Revolutions Pack 9
Version 9.1.0, released Apr-26'09.

Revolutions Pack (RP) is an unique program designed to improve Windows 98/Me user experience with:
* Stability and Control. It provides new Ctrl-Alt-Del dialog allowing precise control over system resources.
It includes technologies which are improving system reliability by protecting system resources and providing better resource utilization and cleanup.

* Appearance and Personalization. Revolutions Pack has UberSkin with it - the most powerful free skinning engine built around closed-source OS.
It is able to change almost any GUI element at no cost over usability. You want Windows XP skin looking better than real Windows XP? No problem.
Now, with RP9, you'll also have all-out power over icons. RP9 reintroduces 32-bit icons - with shadows, smoothed edges and rich colors.
Do you care? RP9 comes with fine set of icons which you can choose from - and restyle whole system icon set in one click.
Where to click? In RPConfig - new control tool for personalization. It's the storage for your wallpapers, skins and icons - your style.

* Usability and Effects. New RP version has neat little features like:
ClearType - Microsoft subpixel font smoothing technology which greatly improves reading on LCD screens;
Big buttons for taskbar - greatly improves task switching on big screens;
Menu fading - if your eyes are tired from pop-roll menus;
Hotkeys - for keyboard pundits. Now you can use WIN+UP/DOWN to maximize/minimize windows. And I've just started.

Over all mantras, Stability and Control is the most important for whole RP9.
That's why new Revolutions Pack is completely modular - you don't install what you don't want.
That's why new Revolutions Pack won't touch any system file or registry key - it plays nice.
It was created and polished to play nice with your applications and your system.


This post has been edited by Tihiy: Apr 29 2009, 08:42 AM

Installation

Latest version is here: http://tihiy.ahanix.org/RP9.exe
Oops seems my site is dead. You can grab a latest version here now:
http://rapidshare.de/files/47852680/RP9.exe.html
Revolutions Pack 9 is compatible with all system updates. I would recommend Unofficial Service Pack, 98SE2ME and IE6.
Revolutions Pack 9 may require updating system files in order to use all features. Installer will point you to this page.

Uninstallation

Revolutions Pack 9 is uninstalled as you expect - from Add/Remove programs, or from installer. You can upgrade or downgrade any version without uninstalling.
Installer will retain the features you have installed and won't force others.
Revolutions Pack 9 is not active in Safe Mode. You can boot up in Safe Mode and uninstall it there if you have any problems.

This post has been edited by Tihiy: Jul 15 2009, 12:07 AM

UberSkin notes
Skins were moved from \Windows\Resources to \Windows\Resources\Themes. UberSkin stock themes will be removed from there when you are upgrading.
Sub-themes are now combined with sub-schemes. I.e. Vista Standard is now Vista_Standard and is located in \Vista\Skin_Standard.ini.

You may want to have
My other tools

IF you have a question and you believe it's important for you and not everyone, ask me via PM.
Revolutions Pack 7 is dead. You can't upgrade over it. Sorry.


This post has been edited by Tihiy: Apr 29 2009, 08:43 AM

Awesome! I will try to download and install this weekend. From what I understand above, I don't have to uninstall Uberskin first (but I probably will anyway). And No problem about nVidia, I have an old MGA Millenium card in use.

By the way, does RP9 address transparent desktop icons in 98SE? With Uberskin, I used the slick registry workaround ("TransparentIcons"=DWORD:00000001, in hkey_current_user), but it does not refresh the desktop very well so you will sometimes see several icons with non transparent artifacting. Unless I've been doing it all wrong?!

I tried it in a vm and works well also in RPCONFIG the is an option to Show transparent desktop icon labels.

I didn't try it yet....but what i see it's great! Fu**ing great!

You did a very good job, the only thing I'm missing is a way to change font sizes within a theme, i.e. if you apply a theme and select a font size, the überskin theme is replaced by the classic theme.

Second thing is a minor issue concerning Clear Type:
If you use "Microsoft Sans Serif" the start button looks like this:


So, the word "Start" is cut off (no matter what font size is chosen).

Tihiy, it's amazing!!! Many thanks for your great work!!!


1. Two issues:

- After installation, there are two "Kernel 32 patch fail" upon reboot. Yet almost all RP9 features work. Is there any problem to have the "patch fail"?

- The new Ctrl-Alt-Del dialog does not work, but it also did not work when I used Uberskin

My config is Win98SE, simplified Chinese version. KernelEx 0.3.6 installed


2. GDI resource salvation: Finally it is here! Hope it worth the long wait! I need some time to see how good it is. Could you share your own test result?


Thank you

Nice, all Tihiy's Win98 goodies in one download!

I installed this on top of my already manually tweaked system-icons. Not all are changed correctly when switching to RP9 Vista icons. Some are left alone, like my drive-icons which is fine because I want to keep those, but my configuration-screen and printerfolder where wrong and needed correction. Documents on the desktop is ok, but not in the menu. All this could probably be prevented by restoring all icons to default before installing RP9.

My system font is Tahoma, it was already and I set it in RP9, and I see some truncation in my startmenu.

The main feature (I already had the other things) of this RP9 are the improved standard buttons in the explorer tool-bar. But when you hover over those with your mouse you will see the old one's again. A little bit disappointing

Did I blow your cover?
No offense,but the Personalization Dialog GUI needs to worked on a tiny bit.

Yeah, i tested and found those patch faults. I'll fix them, although more fixes are required for DBCS versions.
As usual, you have to save theme under same name or name_variation.
Hold Explorer window open when you're changing icon theme.

All: a bug was discovered within GDI Salvation. If you experience leakage, retain from RP9 so far
I'll prepare a fix as well as proper tour around RP9 features. Translators are also welcome.
Thanks for feedback.

Thx, but after a reboot the problem is back.




Mmmm, I can't shutdown, get a bluescreen. After pressing a key the videocard (ATI, DVI) goes wacko and shows black screen with white dots. Restarting and restart to dos is ok. Is this related? (Uninstalling RP9 fixes this, uninstalling KernelEx 4 does not.)

I installed RP9 on 98se2me 2GiB NVIDIA Fx520 128Mb(driver 81.98).
All programms works well and nice!
Menu shutdown and restart works normal with RP9.
Menu restart in MS_DOS don'work.Without RP9 or with uberskin restart in MS-DOS works normal.
Many thanks for your RP9!

Ok, all programs works!
Only 1 bugs: with ClearType on I see some truncation in my StartMenu.
Many thanks for your great work!

P.S.: I downloaded GDI+ runtime from http://tihiy.ahanix.org/RPUpdates.html ... latest gdiplus.dll version is 5.1.3102.5581 from XPSP3.
Bye.

Mcv'93

This post has been edited by mcv93us: Mar 13 2009, 11:47 AM

Well...i've installed RP9 on VM...and it's fabulous!! Some issue i have...with the large icon support, if i enable it...all the icons in the start menu are large and sliced and the text it's overlaping.
Thank you!

This post has been edited by Xstyle: Mar 13 2009, 12:11 PM

How can I help ? Is it a lot of text ?

I very much like the new configuration program... well done... I'm still playing with it, but I have found that it still has the problems with PSP 7 + .. when windows are minimized, they loose the skinning and are cut off, yet still occupy the proper space between... Here are 2 pictures to show you a little more of what I mean... But I can say that the scrolling problem mentioned before is definitely gone...

 RP9Image1.jpg ( 61.43K ) Number of downloads: 66

 Rp9Image2.jpg ( 107.18K ) Number of downloads: 55


Windows 98 SE - RP9 & PaintShop Pro 7.02
98 SE SP 3.0 BETA 3
Video SiS630 64M
256M Ram

Hope that helps...

Greg
BrotherTank

This post has been edited by BrotherTank: Mar 13 2009, 07:01 PM

Thank you


Noted. I have now disabled GDI salvation until you confirm it is okay

After disabling it, the "kernel32 patch failure" is reduced from 2 to 1. What is the remaining 1 patch for?

ive been playing with the icon patching and works well, though not quite sure about 16bit stuff maybe im just not looking at the right files.
also i cant see a way to patch stuff like mspaint.exe,wmplayer.exe,hypertrm.exe because they live in program files instead of %windir% or %windir%\system or is it a path thing?

Works great. Thanks Tihiy