I have not/am not refering to released hotfixes,I gleamed that bit of information from the post
"No Auto-patching at all, and it reports 4.10.1999"
I am refering to DeadDudes very interesting non standard setup cd and replying to Drugwash "Then, what is 4.xx.1999, repeatedly reported by DeadDude?"
@DeadDude it will be very interesting to see any screenshots you are able to take Friday, and also to see how ntkern.vxd differs from 98se/me

98SE2ME changes the OS version reported to ME??? Is this true?

Isn't that in the auto-patcher??

Is it possible that some *specific* hotfixes and magic voodoo that these packages *together* (hell, even so far as to say on *this specific rig*), caused this problem?

Later today I will have 2 of these towers up and running... and a third will be with me for at least a week...

I've almost totally 'worked around' this, (I've got the owner manually writing in totals on invoices, and he seems to be able to deal with that), but I am totally curious now what is going on...

Who knows, maybe going through all this could get me to a point where I can help like y'all...

(is it *just* because 98 is old that you guys know all this?? trial and error? :bows: )

No, MDGx changed that from old versions. The GUI from My Computer's properties used to report the Windows Me version in old 98SE2ME versions but it was and always will be 98SE. The newer 98SE2ME versions, for quite some time now, show 98SE version numbers. It was just the GUI anyway.

And yes, the auto-patcher does include a small subset of 98SE2ME, but only the Explorer.exe and updated registry (user32.dll and user.exe I think) files because bugs were fixed in the Windows Me versions.

If you are not going to seperately install 98SE2ME and 98MP10 then I recommend letting the auto-patcher install what it includes of them.

If you intend to seperately install 98SE2ME and 98MP10 then I recommend toggling those off in auto-patcher so the backup process is not interferred with and the files are updated properly when you do run those seperately (as I do. I'd rather have the full versions).

But that didn't cause your problem. I think you have official Microsoft cd's, but rare ones that mess with the version just like that old Security Updates cd did. Yeech!

So you've got something extremely unusual there. I think retail or OEM 98SE cd's are occasionally available on ebay. Or you probably have a friend or associate who no longer runs 98SE and would give, sell you their cd and license. That would be the safest bet as who knows at this point what folks on ebay are selling.

I wouldn't want to run the cd you have as it obviously causes conflicts with updates and programs just like the Security Updates cd used to. It's up to you but it might not be possible to get everything updated and working with that cd.

According to DeadDude's post #191:
• windows 98 ASP0210 X05-39104 (NM.05) 08 IFPI L894 BARCODE
• At the rights side of the hole it says

For distribution
with a new PC
only. For product
support, contact
the manufacturer
of your PC.

SECOND EDITION

According to Eck's post #189:
• Windows 98SE: 0499 Part No. X04-14310
• Windows 98Gold + SE Update: 0499 Part No. X04-12707
• Windows 98SP1: 0499 Part No. X04-64496

According to DeadDude's post #187:
• No Auto-patching at all, and it reports 4.10.1999
• Only installed files were Win98SE (after the Gold fiasco), driver CD from GigaByte, and Auto-Patcher 1.7, then 1.8... and that sequence boosted it to 4.95.2222

According to oscardog's post #195:
• "With few exceptions, Windows 98 hotfixes are stamped with a version number of 4.10.1999 or greater, which indicates that the file is a newer version than the file that had been originally included with Windows 98. Windows 98 Second Edition hotfixes are generally stamped with a version number of 4.10.2223 or greater"

My conclusions:
• The CDs are definitely OEM versions
• They are Windows 98Gold with hotfixes (and possibly SP1) included
• It's possible that they're preliminary versions of 98SE (attempts at) - limited series
• The cause of version boost to 4.95.2222 must be found and dealt with

Just to clear up confusion, the 98 to Me included in auto-patcher is only the core of it --- only 3 files get updated and so i wouldn't expect and/or want the version to say anything other than Windows 98 second edition. Here's a screenshot of my test system after everything in auto-patcher is installed:

Yeah, but see that 4.90.3000A? That's what MDGx has fixed in the full version of 98SE2ME. It stays at 4.10.2222, or whatever it's supposed to be exactly. I forget and can't check at the moment since I'm in XP. I still think that's cosmetic, as the command prompt winver would I assume be the version reported to updates or install programs that check the Windows version.

At any rate, I turn those modules off in auto-patcher and install the full versions as I have a Windows Me cd for that. The version reported after using the auto-patcher is then not changed from before running it.

I think this fellow just needs to get his hands on normal 98SE cd's. Right off the bat his version will throw off updates and programs, same as the Microsoft Security Updates Cd did.

I see this as a Microsoft mess up. I think the computers that came pre-manufatured with this version of Windows installed aren't all that updatable due to that crappy hybrid Windows installed. And installing this included cd of that particular OEM Windows results in the same problems.

Hey! Maybe this fellow is the only one who got these computers that is still trying to run 98 on them. Or, at least, update them. Wow. A special moment.

Calls for a beer.

Hmmmm, i hope its cosmetic but i'm now wondering why I sometimes (very rarely) get this behaviour with Windows Explorer (I think it happens when I install SHELL98) --- all the drop-down menus aren't available and I cannot return it to normal --- has anyone else seen this?




substitute spliff for beer and i'll join you.

DUDE!!!

THAT'S WHAT HPJOBBER DID BEFORE!!!!!!! Except it wasn't a Win balloon, it is just BLACK. And it was inside HPJobber... not explorer.exe... and hpjobber doesn't use the standard GUI model, it has some weird attempt at resembling DOS... right down to no menu at the top at all, it is all keyboard driven with some mouse hacks thrown in...

The very first install I had, using all the crap I listed, had that SAME problem....


but I only noticed it in HPJobber... (when it happened, I just used keyboard to shut down and restart)

So I think that **is** the problem, right there.

Yes, my CDs are some freaking thing ... thanks for the post earlier with colors... made it easier to recap...

Okay... sooo....

My OEM CDs are some really crazy beast.
My version string is fiddled with from the ?beta? 98SE.
The version is further modded by the partial install of the 98SE2ME thingy... (even if unintentional, this plays into it I think, as the version is *still* different after this)

*That* explains the wild version on a fresh install... as well as the entirely impossible version after auto-patcher...


Dang... Does anything know the viability of trying my CD key on another CD? I know with XP that is usually possible, but is it on 98SE?

(Methinks this HPJobber software is absolute garbage... need to convince him to change to QuickBooks or something... looong story on it, but here's a try:
HPJobber *was* a DOS only program, no DOS box even... the guy was crazy smart, and this was a time when programmers often put time bombs and the like to keep people legit and updating/upgrading. Well, this guy, as the story goes, committed suicide. A company bought the rights to the software, but couldn't locate any source code. So, they wrote a Windows program that reads the DOS data files... and that's where it all gets uber-freaky. Don't know what to believe after this point...)

Question on the CD thing....

Microsoft gave away over 2,000 copies of 98SE to a small non-profit org "Computers for the Community"
This org rebuilt donated hardware into computers that they gave away...
I was their 'certified computer technician' for 2 years, and routinely took work home...


I really don't think my CD got swapped with one of their's... but it is the only thing I can think of...
unless my "local shoppe" was somehow selling stuff they had no right to.

and now knowing the CD is definately a major fubar, perhaps it *is* from that batch M$ gave away?

It is awfully odd... but perhaps M$ knew about the screw ups and that's why they gave them away instead of selling them?

Just some final thoughts on this issue....

Thanks for the help in nailing the problem down, and it looks like we still found some sort of a bug in Auto-patcher... yay, I *didn't* spam!

@Soporific
Sorry to be happy about a bug, but I'm sure you can understand how crazy I was getting over this...
Would you recommend not installing the 98SE2ME from Auto-patcher, and installing the full package to see if it still happens?
Would using VMWare produce similar results? I would think so, and if it does... I can pop out whatever tests you want real quick... cloned machine, anyone? Is it illegal to send a copy of the virtual machine to someone for comparison? I got cable internet, so tell me where to upload it if it is OK to do so... I can make it as small as about 200megs (maybe smaller, I never tried it)

My latest VM 98 installs are jackhammer, so it doesn't reflect this issue... but tomorrow... err today... later today I will try...

@anyone else
I will not send anything to anyone else. Actually, there are perhaps 3 people I would send to, but they should already be able to figure out who they are from their posts. I do NOT condone stealing software, even if it is a 10 year old OS from the biggest and richest monopoly on Earth. (they'll track you down and tag you for life... I've *seen* it)

soperific,

That's the look I was getting a while back when using auto-patcher and letting it install 98SE2ME and 98MP10 modules. Not right after the auto-patcher but rather following the installs of 98SE2ME and 98MP10 done afterwards. The weird mix of XP icons on that full screen type Internet Explorer look on all Explorer windows. That, and the WMP not opening and that error message of the conflicting versions. The WMP stuff was fixed by MDGx by a newer version of the updates but I never did figure out (or seemingly get anyone to understand what I meant) why the explorer windows looked like your picture!

Last time I ran it I untoggled your 98SE2ME and 98MP10 modules and did not experience that weirdness. Now you say it was caused by SHELL98? Hmm, was that taken out of 1.7? Or, toggled off by default?

So SHELL98 is the culprit? Funny but I kind of remember that I toggled that on when I last ran auto-patcher 1.7 and I didn't get the weird explorer windows. Maybe it wasn't SHELL98 that I toggled though. I think it was some patch for large file movement, deleting though.

I hope that now that you got the same error that I did and understand what I was talking about we can permanently figure out how to stop it from happening (what to NOT install)!

DeadDude,

I don't think Soperific would need your image, but perhaps he would (can't speak for him) enjoy examining that weird Microsoft hybrid 98 cd you have there just for fun. As far as fixing a bug, it's not an auto-patcher bug as all auto-patcher is doing is installing all these updates. Aside from still having Environment size errors without a bit of tinkering it appears to do its job of installing anything it is set to install perfectly.

Your errors seem to be specific to that program you're using and that strange 98 cd.

Soperific,

Yeah, what about those Environment space warnings? I need to right click and change the memory tab Initial Environment to the (4096?, I forget) largest in the drop down in the batch files I see there. But then I still get the warning in the first screen about it but when I choose to run it anyway it works with no environment errors any of the further screens. That IS something that is a bit buggy about auto-patcher and it will not run without my right click fixing.

I was guessing from what I was doing at the time. I thought SHELL98 was a good candidate for being the culprit as it looks like something to do with shell32.dll being incompatible somehow. So don't quote me on that (even though you can cause that's what I wrote).

The problem is I can't reproduce the bug on demand.

Yeah sorry about that environment warning at the start --- the values I set to trip the warning are completely arbitrary and the problem is that if I add more options and modules to auto-patcher, then more environment space gets used. So the problem stems from the 1.7 update -- i didn't increase the value the triggers the environment space warning. I would guess that its saying you are only a few bytes over the limit anyhow and as you've seen, the program works fine. The REAL value for problems with environment space should be 2048 which is a long way away from what you should be experiencing. I'll make this change in 1.8 --- just so you know, my thinking was that if I gave a very narrow environment space range as the values of what the user should be experiencing, then anything different would have alerted them to a problem before trying to run auto-patcher. I didn't want auto-patcher to spit the dummy in the MIDDLE of doing its thing.

Do ya mind if I nip something in the bud? The first few times I didn't bother thinking it was a typo...

[i typed "dict soporific" into firefox]


if you met me in person, you would very quickly find out how appropriate my online name is.

[i typed "dict soperific" into firefox]



This probably hasn't happened to you too often, there's not much you can get wrong with only 3 letters to your name

Funny thing is that if I do not right click and increase the Initial Environment in the Memory tab's dropdown box, the next window DOES error out and auto-patcher will not proceed.

So it's not just a problem with the first window. Once I've changed all the batch files and shortcuts in the auto-patcher folder's root, there are no more errors. I don't get it.

Sorry about the misspelling. I was worried that sometimes I capitalize it! I had no idea about messing up the spelling as well.

By the way, I'm currently exploring the world of OpenSUSE Linux 10.2. I happened to be kvetching on another forum about how expensive the new Windows Vista was. One guy replied, "You need Linux." The next guy said, "Here we go!"

Heh, heh.

Well everything I can think of has been downloaded and burned. Been reading like crazy. Thank the maker it's mostly GUI these days. Saw those early FAQ's that are still on the main Linux.org site. Sheesh, that command line stuff seems a bit much. I grew up with Windows 98 so even my MS-DOS command knowledge is meek at best. Got no idea how exactly I'm going to set it up as far as partitions, etc. but I'm gonna do something with it. I'll let you know if my computer (or my brain) blows up.

I think I'll stick 98SE on here first just so I can have some normal access to all the old stuff I have. Gosh I hope I don't get that "Error loading device IOS, real mode memory allocation failed" that seems to haunt me whenever I install a real 98SE system instead of VMWare.

Guess I won't say much though. Completely off topic.

soporific,

What's a spliff?

And, maybe we'll get lucky and never see that weird explorer window bug again? Look at the Revolution Pack thread. Tihiy seems to have located a file replaced by 98SE2ME that messes up unless the Revo Pack is installed first. Is that file possibly related?

Did you get error messages about powrprof.dll (or pwrprof.dll, I forget) when you got the weird windows? I did. Seems to have disappeared with the newer 98SE2ME, 98MP10 versions. Hope it stays gone.

Would be nice to know what caused that exactly, though.

heres the problem you got 4 guys trying to fix 98se and when u patch modify a user dll etc with a newer one etc u will use functionally with a older program looking for the orginal 410.2222 dll .one program helps then the next conflicts with another and i read how it use to work before i installed such and such etc etc is there not a better way instead of installing one over another perhaps one exe with proven success.similar to gapes sp2.1 but including all usefull stuff. because it gets frustating if i install 98setome and rp7 etc one always affects the other in some bad way and u either gotta reinstall remove or replaced with orginal dll .

serious? .... well if I went with stereotypes, a spliff would be something a hippie passes you to smoke at a party...


i'll have a look and no i didn't get any errors to do with powrprof.dll

The good news is that v1.8 is just about ready to go. This is basically my preview release as it now comes with an installer and uninstaller, and the final release I hope to spread far and wide. The final will probably be the last version for a long while, barring any big bugs that I should fix, so get your feedback in now !!! The change log will eventually record all the changes from v1.7 ... stay tuned ...

oh and I gave up on my project for this project to be in perfect harmony with Microsoft's Windows Update, i mean, what was I thinking? If i didn't have 1,543,788 other things ahead of it in priority, i'd be working on it right now, honest!

Thanks sporofic for this great project. Its great.

yeah, WU is a tricksy beast...

couldn't you just add a text file on the desktop detailing which updates aren't needed after this is installed?

that's the only confusion I have about this, buddy.

pass that this way, my tumors hurt...
::cough cough::

Well, what Windows Update says might differ depending upon what other software is installed. A lot of software, especially from Microsoft, installs system updates and some of those are duplicated on Windows Update. Even if already installed, or a corrected unofficial version is installed, these updates go ahead and do their thing regardless.

I don't think re-running auto-patcher would fix an older update being installed over a better update installed by auto-patcher previously. But we would want some way to correct the problem as whatever older, buggy dll's or other dependant files installed by the older version of an update could mess things up.

What's nice is that although auto-patcher would not be itself reinstall an update detected as already being on the system, it DOES have all the updates in the auto-patcher folders. So as long as we are aware of which update we need to reinstall, we can simply go to the folder and run the update again ourselves.

If we don't know which one? Well, we don't live in a perfect world, unfortunately!

Anyway, basically after running auto-patcher there is nothing we need from Windows Update. The only thing we need to keep watch on is the sticky thread which is regularly updated with new releases by our guru's that contain security, updated fixes, etc. Whatever is on Windows Update is not going to change for 9x as Microsoft no longer is making fixes for these operating systems. So that thread here becomes our personal Windows Update!

Just be careful as there's no automatic system to determine the proper operating system to install which versions of the newer 3rd party guru releases to install. We must read the information provided and decide for ourselves accordingly.

I think that between the auto-patcher's final release, 98SE2ME, and 98MP10, we have a great start for a fresh 98SE installation. Then we just need to keep watch on that sticky thread for future updates.

Gosh I'm really excited about the sort of final we'll be getting of this with most things finished such as the improved installer/uninstaller stuff. The computer's about to be wiped for fresh installs of 98SE, XP, and OpenSUSE Linux. I'm still downloading stuff and reading like crazy.

I bought BootIT NG so I won't have to be a prisoner to all these operating systems choices of how to partition and boot. They'll all think they're the only game in town as each partition will contain all the boot files that particular operating system needs instead of them being all dumped on the first partition and dependant upon the last operating system installed to handle things. I just hope I will understand BootIT NG enough to do it correctly. I've watched every video and printed out all the documentation but my brain still needs to process all this new stuff. It's always the guy/gal at the keyboard that actually has to use stuff properly. And it's not all easy stuff either. Just trying to get through the Novell startup stuff is making my brain hurt! But I insist that I at least understand the commands, even if I don't remember them all, before jumping in headfirst.

Nice that SUSE by default now automatically installs GRUB to the Linux partition instead of overwriting the boot sector like it used to. One less hurdle.

Oh! So that's what spliff's are. I'm from an older generation and/or geographic location. I never heard that description before.

I've added some information to the readme.txt file but what I should also do is name the updates so the USER can relax in that the 7 updates that WU reckons are needed are named and shamed beforehand.
you don't need a medical reason ... as you well know!! I thought the comments by singer George Michael were good ... he said that if his drug of choice was alcohol he wouldn't be nearly as healthy as he is from being a pot head instead, in terms of how much he's taken over the years. He said if he had, he'd look and sound like Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones ... anyway, don't get me started, especially not about this question of who parents want their kids to have relationships with, ie the government in the form of taxed regulation, or drug dealers and organised crime.... we gotta legalise it obviously ...

More info on that Windows Explorer bug I reported recently --- it seems it was the test system I was using - there was already an earlier version of MDGx's killer WMP replacements and so I uninstalled it, the bug went away, I re-installed the latest WMP pack and no bug. Yay.

That's cool! Very happy if that weird stuff won't show up again.

Don't see legal happening in the political, religious, all kinds of complicated kind of environment we have. But I agree 100 percent that it should be. Would solve lots and lots of problems and would enable me to actually have access to it as I no longer have contact with anybody from my youth that can get it. Miss it! Absolutely will not seek from strangers or grow. I still see headlines of homes with plants being raided. So nothing for me unless it's in a store (or if I ever travel to Amsterdam I guess). Been more than 20 years since I've so much as smelled it in the air!

Anxiously awaiting the new release. An-ti-ci-pa-a-tion is keeping me waiting.

Ohhh, you put tobacco in it? Ewww. I smoke Marlboro but wouldn't want to hold my breath taking a drag. Ouch!

What's with this emule? Okay for those that want it installed, but I use uTorrent. Why not have a normal torrent file available? And perhaps some RapidShare.com and/or Megaupload.com links for those who don't want to install anything?

I did try emule at one time because I needed something that only was available on it. I never used it for anything else. I suppose I could go through that again since I'll be wiping my hard drive anyway once I get the new auto-patcher, but a torrent would be a lot more conveniant.

I understand you can only do what you can do. So whatever, I'll do what's needed to get it. I just feel that installing unnecessary software shouldn't be needed.

AFAIK, the "free" hosts you mentioned above do not support resume and/or download managers. Given that not all of us have blazing speed Internet connections, the eD2k solution might be a good compromise.
As for torrents... it's just a bit more complicated, with seeding and all - I never understood the system nor fancied the clients, so I can't offer detailed explanations, but I've read answers to a very similar question recently.

I always use GetRight for both RapidShare and MegaUpload. No problems. There are certain files that for some reason do not support resuming but most are fine with that too.

It might be because I pay for Premium accounts. Perhaps they don't allow download managers or resuming on free downloads? Not sure. Of course I wouldn't pay for Premium (and never did for a long time) unless I encountered some of the huge downloads. I just didn't have patience to wait hours and hours for being allowed to download.

Torrent's are easy. I only adjusted one option in the options (encrypt files and allow legacy downloads), and just needed to check my speeds at Speedtest to fill in the proper numbers at the beginning. Otherwise it's all automatic. I just download a torrent, start uTorrent and let it login and update, then choose File, new torrent, and browse to the torrent I downloaded. It puts it in My Documents\Downloads. Then I leave it there for a period of a day or so while also leaving uTorrent running so I can be a good boy and seed it back for others. Unless I'm in a big hurry to use the stuff. Then I'm a bad boy and close down everything so I can get busy. I try not to do that too often. The seeding is also automatic.

Out of curiosity, I ran a report on my current system, which only has a few official updates and some manual upgrades installed. The list of *not found* updates is impressive, however I found some of the items that I do have installed are still reported as uninstalled. Grrrrr... So here we go:
• dun14-se: Dial-Up Networking 1.4 for Windows 98se (official package installed)
• DirectX9: DirectX 9.0c (October 2006) (August 2006 installed; does it know it's August and not October?)
• q323455: Directory Services Client Update for Windows 98 (official package installed)
• UCopy2GB: Unofficial Fix for Bug When Copying Files Over 2gb in Explorer (manually installed)
• 48BITLBA: Unofficial Update for Drives over 137gb (not for IBM portables) (manually installed)
• 7-ZIP: 7-Zip 4.42 (file archiver) (already installed 4.43 beta - don't ask where from, it was out there)

That's all I can do for now; I don't have a testing machine yet, will try to put one up soon.

Eck: http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2006-11-29/

Drugwash,

Okay, imdb.com, yes nice website. Been there, good stuff.

Why? Did you mean BitTorrent (newly merged with uTorrent) doing some deals to make legit movie downloads? I don't think I've ever downloaded a movie anyway. Same with music. All the thousands of mp3's on my computer are ripped from cd's I own. I just use that as a conveniance so I don't need to keep cd's near my computer and swap 'em out to change albums. I just use WMP or Winamp libraries to access the songs.

Not all torrent fan's use them to get stuff free that we're supposed to buy. Sometimes there are old, not available things or big files people post and torrents are conveniant ways to distribute them.

Ooh! Yeah, get Link21 all riled up. Love to read threads with his stuff. Fun. (You weren't seriously angered, eh? He just offers his pretty out there opinions. I think mostly to p-ss people off. He reminds me of Elvis Is Alive who used to come up with all sorts of outlandish things in 3dfx Voodoo card threads. ROFL material!) Those kinds of things may be frowned upon on boards with serious stuff going on but a little off the wall humor lightens the day in my view.

For anyone wondering, an old, old thread regarding Link21 was revived when his childish POS OS rantings managed to rankle our friend here. Whew, he really gave it to him. It's like Rock-em Sock-em robots!

98SE will live forever! It stirs up hormones we forgot we had!

Soporific,

Just reminding you that another update to 98SE2ME and 98MP10 is up. Yeah, I turn those off and do them myself but in case you hadn't noticed there you are!

Just waiting for you now before redoing my computer. Since 98's the first thing that gets installed I'm waiting on the newest version of autopatcher before getting started. No rush! Get it right, but I'm just saying.

And thanks for what I think is the easiest way to get 98SE all ready to go.

I'm no Link21, don't worry. I like people who have the sense of humor.

Information is nothing but that: information. People decide what to do with it.

As for "redoing" a machine... my 200MHz PentiumMMX has its Windows 98SE installed since November 2004. That's because my old HDD crashed, otherwise it would have been much older. I just hate (re)installing. I see XP people reinstalling every few weeks/months and I wonder why... Is that the way a computer should work? Should the user waste time reinstalling every whatever amount of days/weeks/months? What kind of an operating system is that, that requires reinstalling so often, regardless of users' (lack of) computer knowledge?

Oh... sorry for the off-topic. It's almost 5 AM in Melbourne...

This should perhaps be filed under tips but there really is *no* need whatsoever in the vast majority of cases to re-install win98SE. Here's what to do:

(1) Somehow or other get a copy of Ghost 2003, standalone. It fits on a floppy disk and runs from DOS.

(2) When you have a working stable win98SE system, use Ghost 2003 to back-up your C:\ partition, and any other partitions, on to either a DVD-R (it will span DVD-Rs if necessary) or another hard disk.

(3) Then simply restore the partitions if your PC hard disk or something else goes belly-up. Or if you want to clone on to another PC. It's never let me down once in four years.

Futher info SEE: http://ghost.radified.com/norton_ghost_2003.htm

This is EXACTLY what I need to see to improve auto-patcher. Thank you very very very very very very very very (you get the idea) much.

Yes, the DirectX install can distinguish between August and October. That should work. The rest I'll check ... I have improved the code for DUN 1.4 so v1.8 should already have that fixed. I'll check the rest out ...

I'm uploading v1.8 to a public server as I type so grab that ASAP and use that for further testing.

With the exception of some 98SE trials and tribulations in just getting a working system to finish being built (my problems involved IOS bootup errors. See some of my other posts ranting and wondering what the heck was the reason. Never found out), my fresh reinstalls of XP or what have you are normally on purpose.

I've got a bunch of free time as I just take care of my sick elderly Mom. It's been like that for a few years now. So some of this time is spent playing around with different hardware/software configurations.

Like now. I've got a perfectly operational setup with XP. And I have a 98SE install that I have running in VMWare. (Strange that those VMWare 98SE setups never give me a problem.) Nothing wrong at all and it does everything I could possibly want.

When I was visiting another forum I posted a grumble regarding Vista being sold at such a high price. Especially the full retail Ultimate Edition. I could say the same for Office, but I do see there's a new release for Home/Student that really has the programs I install anyway. I guess that's instead of an upgrade to their WorksSuite series. It is still $30 more than the WorksSuite used to be (and that's not counting that I usually bought it on sale), and doesn't contain the other software programs that made the suite a good buy. Since I already got the new Encarta Premium and Digital Image, that plus the stuff in the Office 2007 Home thing is all I'd want now. I don't bother with Outlook so I wouldn't miss that.

Anyway, a poster replied something like, "Sounds like you need Linux." That was the whole post. The next guy said, "Uh Oh, here we go!" No OS war resulted but it perked my interest.

After reading up and downloading stuff I figured I'd do a bit of a different configuration. It'll be fun!

That's all. No problems here with the box, but I just want to plug the stuff in a different way. I'll still be using Windows but it'll be an experience messing around in the Linux world too.

So you see that with my constantly changing a lot of my hardware (yes I call Microsoft a lot for activation. I'm talking swapping out motherboards, soundcards,etc.) and some very different software setups, Ghosting isn't really a suitable process for me. I wouldn't want to use what I Ghosted as I'd want too many things to be different.

soporific:
eMule is running here about 24/7 - I'm official translator for my language and I'm playing a lot with it. So an eD2k link is always welcome, as far as I'm concerned. It does take a while to complete a download - that's the idea of the network - but at least I get it integer. My connection is not that good to allow me downloading almost 200MB in one shot from within the browser, and I don't have Premium accounts on public hosts. Plus I'm testing alpha/beta software and crashes/freezes happen on a regular basis.

Analada:
As for "ghosting"... problem is: (2) When you have a working stable win98SE system [...]. That almost never happens, because there's always some tinkering to do, some application to install/replace/uninstall, some hardware to change, etc. Just like Eck above said. But yes, there are people that might like preserving certain configurations and Ghost may come in handy. Not me, for now.

Eck:
I've been foolin' around with a few live Linux distros myself: Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Knoppix. Not bad, but I'm missing a certain "feeling", plus a few key (IMO) options/features. Still planning to dig deeper into the concept, but I'm either lacking the time or the will to do it.

A couple of years ago I spent six months on linux. Downloaded every distro and gave them a workout. Same as you I missed a certain "feeling". Also got fed up with endless configuration files. Still it has its place.

Now as regards Ghost 2003. I think it could really help a load of people on this forum given the postings on reinstallation. To expand on what I said before: --

When you have a working and stable (yes it should be) win98se with your commonly used applications/games installed, do a Ghost of the partition(s). Let's call it backup A. Then a few weeks later do another on separate DVD-R/2nd HD: backup B. Then if after subsequently installing some software that messes up your system revert to backup B. Do subsequent backups regularly and cycle the DVD-R media.

If you do this it's highly unlikely that you'll ever have a problem that you can't solve quickly and easily. For example I can replace C: partition and reboot perfectly within 6 minutes, complete with all configurations and customisations. What other software or procedure can achieve that?

welcome to the battle of the century: my fight to get a 244mb file up onto a free file server.

I'll keep the stats of this batte updated frequently

No of failed uploads: 4
No of different file hosters: 2
No. of times it got to over 80% and then failed: 3
No. of times it got to over 95% and then failed: 2
No. of times it got to over 99% and then failed: 1
No. of hours of wasted upload bandwidth (at about 20kbps): 8
No. of times I've wanted to do something nasty to the people behind these websites: 3

Another 24/7 emuler ... good on you man. Have you ditched your TV like I have? I got rid of it 6 years ago, and I don't consider it a loss, as I get everything I watch from the mule. If anybody is still watching ads, paying megabucks for music, megabucks for softare ... then get with the program. You DO need to know how to forward ports if you are behind a router or gateway, and you DO need to start collecting credit so as your downloads can run like water through a pipe. I reckon I'm one of the wealthiest people in the world when it comes to emule credits. When I want something from the network, bam, i've got it.

Emule, emule, emule ... i do NOT KNOW what I would do without it. Everyone, take the HINT!!!

What's that a TV?! You're way ahead of me, I ditched it only about 2 years ago, together with the radios. I got enough instant messaging IDs to ask people when I need to know something.
And eMule is good too for documentaries that would never get on TV or elsewhere public. And not only, but let's not push it.

Anyway, where's the eD2k link for v1.8?

Oops... it was supposed to be there a couple of hours ago

Now fixed... and with a BitTorrent link as well to make up for the wait ..

Off we go! But... no sources. Please check link and make sure eMule is running and the file is shared.
One thing - this package is supposed to be installed on all kinds of configurations, not only freshly installed systems. Some of them may be heavily tweaked already, with much newer file versions than the ones to be installed by this package. I'm curious if anybody checked all components against automatically overwriting newer file versions.

Another thing is that my autoexec.bat contains the following (and I may not be the only one using this trick):


If this package unpacks itself in the temporary folder set by environment variables and that folder gets wiped out on each reboot, that'd be a bit of a problem. Yes, the user could remove/comment those lines, if he knew about them, but if he doesn't (system tweaked by a friend/specialist/etc.), he'd report a broken package.
So, would it be possible to create and use a folder of its own instead, just to be on the safe side?

http://sharethefiles.com/forum/ed2kstats.p...iew_release.exe


OK, the limitation of the program at the moment is that only one file in each package is checked for its file version. If I choose the wrong one (usually its obvious which one to use) then we get into trouble. So its these things that I can't test until I get feedback. The code definitely works for clean systems, but I guess some that have been up for years will have all sorts of junk on it doing who knows what to whichever. Or something ...


I'll make the change for the next version, definitely.

The torrent reports 0 seeders (I think you have to seed it first) and a 0 for download availability. Hmm, something's not right there. I downloaded a couple of other torrents just to check it and uTorrent downloaded them perfectly.

For at least RapidShare you do know that you need to split it into 100MB parts? WinRAR will put them all together again when extracting. I don't mean split your program. I mean for example when you Rar it up you tell it to create it in 100MB parts. That's file001.rar, file002.rar, etc. Then I download each one and put them all into the same folder and right click the first and extract it to a folder. It then all becomes one file again.

But then, you likely know about that. Just making sure.

Besides that this forum (all of msfn.org) is having problems now on my Internet Explorer 7. I links to the main forum work, but the individual sub-forums leave an error page.

I needed to search for auto-patcher. That link led me back here. I don't think this is my machine. The forum worked fine a couple of hours ago.

Okay, the forum is back up but there is still nothing coming from the torrent.

Maybe check the torrent again, I've changed some settings that could have been blocking attempts. Also, starting the seeding process could help out as well (!! talk about a newbie !!) --- I also fixed the TCP limit bug (my file sharng computer has only just been rebuilt --- yes that's right, an entire computer to serve the cause of file sharing.)

I'll also try rapidshare today, I'll do the split into parts, I know what you mean.

All my overnight uploads failed. I had 2 going .... grrrrrr

BitTorrent is up and away !!!! I got 40 kbps going up ... my emule customers will be a bit miffed ...

Drugwash, you use shareaza do you? IF not, tell me so I can give someone else my friend slot ...

Nope, no Shareaza. As I said before, it's eMule - the official one, latest version.
Anyway, my connection's been more and more sh!tty this month, with frequent disconnections and ever lower bandwidth. So it will tak some time, with ot without friend slot. Thanks anyway for the good intention.

Yep! As soon as that 1 seed showed up the download started and has been going strong, albeit comparatively slow, for the last several hours and reports about 45 minutes left.

Not critisizing the speed at all since I don't know exactly how it works either. I'm just happy about it doing its thing and getting the file. Normally it is many times faster but who know what kinds of servers I'm used to. Plus, generally I've not come in right at the beginning and several seeders were already available. That also makes things faster. Right now it looks like 10(14) (which it is, I don't know but there's always a number in a parenthesis there) folks are downloading. Hopefully most of us will leave our torrent software running and the file in the download folder so the speeds will be faster for others.

If there are many others. Although there are probably a lot more 98SE users than one would think, there are even less of those who know about this project and of those, are interested in using it. Hopefully that will change.

I'll be leaving it up until I finish reading the Novell manuals. That's pretty tortuous work. It's not that there's so much to read but it would be nice if I could retain at least a bit of it in my head before wiping the computer and not having them available until I get Acrobat Reader installed into Linux. I've got a lot of other stuff I've printed out but there's no way I'm printing out hundreds of pages of manual. I'm pretty sure I know enough to get the thing installed. Plus, most wouldn't have bothered to do the research I have anyway and would probably do okay. I just hate operating blind. It's always been RTFM for me.

Annoys the heck out of my sister! I read the manual for can openers before I plug them in for the first time. Only problem these days is I don't retain much in one sitting. Used to.

Anyway, 98SE will go in first. So I'm glad this update is available for it. I'm not one who likes running software again over itself unless there's a problem or the kind of thing that needs updating like Firefox or something. That's why I haven't been too helpful in the request to run auto-patcher again to see what it detects as being installed. If it works I don't like to mess with it.

Alright! It's safely tucked away to a cdr.

It looks like a few folks are downloading this. For a while after I was done several seeders showed up, but today only 1 seeder (with an 8 in parentheses whatever that means) is seeding.

This is weird, as I would think it would list soporific AND at least me since I'm still seeding. At any rate, and if I'm understanding the uTorrent program correctly, is appears that folks downloaded the thing then shutdown uTorrent and didn't bother seeding.

That's not nice torrent ettiquette.

Thanks soporific! Your patcher is awesome. (As long as this new version still works and doesn't muck things up, eh?)

I just read through the Revolution Pack thread. It hadn't interested me much in the past, but using WindowsX's Vista Visual Styles Pack 6 on XP got me used to the Vista style stuff and I became interested in possibly seeing a similar look in 98SE.

Wow! I saw your exchange of love their with Tihiy. Bombs bursting in air, eh? Well, everyone got along perfect with everybody else I guess the world would be boring.

Perhaps I'll try the Pack when I set things up. Seems to me it should be getting pretty much stable as Tihiy's been working on it for years now. Something like that I generally don't experiment with much until after everyone else has already had the problems and most have gotten fixed. Sort of how I approached MDGx's implementation of XP/WMP10 files onto 98SE. I didn't quite trust that thing for a long time. Now it is pretty much finished and stable so I use it.

It was different with the auto-patcher as the changes it makes are just what the clearly defined updates that it installs do. Well, I would install mostly all of those anyway so better your program does it than me!

That's why I think it's kind of funny that so many around here seem to be ignoring your program and using the old, old, and a bit intrusive into the system as far as changing some key driver install methods and other things, Unofficial 98SE Service Pack instead of your up-to-date patcher. And yet they go nuts with these programs such as 98SE2ME and the Revolution Pack right as soon as the first Alpha, Alpha, REALLY Alpha versions are put up.

The exception regarding 98SE2ME is that MDGx had already been experimenting with the files transferred from ME to 98SE on his own system for years before he put it all together into an installable program. So that was pretty much safe right from the get go.

With yours, what you labeled as Alpha was really right from the start a better way to update than the Unofficial Service Pack. Heck, it was just a few scripts that installed more of what we needed and included a much more up to date set of updates. Now, it's just more refined as to choices, includes even more neat stuff, and is more polished as to installing and uninstalling.

As far as folks complaining about the size, my goodness these folks would need to download and install all of these things seperately anyway. I'd much prefer having nearly everything I need all packaged up so I can simply click on the program and presto my system is all updated. That's far superior to figuring out what to install and in what order and who's package is best and all the other decisions and time consuming run on sentences, etc, etc.

So, once again thank you, thank you, thank you.

I hope you start getting some nicer recognition for this. It kind of annoys me when I still see folks recommending the Unnofficial Service Pack and not giving this pack any mention. I don't think folks outside of these forums even know it exists. Well, now there's a preview release. Gosh man, with the exception of some of those environment error work arounds I needed to take, every version has seemed to me to be as good a final as any of the other packs that are out.

Maybe time to take this thing to MajorGeeks, CNET Download.com, etc? Too early? Well, if it works (and perhaps when you get it to install its stuff to its own folder either in Program Files or the root - whichever works better), then it's time for folks to use it. And, be able to find it and download it easily. A lot of folks won't be installing EMule or uTorrent stuff. They'll need to be able to see it on common sites and click a button to get it. I don't mean the forum members here, rather the general public who still think Windows Update is an option. At this time they generally only know about either Windows Update or the Unofficial Service Pack.

Nice speech.
However, the main idea behind this package is not to perform redundant work, meaning not to install again what is already installed, in terms of (un)official updates and not only. This is the forte of the package and this is what should be recognized and appreciated in first place.

You are right about not many people out there knowing about it, nor these forums. But even those that may have stumbled upon MSFN might have gotten scared by the huge wealth of knowledge here and considered themselves not up to it, so they chickened out.

However, regarding auto-patcher, I'm pretty sure that when it gets to the stable stage, it will find its way to Softpedia, MajorGeeks and many other similar "launching pads". It does deserve to.

If I may add a bit of constructive criticism here - solely from my point of view, but applicable to others as well - maybe the DOS routine at the start, with selecting options and all that, could be replaced at some point with a simple GUI, with radio buttons, checkboxes, maybe an edit box for the temporary (or any other) path...

I'm saying this because Win98 is a GUI OS and whoever is using it now must have used it for quite a long time and got used to GUI controls in favor of DOS batch/command-line navigation. My personal opinion is that a few mouse clicks on a screen full of more visible options could avoid the disorientation of a user presented with a black screen and a couple of text lines, where he doesn't immediately understand what to choose/type.

All this said, I still have to complete the download so I can test this build. [insert some "nice" words here] to leechers that downloaded it on eD2k and removed the package from share or closed the client, as well as to my ISP that cut my download bandwidth down to an 8 kBytes/s at most.

GUI's are nice, yes. But without being all prettied up the white on black MS-DOS window the auto-patcher provides does have pretty much all the choices presented to a user. A few nice GUI boxes could do the same. I do think though, that most folks who would get this will be able to read what's there now and press the correct keys to toggle stuff on and off and continue.

The masses won't be using anything 9x anyway. Most of those that are will just go to Windows Update and hope for the best. Those in the know will decide for themselves which update package they prefer. Of those, I don't think reading text in a dos box is too much of a hastle. Certainly less so than needing to install all this stuff myself.

But of course, by all means if it can look nicer I'd be all for that too! I think it's unnecessary, but yeah GUI's are nicer looking. Whatever soperific decides on that is fine as long as the choices aren't removed. I like being able to toggle things on or off.

Ouch! That's a long wait time at that speed. I hope downloads will get faster when some folks who actually understand what the word sharing means (ya gotta share back) begin to find this.

The idea is a GUI with a wise choice of fonts may bring together more options at once, thus offering a beter overview of everything available and making it easier to choose the desired options.
Obviously, none of the current options should be removed - only rearranged a little.

As for download speed, maybe I should change ISP, but I don't quite like the terms of the contract provided by the other available ISP. Gotta think about it and also have a serious talk with my current ISP. Uploaders' speed is just another variable in this equation.

Let me state for the record that i would easily prefer a GUI interface than what we put up with at present --- when you try to use Auto-Patcher on a system that hasn't got the proper graphics card driver installed, you can barely read the DOS box text even if you maximize it. And even when the display is all good, its still a bit hard to read. The only problem is I don't know how to write the code to make such a thing at present, and I have way too much on my plate to consider dropping everything to learn how. I might a bit down the track, but right now its just not possible. This is actually why I was fishing for partners for this project. My idea was that the other person would be responsible for packaging the project into a GUI format.

Any takers?

I want to get to the bottom of your list, please respond to the following questions:
323455: -- the code checks for the file version of negotiat.dll (5.0.2195.4784) --- if you don't have this file, or you have an earlier version, then the report will say you don't have it installed. Since this is causing problems, I am considering changing the file that is checked to dscsetup.dll (5.0.2195.5201) --- so can you please check for the existence of both these files and report back what file version you have

I am currently checking the other things you listed, i will adjust this post as I go ...

I just wanted to say thanks for your post --- the question of why Auto-Patcher isn't so well regarded by some of the more regulars on forums like MSFN i can only attribute to the fact I'm obviously not a full-on developer, or coder (as my exchange with Tihiy exposed) and/or that Auto-Patcher is obviously a DOS based program. It's a shame really because my project isn't about writing super-duper code --- all it is, is a TIME-SAVER !!! I read on the Neowin forums (which I haven't visited since the crap about using the word "AutoPatcher") that one of the reasons why an AutoPatcher for Window s98 would be so hard (and not worth doing) was the inability to stack up all the installs without having to reboot. ie an AutoPatcher for Windows 98 will SAVE MORE TIME FOR THE USER that an Autopatcher for any other later OS would be. it was why I started the project in the first place -- to save on the hours it usually took to bring a Windows 98 OS up to speed.

So all I can say is it is THEIR LOSS. If they want to spend more than a few minutes it takes me to set up the modules I want to install, then they can waste all the time in the world. I would just like to know why people DON'T use Auto-Patcher... as someone has already pointed out, its just an automatic hotfix installer that eliminates the need to wait around while Window s98 reboots. It really beggars belief actually ...

PS - I have posted a CD to someone who has kindly offered to host the file. I should have a URL within the week. I have totally given up on free file hosting --- unless someone recommends a particular site, I am just not going to bother wasting my time, and bandwidth.