Shell 95 Update Project (SH95UPD)
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Description:

This project implements functions not found in the windows 95 shell from windows 98, allowing the users of 98lite (sleek), ROM, ROM2 to be able to once again run programs that would only work with the Windows 98 shell and not with the windows 95 shell.

SH95UPD is based on the KernelEX project.

Currently is only tampers with SHELL32.DLL, making it more "Windows 98 compatible".

This project neither requires nor includes files from Windows 98, and does not distribute any copyrighted files.

It is designed so that KernelEX can be installed over it.

Note: Installing this patch over a system without a Windows 95 shell should not have any effect.

Please uninstall any existing versions of SH95UPD/KernelEX before re-installing/upgrading.

***PLEASE READ THE README FILE CAREFULLY***

Credit goes to Xeno86 and (x).

Requirements:

- Windows 95* / Windows 98 Standard Edition / Windows 98 Second Edition or Windows Millenium Edition
- Any locale and build version

-Windows 95 shell (Any Version, but must be pre-OSR2.5)

*Windows 95 is untested.

/* EDIT 2008/12/15 */
-Major slowdown again....very busy schedule.......

SH95UPD
Homepage:
http://sg.geocities.com/liuwoonyung/SH95UPD

The latest version is v0.0.5.

Check the home page for more information and for the latest stable releases and release candidates.

Please avoid hot-linking to the files as the file names will change over time.

/* UPDATE 2008/10/30 */

-Yay! Here is a new version with 3 new functions added, minor bugfixes and code optimisations....after 3 months of no updates.

However, please continue to post here what functions that are still missing and I will try and see whether I can implement them.
Also, please DO post any bugs discovered in the latest releases and I will try to address them as soon as possible.

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Rejoice 98lite users!!!

So it's GPL too, right ?

Then check out this 3ad where i posted many interesting open source links...

Actually, I am not very sure... I am not very sure whether KernelEX's GPL licence still applies for SH95UPD, so I left it in the source code, and it does not contain any copyrighted files.

Feel free to comment on the project though, although it may not be as good as KernelEx due to my lack of experience...

Anyway, I hit a snag while programming and I think that it will take a while to fix....as it appears to be a bug in the KernelEx 0.3.2a source code (I cannot import shlwapi.dll for the functions).

I am thinking of including an "Upgrade mode".... what do you think about that?

Please post here whether there are any problems running/installing SH95UPD.

Any suggestions are welcomed.

Ensure yourself by releasing it under GPL, then !

After that, you can "grab" ideas/features/codes from other open source Windows shells, expecially this one.

...and here's a couple of open source theming links to explore (for a possible integration):

1. ShellWM, Windows skinning application to be used with a Win32 Shell replacement (like Litestep, geOshell, sharpE, etc.) or just native Explorer;
2. CustomEyes changes most of the programs graphic components: the menus, the buttons, the borders...

Last but not least keep in consideration to join the Win9x Developer team !

Does not work on Windows 95, because the Patching fails on kernel32.dll.

What version of Windows 95 were you using? (Windows 95, Windows 95B...etc) And did you apply all availiable system updates from Microsoft? What was the error you received (can you give more details?)?

Anyway, did anyone have the "Cannot Launch Program" problem after rebooting after installing SH95UPD?

I just installed SH95UPD and ! What a speed! Not just the shell is faster, but all programs!

Just one little problem...
ATI Advanced Properties Page doesn't load. I think it's because DllGetVersion is missing from SHELL32.DLL.

Hmm, good to hear that the win95 shell works for you! I am currently trying to implement functions like DllGetVersion, DllInstall, etc in v0.0.4.

Well, I think that the missing DllGetVersion function may not be the problem. As a temporary fix, try hex editing the .cpl file for the ATI Advanced Properties Page and replace all instances of shell32.dll with shell32.w98 (or the name of your Windows 98 SHELL32.dll).

Ah, the old trick from 98lite. I thought I didn't need Win98 SHELL32.DLL any more...
Will try. Thank you.

I edited desk.cpl and it works properly now.

This is the private message I received. I hope you don't mind if I answer here.

My bad english caused confusion.
It is not a separate .cpl file. ATI tabs are added to the Advanced Properties page in Display Properties. Without editing desk.cpl, these tabs do not appear and when I try to close Advanced Properties there is an error: RUNDLL32 caused an invalid page fault in
module <unknown> at 0000:7469726f.
Is there anything else I can do?

Hmm, then I think that there is nothing much that can be done about this as the flaw.

There is a seperate .cpl file for the ATI display properties (eg It is nvcpl.cpl for NVidia) which is being loaded by Desk.cpl (or Deskcp16.dll), but is most probably not being displayed due to a incompatibility between the Win95 SHELL32.DLL and the Win98 desk.cp, therefore causing the crash you observed when you closed the advanced properties page.

The file desk.cpl would most probably need to be corrected (Possibly almost impossible?), as it is incompatible with the Win95 SHELL32.dll. As a temporary fix, hex edit the desk.cpl file, replacing all instances of shell32.dll with shell32.w98 (or the name of your Windows 98 shell32.dll file).

Your English is not bad, it is just that when you said that the ATI display properties page did not work, I assumed you ment that nothing happened when you clicked on a button on the ATI display properties page.

Can you add SHGetDataFromIDListW ?
Abby FineReader 8 needs it.
Thank you.

SHGetDataFromIDListW is already in the v0.0.4 informal release as an alias to SHGetDataFromIDListA. Should work, at least for me, but let me know if it does not.

Thank you.
I didn't notice the new version.

Any usage for the shell32.dll source code ( http://www.ctuser.net/download.php?win98pr...504a_source.zip )
from this project:
http://www.msfn.org/board/Windows-95-shell...98-t120443.html
It's Flat Assembler, update the include path in line 4 and ready to compile (Ctrl+F9)

Thanks, the code may be of use, would certainly make work easier for me, but I was wondering, isn't it illegal to do a direct disassembly of SHELL32.DLL, and distribute it?

You can skip those
They are comment with W98 etc, mostly stubs and not very optimized anyway. Feel free to PM me for questions to specific functions.

You can leave those
They are comment with W98 etc, mostly stubs and not very optimized anyway. Maybe I'll replace them occasionally.
My proplem is mostly to find an application to test the apis, or write my own testing app.
Feel free to PM me for questions to specific functions.

I do not know if this problem only applies to my computer, but did anyone else experience problems with Internet Explorer 6 after installing SH95UPD v0.0.4? The button icons disappear, but the browser appears to still function properly...

Edit: I'll remove the SHFlushSFCache function, as it seems to be the cause of the problem.

I use Windows 95 C (without Internet Explorer 4 and the Active Desktop). I have all availiable system updates from Microsoft installed.

The latest version of SH95UPD works fine .

Good to know that that it works, I may even extend SH95UPD to provide Kernel updating functionality like KernelEX for Windows 95 though... Thanks to all of SH95UPDs users and testers, but there would not be any more updates until somewhere in late October as I would not have access to my terminal. Very sorry for the inconvenience...

However, please continue to post here what functions that are still missing and I will try and see whether I can implement them once I regain access to my terminal after my End of Year examinations.

LitePC (the makers of 98lite), did a version of the 95 shell for Windows 98.

It is basically a hack of the 95 shell, with win98 bitmaps, and a hack to use a renamed shell32.dll

it's called 'sleekv2.zip'.

Well, no. Sleekv2 actually causes the win95 explorer to use SHELL32.W95(win95 shell32.dll renamed) instead of shell32.dll. The shell32.dll in the SYSTEM is then actually a win98 shell32. The win95 shell32 icons are unaltered by sleekv2, but explorer now looks for them in SHELL32.DLL(win98) not SHELL32.w95(win95 shell32), and is not an ideal solution as it may cause crashes(in explorer & other programs). That's why I created SH95UPD, to resolve the win95 shell32 missing exports problem, so that the win98 shell32 is no longer needed.

Resource hack shell32 to add the win98 icons.

.

any chance you can make my computer look better? i hate those ugly old big square tool buttons!

.