[Eck]

I was about half a day too impatient. I just used RC2.

What do you know? I was really impatient and lazy too. I did print out stuff from a thread over at the EasyBCD forum where they were discussing adding the XP boot files to 98SE and using Vista's boot loader for my triple boot with Linux and 98SE. But the idea of wiping things and going through all that when everything works now just didn't appeal.

I tried VMWare on Vista. And, this was the "what do you know," my goodness, VMWare is heads and tails better than Virtualbox when using a Windows 98SE guest. It's nearly the same as using a real computer. Not quite, but surely better than Virtualbox which made 98 run in a way that I would never use it even with the full audio and video drivers I had figured out how to get and use (SciTech and Realtek).

VMWare is real zippy! And Auto-Patcher did a fine job too (well, that always worked).

The audio works much better, with the Creative Ensoniq ES1371 a much better card to virtualize than that Intel AC97 chip that Virtualbox uses. Went through a few hoops with the Creative software cd I have as the VXD driver it installs first crashes and can't be used on the VMWare 6.02 like it could on earlier VMWare releases. I had to be patient and wait through the crash and blue screen until the rest of the Creative software (PlayCenter, Wave Studio, Recorder, Mixer, etc, but make sure to remove the check from the Dos Drivers as the WDM's won't work with them) got installed and then before rebooting upgrading manually with Device Manager to the WDM drivers on the same Creative cd. I went through a lot of experimenting and manually deleting all the Creative registry entries (find, find next) and driver files in the System folder until I figured out that was the way to do it. After a reboot it all works together. Even their EAPCI8M.ECW midi synth plays midi's nicely. And mp3's sound great. Video files play without all the herky jerky and missed synchronization of the same on Virtualbox.

Actually, 98SE on VMWare performs faster on Vista than Vista itself does. I know that sounds ridiculous, but on my hardware Vista really isn't a good performer so a virtualized 98SE is superior. Plus, no wondering why suddenly I need to wait 40 minutes here and there when Vista decides to thrash my hard drive for no apparent reason since I wasn't doing anything at the time. What the heck is that thing doing? It's not defragmenting. It's not indexing (nothing new to index). It's not Windows Defendering. It's just working hard at some mysterious process (all scanners active so it's not spyware, unless it's Microsoft spying on me). I haven't a clue but it makes me get the heck out of Vista and run to Linux after it's done. Who wants an OS that needs to use your computer for such great lengths of time with unknown, hidden activities and uses the hard drive so hard that the user can't do anything while it's doing it?

Maybe I will just wipe it (but, darn I spent so much money on it) and use the real 98SE instead.

In any case, GREAT WORK on the Auto-Patcher and thanks a bunch for it!

This post has been edited by Eck: 10 February 2008 - 01:30 AM

[thydreamwalker]

...All's Well, RC2 UPGRADE works great on older PC(PentiumMMX-233mhz-6.5gb-64mb)-<yet UBERSKIN RP8*???works ,though not as well as RP7 overall in comparison>,.....RevPack 7.11.5 works great..too!!!<ADDED NEW - SESP 3.03a update fixes problems from MDCU 2.50 for some reason > I also acquired a Chem PC(with PentiumIII-128mb-11gb-450mhz);added 98se with all clean installs of every update ever yet published -Works fine yet USB has problems for some reason with infra red update in APrc1,So just use ethernet connection instead....***Since adding AP-RC2&SESP3.03a..I can now use Qwest CD to solve connection problems ..(as this would NOT work before..for some odd reason??/ even Qwest was amazed as i could use MSN as I could do so before>>>Just Keep Up da Great Work As All helps!!!!thx,thydreamwalker 98SE survives!!!

[soporific]

thydreamwalker, on Feb 8 2008, 08:20 AM, said:

...All's Well, RC2 UPGRADE works great on older PC(PentiumMMX-233mhz-6.5gb-64mb)-<yet UBERSKIN RP8*???works ,though not as well as RP7 overall in comparison>,.....RevPack 7.11.5 works great..too!!!<ADDED NEW - SESP 3.03a update fixes problems from MDCU 2.50 for some reason > I also acquired a Chem PC(with PentiumIII-128mb-11gb-450mhz);added 98se with all clean installs of every update ever yet published -Works fine yet USB has problems for some reason with infra red update in APrc1,So just use ethernet connection instead....***Since adding AP-RC2&SESP3.03a..I can now use Qwest CD to solve connection problems ..(as this would NOT work before..for some odd reason??/ even Qwest was amazed as i could use MSN as I could do so before>>>Just Keep Up da Great Work As All helps!!!!thx,thydreamwalker 98SE survives!!!

Just to let everyone know, i tried installing SESP 3.03a after using AP with most options installed. To my relief, hardly any new system files were installed meaning AP has most if not all of the updates Gape has included. But there is still a point in installing SESP 3.03a after AP in that you get some extra eye candy (boot screens) and there are some performance tweaks you will benefit from. Most importantly, the 2 projects seem to work well together. SESP 3.03a could also be considered a replacement from using AP at all as it will bring your Win98 machine up-to-date much like AP will. But AP has the benefit of containing EVERYTHING which means you can use it no matter what the state of your system is. SESP 3.03a can't do this, you need some stuff installed first. But, SESP 3.03a is looking really really good. Congrats to Gape.

[barbarien]

I installed AP Dez. Final on a new installed Win 98 Se

so these updates looped

service 9x , tools 9x ,ttfpack ,2 to 4 digit conversion tool ,unofficial html help ie 6 but newer file HHCTRL.OCX 5.2.3790.2847 is in windows / system ??????? so is it installed or not ?
after i installed these updates manually with no problem something is bad with the installation routine !

i suggest mdcupl for nicer icons like win me

[soporific]

barbarien, on Feb 8 2008, 10:55 AM, said:

I installed AP Dez. Final on a new installed Win 98 Se

so these updates looped

service 9x , tools 9x ,ttfpack ,2 to 4 digit conversion tool ,unofficial html help ie 6 but newer file HHCTRL.OCX 5.2.3790.2847 is in windows / system ??????? so is it installed or not ?
after i installed these updates manually with no problem something is bad with the installation routine !

i suggest mdcupl for nicer icons like win me

NEWS: firstly, 2 files were left out of the Final Upgrade installer -- NDP11sp1.exe and DCOM98Up.exe -- for those who wanted to install .NET Framework 1.1 or the Unofficial DCOM98 update should re-download the Upgrade package again. Sorry about this, i gotta lay off the cough syrup obviously. The link will be available as soon as 30 MB uploads, should be only a few more minutes at time of typing.

barbarien, could you run AP again using the same module options as before but use the VERBOSE mode (ie use START_DEBUG.bat instead of START_ME.bat to start AP) and PM me the debug text file. Also, give me your log file as well. Loops usually happen on a system that has been in use for a while, i'm quite surprised that you are getting so many on a new installed Win98 se.

[barbarien]

My Logfile

Attached File(s)

•  I_Result.rar (6.25K)
  Number of downloads: 7

[thydreamwalker]

HEY UMMM...THE FILES"Final Upgrade installer -- NDP11sp1.exe and DCOM98Up.exe -- for those who wanted to install .NET Framework 1.1 or the Unofficial DCOM98"...SHOULD BE STILL IN A.P.RC1 COMPONENT FILES INSIDE THE UPDATER AS MINE WERE THERE BEFORE I DOWNLOADED NEWER UPGRADE FILES RC2(Maybe they were there to begin with from A.P.OCT.UPGRADE???...) thydreamwalker

[Eck]

Does one of the new updates change the way Internet Explorer reacts to Visual Scripting? Because I now have a weird situation where on almost any web page I get a box saying IE needs to download Visual Scripting support, and that it is available on my hard drive. I click to have it go ahead, and I notice the remainder of the web page is loaded, usually some picture boxes. If I browse to another page the situation repeats, I get the prompt to install Visual Scripting, give it the go ahead, and the page loads properly. It only takes a second or so but I would think that once it does this once it should stay installed, no?

Perhaps I need to reinstall something? I haven't messed with the Advanced Internet Options tab. All levels on the security tab are at the default levels.

I had thought that perhaps installing the WorksSuite 2005 and OfficeXP, and the SP3 and all Office Updates from Microsoft along with the Works update might fix it. That stuff installs some system type files related to Visual Scripting I think. But all that works but this problem hasn't changed. You think perhaps running Maximus-Decim's MDAC update pack might install something properly that I somehow have a mismatched version for now? The only updates I have now are those installed from Auto-Patcher, and I did toggle on those Visual Basic Runtime Library modules so I have all that installed too.

I was about to go on to the next step, which is running 98SE2ME, then 98MP10, then EXPLOR98.EXE. I toggled all that stuff off in Auto-Patcher including the ani fixes and the Explorer replacement module so I could run those things myself with the above packages. I kept the default of off for the shell98 and memory fix, copy large files fix too. I figure that if I have problems I can go back and run Auto-Patcher and toggle those unofficial patches to on but I'd try things first without them. All those Office installs worked fine and I haven't started copying huge amounts of things from my cdr's yet so I don't yet know if I can do without those fixes or not. I used to install them all the time but as you set them to off by default I figured I'd try things out without them.

[soporific]

Eck, on Feb 11 2008, 05:30 AM, said:

Does one of the new updates change the way Internet Explorer reacts to Visual Scripting? Because I now have a weird situation where on almost any web page I get a box saying IE needs to download Visual Scripting support, and that it is available on my hard drive. I click to have it go ahead, and I notice the remainder of the web page is loaded, usually some picture boxes. If I browse to another page the situation repeats, I get the prompt to install Visual Scripting, give it the go ahead, and the page loads properly. It only takes a second or so but I would think that once it does this once it should stay installed, no?

yeah, i've noticed this too but i never did enough testing to see that it always asks you if you want to download 0 bytes in order to use scripting. I just assumed you said yes once and then that was it. A wild guess from me would point the finger at Java 6 Update 4 as i started to notice the issue around the time i decided to go with Java 6 instead of 5. But i haven't confirmed this theory yet. The other suspect would be the unofficial scripting update.

[RetroOS]

soporific, on Feb 11 2008, 12:19 PM, said:

...
A wild guess from me would point the finger at Java 6 Update 4 as i started to notice the issue around the time i decided to go with Java 6 instead of 5. But i haven't confirmed this theory yet. The other suspect would be the unofficial scripting update.

I've been running Java 6 Update 3 and now Update 4 (BTW fixed a web page I had a problem with...).
I have never had the mentioned problem.
However, I'm not sure if I have the unofficial scripting update installed.
When did you include it in AP? - I've installed up to Dec 2007 RC1 but have not installed Final (or RC2) yet.

[Eck]

This current VMWare 98SE install is brand new so it only had AutoPatcher December SP2 and then (after uninstalling the IE Cum update so the older one would be able to install) the upgrade to Final.

Well, if it didn't happen with you with the Java 6, then I'd guess the Unofficial Scripting update is the cause. Is that an MDGx package? Maybe something in that needs some troubleshooting? Probably just one set of dll's or something.

In the meantime, I haven't gotten to installing Firefox yet but when I do I'll see if the same thing occurs. Then again, I'm not aware of how Firefox works technically and if it even uses Visual Basic scripting to work.

I did get 98SE2ME, 98MP10, EXPLOR98, and the q891711 update installed. All went well.

I reinstalled NUSB after 98SE2ME. That was a bit crashy (BSOD), but I recovered and restarted normally and it ended up well. The USB 2.0 printer works. Don't forget this is on VMWare, which advises to turn off EHCI in its options as 98SE doesn't have USB 2.0 drivers. Well, I always used the Via USB 2.0 driver on 98SE (worked on both my Via boards and on my SiS748 board) and now used NUSB here instead and it works fine.

I think q891711 patches explorer.exe so I figured I should wait until EXPLOR98 was installed before letting it patch the explorer.exe that is actually staying on the system. That's why I left the ani fix toggled off when using Auto-Patcher.

Heh. I still needed to delete the shelliconcache file and reboot to get the nice My Computer icon to actually appear after EXPLOR98.EXE was run and the system restarted. So actually that thing takes me 3 restarts to be done (I like to see the new shelliconcache file appear before I delete the original file that I just move to My Documents. One time Windows never created a new one! I had to copy back the original, but the new My Computer stayed. This time it did recreate it after the next restart).

I noticed I, as usual with Sun Java, needed to uninstall the previously installed Java 5 after 6 was installed. They never remove the older one and usually I download the whole installation file and uninstall the older one first. Being lazy I just let AutoPatcher update it and then uninstalled Java 5 afterwards. Guess some folks like keeping several Java versions around so they don't uninstall when they update. For me, the older ones are just crap lying around the system. Makes QuickTime tough, if that's been installed, as its QuickTime for Java installs into the current Java directory. Gotta uninstall QuickTime, then Java, remove the Autoexec.bat lines referencing QuickTime Java, then install the new Java, then reinstall QuickTime. Stupid software designers!

[soporific]

RetroOS, on Feb 11 2008, 12:46 PM, said:

When did you include it in AP? - I've installed up to Dec 2007 RC1 but have not installed Final (or RC2) yet.

That's naughty that is!

I'm happy to discuss RC2 and Final related issues with anyone who has installed RC2 or Final. RC1 people can talk to the hand.

This post has been edited by soporific: 11 February 2008 - 06:42 AM

[thydreamwalker]

VBupdates is doing great...RP7 has issues with SCR579x,...(and scr569x when you use the webview in pictures folders!!!..ALL IS BETTER IF ADD just the pictures TO NEW FOLDER ,then...DELETE OLD TAINTED PICTURE FOLDER ,......THEN RENAME new folder AGAIN TO My Pictures....then all is well...IF...AND ONLY IF...windows explorer 5.50.4134.100+ is present in both thee start c:drive area and windows files area or crash upon crash occurs...;then reinstall wisps into the 98se system....thydreamwalker <Proud 98se Survivor... so far happilylimping backto reality>P.S.:Wondering if adding new updated connection wizard(/or network connect system for just win98se and older systems) <as my computer still communicates by usin'smoke signals to cross thee internet>for wired and wireless systems could be great idea as drivers generic or brand name are hard to acquire now days ...thx for APrc2

[barbarien]

Does one of the new updates change the way Internet Explorer reacts to Visual Scripting? Because I now have a weird situation where on almost any web page I get a box saying IE needs to download Visual Scripting support, and that it is available on my hard drive. I click to have it go ahead, and I notice the remainder of the web page is loaded, usually some picture boxes. If I browse to another page the situation repeats, I get the prompt to install Visual Scripting, give it the go ahead, and the page loads properly. It only takes a second or so but I would think that once it does this once it should stay installed, no?

I had this Problem too after AP DEZ.Final , so i decided to install Patch 942615 and the looped hhupd ,tools9x,ttfpack,servic9x,2to4 digit manually and now its gone dont no why?????
i have Java 1.6.04 installed!

[Eck]

Hmm, KB942615 was replaced by the previous version 939653 as the Internet Explorer Cumulative update in the final because the newer one interfered with 98SE2ME Option 3 and Revolution Pack.

I uninstalled 942615 before running the Final so it would install the older one.

The other stuff in your list doesn't look like they have anything to do with Visual Basic Scripting.

BUT, I had the problem with 942615 installed too. So I have no idea why the problem disappeared when you installed that.

The problem also doesn't relate to the Web Folders update in the manual installs folder as it existed before I installed the Web Folders update and after. I installed it before installing 98SE2ME.

Gotta be something in the Visual Basic Scripting unofficial 5.6 update, I'd think, since this always wants to install Visual Basic Scripting support. Looks kind of like a security thing. Like, it will only use it on an Install On Demand basis. Seems to ask for the install, then install it really quick, and then the advertisements on the webpage appear. That, or the Unofficial Visual Basic 6 thing in the Visual Basic module. Just looking at some of the newer updates for the likely suspect.

Another way Microsoft can make browsing in older versions of Internet Explorer annoying? Maybe this only works transparently on XP/Vista versions? So perhaps we beat some security risk, but 98 has no way of making it less annoying like IE 7 would? Guess away!

Be nice to get rid of it somehow by figuring out which part of the update causes it if possible.

This post has been edited by Eck: 11 February 2008 - 12:32 PM

[Max_04]

Soporific please put as alternative download torrent files, it will be fantastic.

This post has been edited by Max_04: 11 February 2008 - 03:12 PM

[RetroOS]

soporific, on Feb 11 2008, 08:01 PM, said:

...
That's naughty that is!

I'm happy to discuss RC2 and Final related issues with anyone who has installed RC2 or Final. RC1 people can talk to the hand.

Okay, first off: I'm a naughty boy! Wack! Wack! Wack!
Second is that I have installed Dec 2007 Final.

The Twain98 loop is gone. Probably because the timestamp has been changed on the four files which caused them to install...

RetroOS, on Jan 25 2008, 11:05 PM, said:

...
The SYSTEM.ini tweaks menu option gave me an 'out of environment space' error and went back to the main menu.
When I freed up some environment space to work around the error, it correctly detected my RAM as 1.5GB, but used the wrong formula to calculate.
It set MaxFileCache to 262144...
...
When I selected current SYSTEM.INI settings, the Chunksize, MinFileCache, and MaxFileCache did not match my current settings...
...
BROWSEUI.DLL 6.0.2800.1915 from kb942615 kills my Windows Explorer (failure in EXPLORER.EXE).
...
I have had to back-date BROWSEUI.DLL to 6.0.2800.1914 from kb939653.

The SYSTEM.ini tweaks menu does not give me any more errors.
Since I had the problem with the current settings being wrongly detected, I can no longer fault this...
However, it is still using a way to high MaxFileCache for over 1GB RAM...
I'm still running kb942615 with BROWSEUI.DLL from kb939653 with no problems.
This could be the variable for the problem below that I do not experience even with Final installed.

Eck, on Feb 11 2008, 07:30 AM, said:

Does one of the new updates change the way Internet Explorer reacts to Visual Scripting? Because I now have a weird situation where on almost any web page I get a box saying IE needs to download Visual Scripting support, and that it is available on my hard drive...

soporific, on Feb 11 2008, 12:19 PM, said:

yeah, i've noticed this too but i never did enough testing to see that it always asks you if you want to download 0 bytes in order to use scripting. I just assumed you said yes once and then that was it. A wild guess from me would point the finger at Java 6 Update 4 as i started to notice the issue around the time i decided to go with Java 6 instead of 5. But i haven't confirmed this theory yet. The other suspect would be the unofficial scripting update.

Okay folks, the post RC1 AP contains one updated file in the SCR569X update.
JSCRIPT.DLL has changed from 5.6.0.8832 to 5.6.0.8834.
BTW, JSCRIPT.DLL plus the four changed Twain files are the only ones that installed for me since RC1.

Well, everything works for me but see note above regarding IE update.

Once last thing. Something I should have mentioned ages ago.
I am using MFC42.DLL 6.2.4131.0 (in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM).
The version that comes with V_Studio unofficial update is 6.0.9782.0...
I've had the newer version installed for a long time and never had any problems.
I don't even know where it came from. I suspect it was from a Microsoft Platform SDK install.

Has anyone ever heard of MFC42.DLL version 6.2.4131.0?

[RetroOS]

barbarien, on Feb 12 2008, 05:03 AM, said:

...
I had this Problem too after AP DEZ.Final , so i decided to install Patch 942615 and the looped hhupd ,tools9x,ttfpack,servic9x,2to4 digit manually and now its gone dont no why?????
i have Java 1.6.04 installed!

Actually my kb942615 variable might have some merit... Just need to release a version with the older BROWSEUI.DLL from kb939653...

[Eck]

Ah! Well the problem is somewhere in there. The BROWSUI.DLL and/or the JSCRIPT.DLL, eh?

I had uninstalled the latest IECum and let Auto-Patcher do its magic with the December Final, installing the older one. I assume it also updated to the latest unofficial jscript update.

From your post it looks like you managed to keep the older BROWSUI.DLL and all the rest of the newer stuff works for you without this error. But I probably have the older BROWSUI.DLL since I have the older IECum update, right?

So I'm wondering how come I'm getting the error.

I see what you're saying but can't figure out what I might need to do to actually get it working. Rerun the Scripting update by itself and see if it resets things to properly use the older BROWSUI.DLL that is now on the system? It is possible that it got installed while the newer IECum was installed, as I installed the SP2 while the newer one was installed and it skipped installing the older IECum, saying a newer version was detected as being already installed. Then before updating to the Final I uninstalled the newer IECum.

So maybe since the Scripting update did not reinstall when I ran the final, having already been installed with SP2, I only need to reinstall that one update (Scripting). It'll see which BROWSUI.DLL to use and register the stuff correctly.

Hmm. I think I'll try that. Gotta figure out which file in the Auto-Patcher files folder is the Scripting update. I've got the modules list printed out. Maybe that'll help me figure out what KB number it is, or hopefully it's just labeled SCR5.6 or something.

[Drugwash]

One may use Syslog to track down system file changes.