[SlugFiller]

Why are you using Delphi? JDK is available for free from the Sun Java website. And it's a much better language too, although that doesn't really say much. I mean Pascal+Visual+Proprietary-Any chance of cross-platform compatibility=Worthless language.

According to the documentation I got, the original 95 IFSMgr had a bug in that it cache the header of the unicode.bin, but its cache was only large enough to contain 18 language entries. The documentation was a bit unclear, but it might be able to work with more languages, provided the OEM and ANSI code pages are on the same 18-language block. Certain localized versions did not have the bug.
I'm not sure about the status of the 98 driver, although I imagine it probably fixed the bug already. The format itself should support up to a 4GB file.

I didn't feel like pushing it to the limit. My original unicode.bin only had 5 code pages, and I've added an extra 4 (all East Asians). Your 30-pages bin should probably go on mgdx or something. Could you list the code pages you have there?

The code page data itself is from the Microsoft contribution to unicode.org. I made a small javascript page which converts the text files into the necessary Java commands. Obviously, I didn't sit down and manually input 60000 character codes.
So any "blanks" in the data are the official Microsoft stance on the code page. There are no coincidences there, if it matches what you already have.

[Queue]

If you're programming something that is Windows-specific, cross-platform portability is useless. There are speed and resource use benefits to pretty much all "Pascal+Visual+Proprietary" languages over Java.

Queue

[Siknik64]

Could someone make a step by step tutorial on how to install the Flash Player 10 plugin with Firefox 3.6? The KernelEx 4.5 Beta did install successfully but even with the compatibility, it just won't install. I tried installing it on Firefox from the Adobe site but all I got is the Adobe DLM extension (v1.6.2.60) and the getplus® packaged with it doesn't run on 98SE. I tried installing the Flash Player plugin beta but that doesn't work in IE6 OR Firefox 3.6

Any help?

[yuuten]

I can't install all of the 4.x version KernelEx on Japanese edition of Windows ME.
I got the following error message:

exportfromX: pattern not found


The following pattern is in KERNEL32.DLL of Japanese WinME:
0F BF 40 10 8B 14 81 8B 44 24 14 3D 00 00 01 00 8B 4A 04 73 15 39 1D

The pattern of KernelEx source setup/setup.cpp line 369-370:
0x0F,0xBF,0x40,0x10,0x8B,0x14,0x81,0x8B,0x44,
0x24,0x14,0x3D,0x00,0x00,0x01,0x00,0x8B,0x4A,0x04,0x73,0x15,0x3B,0x1D,


Version 0.3.x installer works fine.

[SlugFiller]

@Queue: "Visual", by definition, denies any "speed and resource benefits". It is probably many times slower than JIT-compiled Java code, and while I can't testify as to the library size, the memory usage is undoubtedly much higher. It was one thing if this was C, then you'd have good performance, and it wouldn't be proprietary. It would also be easily portable, although not necessarily cross-platform (depends on whether the C runtime is used, or the Win32API).
Also, I hope I don't have to explain the issues with a language with a proprietary dynamically linked run-time (although I suppose Windows may also be counted as a "proprietary runtime"). Especially not on this forum, in this thread (*cough* VCRun2008 *cough*).

[timofonic]

If you like Pascal, I would recommend Free Pascal and Lazarus. You will have Pascal and Object Pascal, a Delphi-like GUI and a very wide portability between different platforms (Windows, Linux, Windows CE, BSD, MacOS X, AmigaOS... even Nintendo DS!) and processors (x86, AMD64 aka x86 64, ARM, PowerPC, 68k, SPARC...).

JDK? Seriously, Java is not a sane language for people that likes Pascal or C/C++ languages, despite being massively used by market(ing) reasons. The development methodology of Java is different and certain developers are not comfortable with it or feel a lot productive not using it.

I'm not against Java as a programming language, just I avoid apps running into bytecodes because generally being highly inefficient and prefer to use native code instead.

About support: What about Chromium? It's Open Source, so maybe it can be even patched for Win 9x support. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a developer and just suggesting it

[dencorso]

@Queue, SlugFiller and timofonic: This is the KernelEx thread, which is, by itself, already huge! Let's not get off-topic!
If you want it badly, let me know and I'll split your latest posts into a new thread (in this case do PM me about it). But I'd much rather avoid the potential development of yet another this-vs.-that flamefest, if you don't mind letting it go.

[Joseph_sw]

SlugFiller, on Feb 8 2010, 12:41 AM, said:

I didn't feel like pushing it to the limit. My original unicode.bin only had 5 code pages, and I've added an extra 4 (all East Asians). Your 30-pages bin should probably go on mgdx or something. Could you list the code pages you have there?

well, the unicode.bin that i have was exactly came from the win98_22.cab file.

i also have my winME installer ready, unicode.bin from win_8.cab which also binary exact match with the win98se (win98_22.cab) counter part.

this the listing codepages found in that unicode.bin

 1 -  437 - 0034C 0022C 1 - 00578 0027D   12
 2 -  850 - 007F5 0022C 1 - 00A21 001D9	6
 3 - 1252 - 00BFA 0022C 1 - 00E26 001AA   10
 4 - 1250 - 00FD0 0022C 1 - 011FC 008C4  137
 5 - 1251 - 01AC0 0022C 1 - 01CEC 00643   88
 6 - 1253 - 0232F 0022C 1 - 0255B 006B5   99
 7 - 1254 - 02C10 0022C 1 - 02E3C 008A1  134
 8 - 1257 - 036DD 0022C 1 - 03909 00395   55
 9 -  737 - 03C9E 0022C 1 - 03ECA 003C1   56
10 -  852 - 0428B 0022C 1 - 044B7 00881  132
11 -  855 - 04D38 0022C 1 - 04F64 0061B   85
12 -  857 - 0557F 0022C 1 - 057AB 00890  133
13 -  866 - 0603B 0022C 1 - 06267 0061C   85
14 -  869 - 06883 0022C 1 - 06AAF 0064E   92
15 -  775 - 070FD 0022C 1 - 07329 00243	5
16 -  874 - 0756C 0022C 1 - 07798 00191   12
17 - 1258 - 07929 0022C 1 - 07B55 002E1   40
18 -  860 - 07E36 0022C 1 - 08062 0093C  144
19 -  861 - 0899E 0022C 1 - 08BCA 0093C  144
20 -  863 - 09506 0022C 1 - 09732 0093C  144
21 -  865 - 0A06E 0022C 1 - 0A29A 0093C  144
22 - 1255 - 0ABD6 0022C 1 - 0AE02 0023A   26
23 -  862 - 0B03C 0022C 1 - 0B268 009FA  160
24 - 1256 - 0BC62 0022C 1 - 0BE8E 0031F   44
25 -  708 - 0C1AD 0022C 1 - 0C3D9 001F0	9
26 -  710 - 0C5C9 0022C 1 - 0C7F5 00245   20
27 -  711 - 0CA3A 0022C 1 - 0CC66 001F9   14
28 -  720 - 0CE5F 0022C 1 - 0D08B 0020B   12
29 -  786 - 0D296 0022C 1 - 0D4C2 001F3   13
30 -  864 - 0D6B5 0022C 1 - 0D8E1 00218   14

listed in order of appearances in original unicode.bin that i have
Code page - Offset Length Ranges (cp to uni) - Offset Length Ranges (uni to cp)

i suspect that localized version of win9x might have different content of unicode.bin going on.
ack, its make me want to hunt for that files.

[RetroOS]

CharlesF, on Feb 4 2010, 01:10 PM, said:

...
* Is there a way to make last VLC 1.05 working?: the exe is running, but no more displaying the text of the menus.

Charles.

VLC 1.0.5 works for me.
However, I had the same problem you describe, back in 1.0.3.
It turned out to be the font I was using for Windows text.
After I changed it to another font, VLC displayed correctly.

Try changing to another desktop theme to test, or just change the fonts in display appearance settings.

I suspect that some 'custom' fonts may not support Unicode and therefore extended characters are blank/missing like in VLC.
I could be wrong...

[craftech]

Since it appears that Kernel EX was first designed to run Firefox 3 and above on W98SE machines why not address the biggest problem (the problem that forced me to go back to Firefox 2 with Kernel EX extensions disabled) which is that many of us are unable to Print from Firefox 3, and in my case the e-mail client (mailto) wouldn't work in Firefox 3 under any circumstances nor in Firefox 2 until I disabled Kernel EX when Firefox 2 loads?

Opera 10 worked fine.

John

This post has been edited by craftech: 08 February 2010 - 08:29 AM

[Tihiy]

Quote

the e-mail client (mailto) wouldn't work in Firefox 3 under any circumstances nor in Firefox 2

I've researched this issue and - that may sound stupid - it's really mimicking XP behavior. SHParseDisplayName check they added in some security update actually may fail to process mailto: links. Nevertheless it's a serious issue and it will be fixed soon. And if you want printing, what you wanna print?

[EvanD]

craftech, on Feb 8 2010, 09:23 AM, said:

Many of us are unable to Print from Firefox 3. <snip>

See: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=&...st&p=904976

It's not perfect but, at least for some of us, it always prints from Firefox 3.x.x.

This post has been edited by EvanD: 09 February 2010 - 04:05 PM

[CharlesF]

RetroOS, on Feb 8 2010, 08:03 AM, said:

After I changed it to another font, VLC displayed correctly.

Wonderful! I have only switched the title bar font from Tahoma to Verdana,
and VLC is now perfect.
Thanks RetroOS.

RetroOS, on Feb 8 2010, 08:03 AM, said:

I suspect that some 'custom' fonts may not support Unicode and therefore extended characters are blank/missing like in VLC.

I think Tahoma must support Unicode.
Oddly, I went to my Font folder and it is displaying two times the Tahoma font: same TAHOMA.TTF, same size and same time stamp.
It is the only font I see in double.
Do you know how to correct that?

[RetroOS]

CharlesF, on Feb 9 2010, 12:41 PM, said:

RetroOS, on Feb 8 2010, 08:03 AM, said:

After I changed it to another font, VLC displayed correctly.

Wonderful! I have only switched the title bar font from Tahoma to Verdana,
and VLC is now perfect.
Thanks RetroOS.

RetroOS, on Feb 8 2010, 08:03 AM, said:

I suspect that some 'custom' fonts may not support Unicode and therefore extended characters are blank/missing like in VLC.

I think Tahoma must support Unicode.
Oddly, I went to my Font folder and it is displaying two times the Tahoma font: same TAHOMA.TTF, same size and same time stamp.
It is the only font I see in double.
Do you know how to correct that?

I noticed the two Tahoma fonts a while ago...
One is listed as TAHOMA.TTF and the other as tahoma.ttf. The same size, date, and time.
I also have some other duplicate fonts, some with identical font name and file name, and others with variations.

I changed all my fonts to Trebuchet MS and that worked.

[CharlesF]

RetroOS, on Feb 8 2010, 08:03 AM, said:

I suspect that some 'custom' fonts may not support Unicode and therefore extended characters are blank/missing like in VLC.

RetroOS, on Feb 9 2010, 08:23 AM, said:

I changed all my fonts to Trebuchet MS and that worked.

Thanks RetroOS for your help!
The problem comes from the font 'MS Sans Serif' (SSERIFE.FON) which is not a TrueType but a Fixed font, and doesn't support Unicode.
This font is the default system font in native Windows 98!

I didn't found a workaround except to use another font (what you did) for each Item in Display Properties->Appearance.
If one want to keep the same font, he can switch to Microsoft Sans Serif (micross.ttf) from WinXP, which is the 'MS Sans Serif' in TrueType!

NB: I have tried to replace the default font in %windir%\WIN.INI:
[FontSubstitutes]
MS Shell Dlg=MS Sans Serif
MS Shell Dlg 2=MS Sans Serif
but it doesn't help.

Also, I didn't found out from how Revolutions Pack 9 is replacing that font with Tahoma (in Misc tab) for the whole system.

Regards.
Charles.

[paoloapaolo]

Print firefox 3.6 try changing 4.10.2222 in 5.10.2600 in regedit in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion" "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Active Setup \ Installed Components \ (10303d00-11d4-16dc-a58a - 00902766e933)
To print correctly even complex pages with images to use only version 0_9_8 PDFCreator (print page 1 of 1
.....)

[Xeno86]

KernelEx v4.5 Beta 2
Release announcement


Happy Valentine's Day!


What's new:

• Implemented Uniscribe font caching (improves Firefox 3 performance _noticeably_).
  
• New thread pool implementation (fixes IE6 problems).
  
• Fixed rare font related Firefox 3 crash.
  
• Implemented timer queue APIs.
  
• Implemented SHParseDisplayName and restricted to XP+ configs to fix Firefox mailto issues.
  
• Fixed premature kexCOM unloading crashing Photoshop 5 and other buggy apps.
  
• Updated jemalloc to version from FF3.6.
  
• Fixed jemalloc sensitiveness to invalid pointers. Fixes vmwareuser, cvtaplog crashing.
  
• Implemented EnumPrintersW (Foxit 3.1 Unicode printing support).
  
• Fixed Opera 10.50 Beta Acid3 crash.
  
• Other small fixes / stubs.

Notes:

• Installation on Japanese WinME should be fixed now but needs confirmation.
  
• This release is beta quality in order to test several major changes in KernelEx.
  Please test the apps which were working before. Compare the performance and memory usage of any heavy apps you use.
  Pay attention to possible national language input problems.
  
• If you want to downgrade to Final 2, you have to uninstall this beta first.
  
• Enjoy this great release.

This post has been edited by Xeno86: 14 February 2010 - 04:31 PM

[CharlesF]

Xeno86, on Feb 14 2010, 11:29 PM, said:

KernelEx v4.5 Beta 2 Release announcement

Bravo Xeno86!
Just installed and working well here:
- FS Viewer still not crashing anymore
- IE6SP1 accessing Https with no more hanging up

@RetroOS:

RetroOS, on Feb 8 2010, 08:03 AM, said:

VLC 1.0.5 works for me.

VLC 1.05 is NOT working well here.
Even with a TrueType font, I lose displaying for several menus, like 'Preferences' or the volume level on the interface (Tooltip is displayed, but not the 100% of the actual level).
Also, if I delete the cache and preferences (folder 'vlc' in %windir%\Application Data\), VLC crashes at next launching. I had to keep cache of previous version 1.03.

This post has been edited by CharlesF: 16 February 2010 - 07:21 PM

[rainyd]

Xeno/Tihiy, again, very good work guys!

I see significant improvement in stability of my programs with KernelEx 4.5 Beta 2 version (with previous one I had some crashes).

[supem]

Hurra,
with Beta2 printing came back to Firefox 3.x and Foxit Reader 3.x
unfortunatelly Gimp 2.6.8 hasn't been working yet