Feedback? Well, I just used Autopatcher again! (Yay!)

Unpluged the XP drive (so I can go back to it with no hastle) and installed 98SE.

Not taking my own advice, I didn't install Gape's pack. After all it is old and since Autopatcher contains nearly everything and no obsolete stuff I figured I try it.

Before Autopatcher -

Windows (well, that's needed).
Made the usual 386Enh changes in System.ini, Vcache, fixed VM size, Network Server, 4 digit date, Power always on.
W98 Resource Kit Full and System Policy Editor.
98 Plus! Pack with just the themes, screensavers, and Lose Your Marbles.
Via MB, USB drivers
IE6SP1
DotNet 1.1, 1.1 SP1, DotNet 2.0, 2.0 Security fix.
Direct X 9.0c with Software Rasterizer extracted to it. (Don't think I need the SR but who knows, can't hurt.)
ATI WDM and Catalyst 6.2 for 9x
ForceASPI 1.7
Dialup Networking 1.4, then uninstalled Virtual Private Networking and the VPN linked Network items.
Uninstalled CdPlayer. (Not useful with WMP there.)
WMP7.1 without Adaptec, WMP Bonus Pack without Audio Converter, WMEncoder 7.1, WMP9
Drivers for Via Ethernet, M-Audio Revo 5.1, Best Data External Serial V.92 Modem, Apollo USB Printer, HP Scanjet 3970.
Works Suite 2001 with only Works and Word2000, Works Suite 2005 with all except Word 2002. Office2000 SP2, Works 8.5 update.

Autopatcher, selecting to install the whole thing now.

After Autopatcher -

Web Folders update from your exe in the manual folder.
MDGx Unofficial IE 6 SP 1 Cumulative DLL update (superseeds 918899 which should be obsolete).
MDGxUnofficial 891711, MDGx Unofficial WMF update and his reg file which still didn't set them up so Windows Update thinks they're installed. (They uninstall the ones in the Autopatcher.)

MDGx 98SE2ME, 98SE2XP, and the WMP 10 for 9x.

System now screwed! (Well, it was then. I fixed it.)

What happened was I first noticed that although Display Properties shows the newer My Computer icon, only the old one remains on the desktop. That I have no idea how to fix. The only one to select it the new one but applying it doesn't change it from the original default 98SE My Computer desktop icon. I searched and found 3 Explorer.exe's on the system. The one in the System folder and one of MDGx's backup folders are identical versions, and one in another MDGx folder is a different version. The newer one is the one in the System folder. I didn't want to mess with it. I like the older one if no other icons are changed anyway. I have a Windows Me theme if I want to apply the color and newer icons.

Second, and really messed up, an error message about powerprof.dll appeared at startup. When I opened Control Panel I got another message and noticed only a single Toolbar with Windows XP icons on it. No Title Bar, just the XP icon bar. Weird. 98SE2XP hadn't given me any XP icons in the past, or messed with the toolbars, or caused errors.

Windows Media Player would open with an error message that -

"The file wmplayer.exe had a version number of 9.0.0.3250 where 9.0.0.2980 was expected. Windows Media Player is not installed properly and must be reinstalled. Do you want to install the Player from the Microsoft Web Site?"

Oy Vey!

I uninstalled the WMP 10 to 9x update and rebooted. WMP had same error. 98SE2XP would not uninstall with an error about not finding a file. So I reinstalled 98SE2XP and then I was able to uninstall it. I then uninstalled the Fraunhoffer WMP 10 Codec that Autopatcher had installed. Then I reinstalled WMP 9 on top of itself. Success! I then applied all the updates in the Autopatcher's Windows Media module except the WMP 10 Fraunhoffer codec.

Since I was meek I just installed the Cyberlink mp3 PowerPack Encoder (it does the same thing, and I bought it long ago). When I tried to play an mp3, WMP gave that error about not having the codec. So I quickly installed ZoneAlarm and plugged in the Ethernet cable. On line, WMP downloaded and installed the normal Advanced Fraunhoffer mp3 codec and mp3's played fine.

The rest is not any matter. Just the rest of my stuff!

Okay. I don't know what's wrong but I think I should be seeing the newer My Computer icon, as 98SE2ME installs that and it DOES appear in Display Properties. Just not on my desktop. Previously, when I had been installing Gape's pack first, all his icons remained. When I ran the first Alpha Autopatcher I didn't install Gape's pack first and your small version of 98SE2ME just changed the My Computer icon correctly to the new one. THIS time, 98SE2ME in the Autopatcher didn't install ANYTHING. And, the latest MDGx 98SE2ME left the original icons on the desktop but the new My Computer icon in Display Properties.

Secondly, I haven't had any problem with the 98SE2XP before. And in the last several months there has been no problem with the WMP10 for 98SE either. Could the WMP problem be due to one of the Microsoft updates being applied before installing the WMP 10 thing? And also, that mp3 codec perhaps shouldn't have been installed before installing 98SE2XP or the WMP 10 update as those install the same codec.

I can only suggest there that you don't include the mp3 codec in the Autopatcher. It's easy enough to install from a seperate download and could possibly interfere with the other 2 packages.

The good news so far is I haven't had that Error loading Device IOS Real Mode Memory Allocation Failed message yet. Yet. I'm holding my breath.

very comprehensive feedback, thank you very much

but what was your system like at THIS point? Because you say your system was screwed at the end ... then we would be testing your particular system with all the unofficial update packs and we can't really know which one is causing fuss. Can we really make many conclusions with these results? ... but we can still make some. And that is that I can't see the connection between the problems you've reported (esp. the one about powerprof.dll --- that file does not exist within any file in the autopatcher package) and autopatcher functioning ... i'm not saying there isn't, just that it doesn't really help ...

What I did to test autopatcher (AP) was to try it out on a clean vanilla install of Windows 98se, but I also tried it out after installing all the service packs, which helped pin down what was missing from AP. But really, the most AUTHENTIC way would be to install all the official updates from MS you want to, and then try autopatcher. Maybe make a report before and after running AP ...

The other thing to remember is the AP is just that an AUTO patcher ... its just installing the updates listed, in only a few places is there any modifications to the official method of installation. So if there's a bung update included in AP we need to root them out --- I've already fixed the problem with installing the q322656 hotfix, because it was pointed out to me... I've simply packaged the proper file and its installed after the official one.

But all feedback is good so thanks a million, you're the best!!

I'll move it from automatic to optional install and I won't make it default when you choose to fully autopatch. Problem fixed, so its staying in! -- this is the sort of feedback we need, little things like moving the XP codec from automatic to optional will make a big difference for some. Please keep the suggestions coming...


Just think autopatcher for Windows XP and you'll get the idea of what it wants to be when it grows up.

Eck:

AFAIK, the official explorer.exe is in %windir% only (usually C:\Windows). I suggest you remove any other copies of it from your system (rename or delete them) and only place the appropriate one (the one with the newer icons, if that's what you want) directly in the Windows folder (%windir%). You'll have to do that in DOS mode.

@ Eck
you should always install 98SE2XP/98SEMP10 last after 98SE2ME
Also when ever you update one of these packages
you must uninstall in order for things to work good.It worked for me and i just finish a clean install

This has been removed from AP
These should already have been fixed. Please check these are right when v1.7 is released.

This should be right already:
- checks for %windir%\system\jscript.dll ver 5.6.0.8831 - sometimes I pick the wrong file to check for but I'm very very sure I got the right file this time. Please check the file version of jscript.dll on your system and report back.
- both have now been fixed
This is still outstanding
Of course!

Thanks PROBLEMCHYLD, and that's what was done. Sorry for the long post that could confuse!

Yes 98SE2ME, 98SE2XP, 98SEMP10 in that order. With rebooting after each rebooted just to be sure. But the last 2 there was what screwed things up. As I said I'm now running without them. Just 98SE2ME, which was fine except for the My Computer icon staying with the old one on the desktop but the newer one somehow being the default choice in Display Properties, but not applying for some reason.

Drugwash,

I'll take a closer look at the Explorer.exe that is active and the other 2 in the MDGx backup files. I was too crazy from all the installing and updating to take a good careful look at things at the time.

And, soperific, no experimenting on this system at the moment as it looks like it may be able to stay. In that long post I did state that the problems were fixed after I managed to remove 98SE2XP and 98SEMP10.

Incidently, I fixed the MSINFO update caused error with the Internet Explorer information being blank in System Information by extracting that problem file using System File Checker. After a reboot all the information was back.

So, I do suggest that the unofficial MSINFO fix be taken out of Autopatcher until that file is set not to be replaced with the newer, buggy one in the update. Well, it's a choice. I guess you could leave it for now as the rest of the update is a security patch? And we'll deal with that problem file manually. Up to you!

No critisism's here. System was messed not by Autopatcher, but by some combination of Autopatcher and the 98SE2XP and 98SEMP10 programs. For some reason, when I had been using Gape's pack first then Autopatcher those updates hadn't caused the problems. I'll just live without those 2 until it can be figured out why it happened.

Extremely pleased with the progress of the Autopatcher! Even though I did install a few things first it saved a lot of time and the system's running fine so far. And that's the whole point. Make things GO!

Errr, I added the patch for Shell Icon Cache size increase myself. Did it before the Autopatcher ( I think. Starting to forget!). Was that thing included in the Autopatcher? I didn't notice it in the long list of stuff it installed.

I've started investigating what to install with regard to visual basic runtime files and I want some feedback before going ahead with coding ....
Q1 -- is it worth offering v1-3 ?? I remember a very long time ago needing a vb3 file but that was in the last millenium it was that long ago.
Q2 -- should I offer the rest as an all-in-one package? Or should I split it up into their individual versions.
Q3 -- where can i see more info about v7 and above?

Any help much appreciated!

EDIT: well, I know its only been a few hours, but Ive gone ahead with coding the VBruntime 6 pack into AP --- I've decided to put it into the Critical & Recommended System Updates module. I suppose the alternatives would be: the Optional components module, or the system stability module. Any other suggestions or comments?

I always stick vbrun 1, 2, and 3 into the system folder and usually use MDGx's vbrun6SP6 FULL to get that installed. There used to be a comctrl (?) update that also patched 2 files after SP6 but I think MDGx's latest already includes that.

I thought you had VB6 in the Autopatcher so I didn't install it myself this time. Am I missing out on anything? It's possible that programs that need it will include it in their program setup, but I do think it would be a good idea to include it.

Always getting confused between that and Visual Studio 6. Heh. I'd really rather not deal with those files myself.

Put 'em in. Get 'em patched. Make it all automagic like! I love it.

Soon it'll be as easy to get 98 set up as it is XP! For that I use RyanVM's stuff and make a new XP cd when he comes out with a new update. Don't always wind up using them but it's always nice to have a fresh XP cd with all the latest updates already integrated.

I agree with having them all in one pack. After all, the files are not that big (around 1MB each or so) and there still are applications that do not provide them optionally. I'm thinking about gdiplus.dll being added, as it's needed by some newer applications (I know for sure some of Miranda IM's modules need it).

However, you will have to pay attention to VC2005, because that one is a lot different than the previous ones: it creates %windir%\winsxs with a few subfolders and installs its stuff there instead of %windir%\System. While VC6/7 can simply be dropped in the System folder even without registration, the VC2005 files will never work that way.

Also a good idea might be upgrading RichEdit (riched20.dll) to 5.30.23.1226, as it may be needed by recent applications. Personally I tried to use a more recent version of it (5.40.x.x and 5.50.x.x) but I found them to be faulty regarding a few functions while testing in Miranda IM, so I had to downgrade to 5.30.x.x, which is working fine for me.

Speaking for myself, I think the biggest, the supreme achievement for all 98SE users would be to have absolutely all possible updates/upgrades/patches/whatnot in one single pack - be it a modular or integrated one - and best of the best, integrated with the Unattended Boot Disk project, so that everything would be on one single CD, installable when selected in the UBD menu.

But that would require cooperation between certain wise people around here. Could that be achieved? I surely hope so. Because time is running away, and Win9x is dying a bit day by day...

last link is dead.. i can host if you like

Really? That's very bad, Riched20.dll 4.0 (5.40.x.x) is required for Metapad and many other programs to work with non-ASCII codepages, like East/Central European codepage 1250.

This topic was alaredy discussed here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=72448 and the conclusion was that it is safe to use riched20.dll version 5.40.11.2218 because it does not break anything.

Here you can see the difference:

Richedit 3.0 (all versions):


Richedit 4.0 (all versions):


This is also noted here: http://www.liquidninja.com/metapad/faq.html#Q18

This problem si common for Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and even Windows Vista.

Therefore I have opened the incident # SRQ060526601424 with Microsoft and asked them to correct this bug but after several months of e-mailing and phone calls the result was:
So Microsoft will not correct any bug without "business impact plan", even if you have paid for the support.



Very polite response - but nothing was done yet, even the bug was not documented in MSKB yet.



Back to RICHED20.DLL. Are you able to document your problems with Richedit 4.0 and Miranda? I don't use Miranda so I'd like to test them. The serious problem with Richedit 3.0 and 3.1 and Windows with default codepage 1250 (defualt in Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Slovak, Slovenian versions of Windows 98) has to be solved some way. Maybe there is some other workaround? Or someone will be able to patch riched20.dll 3.0?

My understanding is so that Richedit does a test if the character is supported in the currently selected font. If it is missing, then it switches to different font that contains it - just to be able to display the character and not empty rectangle only. Unfortunately there is a bug in Richedit 3.0, 3.1 and even 5.0 that causes font switching even when the character is supported by the currently selected font.

Regards,

Petr

note: RichEdit 6.0 (12.0.4017.1003) does not work on Win9x - there is unresolved dependency to GetGlyphIndicesW in GDI32.DLL

Not being a programmer but merely a tester/user, I couldn't offer specific technical details, but during testing one of the plug-ins created for Miranda IM - namely spellchecker - I noticed that the wrong words that should have been marked with red wave, dotted, thick or other kind of underscore were only marked with thin line having the same color as the font. Replacing RichEdit v5.50 with v5.40 exhibited the same behavior. Downgrading to v5.30, the underscore immediately started to behave normally as selected in the plug-in's options. So this is not a problem of wrong characters being displayed, but rather one of missing/wrong features.

One other issue that I noticed was in the official eMule client: on the Servers page, at the bottom, there's a tab called "Server info". In there it's a link called "Click HERE to check for a new version" (or similar). With RichEdit v5.40 or 5.50 installed, the link was not clickable, there was only a line of simple text. Downgrading to RichEdit v5.30 fixed that issue too - the line became a link again, that would open the project's main page in the default browser.

Bottom line is that it may be possible to be a bad implementation of some features in certain applications, where programmers have used only RichEdit v5.30 (at most) to test them. But it may also be that RichEdit versions above v5.30 have different implementations of some functions (or even bugs, why not?) that make them slightly incompatible with previous ones. After all, if those versions would have been 100% safe and compatible, I suppose MS would have shipped them as system upgrades. Instead, they preferred to ship them only with the Office suite, which may offer a clue regarding their limited compatibility.

Anyway, this is just a supposition of mine, so if anyone knows better, please disregard my posts on the matter.

Petr: Miranda IM is open-source and so are it's plug-ins (with very few exceptions). You're welcome to test it in any combination you wish, to confirm or deny my allegations. Please note that some of the alpha-staged plug-ins can only be found in their dedicated forum threads. Personally I've used a nightly v0.7 build for testing, available from the Development page.

I'd like to move the riched20 discussion to the proper topic: RICHED20.DLL compatibility

Petr

Soporfic:

I downloaded and installed autopatcher 1.6 at least three 3 times all with the same result. When the dos window appeared it gives the message "bad command and or file". What am I doing wrong? Is it my machine? I followed the same procedure with autopatcher 1.0 and had no difficulty when installing your patch.

You need to run 1.5 and then run 1.6 over it. Getting a 'bad command and or file' message tells me you are most likely trying to run 1.0 and then 1.6 over it. This won't work, sorry. If you have tried the above then i'm not sure why this is happening. If you ran 1.0 successfully then its certainly not your machine.

I am nearly finished with 1.7 and someone has kindly offered to host it for me so if you have no luck then I would wait until 1.7 is available.

Soporific:

Thank your response - Let me say that I think that your autopatch system is a great idea. Not long ago I crashed my system and having a clean install I was working with autopatch 1.5 and 1.6. When I opened the 1.5 it apeared to install correctly but when the dos window appeared I received the bad command message. I think I will take your advise and wait until 1.7 is released. Again, this is a great idea it has all of the components and hotfixes needed for the 98 system. I await for autopatch 1.7. thank you

Thanks for your reply and feedback about autopatcher, its been rather scarce...

Please confirm that you have tried the following:

1) run the autopatcher 1.5 file

2) exit out of an error messages you get and exit out of all DOS boxes

3) run the autopatcher 1.6 file

- the program should now open and run correctly.

version 1.7 will be out very soon and so you can always try that one -- I will release a 1.7 update and also the full file now that I have a hoster so there should be a solution soon!


regarding MS Agent 2.0:

Should I include this in autopatcher?

Soporific:

Thank you for your interest and response. Since my system last crashed I haven't downloaded autopatcher 1.5 and 1.6. I will download and follow your instructions. Will let you know how things work out.

bayou 75

@ Soporific: it's possible to localize autopatcher personalizing, or better, remove some updates in this pack?

Naturally AutoPatcher for windows 98 SE, if you give me permission, will contain all updates localized by me in italian and ufficial patches/components from microsoft.

Unfortunately, some updates aren't in my language and I've necessity to reduce the pack, also for my requirement.

For all testing I've a real machine with 98SE.

Let me know.

Max

That's fine, go ahead -- I'm sure lots will be happy there will be 2 languages available -- if you need some help with understanding what I've done, just ask.

I've started work on the essential 3rd party apps module that will contain things like 7-Zip which i consider to be an absolutely essential installation on any Windows OS. The question then is: what else should go in? The size of the app is quite important ... i'd say over 10 mb would disqualify it...

And I know its the bloody silly holiday season but no comments on MS Agent?

UPDATE: just finished coding 7-zip into autopatcher --- i'm now using LOCATE.COM which finds a file anywhere on the system, so autopatcher should be able to determine if:
1) you have 7-Zip installed anywhere on your system (ie if its not in the default location) and
2) if you have the latest version.

This might sound like a no brainer, but trying to do it all in DOS was not that easy. Anyway, i'm quite happy with the functionality !! Just thought i'd let you all know...

Sorry, mate, I'm not using it, so I don't need it.
But I'm only 1 person, I can't speak for anybody else.

HTH

Fair enough, its gonna be hard to speak for other people ... i suppose I'm after opinions about its usefulness -- if its a complete waste of coding space, then i definitely won't bother. It sounds like its one of those Apps for Newbies things that most people avoid like the plague ... but having said that, its not very big in size, and there's a hotfix for it as well

Licensed user of WinZip and WinRAR here, with WinRAR associated with 7-Zip files. So I hope the Autopatcher would be set to not install this unless a user manually runs the modules and specifically selects it.

I'm just too used to those 2 programs. And especially since I bought them I'd rather not have another utility installed in an updater program.

Just an opinion, but I think including programs would be beyond the scope of an operating system patcher. Might even be considered an annoyance if one wouldn't be able to click to run the whole Autopatcher without getting someone's personal favorite programs installed with it.

If anything, make those that want these things run the seperate modules to get them. Let most users just click "Go" and get all the OS, IE, WMP, Direct X, Optimization's. 3rd party programs should be the ones to need the extra choosing to get them installed.

Yep, I definitely agree with your approach here ... it is definitely an optional install, and can be easily avoided. I was going to include it as a default install but I'll bow to your comments about giving users the option to easily just install the essential OS file updates, and if people want it, they can set it to be installed through the options function.

There's 2 main menu pages in autopatcher and I've tried to keep them separate --- page 1 has all the essential hotfix updates, etc, and page 2 has all the optional stuff. So all these extra optional stuff will be tucked away in page 2 which you can just ignore if you don't ever want to visit it.

Soporific:


Just a final note: I followed your instruction and installed autopatch 1.5 and the same message appeared "bad command of file" I then closed the dos window and installed 1.6. I'm sorry to say that the same message appeared in window. One positive note - I opened the temp file and the autopatch components appeared. I could have installed manually, however I decided to wait on 1.7.

I was wondering if the tweak package is installed would the 386 updates be observable in the system.ini or would they be hidden?

bayou75

AutoPatcher for Windows 98se v1.7 alpha has been released... see the first post

Thanks, still downloading; low bandwidth now, during holidays. One suggestion, though: could you somehow add an eD2k download link for the package? Personally I'm sick'n tired of all the advertising choking this world. Besides, the download page requires javascript enabled - which some people might not like - and a certain amount of time to wait until one can actually start the download. As I run eMule almost 24/7, it'd be much easier to add the package to the downloads list with a single click, than go through all that - let's say - trouble.
Thanks again and have a Merry Christmas (or what's left of it, considering timezones).

ed2k://|file|Autopatcher_for_Win98_v1.7_update.rar|32507679|4F018E44BE91794B841AD9D28B6D7B2A|

ed2k://|file|Autopatcher_for_Win98se_v1.7_Full.exe|207043044|E727A0593ACC10520AEB3442191DDFA6|

Powershared on release

Excellent! I hope those links will be useful to more users, not only me. Thank you!

Cool! Will download ASAP.
Merry christmas !

if you make a backup of your system files before running autopatcher and then compare them after, you'll be able to see the changes --- lines are added depending on which tweak is applied.

v1.7 full is available now on ED2K and in a few days on a public server

It's really hard to download AP FULL 1.7 for win98SE, neither with eD2k link or filefactory link.

Here some hosters:

http://www.mediafire.com/
http://uploaded.to/

MediaFire is extremely unreliable. Me and a few others around here have been unable to get a 4MB file off of that host. eD2k may be a bit slow, but it's reliable enough, I got my copy of the Autopatcher just fine, although it took me some time as the queue was pretty full.

@soporific, please read the last reply to your thread over in Neowin in reguard to your unauthorized use of the name 'AutoPatcher' (p.s. dont forget your profile - 'creator of Autopatcher').

theblazingangel - x86 Release Manager for the official AutoPatcher project

1) let me get my practical response out of the way first. I have changed all references to AutoPatcher for Windows 98 etc etc, to now read auto-patcher. I have dropped the capitalization of the A, and will put a hyphen between the words "Auto" and "Patcher". Happy now? I couldn't give a flying f**k if you're not.

2) unauthorised? who gave you the authorisation in the first place to reserve the word autopatcher for your own exclusive use? usually its only governments backed up by the power of the state that get away with this sort of sh*t. so i'd like to know, which army, navy and/or airforce are you going to send to who knows where, to enforce these restrictions?

3) The other way to approach this would be to enter into negotiations with me over this question which would have avoided the nastiness of my second point. You indicated on the other forum that you had no idea why I would post something like I did. Gee, maybe telling the world that the auto-patcher for windows 98 se actually existed was a possible reason. Especially when I read the thread where someone was asking where they could download it. I actually posted into that thread advertising the existence of my project but it looks like that was ignored.

4) And so, because of all this &^%$& this project is now worth just one star... not that I was counting or it really matters, but this a******e seems to be trying to get back at me in every way possible.

What were you thinking? It's like walking into BG's office saying "hey, I got a project called Windoves, it's a small operating system for laptops; do you mind if I advertise it here?"
I definitely don't like their approach on the matter, but it's like you asked for it; sorry for being so blunt.

Who gives a sh!t on the name, anyway? Only stupid people "buy" the brand name, the others read the label. So scr3w them with their "branded" name.

Your going to have to contact 'nw_raptor' of Neowin in reguard to the naming confliction, i didn't write the post in Neowin myself, nw_raptor did. I'm a release manager, nw_raptor is the project manager and creator of the official AutoPatcher project, it's his decision whether the change is good enough.

This hasn't got anything to do with politics, it's simply a naming conflict, perhaps 'unauthorized' was the wrong choice of word. You looked at our project, decided it would be nice to create something similar for Win98 SE, so you created your own project, however you kept our name and thats the problem!

The aim of my previous post was not to enter a negotiation nor ask a question, it was to state that theres a problem and get you in touch with my project manager, besides which you could have just asked us if it was okay to use our project name in the first place and that would have avoided everything!
As i said, i didn't write the comment in the Neowin thread myself, but i believe we all understand that you wanted to advertise the availability of your project, however i don't think you approached it in the right way! You could have posted a thread saying "hey, as AutoPatcher doesn't really support win98, i've created my own spin off project, see here: [link]", which personally i would have been fine with, however instead it was a large post detailing your project which doesn't belong in our support forum, especially when it has our project name on it yet has nothing to do with us!

FYI i haven't actually rated this topic, it has nothing to do with me if it has one star! Look, i commend you for the work your doing, but you can't use our projects name like this, please contact nw_raptor to get this naming conflict matter resolved asap.

I suppose it is the way of the world, you have a chap putting an awful amount of his effort into putting back what he received from the os, then you have another party putting all the latest patches breaking ms eula coming the higher ground?
It beggars belief
Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year

@soporific: I, together with italian localizer of AutoPatcher XP, 2000, 2003 (dkdk_it) manage a site where we publish monthly these versions, therefore, until you don't solve your problem of name conflict, I can't localize your work...

Max it has been changed,it is now new and improved with a hyphen, at no extra cost

A question - what about that inclusion of MDGx's Media Player/XP pack? Doesn't that include the mp3 codec? So if we choose to have the auto-patcher install the MDGx pack we get the encoder, right? That's without activating your seperate installer of the encoder. Do I understand that correctly?

Another thing is the Internet Explorer 6 SP1 install. I have a Microsoft cd version of that, which I've used mostly. Once Internet Explorer is installed with that cd, it becomes the installation source called for as far as stuff like the browser needing different language display capabilities, etc. I'd rather be able to just run your auto-patcher as a one step update for 98SE, but I'm wondering whether that's really a good idea for some of the items. As far as the Internet Explorer example goes for instance, wouldn't I have a problem where Windows will pop up an error saying the Windows Update source isn't available? Or would it automatically use the Windows Update internet site instead of calling for a local cd or hard drive location for the needed files? With the cd install, the Windows Update file location for Internet Explorer files is the cd I can insert into the drive.

Sometimes things like this get complicated, eh? Any suggestions?

I asked precisely about the IE6-SP1 additional languages issue in some other thread around (I believe it was "seven years later" thread). Personally I install all possibile additional languages display support in IE, so it wouldn't popup that annoying message when I go to a web page that needs some Asian fonts or whatever.

I would expect that every package that installs IE6-SP1 would either allow user to customize items to be installed in IE, or install all of them by default, to avoid further nagging.

Why not just forget about IE and OE.., They are leaky and risky, and the general targets of bully hacker attackers...
Get the updated 6.. Leave them in the OS, because they are integral in operation of the Windows OS.. and block IE and OE with a good firewall, leaving them sealed-up in their little boxes... then load Seamonkey 1.1, which gives you much faster/safer/cleaner browser and email tools.. and the plus is that Seamonkey is crammed full of treasures and features that no other browser has...

Although I see very little point in replying here, let me do so.

People here seem to lack common sense. Let me help you understand why naming your project AutoPatcher is a problem, since it seems you can't figure it out on your own.

Let us assume for a second that our project is called WhateverApp. Then, you go and create a project called WhateverApp. Our forums are at NeoWhatever and yours are at MicroWhatever. Where is one supposed to post for help regarding WhateverApp? Answer: The user won't know, and we can't be sure either? I don't know about you guys, but I would be totally lost if someone came in and asked why pressing A then B then C doesn't work on AutoPatcher.

For the love of whatever is sacred to you, can't we keep things simple?

Now, since I don't need bad language to state my case, I'll continue in a civilized way. As I replied to your project's starter, I would have no problem for you to use the AutoPatcher name, so long as you actually use AutoPatcher. As a sign of good will, I'd be willing to revise the code in order for Windows 98 SE to be fully supported. We would keep our forums at Neowin and you keep yours here.

I think I'm being reasonable and fair enough.

Yeah, I'm not even the creator or anything but I got all defensive. Sorry about that, and the bad language.

I see your point. Although modeled after and mean't to do the same sort of thing, it's probably not using the same process as this one's designed exclusively to make these updates work on 98SE.

No one wants users to be confused or folks asked questions that don't pertain to their program.

This naming thing just reminded me of the old flame wars between the 3rd party 3dfx driver modders. I always thought those arguments were ludicrous as they all were just trying to help out in different ways.

Just had an emotional, protective reaction. Oops.

In the sage words of Emily Littela, "Never mind."

Previous post edited to remove my nonsense.

Search 1 vs. Search 2 vs. Search 3 vs. Search4 .

Show me the confusion, please, because I'm... uhm... confused: where is it???

Maybe your target audience can't even google for the right name...

soperific,

I'm still concerned about the powrprof.dll errors, the inablility of my USB device drivers (printer, scanner), and most of my startup items to start after loading your pack then installing 98MP10. As well as the normal dropdown explorer window menu bar not appearing, just the Internet Explorer style icon menu with the back, forward stuff and the icons being XP style.

Next time I'll try deactivating 98SE2ME and 98MP10 in your auto-patcher and just installing them myself afterwards. That should at least eliminate that strange duplicate Explorer.exe and desktop icon problem I had last time.

But is something in your pack installing perhaps a laptop version of powrprof.dll? I'm on a desktop pc. I noticed that by default you have the laptop updates turned off, so that shouldn't have happened I guess.

So it wasn't just the WMP version errors I was getting.

I've posted similar in the 98MP10 thread as I have no idea where the fault lies.

There is duplication going on here ... I didn't realise the XP mp3 codec was installed along with MDGx's killer replacements pack. But then again, you now have the option of only installing the codec if that is useful for some reason.

I can see why you would want this all neat and tidy (ie you know and your system knows where the IE setup files will be) --- my strategy for installing Windows 98 from CAB files already on the hard disk is for this very reason --- so any future updates can be run and the OS knows where to look for the Windows 98 second edition CD. So, it looks like we should do the same when installing IE ... what I will do is create a special directory in the Windows directory to hold the cab files, and install it from there if its needed. But before I do this can people please give feedback on my proposal.


Now that MDGx has released another version of NUSB24.EXE I'll have another look into device driver issues.

The cabs on the hard drive would be very useful, its the way i do all my installs. The update files could then later on also be put in cab files alongside them (cut down on duplicates and shrink the installer size quite considerably). Until eventually all the update files get incorporated into the win9x setup directory cabs on the hard drive. The slipstream project shown that this could be done but once the proof of concept had been completed it stopped. My **** browser will never let me vote for this project, but anyways keep up the good work
All the best