are pure porn for us. :twisted:

Roksana-01-756096.jpg
Roksana-01-756096.jpg (115.89 KiB) Viewed 19718 times

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!
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2014-03-30 15:38 »

Steven W wrote:...I've used XPlite to remove Windows Media Player from XP before. When I did, I ended up with an odd issue. When adjusting the volume using Window's Volume control, releasing the mouse would result in the PC speaker beeping loudly. Any thoughts on that issue?...

Oh I know that issue. I solved it by disabling the PC speaker, the built-in speaker that is. If you go to Control Panel and go to Device Manager... in the menu choose show hidden devices, there is a PC speaker there somewhere. Disable it and that issue goes away. I think. :P

My loud beep was happening on a regular Windows but this might be the same problem you are experiencing.

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TmEE
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2014-03-30 17:23 »

The media player can stay in windows 98. Its WMP7+ that are the ones that one really doesn't need there. 6 is still present all the way up to WinXP. Just type mplayer2 in run and off you go, no need to have the bigass memory hog go on about when you want to hear something ::thumbup::

Removal of IE has always caused me endless headache, I would just leave it be. There will likely be no feelable speed difference in operation but boot will be just a bit faster without IE... but how often do you reboot ? Once a day maybe.
Lack of back/forward doesn't bother me, I remove the buttons to make more room for things that matter and have all folders open in their own windows :
Folders.png
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And for the sake of nerd porn factor :
*RUBY-9719-VG2AR motherboard
*Intel Core 2 Due E7300 (2.66GHz)
*2GB DDR2-800 (not all usable in 98SE)
*Ati Radeon X550 (massively underclocked for passive cooling ^^)
*250 + 250 + 750GB HDDs
*Two Yamaha DS2416 sound cards
*One Yamaha SW1000XG sound card
*One Yamaha YMF719 sound card
*SIL3114 RAID controller

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PROBLEMCHYLD
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2014-03-31 13:24 »

I use DIVXDECH264.AX 8.2.0.26 for Win98. It work with no problems. I also use 98lite and my system is super fast.

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PROBLEMCHYLD
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2014-03-31 13:31 »

Media Player Classic 6.4.9.1 is the only thing I use on Win98 along with the latest working codecs. I don't need anything other codecs.


CLVSD.AX 8.4.3427 [Play DVDs]
DIVXDECH264.AX 8.2.0.26 [H.264 Decoder]
FFDSHOW.AX 1.0.5.2032 [MPEG-4 Video Decoder]
L3CODECA.ACM 1.9.0.306 [MPEG Layer-3 Audio Codec for MSACM]
L3CODECP.ACM 3.3.2.44 [MPEG Audio Layer-3 Codec for MSACM]
L3CODECX.AX 1.6.0.52 [MPEG Layer-3 Audio Decoder]
LIBAVCODEC.DLL [Needed for FFDSHOW.AX]
LIBMPLAYER.DLL [Needed for FFDSHOW.AX]
VSFILTER.DLL 2.39.5.3 [Subtitles]

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Steven W
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2014-04-14 05:00 »

Okay guys, the system is a Dell Optiplex 745 Desktop (Desktop is the form factor). It has a 1.86 GHz dual core Intel processor. It now has 160 GB Hard drive and 3 GB RAM. I yanked memory and hard drive out of my old Emachines W3629 (Intel 945) and am disposing of it. I was about to post in the Hardware forum and ask if anyone had installed a second hard drive in one of these, when I looked at the case and realized the extra slot is intended for a 3.5" diskette drive. I rather imagine with a little metal work, one could turn that to an extra hard drive slot. Oh well, have an extra 80 GB hard drive now. Running a Linux Distro's Live CD for the time being, getting tired and don't wanna fuck with it.

Problemchyld, do you have any issues running a Lite'd Win 98 SE? Do you remove anything other than IE?

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Steven W
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2014-04-16 03:07 »

It ain't pretty yet, but:

Win98SE_M.jpg
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I had to put hard drive in Legacy Mode to do and I SYS'd the hard drive with a Win 98 SE Emergency Boot CD and set up config.sys and autoexec.bat. I also copied some files from the boot CD. And got my hands on HimemX:

http://www.japheth.de/Jemm.html


autoexec.bat:

Code: Select all

LH C:DOSDRVMSCDEX.EXE /D:DVD_RW /L:D


config.sys

Code: Select all

device=C:DOSDRVhimem.sys /TESTMEM:OFF
device=C:DOSDRVoakcdrom.sys /D:DVD_RW
device=C:DOSDRVaspi2dos.sys
device=C:DOSDRVaspi4dos.sys
device=C:DOSDRVaspi8dos.sys
device=C:DOSDRVaspi8u2.sys
device=C:DOSDRVaspicd.sys /D:DVD_RW


I let it run that way until it asked me to reboot, then I put in the Emergency Boot CD, rebooted and edited config.sys. Windows added a line and moved aspi2dos.sys up for some reason. Anyway the end-result:

Code: Select all

rem Moved by Windows Setup - please do not load any drivers above the following line
device=C:DOSDRVaspi4dos.sys

device=C:DOSDRVhimemx.exe /MAX=1048576k
device=C:DOSDRVoakcdrom.sys /D:DVD_RW
device=C:DOSDRVaspi2dos.sys
device=C:DOSDRVaspi8dos.sys
device=C:DOSDRVaspi8u2.sys
device=C:DOSDRVaspicd.sys /D:DVD_RW


I took out the Emergency Boot CD, put the 98 SE CD back in and you can see the end result.

Maybe worth mentioning, I had several failed attempts using UHDD.sys and UDVD2.sys with Hard Drive in Normal mode (not Legacy):

http://johnson.tmfc.net/dos/driver.html

but, they almost worked. I ended up eventually loading Windows got a bunch of error messages and end finally a message said explorer.exe crashed and was staring at a green screen with a mouse pointer I could move around.

I'm going to keep poking around and let you know what I end up finding / how it goes.

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Steven W
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2014-04-16 04:06 »

I noticed that the link for uhdd.sys and udvd2.sys have old drivers. Here are newer ones:

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stu ... /dos/ellis

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stu ... drom/uide/

Also wondering if I should be looking at uide.sys instead.

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Steven W
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2014-04-17 05:14 »

Woot! I got it booting in "Normal" SATA mode. There may be some slowness with file copies / moves / transfers. I'm not sure yet, as I need to attempt to update drivers. If there are issues, I suspect they'll be minor and at least I won't have to be in "Legacy" mode in other operating systems or have to switch the setting in the BIOS every time I want to run 98 SE.

I copied the 98 SE installation to the hard drive (not certain this is necessary). I had this config.sys until the installation asked to reboot:

Code: Select all

device=C:DOSDRVhimem.sys /testmem:off
DEVICE=C:DOSDRVuide.sys /B /D:DVDRW


note the /B switch for uide.sys, that is what I think the trick is. It's either that or copying the installation to the hard drive. My guess is that Windows / Windows installation doesn't like uide.sys's caching.

When the installation asked to reboot, I put the Emergency Boot CD in the drive and rebooted. Started without CD-ROM support and modded config.sys:

Code: Select all

device=C:DOSDRVHimemX.exe /MAX=1153024k
DEVICE=C:DOSDRVuide.sys /B /D:DVDRW


Yeah, I figured out I could squeeze a bit more memory out of HimemX for Windows 98 SE. Might even be able to do a bit more.

My autoexec.bat didn't need modded after reboot although, Windows modded the path to MSCDEX. Here it is for reference (before Windows changed it):

Code: Select all

C:DOSDRVmscdex /D:DVDRW /L:D


I know this still isn't pretty, but I'm going to keep pecking at it slowly:

dm.jpg
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Just so everyone knows, HimemX and uide.sys came from the links above and MSCDEX was copied off the Emergency Boot CD.

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