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Searching for a few utilities


FantasyAcquiesce

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Does anyone know where I could find...

  • A third party battery meter - something similar to this. The program does not properly work on ME after changing a setting.
  • Screen brightness adjuster and maybe color as well - Windows ME lacks one
  • A decent office utility (besides Openoffice, something more modern)
  • Modern PDF reader
  • Third party screensavers - Just for fun; I wanna show to my peers that Windows ME is never truly obsolete ;)

Thank you!

Edited by ~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~
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For the battery monitor: NHC Notebook Hardware Control / Centrino Hardware Control - i don't remember if the older versions run over windows 9x
http://www.pbus-167.com/

For the screensaver: nero burning rom Vulcano (opengl)
ftp://ftp4.nero.com/vulcano.exe
http://www.chip.de/downloads/Nero-Burning-Rom-Screensaver_13010136.html

Edited by Commodore
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I'm somewhat confident there's a web browser out there with Win98 compatibility. Has anyone tried searching the internet in other languages such as Chinese? A while back internet explorer 6 was China's top browser. I was desperate enough to install the shady 360 browser, but that failed.

There's countless browsers that are not well known such as blackhawk (although it's a rebrand of chrome).

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Ok sumatra PDF, older version works with kernel EX.  I cannot give you the specific build but I know for absolute certain it works I used it.  Older builds of Foxit reader work without kernel EX.  That is as advanced as you will get with PDF readers.

Decent office utility that will work is ABI word.  Check for version.  I think Word 97-SR2 is included in 98s SP3 or something but I don't know if that runs on ME.  You maybe able to just select that and nothing else.

The battery issue maybe related to ACPI is not correctly installed on the laptop.  IDK about ME but I am pretty sure 98se has a battery meter if ACPI sys driver is installed correctly.

As far as brightness is concerned there should be adjustments with the video driver or LCD.  like ATI or Nvidia have that built into the drivers.  the LCD is hardware based.  I don't think your going to find third party brightness and color controls.

Why not just use 98se to ME then you can have the best of both worlds.  I have done installs like 98se + 98se2Me + 98se SP3 + Kenel EX + Revolutions Pack and everything worked properly.

Edited by Destro
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1 hour ago, Destro said:

 

Ok sumatra PDF, older version works with kernel EX.  I cannot give you the specific build but I know for absolute certain it works I used it.  Older builds of Foxit reader work without kernel EX.  That is as advanced as you will get with PDF readers.

Decent office utility that will work is ABI word.  Check for version.  I think Word 97-SR2 is included in 98s SP3 or something but I don't know if that runs on ME.  You maybe able to just select that and nothing else.

The battery issue maybe related to ACPI is not correctly installed on the laptop.  IDK about ME but I am pretty sure 98se has a battery meter if ACPI sys driver is installed correctly.

As far as brightness is concerned there should be adjustments with the video driver or LCD.  like ATI or Nvidia have that built into the drivers.  the LCD is hardware based.  I don't think your going to find third party brightness and color controls.

Why not just use 98se to ME then you can have the best of both worlds.  I have done installs like 98se + 98se2Me + 98se SP3 + Kenel EX + Revolutions Pack and everything worked properly.

I'm hoping to stay on Vanilla ME because kernelex probably contributed to the dozens of botched 98SE installs on my D600 which led to me either reinstalling or finding another OS. Surprisingly ACPI fixes a bunch of issues I encountered on 9x such as keeping a usb plugged in during boot causing hangs and yes, ACPI does give a battery meter however it's not sufficient to keep me vigilant of battery life (Dell Latitude D600's don't have a super long battery life).

Thanks for the tips! I'm gonna try a few of these!

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Ya Kernel EX does that when you choose the option during setup to globally apply it to everything.  Always uncheck that.  Then it only effects programs you specifically want to run with kernelEX and not everything by default.  I remember it saying something about that there being no reason to un select global system settings or whatever its called during setup.  Thats pretty comical.  Trust me.

Oh I forgot to mention, you can get cute PDF + older version of ghost script "i think its 8.6 not sure" if you want to print PDFs that works really well.  As far as web browsers are concerned I feel like it's a possibility to to backport a webkit based browser but it's not going to be perfect and without SSE2 support on older computers it's always going to be a challenge to get anything multimedia related these days to run.

 

If you really want to impress your friends. Install this supplicant to add a standard TCP/IP port like newer versions of windows.  Then Install the driver for like the most basic HP laser JET PCL driver.  Most printers have Laserjet Enumeration for compatibility purposes.  I print to a Brother network printer that has that.

 

https://www.thewichitacomputerguy.com/blog/standard-tcpip-port-missing-windows-98

Edited by Destro
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11 hours ago, rloew said:

I have wrappers that support SumatraPDF without using KernelEX. They are not modifications, they are added.

Which version? Can I have them? :D

10 hours ago, Destro said:

Oh I forgot to mention, you can get cute PDF + older version of ghost script "i think its 8.6 not sure" if you want to print PDFs that works really well.  As far as web browsers are concerned I feel like it's a possibility to to backport a webkit based browser but it's not going to be perfect and without SSE2 support on older computers it's always going to be a challenge to get anything

The easiest way I know in theory to backport a web browser is obtaining QT 4.3.3 (last Win98 tested version) and MingGW (I have both linked if anyone ever needs those) then modifying an older version of Arora browser, QT Demo Browser, maybe even Qupzilla or QTWeb (although I couldn't figure out how to open it in QT after downloading version 1.0.0's source code). Using one of the previous mentioned browsers is probably the easiest way to obtain a Webkit browser. Making a modern web browser for 98/ME (I have no idea if it would even work on 95 or if there is even a way) would probably require backporting newer versions of QTWebkit. SSE2 isn't a problem with me because my laptop is barely new enough to include it (LOL). But the biggest problem would be protocols and certificates preventing pages from even entering.

I myself can't do this task because I can't even figure out how to open Qupzilla 1.0.0 in QT 4.3.3 >o< (Apparently there's no UI designer file!) and my little knowledge of Java probably wouldn't help much...

Edited by ~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~
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The Wrappers are not free. They are not on my Website because I am still developing them.

They run SumatraPDF 2.5.2. I'm not sure about the later ones.

You can contact me directly if you are interested.

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