I'm about to re install our Win 98se OS on the wife's computer.I understand that "Unofficial Win 98se service pack 2a" includes all the Windows critical updates up to July 2006 ! If this is correct,that would certainly save a lot of downloading them,with our slow Dialup connection!Can anyone confirm pls?
BTW,we already have the above Service Pack on CD.Thanks

VAN

yes that is correct
it does not include internet explorer 6, windows media player 9, directx 9c, dotnet or there associated updates

Thanks awergh,
That is good news.I will be tackling this project in the next few days.Wish me luck ! I've reinstalled my Win XP Pro OS recently with no problems,I hope it will be the same with the Win 98se OS !
Your above comment is well noted.Thanks.

VAN

For an easier way to setup 98SE these days you might want to consider the Unofficial Auto-Patcher for Windows 98SE. That has those mentioned components as well as much more current updates and fixes. It is also fully maintained so with each new version you can run it and get the latest updates. When the Auto-Patcher runs it checks what is on your system already so it will not install things already there.

In my view that's a lot easier than finding, downloading, and installing the many, many basic software packages and updates that are not included in the Unofficial 98SE Service Pack. It includes the latest, for example that importent Daylight Savings Timezone update for 98SE.

Hi ECK

I agree that would be nice to have,but at 246 mb,that's out of the question with my present Dialup connection!However i might tackle the Lite v 1.95 version which is 70 mb,providing that Softpedia supports "RESUME" downloads that would be attempted by me on different days? What do you think?

VAN

I haven't really examined what's missing in the Lite version. Would it be possible for a friend at his/her home or office to download and burn the full version for you? Gosh, that thing is such a time saver it might be worth it for you to bug someone until they'll do it for you.

Unless you have everything already downloaded already you would still need to download most of the stuff in there anyway. The mdgx.com website has extensive info and links to everything available for 9x and more. So yes, you could do individual small downloads that way. I've done it in the past, but with the advent of the Auto-Patcher it's been nice not needing to copy all that stuff from my cdrs, break out my print out of the mdgx.com web pages, and install it one thing at a time. Man, I used to hate that!

If you can get the Auto-Patcher, it's all scripted so you just toggle on or off the optional stuff individually and basically just press go and it takes over your computer. It installs some stuff and restarts the computer, installs some more stuff and restarts, etc, etc. It's really cool to watch it working. All the time I'm thinking, "better this thing than me!"

When done it's almost like having a just released operating system. You just start adding on the additional software you use and you're ready to go. Please don't forget your virus scanner, firewall, Firefox and Thunderbird or SeaMonkey, Spybot Search and Destroy, and Ad-Aware. I'd hate to have you bitten by some malware and need to start over!

How often do you reinstall, Eck ? More I read you more I get the feeling you need to reinstall very often.

Thanks for the suggestions ECK,
I'm a retired older geezer living on a farm and with no one else having High Speed connections around here,there's not much hope of doing this! Today is the day i'm reinstalling the Win 98se OS on the wife's computer.Hope I'm successful.if not i'll be back for help as they say!!!Thanks for your help.

VAN

No, it's not really that often, eidenk. My reasons vary but the majority of my wiping and reinstalling is by choice, usually when I want to do something totally new with my computer such as my recent experimenting with OpenSuSE Linux and my recently purchased Windows Vista. Besides the operating systems, my other reasons are that at times I like to swap around with my hardware. I'll want to change between my motherboards or go from ATI to NVidia or Creative to M-Audio to SoundMAX.

When doing those kinds of things I'd just rather give my whole system a fresh start rather than deal with the potential work arounds or fixing that changing a lot of stuff would require.

With too much time on my hands this is the one hobby that gives me things to do on my own. The rest of my time is spent as a live in care giver for my elderly Mom. So I can't work as I can't leave the house for long periods, my few bills are paid by using a portion of her SS check for them, and I watch us get further into debt as I use her credit to buy our food weekly. So things are a bit weird in my life and reinventing my computer every so often is about all I've got right now to fill a fun factor.

When new update packages for 9x come out I sometimes like to wipe things out and redo the thing with 98SE in the mix again.

The only thing with 98 that has peeved me recently is my continual problem with that IOS error I've complained about in several other posts. Once I learned that somehow one of the things that causes that is having smartdrv.exe in the place it freak'n belongs I've on a temporary basis fixed that by renaming that file. On one occasion I got the error again even with that file renamed or not even there. That was one of the times I had no choice but to reinstall.

Gosh, I'd sure love to figure out what really causes that to occur!

After a bout with my first attempts to multiboot several Windows versions along with Linux and having a SuSE Kernel security update mess up my partition table that had been working fine, I only installed Vista on one drive and SuSE on the other and that is how things have been for the last several weeks. I just didn't want to bother setting up several Windows operating systems after just having done so. So I just picked the one I just spent a bundle of cash on (Vista) and went with that for now.

In that time I've been enjoying learning more about Linux as well as playing with getting a bunch of older stuff working in Vista that I hadn't actually expected possible.

So in summary, my system nearly never gets borked with the exception of that 9x IOS error and the one time only experience with a SuSE Kernel update that happened to play havoc with a lot of folks boot loader settings until we learned how to deal with it.

It's almost never necessary for me to reinstall. But because of the above factors I do get a lot of experience doing it.

Hi again ECK,
I spent most of yesterday reinstalling Win 98 OS.I finally got it done alright,but what a bit-- that was.This was my first experience doing this.It solved 2of 3 problems that we tried to solve without success in other Postings.It fixed "VMM32\enable.VXD " and "User.exe" files that were missing.It didn't fix the missing "SetupX.dll" one though! Any thoughts on this?

BTW I misread the "Unofficial Autopatcher's" v 1.95 Lite version size! I thought it was 70 MB but in fact it's 171 MB. In any case I downloaded 70 MB of it yesterday,while I was working on the Win 98 reinstall.Each day I'll download a bit more of it until I have the whole thing.Thanks.

VAN

I don't know what you mean by those 2 errors. You're getting some sort of error at startup? This, with a fresh install onto a completely formatted hard drive? Or are you talking about System File Checker reporting damaged files?

The old HP Pavilion PC's used to have a problem on the "Starting Windows For the First Time" screen during setup after the first reboot. An MS-DOS error message would report that Windows was missing vmm32 and it wouldn't complete the startup to finish installing Windows.

The solution was to make an AUTOEXEC.BAT file with just one line in it and stick it on a floppy. The line is

SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM

Then instead of letting the Windows 98 OEM cd format the new installation, you would use a Windows 98 Startup floppy instead, and use format c: /s to format your drive so the MS-DOS system files would be put on it. Then you would put your floppy in and copy the AUTOEXEC.BAT file to your drive. If you already let the OEM cd format for you and start setup, you could hold down the Ctrl key during that first bootup (or after getting that error message and restarting the computer) and enter Safe Mode instead of regular mode. Then you could copy over your AUTOEXEC.BAT from your floppy, restart, and Setup would continue installing Windows. Unfortunately you'd lose those stupid links to Microsoft's early Active X media partners that don't lead anywhere anymore anyway. But that's the only problem with going to Safe Mode while that first boot happens. But if you format yourself instead, you get the stupid links as Setup won't be running in Safe Mode where it can't access the cd drive.

That solution was not necessary with retail 98 cd's, only the OEM cd had that problem and only on certain HP Pavilion models.

If you're talking about the System File Checker thinking you're files are corrupted, that's an erroneous report. If you went ahead and updated Windows Installer to 2.0, Internet Explorer to 6 SP1 and Direct X to 9.0c, those errors would likely disappear, or you could ignore them, or you could let System File Checker replace the files by letting it extract them from your Windows 98 cd which would just replace them with the exact same files but would satisfy System File Checker for some reason.

With 98 First Edition you had to be careful with System File Checker as it would sometimes replace working files with mini Windows 98 Setup versions from the cd if you had it extract files from it. That was fixed in 98 Second Edition.

I'm not sure if any of this applies to you as I didn't understand from what you wrote exactly what kind of errors you're getting. You shouldn't get any errors on a fresh install. If you're installing Windows over itself, that's different. I consider that rather pointless unless you no longer have your drivers and software programs to reinstall on a formatted system. Errors wouldn't surprise me if you're doing that.

Some folks have all their software setups but just want to refresh Windows without needing to copy over all their music and data files onto a formatted fresh system. That's fine. You would set your own Virtual Memory Min and Max in the advanced section of the last tab of System Properties and restart the computer. That serves to get the swap file out of the Windows directory. Uninstall Internet Explorer. Then you would boot to a command prompt only or a 98 Startup floppy and delete the C:\Program Files and C:\Windows folders. Then a fresh Windows install would be fully new with the exception of your data already being on the hard drive. I've never done this so search around for perhaps more accurate directions if you ever want to do that.

Others like to try to keep their programs. In that case you would do the above paragraph but without deleting the Program Files and Windows folders. Instead you would just delete the win.com file. As long as you're reinstalling not from the GUI but rather from starting with the boot floppy and running setup from the Windows cd, the setup would replace your Windows files with the original versions but all the links and stuff your installed programs need would remain where they are and within the registry. So when setup finished you would need to install Internet Explorer and the Windows Updates such as what the Auto-Patcher does. I haven't done this type of install either so my instructions might not be complete.

Van, when you reinstall Windows on top itself, some files are overwritten with the original ones even if newer files are present but some other are not and that might be the case with setupx.dll or eventually another dll it works with. Try to extract it from your cabs and copy it into the system folder. It *might* solve your problem. And don't forget to get NDN. Put the NDN folder in the root dir so if you have a similar problem again, you just need to boot into DOS, either from the HDD or from your Startup floppy (create one if haven't done so) and type C:\ndn\ndn and press enter to have a very handy file manager to do anything you need without needing to type anything complicated.

Eck, I hate installing even fancy new oses, it is no fun for me. I prefer installing lots of software. Fortunately, even though you live in great poverty, you can still afford to swap hardware and purchase Vista to entertain yourself. Give us your verdict about it if have got some time some day.

Hi Eck,
Before I reinstalled the Win 98 OS,when I booted up I was getting "VMM32\enable.VXD" missing file and,when I clicked it booting continued normally.That problem is solved now.
Also before,when I ran SFC it showed that the 2 following files had been deleted:"Setupx.dll and User.exe"Now,after reinstalling,I'm still missing "Setupx.dll".What exactly do I do now to get it back?

(Quote)The solution was to make an AUTOEXEC.BAT file with just one line in it and stick it on a floppy. The line is:
SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM
Would the above work with my present Win 98 OS?If so,and although that problem is fixed now,we'll keep it on file for future reference?

(Quote)If you're talking about the System File Checker thinking you're files are corrupted, that's an erroneous report. If you went ahead and updated Windows Installer to 2.0, Internet Explorer to 6 SP1 and Direct X to 9.0c, those errors would likely disappear, or you could ignore them, or you could let System File Checker replace the files by letting it extract them from your Windows 98 cd which would just replace them with the exact same files but would satisfy System File Checker for some reason.

As far as I know all the above were all up to date.When I tried to extract a "Deleted' as per SFC,from my Win 98 CD I always go an error message to the effect that:"File not found,check restore from location"So,that's why I did a reinstall of the OS.As I said before,it fixed 2of 3 problems but,when I again ran SFC,it showed that "Setupx.dll" was still missing and same problem,"can't extract it from Win 98 cd".
This other stuff your suggesting is a bit complicated,but if all else fails I'll probably give it a try later! Thanks again.

VAN

Hi eidenk,
Regarding your suggestion below:
(Quote)Try to extract it from your cabs and copy it into the system folder.
I don't seem to have Cab files in C:\Windows! If I do,I'd sure like to know where there hiding?

(QUOTE)And don't forget to get NDN. Put the NDN folder in the root dir so if you have a similar problem again, you just need to boot into DOS, either from the HDD or from your Startup floppy (create one if haven't done so) and type C:\ndn\ndn and press enter to have a very handy file manager to do anything you need without needing to type anything complicated.

From a previous suggestion,I downloaded both NDN Dos and NDN Windows.When I opened NDN Dos.it just flashed by.So I tried the NDN Windows one and it opened with all kinds of information and for the life of me,I could'nt figure how to use it! I needed far more detailed directions than I could find there!So I finally reinstalled Win 98 and I'm still not out of the woods yet.Can you help further? Thanks.

VAN

Windows 98SE does not copy the install cabs on the HDD as far as I know (WinME does). They are on the Install CD (in the win98 folder on my 98SE CDs) but you can copy that folder onto your HDD if you want to.

The benefits of doing so are that you don't need the CD if you (or the system) want to extract a file from them and that a reinstall is much faster from the HDD than from the CD. Of course it uses some disk space.

As you've got NDN, you could use it now under windows for searching in which cab is this setupx.dll and extract it to the system dir with it.

Navigate with NDN to the directory where your install cabs are. Once you are there, use the search function : File/Find or alt+F7, fill the filemask field with the filename, tick the "search in archives" option, press enter and the file will soon be displayed if it is in one of the cabs. Then copy it wherever you want (File/Copy or F5).

Let me know if you have problems with that.

Hey, eidenk!

Heh, you remind me of my days hanging out at a bar with close friends. Brutally honest exchanges can occur. Quite fun (unless drunk to the point of stupidity). Say something that isn't quite kosher and one of the guys will call you on it.

Yep. I'm a bit inconsistent in my poordum (guess that's not a word but appropriate). Got lot's of time to explain. I've got no justification for spending money on computer parts and software, at least none that says I've acted in a financially responsible way. My justification is just to excuse myself by telling myself that's all I've got. So I'll squeeze a bit here and there to get most of what I want done happening.

I do this in cost cutting ways though. My hardware is never state of the art for this moment. I do wait until so many things in a system that is based upon discontinued stuff have worn out before deciding not to replace the individual components as the cost/value wouldn't jive.

My day to day system is always built from the technology that is being sold at going out of business prices because folks have moved on to newer and better things. My building a Socket A board when it was getting hard to find the parts is an example. The advantage, besides saving money, is that the bugs have been worked out and if something is able to be fixed it already has been. Just install the latest Bios, drivers, software for it and it all will work without waiting for new problems to be fixed.

Since I've got so much software already, just major stuff needs an upgrade occasionally in that department. No need to look for the latest recompilation of the same stuff I've already got. And we got to wait for, what, 6 years before the new Windows came out. Well, once in 6 years I can even financially justify purchasing a new Windows operating system.

So the hardware swapping I talk about is mostly just playing with installing different pieces of stuff I've gathered through the years. It's almost never something new I bought, just popping in a different piece of the puzzle that I might miss using. And the rest is only paper, blank cdr/dvdr and cd holders, and ink. Oh yeah, and internet access.

There you go! I might spend what I shouldn't but I do it with a plan. I'm quite satisfied with the performance of my probably 3 generations ago Socket A system. I'm not a fragger. I like older games and music and educational stuff. But occasionally I enjoy being wowed by cool looking desktop stuff, so Vista is nice. And Linux, with that Beryl desktop, is awesome too.

Evanhoe,

Yeah, I run on a bit. Didn't mean to complicate stuff for you. Just be sure to get your updates, fixes, etc installed by using your favorite package. I like the Unofficial Auto-Patcher for Windows 98SE but it's your choice.

98 First Edition had a known problem with some of the stuff you're mentioning appearing in System File Checker when they really had no problems. I don't recall whether Second Edition suffered a similar cosmetic defect.

If you got your system installed and you update it and all your stuff works, don't worry about it.

That other stuff I talked about was for problems that occured during Windows installation on certain systems. I wasn't sure from what you wrote whether you had these file problems hanging up startup or whether they were just reports by System File Checker. So I gave you more than you probably wanted to know!

Eidenk is one of the experienced guru's here, although I try to pitch in where I think I experienced something similar. Hopefully you can make good use of the knowledge so you can eliminate some of the bumpyness that Windows can give you occasionally.

Eck, I certainly not deserve the label of guru which I believe some other desserve far more than I do. Thanks for the compliment anyway.

Maybe you are a better guru than me so I submit a little problem I have at the moment and that eludes me quite badly : The 3D Maze screensaver crashes in kernel32.dll. If I remove the space in it's name, it does not crash anymore. It should work the same whatever the name is. Any idea ?

Hmm, well at least you got it to work. Does it come by default with a space in the filename? If so you'd think it would work as designed. We know 16 bit programs often balk at long file names or ones with spaces in them without that _ between the spaces.

9x is designed to get around that by detecting when quotation marks are needed around the filename, such as when there are spaces or the name is greater than the MS-DOS 8.3 filename design. In fact I think it actually includes two FAT's for files, one with long file names and the other with the same file with an 8.3 style MS-DOS file name.

Have you tried some other programs that have spaces in the filename recently?

Something else that could have occurred is if you applied one of the patches for Kernel32.dll that are unofficial fixes for certain 9x bugs. Perhaps the small change in the Kernel32.dll file unknowingly changed its behavior in more ways than was intended by the patch. One of LLXX's patches used to get rid of the nice GUI button effect on the Close Program box's buttons. After using her patch the buttons would be the flat Windows 3.1 style. When I asked about it she said she built that into the patch because she preferred that button appearance. Not me though, so I used the MDGx version from that anonymous author instead. It's unlikely that anyone would purposely mess with filename handling, to the point of partially breaking it, though.

Another thing to make sure of is that no nasties invaded either that screensaver file (they love screensaver files) or that Kernel32.dll file, so a virus scanner check on those files and a scan for virus's and another one for spyware on the whole system wouldn't hurt, just to be sure it's nothing like that going on.

I think I found out what the problem is : This file apparently uses opengl when it has it's original filename and does not use opengl when it has another filename. This I observed by loading this screensaver in an application that runs screensavers in a window and looking at the loaded modules with a process viewer. When it has it's original filename (with a space) it loads the opengl subsystem and crash. When the filename is modified it does not load opengl and does not crash. It turns out that all the third party opengl screensavers I have are also crashing, but those ones whatever the filename is.

As for why my opengl ss are all crashing, it is probably because there is an incompatibility with the Universal Adobe Postscript Printer driver I have recently installed. According to Dr Watson, this driver patches GDI.exe in memory. I still have to uninstall this driver to confirm that.

I have no unofficial patches installed besides LLXX's esdi_506.pdr.

I guess that some checking of Adobe Postscript problems with OpenGL would be helpful then. Maybe there's a way to work around the problem without needing to stop using the Postscript driver.

It's interesting that the name of the screensaver itself effects whether its OpenGL properties are invoked.

No other unofficial patches? Wow. So you just use official updates then? What about the ones that were found to not install correctly and so not have the effect intended? Weren't a great deal of these fixed by unofficial versions of the Windows Updates? And what do you do with updates that occurred after Microsoft stopped doing 9x versions and have been patched with unofficial installers to work with 9x? That's certainly a different approach than what I've seen from most folks around here.

Not sure it is the Adobe Type Manager the problem, but I don't see what else it could be. I haven't tried to remove it yet. If it's that, no one is going to fix it I guess. And not sure it would happen on any system as the video drivers might also come into the mix, nvopengl (nVidia) being also loaded.

As for the screensaver itself, using or not using opengl, depending on how it is named, it has been quite a surprise. I guess the ss checks it's own name before choosing a rendering mode.

When I said unofficial patches I meant patched files, not updated files gathered in official updates for other oses, etc... and put together by MDGx or others. Those ones I install most if not all of them.

And, like many I think, I don't run KB891711 nor any of its unofficial variants. Maybe that's as risky as having casual sex with total strangers without a condom. Anyway no browser or operating system is immune from a nasty zero day exploit, so...

I had ShellMe by anonymous but I removed it because, albeit it protects from the explorer copy freeze in most circumstances, it appears it has some side effects I do not like.

Ah! That I can understand. Heh, nice 891711 analogy. Sheesh, when I was growing up we didn't need those yucky things anyway. Well, not if the other party took care of things anyway.

I used to use the Adobe Photo Deluxe 2.0 which also installed that Adobe Type Manager. I do remember some unwanted effects which caused me to use other programs instead. I just don't remember what the unwanted effects were.

I have looked much more thoroughly in the screensaveer prob I have and I correct errors in reporting :

Opengl screensavers are using opengl whether they crash or not. (I must have compared the container application with the screensaver by mistake in my first test)

All opengl screensavers I have tested are affected similarly.

They crash according to the length of their name/path.

Example : If I put an opengl screensaver in the root drive and give it a name of 1 or 2 characters long it does not crash. It then crashes if it has a name that is 3 or 4 characters long. Does not crash if the name is 5 or 6 characters long. Crashes if the name is 7 or 8 characters long. Does not crash if the name is 9 or 10 characters long. Crashes if the name is 11 or 12 characters long. Etc... along that progression.

The Adobe Type Manager has nothing to do with the problem as I have uninstalled it and the problem persist.

Dr Watson crash logs seem to indicate it is nvopengl that could be responsible. (I have the latest nVidia display drivers which have been reinstalled)

No application using opengl seems affected besides screensavers.

Anyway any opengl ss that crashes on me can be fixed by either adding or removing 1 or 2 characters from it's name so that it falls at a proper place in the above progression.

Sorry Evanhoe to go off-topic in your thread.

Hi eidenk,
It appears that I solved my original problems for now!!We'll see in the next few days,whether that's true or not!
I reinstalled Win 98 on top of itself and,then ran SFC again and,this time I was able to extract the missing/deleted files from the Win 98 OS disk! I could'nt believe it,so I ran SFC again and,it completed without any further problems.BTW I finally downloaded the"Autopatcher 98 v 1.95" it took 23 hours over a period of a few days.Now in order to update evrything with it,do I just pop it in the CD drive and,let it do it's thing or what? Thank you and Eck for all your help,I really appreciate it.

VAN

Glad you got it right. Unfortunately I can't help with the autopatcher because I have never used it.

Pretty much you just run it. It extracts all its stuff to a folder that you can change to what you want during setup. I usually changed it to C:\AUTOPCH to make things easy. I never ran it from a cd, preferring to have it on the hard drive but since it places everything into that installation folder anyway it probably doesn't matter.

When you run it the first time it will probably warn you of needing dialup networking 1.4. I just choose the option it offers of installing it automatically and silently.

He has a lot of nice time savers toggled off by default. Therefore it is prudent to go through each screen and turn toggle on and change on or off the stuff you want.

Lately soporific has been mentioning that the 98SE2ME section install is likely the best fix in the package. Well, I use it too but choose to toggle it off in Auto-Patcher and install the full version myself afterwards. Same with the 98MP10 section. I just like to install stuff once, especially since unlike Auto-Patcher these programs do not check for previous installations of themselves and will just redo everything including the backup files. I just find it less confusing to install those two myself. If you do not own a Windows Me cd then you'd better keep 98SE2ME toggled on in Auto-Patcher so you get that important Explorer fix. You can't install the full 98SE2ME unless you have a Window Me cd in the first cdrom drive or the contents copied to a folder on your hard drive.

The stuff in the manual installs folder is important to install when you are finished. Just not the Dialup Networking 1.4 since you already had Auto-Patcher do that for you.

I've been toggling on the SHELL98 fix to stop slow copying, Explorer freezing but some have experienced undesirable effects from that so it's up to you. It's off by default. Like I said, I turn it on and haven't had problems from it.

I also turn on the stuff in the Windows Media section. I want the Legacy files (which is WMP7) and the WMEncoder 7.1 installed as I've found that some programs need WMEncoder and the only way it installs properly is if it is installed on top of WMP7 and before updating to WMP9. So I turn all that stuff on.

I do not turn on the majority of the Tweaks as these are mostly done for me by 98SE2ME. I do let it install TweakUI and the System Policy Editor unless I've already installed System Policy Editor myself through my full version of the Windows 98 Resource Kit. The important tweaks to do if you also do not want to use soporific's choices are adding the following to system.ini using sysedit.

Under VCACHE add

MaxFileCache=393216

Under 386Enhanced add

ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1
DMABufferSize=64
MinSPs=16


There is another addition added by the older Unofficial Service Pack and 98SE2ME but it is really for system with more than a gig of RAM. It sets Windows not to use more than that. With a gig or lower you're better off not messing with it.

It is advisable to use your System Properties advanced tab to set the same Virtual Memory for both min and max. I use 3X my amount of RAM for both. This moves the Swap file out of the Windows folder and onto the root of C: and also stops unnecessary hard drive thrashing and is especially useful if you have plenty of RAM (over 256MB). Slows fragmentation too.

Those are some of the things I do but the point is you're going to be easily able to keep 98 updated without tons of individual downloads and decisions about what to install when. Great program.

For further questions about it I'd use soporific's sticky thread for it though. This'll get you started.

Thanks eidenk,

I think eck has it pretty well covered!

VAN

Man,ECK,

You must be some kind of professional typer/typist, to provide such detailed information!!If I tried to provide that kind of detailed information/tips,it would take me a day(Smile).I will keep and use the tips as required,and come back here as needed.Thank you very much.

VAN

Yeah, heh, I've gotten yelled at for being that detailed when asking for help. Especially when trying to lighten the heavy reading mood by adding in some unrelated personal rambling. I'm glad you got some info by reading it. No, it doesn't take me that long to organize my thoughts when writing. So, thankfully, it didn't take too long to type that out.

Nice complement there. I'm not professional. I tend to get up to professional caliber in my hobbies but never figure out ways to make money from it! Oh well.