[frogman]

Be interesting when the official KernelEx is released if there will be a help file with it.

[frogman]

Dave-H, on 29 November 2010 - 12:47 PM, said:

Tihiy, on 29 November 2010 - 12:21 PM, said:

That's my fault since i'm the feature-pusher. So far there are following release do-wants:
- Printer problems (not reproduceable)
- Flash problems (minor / no clue)
- AlphaBlend improvements
- setup improvements
- MSI compat db
- wiki

Are people trying to get XP or later only printer drivers to work in Windows 98 using KernelEx, or are they saying that drivers that are supposed to work under Windows 98 aren't now working because of KernelEx!?
My printer (Stylus Photo R285), supplied with Windows 98 compatible drivers, works fine, both before and after applying KernelEx.

My Epson printer colour stylus 680 still works with KernelEx RC5 installed, it just doesn't print web pages from FF 3.6.

[Dave-H]

frogman, on 29 November 2010 - 12:58 PM, said:

My Epson printer colour stylus 680 still works with KernelEx RC5 installed, it just doesn't print web pages from FF 3.6.

Which to my understanding is an intrinsic problem with Firefox 3 under Windows 98, even with KernelEx installed, nothing to do with the printer driver itself. I don't think it works with any printer drivers.
Personally I think it's been a great achievement by the KernelEx devs to get Firefox 3 to run under Windows 98 at all!
IMO getting the Firefox printing to work comes under the same category as getting Java to work in the latest Opera versions.
Something to investigate for the next version of KernelEx, not something to delay the release of this version for!

[CharlesF]

Dave-H, on 29 November 2010 - 12:47 PM, said:

I've been following the "printer problems" with some interest, as I use an Epson USB printer myself.
Are people trying to get XP or later only printer drivers to work in Windows 98 using KernelEx, or are they saying that drivers that are supposed to work under Windows 98 aren't now working because of KernelEx!?

All the drivers I have installed were released for Windows 9x
As I said, I have Epson drivers for a printer and a scanner installed, but the problem appears with an HP printer.
All are USB 1 connected.

[frogman]

Dave-H, on 29 November 2010 - 01:10 PM, said:

frogman, on 29 November 2010 - 12:58 PM, said:

My Epson printer colour stylus 680 still works with KernelEx RC5 installed, it just doesn't print web pages from FF 3.6.

Which to my understanding is an intrinsic problem with Firefox 3 under Windows 98, even with KernelEx installed, nothing to do with the printer driver itself. I don't think it works with any printer drivers.
Personally I think it's been a great achievement by the KernelEx devs to get Firefox 3 to run under Windows 98 at all!
IMO getting the Firefox printing to work comes under the same category as getting Java to work in the latest Opera versions.
Something to investigate for the next version of KernelEx, not something to delay the release of this version for!

Dave,

Can I ask, have you stopped new PM's for yourself on here?

[Dave-H]

frogman, on 29 November 2010 - 01:34 PM, said:

Dave,

Can I ask, have you stopped new PM's for yourself on here?

No, but my message box was full!
Try again.

[loblo]

Dave-H, on 29 November 2010 - 10:32 AM, said:

Trying to make more programs compatible with it before then will only result in it never being released.
New compatibilities can surely wait for the next version!

I can tell you that there are a few programs (not many) I can't run but would love to and it's been quite hard to refrain myself asking whether they could be made to work until now.

I personally don't care about FF3 printing issues at all but would love to be able to run:

Picturenaut 3 - http://www.hdrlabs.c...naut/index.html (crashes on launch in msvcrt)

Aodix 4 - http://www.aodix.com/pageaodixv4.html (runs but does not display the UI inside the window)

FFRend - http://ffrend.sourceforge.net/ (runs but crashes in nvidia dlls as soon as I load a video or image file)

VST plugins written with the Juce GUI framework such as those: http://www.rs-met.com/freebies.html (they load in hosts but either display a blank UI or the UI seem to have a zero vertical size and extremely big horizontal size). Handiest host to quickly test this out is savihost - http://www.hermannse...sh/savihost.htm (drag drop the vst plugin dll onto the savihost executable and voilà)

That's about it for my wish list besides the regression which makes the recent versions of Apophysis 2 (those who can load plugins) display indefinitely a big hourglass again. (used to be fixed in an older release of KernelEx). - http://sourceforge.n...pophysis/files/

This post has been edited by loblo: 29 November 2010 - 02:37 PM

[Tihiy]

Quote

Picturenaut 3 - http://www.hdrlabs.c...naut/index.html (crashes on launch in msvcrt)

You need to define APPDATA and USERPROFILE environment variables.

CharlesF , we need you help. The printer drivers you have are old and most likely can't be affected by KernelEx. Crash you had happens in spool32 which is excluded from KernelEx. There were no core changes between RC4 and RC5 either. Please elaborate on your problem:
* does problem occurs with KernelEx installed in 'disable by default' mode?
* how bad is hang and what it seems to be caused from (message loop, high cpu usage, i/o, windows drawing, etc)
* does problem happen with spoolss.dll from winme?
* if you decide problem is surely RC5 specific, try RC5 with kernelex.dll from RC4.

This post has been edited by Tihiy: 29 November 2010 - 03:09 PM

[loblo]

Tihiy, on 29 November 2010 - 03:07 PM, said:

Quote

Picturenaut 3 - http://www.hdrlabs.c...naut/index.html (crashes on launch in msvcrt)

You need to define APPDATA and USERPROFILE environment variables.

Too cool, it works now, thanks.

[CharlesF]

Tihiy, on 29 November 2010 - 03:07 PM, said:

CharlesF , we need you help. The printer drivers you have are old and most likely can't be affected by KernelEx.

Thanks to take time to look in my problem!
The drivers are the last version (at least, I found) to be Win 9x compatible.

Quote

* does problem occurs with KernelEx installed in 'disable by default' mode?

If you mean to tick 'Disable KernelEx extensions' in compatibility tab, I have try it without reboot but it doesn't help.

Quote

* how bad is hang and what it seems to be caused from (message loop, high cpu usage, i/o, windows drawing, etc)

What am I suppose to do to know that?
With a light doc file, printing only is freezing with the printer icon remaining in systray.
If I try with a heavier one, all system is hanging.

Quote

* does problem happen with spoolss.dll from winme?

SPOOLSS.DLL version 4.10.2223 French 103 KB
I can upload it if you need.

Quote

* if you decide problem is surely RC5 specific, try RC5 with kernelex.dll from RC4.

I will have to reinstall KernelEx RC 5.
I do as soon I find the time, maybe tomorrow and come back with report.

[frogman]

dencorso, on 29 November 2010 - 10:47 PM, said:

This thread is for discussing KernelEx *only*!
Start another thread, if you need, but do stop hijacking this one!

I understand, I did try and PM Dave-H but his message box was full and I was unable to leave him a message, so I thought it was only courteous thing to do was to reply to him, but I take what you say.

[Tihiy]

Quote

That's about it for my wish list besides the regression which makes the recent versions of Apophysis 2 (those who can load plugins) display indefinitely a big hourglass again. (used to be fixed in an older release of KernelEx). - http://sourceforge.n...pophysis/files/

Researched that. It was working in 4.5b2 and won't work anymore since it's makes bad assumptions about process/thread IDs. This change was removed in RC1 since it caused a lot of troubles.

[CharlesF]

Following of post # 1016

Quote

Tihiy, on 29 November 2010 - 03:07 PM, said:

CharlesF, we need your help.
...
* if you decide problem is surely RC5 specific, try RC5 with kernelex.dll from RC4.

I will have to reinstall KernelEx RC 5.
I do as soon I find the time, maybe tomorrow and come back with report.

OK, here is my report:

• Starting from KernelEx 4.5 RC 4 -> printing on HP LaserJet 1022 is fine.
  
  
• Uninstall KernelEx -> printing is fine.
  
  
• Reinstall version RC 5
  -> Scanner Epson Perfection 2000 USB is running fine.
  
  -> once again same problem (freezing) when I try to print from Word 2000 (9.0.8961 SP-3). I have to do Ctrl+Alt+Del to go out.
  
  I have uploaded a few stuff (ressources in Task Manager, Filemeon & Regmon log):  PrintingBug_KernelEx4.5_RC5.rar (10.72K)
  Number of downloads: 6
  
  After several minutes, I get a page printed with only the few first words of my printing try (but nothing else).
  
  -> printing from IE6SP1, Maxthon or Opera 10.63 seems without flaw presently.
  
  
• Replacement of KernelEx.dll(RC5) by KernelEx.dll(RC4) using a WININIT.ini and reboot, doesn't change anything.
  I have even made another try by replacing the default content of the 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\KernelEx' registry key from RC5
  by the content from RC4 (in addition of KernelEx.dll replacement), but it doesn't help.
  
  
• At last, new uninstall of KernelEx 4.5 RC 5 and downgrade to RC 4,
  ... and once again printing is smooth & instant!
  
  
• Something else: if I go to Control Panel->System, my printer appears in error(= yellow question mark) ,
  with stated in Properties (free translation): 'Device state: Driver not installed (Code 28).'
  It is the same with no KernelEx installed, RC4 or RC5.
  I have also tried to unplug the printer from the USB2 card to a USB1 port (and reboot) but it doesn't change.
  ... but the fact is that it had always been working fine like that in all circumstances.

HTH
Charles.

[loblo]

Tihiy, on 30 November 2010 - 04:36 PM, said:

Quote

That's about it for my wish list besides the regression which makes the recent versions of Apophysis 2 (those who can load plugins) display indefinitely a big hourglass again. (used to be fixed in an older release of KernelEx). - http://sourceforge.n...pophysis/files/

Researched that. It was working in 4.5b2 and won't work anymore since it's makes bad assumptions about process/thread IDs. This change was removed in RC1 since it caused a lot of troubles.

Too bad Thanks for looking into it anyway.

[Tihiy]

Quote

Something else: if I go to Control Panel->System, my printer appears in error(= yellow question mark) ,
with stated in Properties (free translation): 'Device state: Driver not installed (Code 28).'
It is the same with no KernelEx installed, RC4 or RC5.
I have also tried to unplug the printer from the USB2 card to a USB1 port (and reboot) but it doesn't change.
... but the fact is that it had always been working fine like that in all circumstances.

Now that's insane. Look around, you have NT drivers! In filemon and drwatson logs, there are mention of dlls which don't belong to drivers you posted: SDIMF32.DLL, QDPRINT.DLL, SD32.DLL, SDDM32.DLL, SR32.DLL, ZGDI32.DLL, ZSPOOL.DLL, etc. Wtf? It's possible that's NT drivers and they started to work with RC5 but not well ofc. Tell me where to get these files, or i'll have to treat this an invalid situation and not a regression.

[CharlesF]

Tihiy, on 01 December 2010 - 07:14 AM, said:

Look around, you have NT drivers! In filemon and drwatson logs, there are mention of dlls which don't belong to drivers you posted: SDIMF32.DLL, QDPRINT.DLL, SD32.DLL, SDDM32.DLL, SR32.DLL, ZGDI32.DLL, ZSPOOL.DLL, etc.
Tell me where to get these files

You are right, all those 7 files are located on my HD in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\

After search, they are coming from the first version of driver I had installed, straight from the install CD that is coming with the printer.
I have uploaded this driver at this link if you are interested: http://dl.free.fr/g5OmglG9D

The driver I have posted before was installed "on the top", when I had found a newer version on the HP site.

Now, may I ask 2 questions:
- why did all this stuff was working all that time if they are not 'good' drivers? What is so different with last build of KernelEx?

- what do you suggest I would do now? In Control Panel->Add/Remove programs, I don't have any item to uninstall HP drivers.

Thanks in advance for your efforts, Tihiy

This post has been edited by CharlesF: 01 December 2010 - 06:39 PM

[Dave-H]

Probably if you put the HP driver CD in again and run the installer, it should give you the option to uninstall the drivers.
I have an HP printer too, a Photosmart 370 photo printer, as well as my main Epson A4 printer.
The software that came with the HP printer was an absolute pig to install and get working, especially in Windows 98, although the Image Zone software that came with it is really good.

[Tihiy]

CharlesF, we need to figure out what happened during RC4-RC5 path. Only you [and similar poor souls?] can help us.
[download removed]
This file contains 18 key revisions between RC4 and RC5. Start with installing RC4 and trying lowest revision. Install by right-clicking install.inf and reboot. Test if your bug appears.
You can skip revisions to save time ('binary' search) but don't jump between < 260 and >=260 revisions as they contain different sheet.dll.
Good luck

This post has been edited by Tihiy: 05 December 2010 - 03:34 PM

[supem]

Hi,
I reported my printing problem here
Today I've tested all revision of RC4-5.rar twice nearly.
First I decided to print Excel sheet and printing went well for all revision up to finally installed KeX 4.5
Than I started printing *.doc file and the bug appeared with revision #263 andfurther ones.
That text file has been printed from MsOffice and OO 3.21 where distinctly showed on the screen its frozen process

HTH

This post has been edited by supem: 03 December 2010 - 05:29 PM

[Tihiy]

Quote

First I decided to print Excel sheet and printing went well for all revision up to finally installed KeX 4.5
Than I started printing *.doc file and the bug appeared with revision #263 andfurther ones.
That text file has been printed from MsOffice and OO 3.21 where distinctly showed on the screen its frozen process

Thank you very much. CoWaitForMultipleHandles was culprit #1 (since its the only new function which does wait), but the problem is - it's not used by printer drivers i've seen and Office 2000/XP/OOo, which prints fine for me and xeno86. Can you please run a search for files you run which use it (with Far for example; files containing 'cowait'; not case sensitive; all character tables; in \windows and \program files with subfolders, then filter out things you don't use).