[dencorso]

bristols, on Aug 24 2007, 03:35 PM, said:

[...]
- ASYCFILT.DLL 2.40.4528 > 2.40.4530
- OLEPRO32.DLL 5.0.4528 > 5.0.4530
- OLEAUT32.DLL 2.40.4522 > 2.40.4519
[...]
Thanks for testing those newer OLE files. But could you tell me why OLEAUT32.DLL was downgraded?

Hi, bristols! erpdude8 is right: oleaut32.dll 2.40.4519 *is newer* than 2.40.4522!
This is just a versioning conundrum caused by M$ habit of late of releasing parallel series of updates starting at different versions for different OSes. But it can be solved, in the case of PE executables like oleaut32.dll, by looking at the file compilation dates (aka PE Timestamps, which are MUCH more stable, becuse they're tucked away in the PE header, than common file dates, which reside in the directory entry an can change easily). To see the compilation dates in readable format one must use MiTeC EXE Explorer, or PEDUMP.EXE by Matt Pietrek, a somewhat more technical console app. For the latter, try <pedump filename.dll | find /i "timedatestamp"> and consider the first value listed (the others are usually zero, anyway, because it tries to get the PE Timestamps of the .dll dependencies and fails silently... yes, they are the result of a bug...). I've compiled a list, for some versions of oleaut32.dll, so here is it:

Versions of oleaut32.dll known to work with Windows 9x/NT4/ME
==========================================
PE Timestamp 04/23/1999 16:37:36 V. 2.40.4275.1
PE Timestamp 08/31/1999 23:15:11 V. 2.40.4277.1
PE Timestamp 05/04/2001 21:34:09 V. 2.40.4517.0
PE Timestamp 03/16/2001 23:09:34 V. 2.40.4518.0
PE Timestamp 07/31/2006 18:12:40 V. 2.40.4519.0
PE Timestamp 06/20/2003 02:43:41 V. 2.40.4522.0

Of course, if one knows from which packages or updates those files came, and their relative release dates, it should not be necessary to go for the PE Timestamps, but that is not always the case. But I don't think the existence of PE Timestamps is very widely known, and this is a good exemple to show their utility. Too bad only PE executables (sometimes referred to as Win 32 executables), among all possible types of executables present in the Windows OSes carry their compilation date inside. Then again, they are becoming more and more the standard for .exe, .dll, .ocx and .tlb, and that is good news!
In a nutshell, changing oleaut32.dll from v. 2.40.4522.0 to v. 2.40.4519.0, despite all the apearances, *is an upgrade*, not a downgrade! HTH

<Additional musings... It seems there always IS something more to be said >

Relevant files found in VB6-KB924053-x86-ENU.exe, having internal name oleaut32.dll
===========================================================
PE Timestamp 07/11/2006 07:19:34 V. 2.40.4531.0 Size: 631,053 bytes Name: oa2k.dll
PE Timestamp 07/31/2006 18:12:40 V. 2.40.4519.0 Size: 626,960 bytes Name: oant4.dll
PE Timestamp 07/31/2006 18:43:21 V. 2.40.4519.0 Size: 626,960 bytes Name: oant4ts.dll

oa2k.dll was tested by erpdude8 and by MDGx, and both found it's unsuitable for use with Win 9x/ME. So I didn't test it myself but I mention it here because its version number indicates it's presently the most up-to-date version of oleaut32 in the series 4522 .... 4531, that M$ intended for Win 2k. Of these only 4522 does work with Win 9x/NT4/ME.
Now, oant4.dll and oant4ts.dll, despite having the same version number and the same size, are a long way from being the same file, because they exhibit 27,906 differences in a direct binary compare. They are both intended by M$ for NT4 systems, but oant4ts is for NT4 *Terminal Server*, which, in IMHO, is much more different from Win 9x/ME than plain-vanilla NT4, so I decided the right file to pick would be oant4.dll, which I've been using, renamed to oleaut32.dll, in my system, for some time now, without any problems. I do believe erpdude8 reasoned along these same lines to select which of the 4519 files that he tested and found it works OK. I've checked the oleaut32.dll that is inside the Unofficial 98fe SP v2.2.0, he has just released. It is the same oant4.dll that I'm currently using, from its PE Timestamp.

Now, the 4519 files are the latest in the series 4275....4518, which M$ had stopped updating for some time, but since they were released in the same update pack as 4531 I took it to mean, to me at least, that they are equivalent from the hotfix point-of-view, both being the most up-to-date at the moment, the main difference being that 4519 lacks the Win 2k specific features present in 4531, most possibly *the features* that render 4531 unusable with Win 9x/ME. Of course, this last comment is just my opinion, so YMMV.

[PROBLEMCHYLD]

MDGx, on Sep 4 2007, 12:29 AM, said:

WMP90_98.EXE is a repackaged WMP9 which installs on all Win98 editions.

Can you list all the updates thats included please
i'm trying to avoid installing the same updates over and over again

[PROBLEMCHYLD]

I think MSONSEXT.DLL installs from web folders update

[the_guy]

WMP90_98.EXE is just the original WMP9 installer, modified to work under 98FE.

the_guy

[eidenk]

dencorso, on Sep 4 2007, 01:00 AM, said:

This is just a versioning conundrum caused by M$ habit of late of releasing parallel series of updates starting at different versions for different OSes. But it can be solved, in the case of PE executables like oleaut32.dll, by looking at the file compilation dates (aka PE Timestamps, which are MUCH more stable, becuse they're tucked away in the PE header, than common file dates, which reside in the directory entry an can change easily). To see the compilation dates in readable format one must use MiTeC EXE Explorer, or PEDUMP.EXE by Matt Pietrek, a somewhat more technical console app. For the latter, try <pedump filename.dll | find /i "timedatestamp"> and consider the first value listed (the others are usually zero, anyway, because it tries to get the PE Timestamps of the .dll dependencies and fails silently... yes, they are the result of a bug...).

Of course, if one knows from which packages or updates those files came, and their relative release dates, it should not be necessary to go for the PE Timestamps, but that is not always the case. But I don't think the existence of PE Timestamps is very widely known, and this is a good exemple to show their utility. Too bad only PE executables (sometimes referred to as Win 32 executables), among all possible types of executables present in the Windows OSes carry their compilation date inside. Then again, they are becoming more and more the standard for .exe, .dll, .ocx and .tlb, and that is good news!
In a nutshell, changing oleaut32.dll form v. 2.40.4522.0 to v. 2.40.4519.0, despite all the apearances, *is an upgrade*, not a downgrade! HTH

Thanks, I ignored that. Let us hope it is more reliable with MS files than with Exe Explorer itself, as I would not think it has been compiled the 19/06/1992.

[dencorso]

eidenk, on Sep 11 2007, 08:13 PM, said:

Thanks, I ignored that. Let us hope it is more reliable with MS files than with Exe Explorer itself, as I would not think it has been compiled the 19/06/1992.

Great catch, eidenk! The people at MiTeC, of course, may have done it as a deliberate prank...
It hadn't occurred to me to use it to look for its own PE Timestamp. It can be spoofed quite easily. The only reason I think that it's usually reliable is the fact that it is a very little known detail of the PE standard, automatically set by the linker. One has to know it's there to spoof it. PEDUMP, for instance, really is from 29/08/2001, and I just found out a newer version of it (05/4/2004) in the downlodable companion file to this MSDN article, by Matt Pietrek: interestingly enough, when you run the 2001 version it says 1988 on the sign-on message, while the 2004 version says 2001. Matt Pietrek has updated that program many times, but did not update the text of the sign-on message consistenly every time... This new version still cannot find the dates of the dependencies but has improved, for, at least, it abstains from translating 00000000 as Wed Dec 31 22:00:00 1969...

[MDGx]

UPDATED · 9-26-2007

Please see the top of this topic for most recent updates:
http://www.msfn.org/...showtopic=46581

[soporific]

What a haul this month MDGx !!!

Any further info on:

CNTROL98:
http://www.mdgx.com/web.htm#9SU
* Unofficial Windows 98/98 SP1/98 SE Control Panel Applets Lockups CONTROL.EXE 4.10.1999 Fix [63 KB]:
http://www.mdgx.com/files/CNTROL98.EXE

cheers.

EDIT:
re: the MS Paint add-on and Graphic Filters Pack ... i'm including them both as an optional update in the next v of AP, and i may as well package them together as a stand-alone MSPAINT update ... wanna beat me to it ?

edit: ie the fixed version of MSpaint.exe and also the Graphic Filters Pack.

This post has been edited by soporific: 28 September 2007 - 08:12 PM

[Drugwash]

MDGx said:

RICHED9X [RTF]:
http://www.mdgx.com/add.htm#RTF
Updated to USP10.DLL 1.422.3790.3959 from Win2003 SP2:
* Unofficial Windows 98/98 SP1/98 SE/ME Rich Text (RTF) Edit Controls RICHED20.DLL 5.40.11.2220, RICHED32.DLL 5.0.1461.82 + USP10.DLL 1.422.3790.3959 Security Vulnerability Fix:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/...n/ms07-013.mspx
Direct download [912 KB]:
http://www.mdgx.com/files/RICHED9X.EXE

I see the inf has the infamous ,,,4 parameter for the included files. Incidentally I have (better said, had) USP10.dll v1.0471.4030.0 installed prior to this upgrade and I had noticed no visible issues. After the upgrade I forcibly got the lower-versioned file.
Question: is this version matching required? Otherwise, why is the ,,,4 parameter used for all files in the package?

Also, as reported some time ago in some other thread around, this version of riched20.dll has issues with bad words underlining in Miranda IM's spellchecker (based on Hunspell), reason why I had been using riched20.dll v5.30.23.1221. Is there still no better version that'd be worth using instead of this one?



Nevertheless, thank you very much for all your hard work!

[erpdude8]

Quote

KB891711:
http://www.mdgx.com/web.htm#W98
* Unofficial Windows 98/98 SP1 Animated Cursor (.ANI) + Icon Handling USER32.DLL + USER.EXE 4.10.2003 Security Vulnerability Fix:
http://www.mdgx.com/files/q891711.php
Direct download [419 KB]:
http://www.mdgx.com/files/KB891711.EXE
This Fix replaces ALL PREVIOUS Microsoft MS07-017 (Q925902):
http://www.microsoft...n/ms07-017.mspx
MS05-002 (Q891711):
http://www.microsoft...n/ms05-002.mspx
+ unofficial (U891711) Animated Cursor (.ANI) + Icon Handling Security Vulnerabilities Fixes, which are now OBSOLETE!
Q891711 + U891711 MSFN forum:
http://www.msfn.org/...showtopic=58780
STRONGLY RECOMMENDED: KB891711 provides the BEST Fix!

I may consider dropping the user.exe/user32.dll v4.10.2003 files from the next release of the unofficial Win98 FE SP since it can cause problems with Tihiy's RP pack. And I'll restore the kb891711.exe & q8917111.dll files as well.

Quote

I see the inf has the infamous ,,,4 parameter for the included files. Incidentally I have (better said, had) USP10.dll v1.0471.4030.0 installed prior to this upgrade and I had noticed no visible issues. After the upgrade I forcibly got the lower-versioned file.

Where the heck did you get v1.0471.4030.0 of the usp10.dll file, Drugwash? That's what I'm more worried about.

This post has been edited by erpdude8: 05 October 2007 - 04:50 PM

[erpdude8]

Drugwash, on Sep 28 2007, 09:07 AM, said:

Also, as reported some time ago in some other thread around, this version of riched20.dll has issues with bad words underlining in Miranda IM's spellchecker (based on Hunspell), reason why I had been using riched20.dll v5.30.23.1221. Is there still no better version that'd be worth using instead of this one?[/size][/font][/size][/font]

Version 5.40.11.2220 of riched20.dll is featured in the Office XP post-SP3 MS07-013 security update.
Version 5.30.23.1221 of riched20.dll is prone to security flaws mentioned in security bulletin MS07-013. Replace it with version 5.30.23.1227 which I have for my Office 2000 suite.

Newer Root Certificates update (revised August 23, 2007); file size 281kb:
http://www.msfn.org/board/ipb_seo.php?url=...%2Frootsupd.exe

This post has been edited by erpdude8: 05 October 2007 - 04:49 PM

[Drugwash]

To be honest, I can't remember where I got that usp10.dll version from. I don't quite keep an evidence on sources; all I'm interested in is the final result.
Here's the full info on it:

C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\usp10.dll
on Microsoft Windows 98 SE version 4.10

File Version Information : 
Version language : English (United States)
CompanyName : Microsoft Corporation
FileDescription : Uniscribe Unicode script processor
FileVersion : 1.0471.4030.0 (main.030626-1414)
InternalName : Uniscribe
LegalCopyright : © Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
OriginalFilename : Uniscribe
ProductName : Microsoft(R) Uniscribe Unicode script processor
ProductVersion : 1.0471.4030.0
Last Modif. Date : 06/27/2003 08:18:32 
Last Access Date : 10/06/2007 00:00:00 
FileSize : 413184 bytes ( 403.500 KB, 0.394 MB ) 
FileVersionInfoSize : 940 bytes 
File type : Dynamic Link Library (0x2) 
Target OS : Win32 API (Windows NT) (0x40004) 
File/Product version : 1.471.4030.0 / 1.471.4030.0
Language : English (United States) (0x409) 
Character Set : 1200 (ANSI - Unicode (BMP of ISO 10646)) (0x4B0) 
Build Information : 
Debug Version : no 
Patched Version : no 
Prerelease Version : no 
Private Version : no 
Special Build : no

I'm positive I don't have riched20.dll 5.30.23.1227 around, otherwise I would've already had it installed. Frankly, I'd rather use one of the 5.50 versions - because of the link color fix - but those seem to have some issues of their own. This has been discussed at large some time ago.

This post has been edited by Drugwash: 05 October 2007 - 06:59 PM

[dencorso]

Drugwash, on Sep 28 2007, 11:07 AM, said:

I see the inf has the infamous ,,,4 parameter for the included files. Incidentally I have (better said, had) USP10.dll v1.0471.4030.0[/b] installed prior to this upgrade and I had noticed no visible issues. After the upgrade I forcibly got the lower-versioned file.
Question: is this version matching required? Otherwise, why is the ,,,4 parameter used for all files in the package?

Hi, Drugwash!
Since everybody here clearly understands .INFs better than I do, I'll just take this opportunity to ask, before I die of unsated curiousity: what do the ,,4 and ,,,4 flags mean, please? Thanks in advance and best wishes!

This post has been edited by dencorso: 05 October 2007 - 07:18 PM

[Drugwash]

Ah, I'm not a specialist either - just catching some things on the fly.
As far as I understand, that parameter is used to force installation even over an existing higher build number of a file.
It should be used - at least theoretically - only when certain files strictly depend on other certain versions and mismatching would lead to unpredictable results.

[Max_04]

@ Mdgx:

I sended you an email.

[dencorso]

Drugwash, on Oct 5 2007, 10:24 PM, said:

[...]As far as I understand, that parameter is used to force installation even over an existing higher build number of a file.[...]

Thanks, Drugwash. You rock!

Added text 9th October 2007 - 04:25 AM:
Thanks for the links in you post below this one, soporific! They sure help a lot. You do rock too!

This post has been edited by dencorso: 09 October 2007 - 01:29 AM

[soporific]

dencorso, on Oct 6 2007, 11:16 AM, said:

Since everybody here clearly understands .INFs better than I do, I'll just take this opportunity to ask, before I die of unsated curiousity: what do the ,,4 and ,,,4 flags mean, please? Thanks in advance and best wishes!

here's a link that explains all:
http://soporific.dsl...ds/copyfile.htm

i got it from the INF guide that MDGx keeps a copy of at this location:
http://www.mdgx.com/...web/INF_WEB.ZIP

[Fredledingue]

K891711 (or Q891711) IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS: DO NOT USE IT

For the second time (same problem as with the previous version 2 months ago) my computer was unable to restart and I had to reinstall windows.
It said "unable to load user.exe" then shut down in 1/10th of a second. Clack! (You know, the sound when the PC power is turned off). I didn't have the possibility to restart it! ===> Boot Floppy time!

MDCx: Please remove it from your list!!

[Drugwash]

Dunno what your problem is, but I just installed it (twice: installed, uninstalled while trying to fix some unrelated problem and reinstalled) recently and I had/have absolutely no such issues. Well, there may be problems with resources dropping quite fast, but that's something else and could be caused by any other factors as well, such as gdi.exe/gdi32.dll (updated to 4.90.3003).

Please check any possible resident/BIOS anti-virus or other applications that may block operations on system files. Or maybe some strange boot-up configuraton...

You may ask MDGx to create a debug version that'd create a log of the operations performed during install, so you could find where (and possibly why) it breaks.

[RetroOS]

Fredledingue, on Oct 13 2007, 10:46 AM, said:

K891711 (or Q891711) IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS: DO NOT USE IT

For the second time (same problem as with the previous version 2 months ago) my computer was unable to restart and I had to reinstall windows.
It said "unable to load user.exe" then shut down in 1/10th of a second. Clack! (You know, the sound when the PC power is turned off). I didn't have the possibility to restart it! ===> Boot Floppy time!

Fredledingue,
See this post.