I'm so p!$$ed off right now, that I really consider dropping my Internet connection unless a better alternative comes up - chances for that happening being very slim. My ISP simply sucks big time lately.

Now to the point, while I'm still around:
- negotiat.dll 5.00.2195.1 (Win2000)
- dscsetup.dll does not exist on my system However, in my Add/Remove panel I can clearly see "DS Client For Windows 98". Maybe it's an older version?


About the 2GB and 137GB patches, I manually installed the corresponding files, without using any installer, but now, looking at the files, there's a complete mess: esdi_506.pdr is back to the original version (4.10.2222, dated 1999) and the kernel shows the field "Fixed by: LittyX" but it's 4.10.2222 (as it originally was), not the 4.10.2225 that's packed with MDGx' installer. Dunno what's going on...

Forgot to say: I still couldn't complete the auto-patcher download and there was no complete source anymore, last time I checked. eMule is dead right now.

All I read so far is problems with seeders.... I'll see if I can get my 15megbit connection sharing some of these files... will report back later if I need more info or assistance....

BTW~ Just ask, I can share whatever you want.... (within reason)...

I use Azeurus (spelling?), and no sharezza stuff.... or emule/edonkey....


See ya, will join the seeders when I finish DLing....

its now posted at softpedia.Autopatcher98se

you guys comlpaining about speed... if yer on XP SP2, u need to patch the outgoing connections back to a higher number...

If you haven't **manually** patched this, it ISN'T patched....

XP used to limit the outgoing connections to 65,536... SP limits that to EIGHT! Tht's right, 8. as in, less than 9, more than 7...

Patching this makes BT **much** ***MUCH*** faster.

Took me about 10 minutes to download it in FlashGet from Softpedia's romanian mirror. It's now shared in eMule, together with previous 1.5, 1.6 update, 1.7 update, 1.7 full versions.
512kB/s national traffic vs. 8kB/s international... talkin' about freedom. Freedom to walk inside our cage, maybe.

Here's the report for 1.8 PR. Nothing's changed regarding the previously reported modules, however after reconsidering, the report may be accurate with the exception of DUN 1.4, 7-Zip and Directory Services (maybe), as the other reportedly broken updates are older versions.

Please post the names of the files/folders you're checking in the above packages, so I can check their existance/versions and report back.

[EDIT]
I forgot to mention a critical piece of information: winoldap is crashing constantly when msvcr80.dll is already loaded in memory by some application. I have one plug-in of Miranda IM's dynamically linked to msvcr80 and the application was running when I ran the report. If I say I clicked on the "Close" button in more than 200 subsequent error boxes, it's not at all an exaggeration.

However, this is not a direct issue of auto-patcher's, but more a MS incompatibility between Win9x's DOS and the Visual C 2005 runtime libraries. I get the very same behaviour when opening a DOS prompt or trying to run any DOS-based application under Windows (such as ping a.s.o.) while msvcr80.dll is loaded in memory.
Here's the crash dump as reported in the error box:


DeadDude, we're in a Win9x subforum. What makes you think anybody here would use XP?

Um,er, I'm using XP. My 98SE in this setup has been in a VMWare virtual machine. That's about to change in the next day or so as my hard drive will be blanked before installing BootIT NG, 98SE, XP, and OpenSUSE 10.2.

But yeah, sorry, but I've been conducting most of my recent business from XP.

I just don't have the money for Vista now. I've got a second hard drive in here just waiting for it (used it for the pre-releases), but it'll stay blank for now.

Hmm, I hadn't had those MSVCR80.dll winoldap errors. I used to get winoldap errors a lot when I was running MS-DOS games within Windows but now use either Dosbox or run them from a reboot to dos mode shortcut (or from MS-DOS Mode directly). It might just be that I haven't been running the dos windows while an application was using MSVCR80.dll so that's why I haven't seen the errors. I don't use dos much except for the old games.

I hope you didn't mean that the errors where happening while running auto-patcher. That would be a bad bug.

Nice that Softpedia has it! Too bad about the lack of community support. This project should be a sticky and really should become the preferred method to update a fresh Windows install, or even an older Windows install since it only updates what isn't already there. That would be an easy way to get the current updates added on without figuring out where or how ourselves.

It may be dos based, but it's run in Windows. So what if it doesn't look pretty.

Hmm again, on a real hard drive install I'll probably want my motherboard and videocard drivers installed before auto-patcher. So I'll likely be installing Internet Explorer 6 SP1, DotNET 1.1, SP1, and 2.0, and Direct X 9.0c beforehand.

However, maybe that's the nice part about not having a Windows GUI. Perhaps I'll just adjust the large memory stuff in 386 Enhanced of system.ini (so the thing will run on my 1 Gig of memory) and then just run auto-patcher. I could do all the motherboard driver stuff afterwards I suppose. Not sure though. But having it be a dos window type of program negates the need for the videocard drivers that offer nice resolutions being necessary. It might possibly even help to have Windows updated before installing any drivers Windows didn't come with. As I advised someone who was having problems, sometimes doing the driver installs afterwards ensures that the newest files are installed by the driver and that older files these drivers would use are replaced correctly as they aren't in use while the updates are running (not having been installed yet.)

Yeah, I'll try that and see what happens. Install Windows, make the memory adjustments, run auto-patcher. Whenever I finally get back on the net I'll let you know. After all, I'll be installing 3 operating systems so this will be a while!

Well, either way... I got it through BitTorrent and I am currently seeding at 156k/sec to 5 different people....

Like I said, if anyone needs something shared, I'll contribute where needed...

I will be taking this offline periodically, but whenever this pc is on the files will be shared...

I know this is a 98 area... but like others, my primary internet machine is XP.... and I figured those sharing may benefit from that info...


See ya

**Sticky this thread please...**

Version 1.8!!! Didn't even have time to try 1.7! Ok, will download ASAP. : (nice avatar by the way soporific).

Che Lives !!!

OK, let me state that my enthusiasm for this project has been recently greatly renewed ... yay!! ... i dunno, but seeing your project appear on a major download site for all the world to check out, rate, review, etc ... well, it sorta gives you a reason to actually make it as good as you possibly can (not that I wasn't trying to anyway) because so many people will now be checking it out ... its only been up for a day or so and already hundreds have downloaded it, and the page has been viewed by nearly a thousand, so a big thank you to Randy Rivers for uploading the program to SoftPedia (it was you wasn't it?) and it's also listed in the 'Week's best' column to the right of the Windows apps section.

Anyway, I now promise to keep developing the program even though I was going to hang up my computer hat, and put on my music hat for most of this year. Looks like I'll be doing both. For those interested to hear what my music sounds like, I've already got 3 finished tunes that i'll find a home for within the week. I'll add the URL to my profile, stay tuned ...

So, yeah, i'll be needing lots of feedback .... so i'll add my voice to the call for this project to be stickified ... sticky please?

np its a good program it need national attention and softpedia is a pretty major outlet and in turn will eventually be picked up by others etc.much like gapes sp 2.1 so run with it.All these projects in the 98se forum or any for that matter eg.nlite are here to help out people who otherwise would be unaware eg. people bash 98se for its bsod after gapes sp hit the market that shifted to hey lets take a second look at 98se etc.It all comes down to you guys programmers making these unoffical apps that drive the msfn community or any other opensource outlet.Sure some may say that its only 98se why the effort ,i say why not ill tell ya i install 98se on alot of pc for friends and family due to finical or lowend pcs and this saves alot of time burn ie6 dx9 etc on a mutitude of cd ,this is perfect a one stop cd thats good 2 go .So all you programmers who toil over inf exe.batch files dll. i salute you because you help out so many people who otherwise would struggle with a corrupt or shakey os .

Unfortunately. Otherwise, why would I be mentioning that in this topic? They happened during the scanning of the system for the report creation.

Of course, while running auto-patcher with the purpose of actually installing it, all other applications should be closed, however there may still be the chance of having one background app still running - such as a firewall or something - and if that one is linked to VS2005 libraries, it will spoil the party.

If anybody else would be able to test this situation, please do. I'd be happy to know that it's only my setup that behaves while everyone else is fine, however if not, there may be the need to dig into this issue and find a quick and reliable fix.

Softpedia will give this project the boost it deserves. Keep up the good work, soporific - you're in the light now!

Okay, I finally bit the bullet, backed up my WinXP nLite install and decided to give installing Win98SE on my Dell Inspiron 5100 another whirl...

First I killed the WinXP partition and formatted myself a FAT16 partition with second partition for Applications and Temp folders, which I intend to do later after I figure out a few more things. I had already copied over the Win98 setup folder and extracted the files from the SP2.cab from GAPE's Unofficial service pack to the install folder. Once I had everything the way I wanted I used my BartPE cd to copy things to the new partition and started things from the MAD boot disk (on the Ultimate DOS boot cd) and let Windows 98 install. Things went well at that point only giving me some headaches when I came to the PCMCIA section of the driver detection. Whatever...

Then once I managed to boot into Windows--the lovely blue screen complained to me about drivers, so I restarted into safe mode and installed the chipset drivers from Dell and the Omega Radeon Drivers for Win9x. It was around that point I realized I had no cdrom. ARGHH!!!

I went ahead and installed the Autopatcher v1.8 BETA from my E: drive, which is where I keep my 'My Documents' pointed at in all my Windows installs. The thing took only half the promised millennium to install to the default installation path, but made up for everything when the program itself ran, so I don't feel too gypped.

Things went rather smoothly (AFAIK) from that point on, there only being a few complaints about newer files already having been installed (from using the SP2 Windows 98SE slipstream install method) and I had to ask it to retry installing the FTP update twice before it managed to install properly (again, AFAIK).. Over all I thought it went pretty good. I'll be tinkering around with the Windows98SE install later on and seeing if I can get some of the supposedly WinNT5.x drivers to install any way, I'm back in Windows XP for now... Thanks for the work you've done putting this thing together!

My install log is attached to this post! I hope it helps!

--iWindoze

PS: I almost forgot, when ever I wanted to select more options the code always made me re-toggle the selection, is this a feature or a bug?

The log files and report files are the best "easy" thing to do to provide feedback. SO thanks heaps.

A feature. When it was still a fairly new feature there wasn't too many modules with options so when someone had finished with the options, I thought they'd prefer to have the toggle reset. Now that there are lots of modules you can set options for, its not so obvious which behaviour to go for. Unless people have huge objections I'm going to leave it as it is.

EDIT: OK, I think i've found the first bug in v1.8 --- iWindowze's log file confirmed it for me, and I have already reported it on MDGX's latest updates thread so go there for more info. It is the kb905495 package --- it wont install normally but if you unzip it and manually run the command, it installs fine. The code doesn't catch these types of errors unfortunately (or maybe i can set a errorlevel check, does anyone know?) and so the program will keep trying to install it, no matter how many times you run Auto-Patcher. I have already made my own installer for it so it will be fixed in the next version.

EDIT 2: I just finished reviewing the log file I was given by iWindoze and it all looks good. The only other thing of interest was:
18:16:10 -- superceeded title -- OLEDBUP - OLE DB Provider for Internet Publishing Update

I don't get a superceeded message on my test systems -- Do us a favour can you? Can you check for the file version of this file and path -- C:\Program Files\Common Files\system\ole db\msdaipp.dll -- my code says it should be 8.102.4004.0 and if yours is later, is it 8.103.4004.0 and if its not, any idea where it came from? Cheers, man. If only everyone would at least do a report on their system, this project would be a millions times more accurate....

EDIT 3: a new feature was just added: when you get reports of superceeded hotfixes, the log file now tells you:
* the path & filename of the file being checked for its file version
* the file version number
* and also the file version that Auto-Patcher wanted to install.

This should make reporting back on questions like above much easier... hopefully all people will need to do is post their log file or report file.

Here's a sample:



If anyone thinks of other useful features, you know what to do... things I was thinking of adding:

* a report function that tells you what you HAVE installed (not just what is missing)
* the log file to record the number of installations carried out during a particular patching session. Its annoying having to scroll through the entire amount of logfile text looking to see if anything was installed. The only problem with this is it adds more complexity to the install process, and may slow it down a little. Still, I think this would be a great addition ...
* automatic access to this project's homepage from the main menu (already added)
* a pretty full on feature would be to choose not to install any of the unofficial updates. I can think of a few good reasons why some people might want this. I'll have to work out how to integrate it into the program options so its not something I can just whack in ...
* the program does all your housework including mowing the lawn and making cocktails --- now I'm just getting silly, its obvious Auto-Patcher will be better suited to pouring beer and rolling spliffs...

Regarding superceded reports (and not only, I may add), maybe it'd be best to keep the verbosity low, thinking from the log's length point of view. I've been thinking of something like:

15:18:08 superceded: q260067 (Mapped Drives Update)
C:\WINDOWS\system\user32.dll
Current: 4.90.0.3001
Attempted: 4.10.0.2227

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\Updates contains information about currently installed updates. Could be used to check for succesful/broken updates.
A tad below Setup is the Uninstall key, containing keys with the paths to the uninstallers for each application that has one. Those paths can be used to track down currently installed software, such as 7-Zip, DUN 1.4 or DS Client for Windows98, that I currently have installed but are not detected by auto-patcher's report routine.

About the other suggested features, I think I'd agree with pouring beer, for now.

He, he! I made it back to the web.

I changed the install folder to c:\autopach so I could keep it around when I delete everything it the Temp folder.

Yep, the 905495 loops. I guess I'll install it manually as you said that's the way to do it.

The process went fine with no more errors about environments and stuff. The usual assortment of Windows Updates that it says I need is there. I won't bother with them. Most are superseded by unofficial updates the auto-patcher takes care of.

My problem remains my personal bootup error of "Error loading device IOS, real mode memory allocation failed." My temporary work around was to cut and paste smartdrv.exe from the Windows folder to the Windows\Command folder so I can still have use of it for MS-DOS Mode. I'll need it to exist somewhere and I figured that the Command folder was a nice choice as it get put into the path.

I tried all sorts of ways to solve it like changing to the version that comes with 98SE instead of the WinMe version that comes with 98SE2ME, replacing RMM.PDR with the one on the 98SE cd (although I think it's the same one), etc, etc. Nothing allows bootup unless smartdrv.exe does not exist in the Windows folder.

See, everything is fine until any particular software is installed, doesn't matter what and that software does nothing that relates to smartdrv, and then the bootup error occurs. Then I need to go into safe mode and get smartdrv permanently out of the Windows folder. And I never know what install will trigger this. It has been with completely random software installations.

The work around would be fine, except that the last time I had 98SE on a real hard drive (as opposed to VMWare where this never occurs) the error happened again when I rebooted from installing something after I had already done the work around. So I had no clue at that point which file was causing it and therefore had no way to fix it! That stank!

I think this has some relation to video drivers as once when I was originally troubleshooting this before I learned about smartdrv, a return to the Standard PCI Graphics Adapter (VGA) enabled me to get back into normal mode. But even redoing the Via AGP and the ATI or NVidia drivers brought back the bootup error. Obviously I liked the smartdrv work around better! No way I'm operating without video drivers.

Of course, nothing is calling for smartdrv.exe to be loaded so I'm at a complete loss to understand why it has anything to do with a Windows bootup problem. I've checked msdos.sys and all the files in sysedit, msconfig, etc, and absolutely no reference to starting smartdrv is in anything I can see.

DRAT, DRAT, DRAT! What the heck is this thing really caused by? If anyone ever comes up with a permanent fix for this I'd pay! Since it happens on some other unknown file even after the smartdrv work around I suspect it really doesn't have anything to do with smartdrv itself, but something that triggers IOS.VXD to not like any particular file existing in the Windows folder. And it is always triggered by a restart after a software installation.

Oh, and that SHELL98 must not be the cause of the weird Explorer windows problem as I activated that in auto-patcher and suffered no problems. I've also installed 98SE2ME and 98MP10 afterwards with no problems either.

Hmm, wonder what caused that? Well, it's just nice it isn't happening anymore.

I'll throw my image of the 98SE autopatcher install back on the drive later tonight and check. I'd do it now but I'd prefer to maximize my online time over swapping the OS, checking one file and then swapping back to XP.... That said, I think chances are this was caused by me using the GAPE SP2.1a "slipstream" install of 98SE before running your autopatcher. Of course, its also possible the file may have been changed via a driver installed before the autopatcher?

I'm off to hunt down some drivers for the laptop again... I can't really get anything but 2000\XP drivers for this thing from Dell's site so I must hunt down by manufacturer... Can you say "FU--!" err..I mean Fu...n?

--iWindoze

Well I lied...

No actually what happened is I found some of the drivers I've been looking for and thought I'd give installing them a quick spin to see if they'd fix some of the problems I've been having... no dice. I did a screen grab before I tossed my XP back on though, so here's your answer in the image I attached. And no, before you ask I have no idea how I managed to get such a high version number installed!

--iWindoze

Thanks for the tip, I've used nearly the exact formatting you posted. If you have any other ideas about keeping verbosity down while not losing any info, please post ... thanks again.


Didn't we pin this down to an earlier version of 98SE2ME? I haven't seen the problem for weeks now... ie I don't have any test systems with that install on it anymore. Shouldn't be a worry anymore ... if you forget about it, so will the rest of us!


D'OH !! If you have any idea down the track, I'll be interested to hear ... but it doesn't really matter does it ... Auto-Patcher handles superceeded files elegantly i reckon ...

NEW FEATURE: I have added a modules menu option to force the re-installation of all files in the selected modules. Instead of reporting a file is already installed, it skips showing the message and tries again. But this means you won't know which installs are looping if that's what they're doing. So you should really only use this option if you have already run Auto-Patcher once, but it shouldn't matter either way. Adding this feature was mainly for my benefit as it helps troubleshoot problematic installs, but I'm sure there's another good reason to include it just dont' ask me what that reason is -- if anyone thinks of a good one, please post... !

AutoPatcher! Wow, what an enterprise!

Took me AGES to download, even with Flashget using ten jets, it started fine but the server was getting really slow and exhausted towards the end! When I came to install it I thought I'd be sitting at the machine all night, all that rebooting and updating! It got really scary at times!!

But a really excellent thing you've done

Just out of interest, does your computer reboot to the desktop without having to log in or anything like that? I would imagine that for people who have to do something (ie press a button) for the desktop to finish loading would get a wee bit frustrated with all the reboots. There is maybe room to save on one or two reboots, but most of them are still required ... the fact that Microsoft didn't have to do that much to create an OS that didn't have to reboot so often really puts a rumoured quote from one of their hapless way-down-the-corporate-ladder employees into context ... "Windows 98 is a toy operating system" he was supposed to have said --- what does that make WinXP "a toy operating system that doesn't reboot so often"?

Heh.

I got this email from someone just recently, I thought I'd post for the information and hopefully the solution for all to read...



Hmmm, OK lets try a few things:

1) Turn on debugging - if you edit any of the .bat files in the CODE folder you'll see a variable setting near the top -- SET DEBUG=N ... change this to SET DEBUG=Y (the text case doesn't matter) --- but in your case this isn't going to help much because your problem is way before any debugging can start. However, I have modified StartPch.bat to include debugging and I've already turned it on. Download the attachment and overwrite the appropriate file in the program folder. Run the program as normal and the two essential variables that should be the cause of the problem will be shown for you to see. Report back how you go and what happened.

2) Find the program directory and open the CODE folder. Now open a command prompt (and you should already be at the CODE folder in DOS) and type "Autopach <Locate>" where Locate is the path to the program directory. Eg if the program is in c:\autopach then use "autopach c:\autopach" and see what happens

3) Don't use the COMSPEC variable in StartPch --- replace %COMSPEC% with c:\windows\command.com or whatever the path is to command.com and see what happens.

4) The only other thing I can think of is that this is a disk drive problem --- and that your shiny new motherboard is making my DOS programming go haywire.

See how you go with all that ...

Sop.

The "Installation count" feature I mentioned in an earlier post has now been implemented. And also I've done a significant clean up of the program code --- my goodness there were some weird leftovers from previous incarnations of this project. But in particular, the program was using multiple locations OUTSIDE of the program location to do some stuff. No more. Only one file is now created outside of the program folder and that is to restart the program after a reboot. It is written to the root of the C drive and is deleted before the end of the autopach process.

As soon as I have tested the new code for stability, I'll release a v1.9 update containing all the new stuff. Should be only a few days... i'm probably going to release the next full version as Preview Release 2 and hopefully just rename it to Final if no bugs are forthcoming ...


OK, firstly dscsetup.dll won't be on your system becuase its only used to install the update (i didn't check before suggesting it) And secondly, can you confirm you have the LATEST "DS Client For Windows 98" as apparently there are 4 or 5 versions floating around. Use my complete hotfixes list to get the download. If you install that manually and STILL get the update listed as missing in your report, I'll EAT MY SHORTS!! You may need to un-install the old one first, but tell me if you need to do that as that will make things a bit harder.

see the post above

Thanks a lot fort your kind reply.

1. Debugging showed:
LOCATE is: C:\AUTOPACH
COMSPEC is: C:\COMMAND.COM
Press any key to continue
Bad command or file name

2. autopach c:\autopach gave:
Out of environment space
Out of environment space
C:\WINDOWS
Unfortunately this project version needs to be able to access the system drive!
Setup will now exit .... etc.

3. Replacing %COMSPEC% with C:\COMMAND.COM changed nothing.

Greetings
Jan Erik

OK, I scoured through all the official and unofficial updates I have around and I found a dsclient.exe package that contains negotiat.dll 5.00.2195.4784 - I suppose that's what the patcher's looking for. Haven't installed it yet, will do later on.

But now there's one question that springs to mind: could you make so that the report - as it should be as accurate as possible - would say that there is some version (and exactly which one) of the respective update installed, but not the latest?

I suppose that'd clear out some misunderstandings such as the current situation when user knows he's got something installed, the Add/Remove panel confirms, but the auto-patcher denies it. I agree it would add to the report's length, but IMHO it's worth it. Tell me what you think.

Oh and while we're at DS Client update, I've read somewhere around that the correct install order would be:
1. IE6-SP1
2. DUN 1.4 Upgrade
3. DS Client for Windows98
I hope this sequence is being followed in auto-patcher.

OK, there may be two problems here --- 1, there may be a problem with how your computer is processing certain DOS commands, and 2, your computer may be going too fast for a particular routine that is critical for the program to work. In the attachment there is an update to AutoPach.bat that now has a delay included where the problem should be (if the problem is speed). Also included is a replacement start-up file called Manual_Start.bat which should be run from the same location as Startpch.bat --- there is less code to stuff things up. When you run the file it will tell you the instructions but here they are now -- you need to install the program (copying/moving the files is fine) to a specific location which is: c:\autopach

The other thing to try is to type out the 3rd last line of Manual_Start.bat in a DOS box and see what happens. ie type %COMSPEC% /E:2048 /C "C:\AUTOPACH\CODE\AUTOPACH.BAT" C:\AUTOPACH


Can you give me an example of what you mean? I don't think this is possible because it would mean recording all this other extra info about each update, and I'm just not going to spend my time on that. Maybe I'm wrong which is why i'm asking for an example. I'm not worried in the slightest about long reports.


Nope, its:
1. DUN 1.4 Upgrade (Auto-Patcher asks you to install it first)
2. IE6-SP1
3. DS Client for Windows98

I haven't experienced any problems with this order. Anyone comment? If we could somehow get a silent installer for DUN14 we could choose the order.

I've already given examples in my posts earlier: DUN 1.4, DS Client, 7-Zip (that one actually is a newer version, not older), 2GB patch (checkable only by extra version string, maybe)... I also offered the registry paths where their installation can be checked.

I'm thinking there may be - rare or not - reasons for someone not to install a certain version of an update, while he already has one installed that would serve the purpose and not interfere with the other updates.
In the case of DUN 1.4, for example, running the report would return "DUN 1.4 not installed" and then running it, auto-patcher would ask for its installation. The user may forget for a moment that he shouldn't do that (for some reason such as software conflicts or whatever) and he borks the system.

There's no need for deep digging if it would take too much; just saying "older version found" instead of "not installed" would be enough in such cases. Or just the version of the checked file, as in the above DS Client case, so the user would have a clue on what he got and what he should do further.

If you can't/won't do it, fine - it was just an idea.

You're right but actually just as anxious as frustrated!

We talking Win98SE here, right? My machine always auto-reboots into Desktop albeit slowly because I have all the DOS windows showing up first each time. (Don't know if this is native Windows behaviour of whether it's because of some third-part programme e.g. X-Setup.)

Great programme!

I have put the new AutoPach.bat in, in place of the old one, and also Manual_Start.bat.
No matter if I run the latter or Startpch.bat, I always get: "Bad command or file name".
I also tried running %COMSPEC% /E:2048 /C "C:\AUTOPACH\CODE\AUTOPACH.BAT" C:\AUTOPACH
from DOS, with the same result.

I suppose that there is a problem with memory handling under Win98SE and DOS in my desktop. Even though I have essentially the same settings in CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT on both computers. If I in SYSTEM.INI leave out MaxPhysPage under [386Enh], Win98SE doesn't boot. If I set it at MaxPhysPage=40000 (which appears to be the maximum accepted), it boots. I tried MaxPhysPage=3C000 (1 GB, using only the first RAM bar), and that was OK. I tried MaxPhysPage=20000 (512 MB) and then Startpch.bat reported that there would be too little memory to run it! But in the lap-top I have only 64 MB RAM... and that works...

One of these days I'll try taking out the second 1GB RAM bar and leave out MaxPhysPage, but I would be surprised if it would help...

One more thing I may try later, not expecting much from it, is this. Just a wild guess. Since I run Win98SE and Win2000Pro in dual-boot, I also have a neat application "MountEvereything 3", which allows Win98SE to both read from and write to NTFS. Thus Win98SE works as a "boot CD on the harddisk" for Win2000. This is a main reason why I wish to have both (it is rarely but sometimes useful for doing something in Win2000, one very simple example: If a file refuses to be deleted in Win2000, being "in use", I can delete it from Win98SE, it can also be useful for certain forms of patching experiments). Who knows how much memory that application uses... I may try to uninstall MountEverything and run Auto-patcher, and then reinstall MountEverything. But again I would be surprised if that works.

Does anyone have any further advice?

Thanks for taking time for me
JE

Are you sure it was him?
Did you receive our award notification email?

Yes i did, thanks !

Known bugs in v1.9 BETA
* i've somehow managed to break the report function in v1.9 BETA --- will fix ASAP.

I got my answer under the wrong quote...
So I repeat it:

I have put the new AutoPach.bat in, in place of the old one, and also Manual_Start.bat.
No matter if I run the latter or Startpch.bat, I always get: "Bad command or file name".
I also tried running %COMSPEC% /E:2048 /C "C:\AUTOPACH\CODE\AUTOPACH.BAT" C:\AUTOPACH
from DOS, with the same result.

I suppose that there is a problem with memory handling under Win98SE and DOS in my desktop. Even though I have essentially the same settings in CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT on both computers. If I in SYSTEM.INI leave out MaxPhysPage under [386Enh], Win98SE doesn't boot. If I set it at MaxPhysPage=40000 (which appears to be the maximum accepted), it boots. I tried MaxPhysPage=3C000 (1 GB, using only the first RAM bar), and that was OK. I tried MaxPhysPage=20000 (512 MB) and then Startpch.bat reported that there would be too little memory to run it! But in the lap-top I have only 64 MB RAM... and that works...

One of these days I'll try taking out the second 1GB RAM bar and leave out MaxPhysPage, but I would be surprised if it would help...

One more thing I may try later, not expecting much from it, is this. Just a wild guess. Since I run Win98SE and Win2000Pro in dual-boot, I also have a neat application "MountEvereything 3", which allows Win98SE to both read from and write to NTFS. Thus Win98SE works as a "boot CD on the harddisk" for Win2000. This is a main reason why I wish to have both (it is rarely but sometimes useful for doing something in Win2000, one very simple example: If a file refuses to be deleted in Win2000, being "in use", I can delete it from Win98SE, it can also be useful for certain forms of patching experiments). Who knows how much memory that application uses... I may try to uninstall MountEverything and run Auto-patcher, and then reinstall MountEverything. But again I would be surprised if that works.

Does anyone have any further advice?

Thanks for taking time for me
JE

@ soporific:

Looking through AutoPach.bat, I see you're checking for DUN 1.4 presence by %windir%\msdun\msdun98.cat. One glance and I noticed MSDUNSE.INF in the same folder, which contains the following lines:
OLD_DUN_VERSION = "2.1"
NEW_DUN_VERSION = "2.2"
I guess this would be enough information to know both previous and current versions of DUN, in case you decide to raise report verbosity or just to make sure the right version is installed.

However, you're looking for the string 6,660 (representing file length) in DIR "%windir%\msdun\msdun98.cat" | Find /i "6,660" >nul, which it cannot find, because of two reasons:
1. Syntax is incorrect - the right one is DIR "%windir%\msdun" | Find /i "6,660" >nul (without the catalog file name)
2. My regional settings that swap the decimal symbol with the digit grouping symbol. So the right string to search for would be "6.660", but this is only available on certain Windows setups. Apparently you have to change the detection routine to something that doesn't rely on variable settings, or at least perform the same operation twice, with the two different strings.

I'll do further digging.

Signed up just to say I used your autopatcher and think it's great. Thanks for all the work on this!

I've run out of ideas --- i tried to install Windows 98 on a Pentium D and it wouldn't install. Yours is a funny one because you got yours to install but you seemt to be having similar problems. I just don't know what else to suggest.


Thanks for the feedback! Glad to see this project draws people to MSFN, a similar thing happened to me.

With regard to Autopach.bat I think you're referring to v1.7 code (i haven't got a copy at hand to check) --- v1.8 onwards already has 2 changes:
* there is now only one routine to check for DUN --- before my code was directing to 2 locations
* I don't use msdun98.cat anymore because its possible the user un-installed DUN at some stage which still leaves msdun98.cat behind. However, MSDUNSE.INF is deleted if un-installed and so the code now simply checks for its existence. I think this should be enough as i think in 99.99% of cases, either the user has installed the latest DUN update or they haven't. Does anyone know how likely is it that the user has a different version of the DUN update on their computer? I ask as I have no idea if one even exists.

EDIT: there is also code for DUN in MainCode.bat but it is not used by any routines anymore. I should delete it from the next release to avoid confusion.

PROGRAM CHANGES: I have disabled the 3rd party apps module because the utility I was relying on to process the code is being problematic. I need a utility to be able to search through all directories to find a particular file. I was using LOCATE.COM but i'm having problems with it. It is reporting that the file isn't found when it should be saying the opposite. The only app inside the module was 7-zip so its not the end of the world or anything. Well, maybe if George Bush gets his extra 900 billion (!!) for the war in Iraq it may just be ...

The report function has also been improved - it was reporting too early into the install routine, some hotfixes weren't going to be installed but the report said your computer was missing those updates. How stupid is that? The user isn't interested in what was NOT going to be installed, only what's missing that WAS going to be installed. This has now been fixed.

Drugwash: keep digging away, this is really good that someone is verifying my code.

v1.91 is now out

- report function fixed
- report function improved (you will get 2 less "missing" updates)
- other small changes (see first post change log)

I was referring to AutoPach.bat 1.90.02, the update that broke the report and... you get it.
I hope you added the missing :MISSING routine in the new version, otherwise there would be some "bad command or file name" when the script doesn't find ASET.EXE, GETVER.EXE, NSET.COM or any of the main batch scripts (AutoPach, MainCode, Run-Mod).
I even started to draw a flowchart for AutoPach.bat, but I got tired after a few hours and also my machine was complaining about too low memory when trying to save it (31MB bitmap). Ask and you shall receive.
That said, let's check on the new version...

P.S. One more thing: don't you dare call for IEXPLORE.EXE directly. Ever! Some users keep IE only for its core, while having other applications that need it and/or a browser front-end to it. IEXPLORE.EXE may very well be blocked in the firewall settings. So better search for default browser setting and launch that one.
I really hate apps that launch iexplore.exe directly.

Hi again!
I think the Microsoft report 253912 "Out of Memory Error Messages with Large Amounts of RAM Installed" sheds some light on this. I tried the "Workarounds" mentioned, except replacing the RAM bar with a 512 MB one. None of the two other workarounds, nor both together, solved the problem.

There is one trick to install Win98SE on a computer with a large RAM. Take RAM-bars out until you have max. 1 GB RAM. Install. Put the other RAM bars in again. This worked for me. But then it could happen that if you change something essential in CONFIG.SYS it will again not boot and you would probably again have to go through taking out a RAM bar and putting it back in... This happened to me when I added NOEMS to DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE V", so I left that entry out again. You should also add "MaxPhysPage=40000" under [386Enh] in SYSTEM.INI (under DOS with the Editor if Win98SE doesn't yet start), and preferrably also "MaxFileCache=514288" under [vcache]. I have now manually installed all the updates in the Auto-patcher, one by one. Tedious, but what else can I do... By the way: Does Win98SE2ME overcome this problem? Does anyone know? But I suppose you should use the Auto-patcher before you do SE2ME.

In the old days you were happy to have 128 MB RAM... My old laptop, on which I first experiment with these things before applying them on my new desktop, has 64 MB. I tried to put in 256 MB, but then there was no way to make the swap file work! When the RAM was full nothing more worked... The swap file stayed empty. The laptop manufacturer suggested to uninstall Win98SE, put the bigger RAM in and reinstall, but I didn't try that yet. Could it be that a similar thing is happening here? I will have to investigate it...

In my other and newer laptop I also have Win98SE and Win2kPro in double boot (but I didn't yet try Auto-patcher there). There I first had 512 MB RAM, and Win98SE still didn't install. I found a way out how to do it. Later I added another 512 MB RAM bar, and Win98SE still booted.

I installed Win98SE as normal. It did install but the computer wouldn't boot in Win98SE, but gave an error message about some VXD file (I don't remember which one). I installed again, over the first installation, but this time with a switch: "setup /p i". At the DOS prompt write: "X:\setup /p i", where X is the CD-ROM drive letter. Then it worked.

One thing is obvious: Win98SE has trouble with big RAMs. But it seems that many new computers (or many mainboards) are to-day "Designed for Windows XP"... whatever that means... Does it mean that that is another reason why Win98SE is hard to install? Do the manufacturers have a secret deal with MS so that people will HAVE to buy newer OS-es, too, when buying a new computer? Well, I'll switch to Linux one day and in any case XP would be the very last MS OS I would ever install (which I haven't done yet), NEVER Vista...

So I will never buy a computer "Designed for Windows Vista"...! Beware!

Have a nice day everyone!
JE

allesok,

Greetings!

Heyyy, now that's interesting that you kicked a startup problem by using setup /p i. For those looking in, that installs 98SE as a Standard PC without ACPI support. Another trick for those that WANT ACPI and are sure that the motherboard supports it is to use setup /p j. That forces ACPI support. I have one old computer that had a bios date older than Windows will let ACPI install automatically, even though the original HP system software was setup with ACPI. If I use the recovery cd then it has ACPI, but if I install from a retail 9x cd then I need to use setup /p j to get ACPI. And that board needed it as without it if I installed a videocard to replace the onboard the system would turn off the USB ports. Oh, they would be active and "working properly" in Windows but nothing would be powered or detected if plugged in. With ACPI, it didn't exhibit that problem.

When I played with installing XP on that board (an HP Pavilion 4430(US) with a SiS5598 chip) it didn't even let me force ACPI, no matter what I selected with the F6 option during setup. If I didn't let it install as a Standard Computer it would blue screen when setup ended saying that it was doing that to protect my system. Since Standard Computer left me with no ability to install a videocard, XP was out of the question. That onboard video was just too slow. It's kind of a peppy system with something like a Voodoo 3000 PCI in it.

But your comment interested me because when I use 98SE on my current system it always automatically installs ACPI support, but also always then reports 2 device errors for 2 ACPI Holder for PCI IRQ Steering devices. Everything works, but I have eventually encountered a problem. At some point after a restart after any random software is installed, I get a blue screen (actually a dos black screen) regarding an error loading device IOS, real mode memory allocation failed.

Perhaps I'll try installing as a Standard PC (setup /p i) and see if PCI bus steering is enabled and working properly. It always reports that it is when using ACPI, but it gives those two device errors and eventually craps out. I found that renaming or deleting smartdrv.exe in safe mode fixes it temporarily, but then at some point the IOS bootup error happens again with me having no clue then how to fix it.

I think I remember that I did install twice using the p i switch on another board. Once, it said that PCI steering was disabled due to an unknown problem, but the second time IRQ steering was enabled and working properly. I don't recall whether I got the IOS bootup error on that board when using standard pc. I know I had the error when using ACPI though. I seem to always wind up with that error on 98SE these days. Except on VMWare.

Oh well. Perhaps some time soon I'll try it on this board (the EPOX in my signature) and see what happens.

Too busy playing with Linux now to bother with it but eventually I'll have the calling!

Hello Hello

just coming over from my own post/prob which has been solved and where I offered to guinea-pig my new hard drive and fresh 98se install since I'm all backed up and fearless at the moment

I tried to use the Auto-Patcher Beta and heres what happened:

First PowerArchiver (6.1) wouldn't extract it (got the rar from softpedia) I've never had any probs with the prog anywhere else and been using it for couple years - don't know what it means or if it matters to you just passing on the info - anyshoes I downloaded winrar and it came out with that one just fine.

I put the files in C:\windows\AuPchB on my current (albeit old) running fine system

I tried to run it on my current set up from the dos box I got "bad command etc.." this is what I typed:

C:\WINDOWS\AuPchB\STARTPCH.BAT

Then I restarted in dos-mode from the start menu - same error

Next I bootdisked to dos and tried again - same error
C:\WINDOWS\AuPchB\STARTPCH.BAT

Since my current system has all kinds of programs, updates, patches etc I went ahead and formatted my new drive, put on a fresh 98se and tried again - exactly the same thing happened.

I also copied the files to my d: drive and tried from there but same error

It's very likely that I'm doing things wrong or missed some crucial steps, if so I'll be happy to correct my errors and do it again if it would be of help to know how things goes on well-worn vs a spanky-new system.

I have no problem getting my system up the way I like it so I'm not asking for personal reasons - if guinea-pigging this machine serves no useful purpose for anyone I won't be insulted if my offer is passed up - I'm not dumb but this is certainly not my realm so i don't want to waste anyones time needlessly

Please post a step by step if you want me to try again - here's the exact lines I typed in dos and the exact response

a:> c:
c:> cd windows
c:WINDOWS>cd aupchb
c:WINDOWS\AUPCHB\>startpch.bat
bad command or filename
bad command or filename
bad command or filename
bad command or filename


all 4 attempts produced the same thing, with the exception that the time I chose "restart windows in dos-mode" from the start menu it did this

c:WINDOWS>cd aupchb
c:WINDOWS\AUPCHB\>startpch.bat
bad command or filename
bad command or filename
bad command or filename
bad command or filename

windows is restarting...

Sorry I couldn't give better feedback, I really wanted to be of return service because this place really helped me out - cheers all!

Thanks for trying. I'm afraid you missed a very important step that might have been mentioned in the first post: you need to download the full v1.8 first (~233MB), download the 1.91 beta update, run the 1.80 installer that will unpack the files to a folder of your choice and then manually unpack the files in 1.91 on top of the freshly unpacked 1.80 (overwrite everything).

The installer will create a desktop shortcut that shall be used for starting the actual program. First recommended step would be to choose reporting from the auto-patcher menu, to see what it detected. If you know for sure of any of the modules reported as not installed as being installed, please let us know.

On a second run you may choose what to install or just choose "fully auto-patch". When all operations finished (many reboots will be involved), it's recommended that you run the report again and compare the report results with the options you chose to install. Please report any mismatch - that's the idea of testing it.

OK OK I will add a check to make sure that the file exists, I will see if there are better alternative browsers to use, I will even make the earth spin backwards to save Lois Lane, if that's what it takes to please everybody. Just try not to use words like "dare" preceeded with phrases like "don't you" -- you sound like a nagging mother when you do that!

v1.92 has been released.

Change log for v1.92:
- you get a message explaining what's going on if you try to run the beta upgrade without installing the main program first.
- nothing else is different so if you have 1.91 working then stick with this until the next release.

Welcome back! For a while I thought some croc made himself a new belt out of your skin.

Quote: [...] you sound like a nagging mother when you do that!
More like a father, I'd say... He-he... I like people with a good sense of humor, coz I got lots of it.

BTW, that part with spinning backwards to save Lois is one of my favorites throughout the story. I like to think there are still people who would do that; this world needs some good things going on, for too many bad things have been happening lately.

Back to our "business": I noticed quite a lot of fallbacks to :ErrChoic, which frankly could be avoided; it's pretty silly to abort the program just because the user pressed a wrong key in some menu.

And still :MISSING was not present in 1.91; didn't get to download 1.92 yet, will do after posting. But if "nothing else is different", then the issue is still there.
And I still need to build that testing machine, darn it...

[EDIT]
OK, I got in the mood for playing, so I modded StartPch.bat and AutoPach.bat a bit. Please have a look, maybe you'll like what I did.
The zip also contains an old report and a new one, freshly created with 1.92.

First off, I think the report is missing the version of the Auto-Patcher that created the report. It may be useful for comparison. I added that in the modded AutoPach.bat.

New updates that appeared as uninstalled:
- kb929969: Hotfix for Vulnerability in Vector Markup Language (was it added recently?)
- Unicows: Layer for Unicode version 1.1.3790.0 (correct, was replaced by some stupid app with an older version)

Updates previously reported as uninstalled, now apparently installed:
- kb918144: Unofficial Hotfix for various issues in the Jet 4.0 data engine (not sure if I ever installed this manually, recently)
- DirectX9: DirectX 9.0c (October 2006) (correct, I manually installed December2006 recently)
- q314941: Hotfix for Vulnerability in Universal Plug 'n' Play (reported as not necessary as UPnP is not available on my machine)
- q301540: Unofficial fix for bug in Installable File System Manager (reported as not necessary as there are no zero-byte INF files on my machine)
- 7-ZIP: 7-Zip 4.42 (file archiver) (correct, as third-party apps were pulled from the auto-patcher)

Maybe I'll take that back

Okay so I did what you said and this time all worked well - (on my current system which is "well seasoned" and has been running fine) There are things reported as not there that are in fact there...

I know these are on here:

- DirectX9: DirectX 9.0c (October 2006)

- 48BITLB2: Unofficial Update for Drives over 137gb (for IBM portables)
I definately have this!!

- NPUpdW98: Unofficial Update for Windows Notepad
If this means "Metapad" then it doesn't see it
(it actually opened the report in Metapad)

- Win982Me: The core of Win98-to-Me by MDGx

If this is the bit from SP2.1a that spiffs up things I have it on here, if it's the whole
shebang where you need the ME disc then I do not...

There are other things that seem familiar from my own Update kit but I
can't be sure (like MDAC and VB6 entries) because I have VB6 sp5 but may not be relating in the proper context - my files still have the numbers on them from the original download-

So for example the "Shutdown" one looks like this to me - Shutdownsup4756US8.EXE but the report has q239887: Windows 98 Second Edition Shutdown Supplement - it could be the same one but I'm definitely not the one to say so LOL! (the bold is all I added to the original file name so I'd know what it was for, the numbers I left exactly as they were downloaded from microsoft)

My kit has 48 files from microsoft, I could zip it with the report if you'd like to compare? As for the SP2.1a files well I couldn't say if auto-patcher detected those proprly or not the best I can offer is to type beside the things I know I don't have at the moment like "Net Meeting" or IE6 or WMP or Dial Up Networking because I don't use them.

I'm going to go run "patch everything" on a clean install but first I'll do a report and see what it says is missing from a virgin environment compared to this one.

Yeah I agree. Originally it was to notify me to an error in setting up the choice function, but why should the USER suffer for my coding bugs ... I'll still notify about the error, but the program will try to continue.


OK let me put this one to bed ... you are referring to making sure that vital program components exist and coding for situations where they are missing? ie all the files in the BIN directory? This is actually what v1.92 checks for to determine if v1.8 has been installed ... I will implement this fully in the next release. If this is not what you are referring to, please enlighten me


Thanks, i'll check it out. And I'll also review your latest findings --- thanks heaps for this, you're making a real difference in the development - i'll have to elevate your honour roll status now


Glad to see you got it working ... and thanks very very much for reporting the inconsistencies. I promise to address every single one ...

re 4756US8.EXE and q239887 -- I go by the kb article number for naming the hotfixes - 4756US8.EXE is the file for the update referred to in q239887
- I just recently changed the code for checking for the existence of this update - it looks like it was a mistake to do so. I'll reveiw the code yet again.

re DirectX 9.0c (October 2006) --- I'm pretty sure i got this one right, the code checks for the existence of d3dx9_31.dll which should be in the %windir%\system (ie c:\windows\system) directory. This file only exists in the October 2006 package and is not in any of the other Direct X installation packs, so if you don't have it that tells me you most likely have an earlier version - maybe August 2006? -- but I could be terribly wrong about this. Maybe. --- How about running the DirectX module by itself and see if the October 2006 update installs, and then do it again and see if Auto-Patcher thinks it is installed. If if it doesn't, then my code is wrong.

re - 48BITLB2: Unofficial Update for Drives over 137gb (for IBM portables) --- do you know there are 2 versions of this update? The other one is the 48BITLBA: Unofficial Update for Drives over 137gb (not for IBM portables) --- what you report doesn't make sense because if you had 48BITLB2 installed you SHOULD be reporting that you DON'T have 48BITLBA: Unofficial Update for Drives over 137gb (not for IBM portables) installed. And, just out of interest, do you have Windows 98 installed on an IBM notebook or laptop?

re NPUpdW98: Unofficial Update for Windows Notepad --- no, this is not related to MetaPad (an app of which i'm aware of) -- this update fixes a bug when there's more than 64kb of text. I was just about to point you towards my Complete list of updates for Win98 but it wasn't on the list! It's now there. Go here for more info

re The core of Win98-to-Me by MDGx -- i'm sure about this one as well. The code checks for the existence of user32.dll (4.90.0.3001) -- if you have an eariler version of this file, then you don't have the core of Win98-to-Me by MDGx as I offer it. The only problem that could exist is that the report function fails to report that this update is missing when in fact it is, ie you could have user32.dll (4.90.0.3001) but for some reason none of the other two files in the update. But you are reporting the opposite. Please check the file version of user.exe (4.90.0.3001) and also explorer.exe (4.72.3612.1700) and report back.

Well I'm Back, here's the skinny:

From the virgin machines initial report there are a few oddities:

These were not found on my patched machine, but apparently found (as in they weren't reported as missing) on the virgin which had nothing on it when tested... curious

- kb918144: Unofficial Hotfix for various issues in the Jet 4.0 data engine
- kb904706: Hotfix for Vulnerability in DirectShow
- kb925672: MSXML 4.0 SP2 Update
- NetFrame: Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0

After a 37 minute update from v1.91 to do everything (taking into account that I didn't install IE6, WMP, I have no modem/dial up, and opted out of the tweaks section) there remain 26 updates not found/installed but I'm not sure if they should have been:

The following list of updates were not found on this computer:

18:20:06 -- AutoPatcher has started compiling the report.

- q239887: Windows 98 Second Edition Shutdown Supplement

- q329115: Hotfix for Certificate Validation Flaw Vulnerability
- kb816362: Hotfix for Bug in Mshta.exe With Multiple Modal Dialog Boxes

- kb886677: Unofficial Hotfix for DBCS Corruption in MLANG.DLL
- kb888113: Hotfix for Hyperlink Object Library Vulnerability

- kb891781: Hotfix for DHTML ActiveX Control Vulnerability
- kb905495: Hotfix for Vulnerability in the Windows FTP Client
- kb908519: Hotfix for vulnerability in Embedded Web Fonts
- kb913433: Hotfix for Vulnerabilities in Flash Player

- kb918439: Hotfix for Vulnerability in ART Image Rendering

- HHUPD141: Unofficial HTML Help 1.41 Update
- RunHelp: Unofficial HTML Help Expired Security Certificate Update
- un924191: Unofficial MSXML 3.0 SP7 Update

- kb929969: Hotfix for Vulnerability in Vector Markup Language

- W98MP10: MDGx's WMP Replacements from WinME & WinXP

- kb920670: Unofficial Hyperlink Object Security Vulnerability Fix

- UShell98: Unofficial Fix for Bug with Windows Explorer and numerous large files

- MMC12: Microsoft Management Console 1.2
- NetFrame: Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0
- NetMeet3: Microsoft NetMeeting 3.01
- SysPolEd: System Policy Editor for Windows 98se

- VBRUN100: Visual Basic 1.0 Runtimes
- VBRUN200: Visual Basic 2.0 Runtimes
- VBRUN300: Visual Basic 3.0 Runtimes
- VBRUN400: Visual Basic 4.0 Runtimes (16 & 32 bit)
- VBRUN500: Visual Basic 5.0 sp3 Runtime Files
18:23:06 -- AutoPatcher has finished compiling the report.

I have many cheers and only one cringe after trying it, first the cringe...

Something altered my screen and it is a truly ugly task bar grey (as in the entire background) with red and white checkered dots outlining the taskbar itself - the spiffy ME look never took and the ok 98 has been eliminated... FYI it looked fine through all reboots right up until the win 98>ME module part ran (I took notes so I wouldn't screw my feedback up )

On the Beauty side:

I like the language/comments on the initial setup screens - it will make a difference to not so tech savvy folks in feeling comfortable using the update. Why? because it feels like a person helping you along and reduces the "novice intimidation factor" 10-fold. Simplicity and a little sense of humor go a long way towards putting people at ease - I think you did a great job of that - intentional or not

Ditto on the DOS box screens - they're a little bit more intimidating if you're not used to them but seeing things like your 3, 2, 1 countdown is an effective reminder that at the core it's a person behind it all, not some scary unknown entity.

IMHO the batch files info is just right - I like an idea of what's going on, but as my understanding of things wouldn't benefit from more info, and I imagine tech people already understand what's going on so they'd like faster - I'll vote just right

I found it logical and easy enough to follow - everything was pretty straight forward. All the choices were good to have - easy to make - a very well laid out application!

May I offer this observation (only because there are so many people who could use and benefit from Auto-Patcher) the option to "toggle the choice" is good... unless you are working with english as a new or second language - the definitions for toggle are many, and even dictionary.com lists the one this is intended as in the 7th position - and still not all that clearly. I know people can just figure it out for themselves, but you did design this with a spirit of helping and upgrading to make a good thing better - so it couldn't hurt to give an english term a little "hotfix" for the folks who might need it too

Maybe "Press the appropriate key to toggle your choice between "Install" or "By-Pass"

Just a thought, by no means a criticism or a demand lol! Anyway I think it's great so far even though it didn't quite work for me - I'll give it another go if you'd like me to try something else - I have a day and a half left before I'll have to transfer this system to the new drive permanently, after that I won't be able to risk the stable setup as I'll be on a shared system with no backup for a few weeks.

cheers!


ps almost forgot - it did see the 48lba patch on this old system, what it didn't see was the 48lba (for the ibm portable) I missed the bracketed bit when I read it the first time, sorry, sorry

greetings...

"re DirectX 9.0c (October 2006) --- I'm pretty sure i got this one right, the code checks for the existence of d3dx9_31.dll..."

you were right, I must have the earlier one as that file was not in my system folder

-When installed by auto-patcher it was found correctly

"re The core of Win98-to-Me by MDGx -- i'm sure about this one as well. The code checks for the existence of user32.dll (4.90.0.3001) -- if you have an eariler version of this file, then you don't have the core of Win98-to-Me by MDGx as I offer it"

again you are right, I have user32.dll, user.exe v4.10.2231 from sp2.1a

Unfortunately it seems that when I let auto-patcher install 98-to-ME I get the evil grey breakdown - the sp2.1a works fine on here and it gets all prettied up...

Extra info: since I don't use the things I mentioned in my previous post it wasn't a complete test for you, so I re-ran Auto-Patcher on the virgin install and let it fully-automatically install and update everything available in the program(IE6, WMP, dial-up, TweakUI et. al) then ran again to see what it detected.

-when it put dial-up on there were numerous files reported as being replaced by older versions than what i had already on here - so I took note of the ones being replaced and then let it overwrite it to see the difference, ie:

original: msafd.dll 4.10.2223
replaced with: msafd.dll 4.10.1998

There were 11 files that were over written in this sequence, I think this may have happened because other updates were installed before the dial-up thingy since I didn't install dial-up during the original 98install purely out of habit. (I did write them all down if you want specific names)

Near the end there was one more version conflict overwrite where configmg.vxd v4.10.2222 overwrote v4.10.2225 - I presume this had to do with the install order as well (mine not yours)

At the end of letting it go full-auto there were still files not found, but you would know better than I if they should have been found;

The following list of updates were not found on this computer:

22:43:35 -- AutoPatcher has started compiling the report.
- EnabMenu: the Enable Boot Menu tweak
- Perform: High Performance Tweaks for Fast Computers
- WMEncode: Windows Media Encoder 7.1
- W98MP10: MDGx's WMP Replacements from WinME & WinXP
- LC3codec: Unofficial MP3 codec for WMP9 & WMP7 from WinXP WMP10
- UShell98: Unofficial Fix for Bug with Windows Explorer and numerous large files
- 48BITLB2: Unofficial Update for Drives over 137gb (for IBM portables)
- MMC12: Microsoft Management Console 1.2
- NetFrame: Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0
- NetMeet3: Microsoft NetMeeting 3.01
- ieak6: Internet Explorer 6 Administration