I have found a way of installing Media Player 9 onto systems using the first edition of Windows 98.

Have installed a zip utility such as WinZip
http://www.winzip.com

Download Microsoft Media Player 9 for Windows 98SE/ME/2000
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia

Create a new folder on you desktop by right clicking on a blank area of the desktop and selecting, New, Folder

Name the new folder
wmp9

Right click on the downloaded file
MPSetup.exe

Select, WinZip, Extract To...

Choose the folder you created earlier by left clicking on it once
wmp9

you created earlier by left clicking on it once. Then click on the Extract button. Wait while the files are copied to the wmp9 folder. Then click on Windows Start button. Select Run. Type,
regedit

Double click on the following folders in the correct order;
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Software
Microsoft
Windows
CurrentVersion

In the right section in the Name column, double click on the following names and change their data value to:

ProductName Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition
Version Windows 98SE
VersionNumber 4.10.2222

Hit OK after changing each value. Close Regedit.

Open the folder wmp9 and double click on wm_setup.exe to begin installation.

Follow the prompts to install Media Player 9 onto your system.


Seems Microsoft disabled Windows 95 and Windows 98 FE just to make you more tempted to upgrade

Nice find.

Keep up the good work.

This REG hack can be used to recompile WMP9 installer [after replacing newer files from XP SP2 + WMP10 (98SEMP10 + 98SE2XP = see links in my sig), and all other current updates/patches, of course ] to make WMP9 install on 98FE.

And the original 98FE reg strings can be easily restored at the end of the WMP9 installation from an INF AddReg section.

I'll probably do this sometimes next week.

MY way of installing WMP9 under Win98 FE is even better, galahs & MDGx.
Didnt you guys read my post on how to do that by editing the control.xml file from the "WMP 10 in Windows 98" thread?



BETTER than editing the registry!

Changing the registry values to the following:
ProductName Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition
Version Windows 98SE
VersionNumber 4.10.2222
and I have found serious side effects as I can no longer install certain Win98fe specific hotfixes on a Win98fe computer. So I changed the reg values back to their original settings and I can install Win98fe specific patches again.

Realize that the setup_wm.exe file reads the contents of the control.xml file during install of WMP9. so I figured that the control.xml file needed to be edited to make the setup_wm.exe file install the WMP files on certain versions of Windows listed according to the control.xml file.

so my method of editing the control.xml file (and I tested it several times on different PCs) is more reliable, safer and barely no side effects.

and if you want to install WMP9 under Win95 [though I do NOT recommend it since WMP9 may not work properly under 95] edit the control.xml file and change 4.10.2222 to 4.00.950 and save changes to the control.xml file and run setup_wm.exe to install Media Player 9.

Ok, I'm convinced.

I'll use your trick to create a tweaked install for WMP9 on 98(FE), 98SP1, 98SE + ME, which will contain all updates, official + unofficial... soon.

@MDGx: Can you also let this update install on a 2000 system? It's just that WMP9 will install on 2000 without any files being signed. I think this is because 2000 just included WMP 6.4.

the_guy

Windows 2000 SP4 included updates (including a newer release of mplayer2.exe) for WMP 6.4 under Win2k.

@mdgx would you consider using part of my advice for the in2tv (and other sites that require MP10) just modify, wmplayer.exe, wmp.dll and wmploc.dll to version 10.00.00.3802 (using XN resource editor)? People will still have to switch IE's user agent to take full advantage of it, but could cut out a few steps for those who want to and I don't see this causing any harm or compatibility issues for those who don't.

The title of this post suggest that this will work on Win95. I read about a similar hack several years ago:

http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com/forum...player-9-a.html
(even someone suggests this will work on 95 there)

and tried to get this running on Win95 and came close, but couldn't make it work. I modified control.xml, put the entries in the registry for Win98 SE, and got SETUP_WM.ZIP, from this page:

http://www.rainbow-software.org/wmp71w95.html

If I recall correctly you had to modify something in control.xml to use that version of setup_wm.exe. Also if I recall correctly I could run the setup, go through the whole thing, set file associations, and right when WMP should have started it would give an error message.

I remember it is sort of a pain to remove this from your system and to get MP 7.1 working correctly. I hope that I'm wrong and 95 user can use this but, I really don't think so.

the thing about WMP7.1 and 95 was that there were two version WMP7.1 which was for 98FE up and WMP7.0 which worked on 95 and NT4

Just to be clear I'm talking about installing WMP9 on win95. The page I linked to walks you through installing WMP 7.1 on 95/NT (and that works well). The reason I linked there is in my failed attempt, several years ago, at getting WMP 9 to install on Win95 I used the setup_wm.zip file from that page.

you were right, Steven_W. WMP9 IS incompatible with Win95 as I've just tested using the modified control.xml file and setup_wm.exe (v9.0) told me I'm using an old OS and should upgrade and then setup_wm.exe crashed (and this is on a Win95 OSR2 PC w/out the IE desktop update).

I even used the older setup_wm.exe file from the SETUP_WM.ZIP file and the modified control.xml file (and EVEN galah's registry hacks to trick the setup_wm.exe program into thinking Win95 SR2 was Win98 SE) and still did not work.

so MDGx, make note that these tips will NOT make Media Player 9 install under Win95 & NT4. It looks like Media Player 7.1 is the last version Win95 users CAN install with version 7.0 of the setup_wm.exe file.



you CAN install Media Player 7.1 under Win95 and WinNT4 but by using version 7.0 of the setup_wm.exe file to do so. just do NOT install the Adaptec CD-Burning applet bundled in WMP 7.1 under NT4. the CD-burning feature uses VXD files that are worthless and incompatible with NT4 and was meant for Win9xME systems.

Thanks for confirming that erpdude8. You probably saved a few 95 users some time and aggravation. I know I tried everything I could think of a few years ago.

Also for those 95 users that install WMP 7.1; on the system that I installed it on, it would crash when I clicked "Portable Device" in WMP. I found that if you removed a dll file (I can't recall which one) and deleted a couple of registry entries, it no longer crashed.

I am NOT absolutely certain but it may have been PDbrowse.dll, and a couple of associated registry entries.

yup. same thing with beta 2 and RC1 releases of Firefox 2.0, both of them crash under Win95 when attempting to load them. beta 1 of firefox 2 does work correctly under win95.

win95 users should stick with using media player 7.1.

AND I even tried using galahs' registry hacks on changing the reg values to Win98se under an actual Win95 machine and setup_wm.exe STILL refuses to work.

So galahs reg hacks turned out to work under Win98 FE but NOT under Win95 as I have fully confirmed it myself.

Found an old forum thread at another forum site installing WMP9 under Win98 FE:
http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com/forum...player-9-a.html

an old quote I'm responding to:


wrong. Completely UNtrue! Even though I inputted the "correct" 98se registry values, I still could not get WMP9 to install & work under Win95 + IE 5.x as I've verified this. This is the error message I got when running WMP9 setup_wm.exe file after making the 98se reg changes in Win95:

Click to view attachment

I installed WMP-9 on 98FE using the modified control.xml method. Works fine. Don't have access to Win95 to attempt it. Hacking the registry to make it install on 98FE may work, but it could have unforseen consequences with other installers/updates. Removing the artificial incompatibility that was put in the installer won't cause any other problems.

It definitely tells you something about 98 when M$ feels it's necessary to fake incompatibilities in order to coerce people into "upgrading" to a newer OS.
Rick

you're right on with the consequences of using the reg hack, Rick. that was galahs idea.
Mine was editing the control.xml method which is the most reliable way to make WMP9 (and the WM891122 update) install correctly under Win98 FE and won't cause any side effects.

It worked very well. I wonder just how many other updates and installers are "incompatible with 98" for the same reason.

Regarding the WM891122 update, I see it described as:

Based on that description, this looks more like something I'd want to remove, not install. What does this update do that's of benefit to the users themselves? WMP gets very little usage here. I rarely watch videos or streaming media, and audio is played by an old version of WinAmp.