Since I'm sure that a bunch of you use or have used 98lite, I'll ask you this.

I made a clean install with 98lite, fair enough. But now the 98lite directory is a massive 122MB. Do I need all these files now that I'm through using 98lite? Can I safely delete all the files that came from the Windows cd? None of the txt-files that came with 98lite say anything about this.

I don't want to uninstall 98lite, as the manual says that:

"
Un-installing 98lite will automatically restore the following
features:

· Internet Explorer
· Internet Connection Wizard
· Internet Control Panel Icon
· DOS command Files
· Task Manager
· MS Info
· Windows Help Files
· Defrag
· Scandisk
"

First, I don't want the ones I deleted (or rather, did not install) back, but more importantly, if Windows tries to put IE 5 back in, I fear major problems, since I made a clean install of IE6sp1.

Anyone?

my 2 ¢

Last time I've used 98lite was many years ago.
It does take out large chunks of the OS, it does make it leaner and faster, but IMHO at the expense of losing features I care for.
I stopped using 98lite because I had no need for it after building a faster PC some years ago, and since then 98SE runs just fine without being "trimmed down".

As a side note, I've been doing my own "trimming", 1 group of files at a time.
For example I have successfully removed:
- webcheck.dll + loadwc.exe:
http://www.msfn.org/board/?showtopic=46066...ndpost&p=320546
- all power saving/ACPI/APM related files:
http://www.mdgx.com/newtip15.htm#MYP
- tape backup, MS backup + networking component:
http://www.mdgx.com/newtip14.htm#SUYG
and many others [+ their needed REG entries + INF files] I have backed up in zip files.

What I would do:
burn your entire OS, 98lite + all 98lite backed up files/folders on CDs.
If that's not a viable option, then try to create a Ghost or DriveImage [or whatever backup software you're using] backup "image".
Then go ahead and delete the 98lite backups.
Somewhere down the line, if u ever need to get back some of those OS components, just restore from CDs or backup image.

Hope this helps.

Those are interesting thoughts, MDGx (even though they're really off-topic). The laptop I've done this on has no CD-burner (the laptop is from 1995 or something), so the only option would be making an image. I have no experience with this whatsoever. We are going way off-topic now, but what ghost imaging software do you recommend? (They gotta be freeware, of course). Didn't 98SE come with a "system restore"-thing that I could use? I'm thinking, though, if it did, I probably removed it with 98lite ...

Khm, 122Mb with 98lite is a.. Distro? You can freely delete whole folder if you have original 98CD and 98lite installer. Its hard to separate them if they merged already.

you can delete the files once your done using 98lite to remove alot of the stuff you don't want but if you reinstall a component that was removed then the installer will ask for the 98 cd.

These are the free(ware) backup/restore tools I know of:
http://www.mdgx.com/secrets.htm#FDPT
Scroll down to:
HDClone Free Edition
SyncBack
Backup4All
Cobian Backup
SyncBack Freeware
ImageMaker
Replicator

98SE does not have System Restore (SR). SR was 1st introduced in 2000 + ME.
9x [all editions] install only primitive MS Backup [stripped down Seagate Backup] as optional component from Control Panel.

And to simply erase all files backed up by 98lite is a big mistake, because some of them are not the same builds as the ones on the 98SE setup CD [older, buggy].
I know of cases when restoring files removed by 98lite from setup CD breaks the OS.

PS:
If I may go "really off-topic" 1 last time [so u can understand why I went off topic the 1st time ]:
I don't like 98lite because it doesn't display a complete list of files it removes *before* it removes them, doesn't explain what removed files are necessary for, nor the actual risks of removing some of them.
Example:
I wasted an entire week to figure out why the main 98SE2ME batch script won't work on somebody's PC, no matter what I tried. U know why? This person used 98lite, which removed the entire C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND folder, and because of that, OS detection became impossible in batch mode [VER | FIND/I "2222" ; MEM/C | FIND/I "vmm32" etc]. And if 98SE2ME runs on anything else except 98SE it destroys the entire OS.
In conclusion I had to add all these programs [ATTRIB.COM FIND.COM CHOICE.EXE MEM.EXE MOVE.EXE START.EXE] to make it work independent of which files are removed.

Hope this helps.

Now it's getting interesting ...

First, MDGx, how can the 98lite files be older or newer than the ones on the 98SE-cd, when the 98lite files _come_ from the 98SE-cd? As you know, 98lite copies the files directly from the cd upon installation.

About that imaging thing, thanks for the links! Any idea which one(s) is/are most resource friendly for my stone age laptop?

[Edit: It seems that the imaging programs require either a cd-burner or enough hard drive space to copy the entire content of it. And I have neither. Seems as if clean install has to remain my method on this computer.]

Thanks you guys for answering my original question. I'll delete all the files that 98lite copied from the 98SE-cd then. I'll keep the 98lite program files - they are only 800kB or something anyway.

I've only had one problem following my installation. I can't play stream audio (I use IE6sp1 and WMP 6.4). It always hangs at "connecting (to server)". I believed at first that it had to do with the fact that I removed DirectX with 98lite, but I installed DirectX 9.0c, and it didn't help at all. I'm suspecting that it's because of some other feature I removed with 98lite, but I have really no idea which. Do you guys?

[Edit: Although I recognized the name MDGx from somewhere, I didn't realize that it was _the_ MDGx from mdgx.com. I feel kinda honored that you reply to my posts ]

If 98lite only removes files that can be restored from 9x setup CD, that means my experience with 98lite is probably out of date [last time I used it was 3 years ago]. And if that's true, obviously u don't need any backups.

Backup/imaging software:
any such tool needs some disk space to store its images.
I've never used any backup software, because I burn everything on CDs/DVDs, and I always use 2 hard drives, 1 to "mirror" the other.
If CD is out of question, you need either free hard disk space or a backup drive of some sort, like USB, FireWire, memory card, Iomega, Syquest, Jazz, Shark, Orb, Zip, optical, LS-120, tape etc.
Worst case scenario:
use PKZIP [ http://garbo.uwasa.fi/pub/pc/arcers/pk250dos.exe ] DOS based tool to zip up all files/folders u want backed up onto multiple floppies, which of course, will take for ever.
To learn how to use PKZIP to span onto more than 1 floppy, run it without any command line parameters:
PKZIP
from a DOS box. Pressing 2 should list most used options.
Under 9x, Pkzip 2.50 is LFN compliant.

To (re)enable/fix media streaming:
- install WMP9 and all its current patches:
http://www.mdgx.com/wmp.htm#WMP9
- if that doesn't work, make sure u don't have a HOSTS file full of banned sites in your %windir% folder.
- if that doesn't work, make sure your browser allows cookies to be read and written both ways, downstream + upstream, because most streaming servers allow u to d/l media files only after sending cookies to your computer.
- if that doesn't work, make sure if u use a software based firewall, to allow UDP, TCP and even ICMP protocol access to servers that might need to send such packets, which unfortunately is part of MS DRM scheme, used to stream copyrighted media.
- if that doesn't work, and if u use a hardware based router with built-in firewall, make sure it's set to allow UDP, ICMP, and eventually javascript + ActiveX.
- if that doesn't work, make sure u use MS IE on web sites that require ActiveX to stream media, and make sure IE has ActiveX + javascript enabled, and your Internet zone security settings are on medium or low.
- if that doesn't work, tweak WMP9 [wmplayer.exe -> Tools -> Options -> Network -> check all boxes except ports 7000-7007] to accept packets from UDP, ICMP + multicast servers.
- also make sure WMP9 allows scripts from websites: wmplayer.exe -> Tools -> Options -> Security -> check the box Run script comands when present.
- also make sure if using Google toolbar [or similar] in IE to disable its popup feature by clicking the icon at web site(s) u stream media from.

I am honored to be able to help.

Hope this helps.

- WMP9 for my use and my old laptop is bloatware, and I will not install it. I don't like the WMP that came after 6.4 anyway, so I use 6.4 also on my new computers.
- I have no HOSTS file
- cookies, yes, already made sure of that. I use the "override"-function.
- firewall, yes, i even tried it without loading the firewall. Had no effect.
- no hardware firewall here.
- I use IE6sp1. All Active-X and Java functions are set with "prompt" in custom level security.
- the WMP9 suggestions don't apply, of course - I stick with 6.4
- no pop-up blockers in my browser at the moment.

As you can see, I really don't have any idea why it doesn't work. I use 6.4 on my other PC's without issues, so don't tell me to get WMP9. I bet it has something to do with 98lite ...

As I said I'm out of the loop as far as 98lite is concerned.
If you think 98lite is the culprit, why not try to restore the IE files?

Hope this helps.

try the media player classic 6.4 the new one on mdgx site. and kick your tower twice u never no.

Since 98lite removed the installation of IE5, and I made a clean install of IE6sp1, I fear that putting IE5 back in will mess things up badly.

Check Mime types entries in the registry. These are for mp3.
Export these sections from the registry of one of your working boxes,
and import into your 98lite box.

If you're looking at saving a partition I use savepart(that's the executable's name) from http://www.partition-saving.com/
I've never used ghost but I'm guessing it's quite similar. I've used this for 5 years now and it does the job. One problem... it's free . Hope that's okay.