Personal computing discussed

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setaG_lliB
Gerbil First Class
Topic Author
Posts: 144
Joined: Wed Mar 03, 2010 6:02 pm

Anyone remember how to fix Windows 98?

Mon Aug 21, 2017 1:56 am

I still keep an old Windows 98 machine around to play my old 3dfx Glide and DOS games. Today it actually powered off at the Windows splash screen, which I thought was extremely weird. When I turned it back on, it beeped a few times and displayed this funky looking error screen:

Image

Now, I can't for the life of me get Win98 to start. Safe mode doesn't work. When I try the step-by-step confirmation mode, it crashes when it gets to the "Load Windows GUI" stage. I tested the RAM (memtest86 for 3+ hours) and hard drive (Seatools); both were fine.

Scandisk found no file system errors, and a virus scan came up clean. I even installed Win98 on a spare hard drive and copied over the startup files (including command.com) to no avail.

Specs of the system in question:
1.4GHz Celeron in a slotket
512MB RAM
80GB HDD
440BX motherboard
Voodoo3 3000 AGP
Aureal SQ2500 Vortex 2 PCI sound for A3D games
AWE64 ISA sound for DOS games.

The last thing I did to it was install a few DOS games from my ancient shareware disks. I have a hunch that's what broke it, as I can sort of recall these shareware games breaking my old Windows 95 machine in a very similar way, 20 years ago. :-?

Any idea how I can fix this?
 
bwoodring
Gerbil First Class
Posts: 102
Joined: Sun Jun 23, 2002 10:20 am

Re: Anyone remember how to fix Windows 98?

Mon Aug 21, 2017 3:08 am

I have to admit, I assumed this was a bad DIMM or disk, but your diagnostics seem to indicate that's not the problem. Installation of a DOS game breaking Windows seems far fetched... the only way I can think of this happening would be...

1. If the DOS game installation put something in your config.sys or autoexec.bat that is resident in memory that crashes Windows.
2. If the DOS game installation changed files in your Windows directory that broke your Windows install (I can't ever remember that scenario).
3. If the DOS game disk gave you a very old virus.

I'd look for #1 first and see if anything looks strange in either configuration file. Try commenting questionable lines out and see if that helps.
 
Topinio
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Location: London

Re: Anyone remember how to fix Windows 98?

Mon Aug 21, 2017 3:45 am

Restore from your most recent backup.

Failing that option, personally I'd boot from a Linux CD, or USB if that old system supports that, or failing that a (Damn Small?) Linux floppy, and find /mnt/windows -mtime -1 or whatever, to see what changed. If you have, and are more comfortable with, DOS boot media then obviously you can do stuff with that.

It's been absolutely ages since I had to deal with Windows 98, so take this with a pinch of salt, but ... Best case scenario is something wrong in autoexec.bat or config.sys

Then I'd look for the existence of important files, in case they have been deleted, e.g. c:\config.sys, c:\dos\himem.sys / c:\windows\himem.sys

If you now have another drive with a working installation, you can boot from that drive with the other installed and in a DOS terminal e.g. d:, cd windows and dir himem.sys &c. You can also look at the differences between versions of any of the system files on the 2 system disks to see what's changed. Personally, I might just rebuild the whole thing on the other drive, though.

It could also be a bunch of other things, Windows 98 was quite fragile. Maybe a corrupt vmm32.vxd? Here is a write-up, on a decent site for this sort of thing. HTH.
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Captain Ned
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Posts: 28704
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Location: Vermont, USA

Re: Anyone remember how to fix Windows 98?

Mon Aug 21, 2017 4:59 am

Honestly, it's just a whole lot easier and faster to nuke and reinstall. Can't count how many times I did that back in my Win98SE days.
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
meerkt
Gerbil Jedi
Posts: 1754
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Re: Anyone remember how to fix Windows 98?

Mon Aug 21, 2017 6:01 am

Can you boot to DOS from the Windows F8 startup menu?

For Glide games, dgVoodoo2 might do on newer systems:
http://dege.freeweb.hu/

Captain Ned wrote:
Can't count how many times I did that back in my Win98SE days.

I don't recall ever having to reinstall Win9x.
 
DragonDaddyBear
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Re: Anyone remember how to fix Windows 98?

Mon Aug 21, 2017 8:10 am

Captain Ned wrote:
Honestly, it's just a whole lot easier and faster to nuke and reinstall. Can't count how many times I did that back in my Win98SE days.

Before XP SP2/3 I reinstalled Windows annually because it would just slow down. It was a PITA trying to find all of my game save files and put them on a floppy or burn them to disk.
 
Dieter
Gerbil First Class
Posts: 175
Joined: Thu Jun 17, 2004 9:51 am

Re: Anyone remember how to fix Windows 98?

Mon Aug 21, 2017 8:36 am

Wow, I used to be really good at this stuff and I just realized how much I've forgotten. Since the spacing on the screen makes it hard to tell if it's just running win.com by itself, and the .vxd file loading is actually the next line (which is my assumption), I wonder if some of the win.com switches will help troubleshoot the issue? I remember tinkering with protected/unprotected, no expanded memory, and others back in the day.

https://books.google.com/books?id=7eoCe ... es&f=false

I also wonder if pulling the sound cards might help. I had an AWE32 and a Vortex 3000 (if I recall correctly) but I never used them at the same time, and I could see those potentially stepping all over each other. (Damn, I miss those audio cards. The AWE32 was amazing for anything with MIDI samples (the 11th Hour comes to mind) and the Vortex was the best for anything later. I was so disappointed when later OSs (XP, maybe?) didn't support the Vortex.)

I was going to say to pull the Voodoo but since it's a 3 it's also the primary video. I had the Voodoo 2 with the weird passthrough cables, and pulling it was always one of my first troubleshooting steps.

Also, all the stuff online seems to indicate 512MB shouldn't be a problem, but maybe try with just 256MB at first?

Finally, I've been away from the scene for a while and any of the classic games I tend to just buy through GOG to run on modern systems (although it never looks as good as it did when running through a Voodoo, especially things like Unreal), so this is probably a stupid question, but would something like DOSBox work? Or, I'm guessing, that's all software emulation/rendering?

Good luck!
 
The Egg
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Re: Anyone remember how to fix Windows 98?

Mon Aug 21, 2017 9:14 am

Win9x could actually exit to true DOS, so you should be able to install your DOS games completely independent of whatever Windows is doing.

You can also run DOS programs from within Windows, but it's a sort of virtualization mode which runs like crap by comparison. Win9x also doesn't protect its system files very well, so it's entirely possible that something was overwritten/corrupted by the simple installation of a program.

I remember having a piece of software which allowed you to create shortcut icons which would exit to DOS, and then automatically boot back into Windows when the program was done running. This was what I used for my DOS games (wish I remembered the name.......ReBoot, maybe?).
 
ludi
Lord High Gerbil
Posts: 8646
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Location: Sunny Colorado front range

Re: Anyone remember how to fix Windows 98?

Mon Aug 21, 2017 11:30 am

I remember seeing that screen full of extended ASCII characters once or twice in the bad old days. You can try the old trick of installing Windows over itself (at the risk of breaking any DLLs or device drivers that have been updated by other software in the meantime), but I would go for the reinstall.

And if you don't have a backup, this time take your clean install and blind copy it to a backup location. Typically you could restore any Win9x version by simply copying the entire directory sturcture to a disk with a parimary partition, and then booting from a DOS disk and running the "SYS C:" command.
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bfg-9000
Gerbil Team Leader
Posts: 242
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2016 9:17 pm

Re: Anyone remember how to fix Windows 98?

Mon Aug 21, 2017 5:23 pm

Looks like a hardware failure as you've already tried a clean install. Capacitors allowing too much ripple, PSU, IDE cable, etc.

BTW I've run Memtest-86 before with no errors on multiple passes, on systems that turned out to be too unstable to boot into Windows. I've only run a single pass of it for years as only a gross check just to see if I should risk corrupting a boot into Windows to run Prime95.

Windows 98 allowed the user god-mode. So you don't need anything more than Windows Explorer to clone a 9x system--just format a secondary disk, and copy over io.sys, msdos.sys and command.com first, then everything else except the swapfile. The clone will then be bootable.
 
setaG_lliB
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Topic Author
Posts: 144
Joined: Wed Mar 03, 2010 6:02 pm

Re: Anyone remember how to fix Windows 98?

Tue Aug 22, 2017 10:24 pm

I'm currently making an image of the main drive, so that I can try out some of the suggestions you guys have given me without risking further damage. :) I'm trying not to nuke and reinstall because it took me forever and a day to get this machine configured properly. I also have something like 100 Windows and DOS games installed.

So far,
Haven't found anything strange in config.sys and autoexec.bat.
I pulled out all expansion cards except for the video card and a single DIMM; still a no go.

The Egg wrote:
I remember having a piece of software which allowed you to create shortcut icons which would exit to DOS, and then automatically boot back into Windows when the program was done running. This was what I used for my DOS games (wish I remembered the name.......ReBoot, maybe?).


That's similar to what I've been doing for most of the DOS games on this system, except I just used the tools built into Windows. Basically, it restarts into DOS mode and loads a custom config.sys and autoexec.bat, one that loads the AWE64, mouse, and CD-ROM drivers. The AWE64 is pretty much dormant under Windows, which uses the Vortex 2 sound card instead.

Dieter wrote:
Finally, I've been away from the scene for a while and any of the classic games I tend to just buy through GOG to run on modern systems (although it never looks as good as it did when running through a Voodoo, especially things like Unreal), so this is probably a stupid question, but would something like DOSBox work? Or, I'm guessing, that's all software emulation/rendering?

DOSBox works for most games, but I've always preferred to run them on the Real Thing. I also have quite a few games that scroll at 70Hz. These games don't look completely smooth in DOSBox (60Hz). None of the 3dfx/Glide games work in DOSBox.

bfg-9000 wrote:
Looks like a hardware failure as you've already tried a clean install. Capacitors allowing too much ripple, PSU, IDE cable, etc.

BTW I've run Memtest-86 before with no errors on multiple passes, on systems that turned out to be too unstable to boot into Windows. I've only run a single pass of it for years as only a gross check just to see if I should risk corrupting a boot into Windows to run Prime95.

Windows 98 allowed the user god-mode. So you don't need anything more than Windows Explorer to clone a 9x system--just format a secondary disk, and copy over io.sys, msdos.sys and command.com first, then everything else except the swapfile. The clone will then be bootable.

The clean install on my spare hard drive did work.

Despite the machine turning itself off at the splash screen, I don't believe there's anything wrong with the hardware. I remember a Win95 machine also having trouble with these disks 20 years ago. While that machine didn't shut down (it had a mechanical power switch, so it couldn't) it did throw up a bunch of random characters after the shareware install.

Thanks for all of the suggestions so far.
 
ozzuneoj
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 542
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 1:27 pm

Re: Anyone remember how to fix Windows 98?

Wed Aug 23, 2017 12:35 am

Since you're cloning the drive, I'd just try installing Windows 98 over top of the old installation to replace all of the system files. If I remember correctly, this was a common practice back in those days. I used Windows 98Se until about 2002-2003 because I didn't like XP, but most of my hands-on PC repair work started after 2003 when XP was much more common, so fixing specific errors like this is pretty far back in my memory banks. I have a few "retro" Win9x rigs and have made several over the years but I can't say I've come across that particular problem you're having.

Troubleshooting the specific problem could be quite tedious.

autoexec.bat and config.sys are important but there are several other configuration files that Windows 9x need to start up properly:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/hel ... windows-98

I would check the contents of system.ini and win.ini. Here is an example of what is in these two files (I copied these from an old backup of a 98SE gaming system I have):

system.ini
[boot]
oemfonts.fon=vgaoem.fon
shell=Explorer.exe
system.drv=system.drv
drivers=mmsystem.dll power.drv
user.exe=user.exe
gdi.exe=gdi.exe
sound.drv=mmsound.drv
dibeng.drv=dibeng.dll
comm.drv=comm.drv
mouse.drv=mouse.drv
keyboard.drv=keyboard.drv
*DisplayFallback=0
fonts.fon=vgasys.fon
fixedfon.fon=vgafix.fon
386Grabber=vgafull.3gr
display.drv=pnpdrvr.drv

[keyboard]
keyboard.dll=
oemansi.bin=
subtype=
type=4

[boot.description]
system.drv=Standard PC
mouse.drv=Standard mouse
keyboard.typ=Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural Keyboard
aspect=100,96,96
display.drv=Standard PCI Graphics Adapter (VGA)

[386Enh]
ebios=*ebios
woafont=dosapp.fon
mouse=*vmouse, msmouse.vxd
device=*dynapage
device=*vcd
device=*vpd
device=*int13
device=*enable
keyboard=*vkd
display=*vdd,*vflatd
device=convmem.vxd
minsps=16
EMMExclude=C000-CFFF

[NonWindowsApp]
TTInitialSizes=4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 18 20 22

[power.drv]

[drivers]
wavemapper=*.drv
MSACM.imaadpcm=*.acm
MSACM.msadpcm=*.acm
wave=mmsystem.dll
midi=mmsystem.dll

[iccvid.drv]

[mciseq.drv]

[mci]
cdaudio=mcicda.drv
sequencer=mciseq.drv
waveaudio=mciwave.drv
avivideo=mciavi.drv
videodisc=mcipionr.drv
vcr=mcivisca.drv
MPEGVideo=mciqtz.drv

[vcache]

[drivers32]
msacm.lhacm=lhacm.acm
VIDC.VDOM=vdowave.drv
MSACM.imaadpcm=imaadp32.acm
MSACM.msadpcm=msadp32.acm
MSACM.msgsm610=msgsm32.acm
MSACM.msg711=msg711.acm
MSACM.trspch=tssoft32.acm
vidc.CVID=iccvid.dll
VIDC.IV31=ir32_32.dll
VIDC.IV32=ir32_32.dll
vidc.MSVC=msvidc32.dll
VIDC.MRLE=msrle32.dll
VIDC.IV50=ir50_32.dll
msacm.iac2=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\IAC25_32.AX
VIDC.YUY2=msyuv.dll
VIDC.UYVY=msyuv.dll
VIDC.YVYU=msyuv.dll
msacm.l3acm=l3codeca.acm
msacm.l3codec=l3codecp.acm

[Password Lists]
USER=C:\WINDOWS\USER.PWL

[TTFontDimenCache]
0 4=2 4
0 5=3 5
0 6=4 6
0 7=4 7
0 8=5 8
0 9=5 9
0 10=6 10
0 11=7 11
0 12=7 12
0 13=8 13
0 14=8 14
0 15=9 15
0 16=10 16
0 18=11 18
0 20=12 20
0 22=13 22

[mga.drv]
PCIChipSet=1



win.ini
[windows]
load=
run=
NullPort=None

[Desktop]
Wallpaper=(None)
TileWallpaper=1
WallpaperStyle=0

[intl]
iCountry=1
ICurrDigits=2
iCurrency=0
iDate=0
iDigits=2
iLZero=1
iMeasure=1
iNegCurr=0
iTime=0
iTLZero=0
s1159=AM
s2359=PM
sCountry=United States
sCurrency=$
sDate=/
sDecimal=.
sLanguage=enu
sList=,
sLongDate=dddd, MMMM dd, yyyy
sshortdate=m/d/yyyy
sThousand=,
sTime=:

[Fonts]

[FontSubstitutes]
Helv=MS Sans Serif
Tms Rmn=MS Serif
Times=Times New Roman
Helvetica=Arial
MS Shell Dlg=MS Sans Serif
Arial Baltic,186=Arial,186
Courier New Baltic,186=Courier New,186
Times New Roman Baltic,186=Times New Roman,186
Arial CE,238=Arial,238
Courier New CE,238=Courier New,238
Times New Roman CE,238=Times New Roman,238
Arial Cyr,204=Arial,204
Courier New Cyr,204=Courier New,204
Times New Roman Cyr,204=Times New Roman,204
Arial Greek,161=Arial,161
Courier New Greek,161=Courier New,161
Times New Roman Greek,161=Times New Roman,161
Arial Tur,162=Arial,162
Courier New Tur,162=Courier New,162
Times New Roman Tur,162=Times New Roman,162
monotype.com=andale mono

[Compatibility]
_3DPC=0x00400000
_BNOTES=0x224000
_LNOTES=0x00100000
ACAD=0x8000
ACT!=0x400004
ACROBAT=0x04000000
AD=0x10000000
ADW30=0x10000000
ALARMMGR=0x0040000
ALDSETUP=0x00400000
AMIPRINT=0x04000000
AMIPRO=0x04000010
APORIA=0x0100
APPROACH=0x0004
BALER=0x08000000
BMAPP=0x0004
CASMONEY=0x00200000
CAVOIDE=0x00200000
CCMAIL=0x00200000
CCMCWFY=0x80
CHARISMA=0x2000
CONFIG=0x00400000
CORELDRW=0x48000
CORELPNT=0x08000000
COSTAR=0x0004
CP=0x0040
CROSSTIE=0x00000400
DARCH=0x80
DESIGNER=0x00002000
DIRECTOR=0x00800000
DPLANNER=0x00200000
DRAW=0x2000
DS40=0x8000
DTWIN20=0x00000400
EAP=0x0004
ED=0x00010000
EXCEL=0x1000
EXPASTRO=0x04000000
EXTYPWND=0x00200000
FAXVIEW=0x04000000
FAXWORKS=0x00000400
FH4=0x00E08000
FLW2=0x8000
FMPRO=0x00200000
FREEHAND=0x8000
FULLTEXT=0x20000000
GIFTMAKE=0x20000000
GUIDE=0x1000
HDW=0x04800000
HGW=0x8000
HGW2EXE=0x8000
HGW3EXE=0x8000
HJDRAW=0x00400000
IDAPICFG=0x00400000
IDRAW=0x04008000
ILLUSTRATOR=0x8000
IMPROV2=0x00000000
INFOCENT=0x04000000
INSIGHT=0x00000400
INSTAL1=0x00400000
INSTALL=0x00400000
INTERMIS=0x10000000
IS20INST=0x00000000
IVIHEALT=0x00400000
JEOPARDY=0x00200000
JW=0x00000000
KALOAD2=0x00400000
KEYCAD=0x8000
LE_ADMIN=0x00400000
LUI=0x20000000
MAILSPL=0x10000000
MAKER=0x00200000
MAPS1=0x04008022
MATH=0x00000001
MAVIS=0x00200000
MCOURIER=0x0800
MFWIN20=0x02000000
MILESV3=0x1000
MILESV40=0x4
MOZART=0x40000000
MSARTIST=0x00100000
MSBHUMAN=0x4
MSREMIND=0x10000000
MVIEWER2=0x40200000
MYINV=0x00200000
MYST=0x08000000
NAFTA1=0x4008022
NBAMW4V4=0x04000000
NETSET2=0x0100
NOTES=0x200000
NOTSHELL=0x0001
OPERATOR=0x02000000
OUTPOST=0x00000000
OWLAPP=0x00400000
PACKRAT=0x0800
PAINTER=0x00000000
PAWC8DC3=0x00400000
PAWIN=0x4
PEACHW=0x04800004
PIXIE=0x0040
PLANIT=0x0004
PLANNER=0x2000
PLUS=0x1000
PM4=0xA000
PM5APP=0x8000
PP4=0x00000000
PR2=0x2000
PRINTHLP=0x0004
QAPLUSW=0x0004
QLIIFAX=0x00400000
QUAKE=0x80
QW=0x08000000
RELAY=0x20000000
REM=0x8022
RR2CD=0x00200000
RX=0x00000400
RXL=0x00000400
SETUP=0x00000000
SIDEKICK=0x0004
SLEEPER=0x10000000
SOL=0x00400000
SPCB=0x04008000
SPORTJEP=0x00200000
SPWIN20=0x00400000
ST2=0x4008022
STRAUSS=0x40000000
STRAV=0x40000000
SCHUBERT=0x40000000
SSBWIN=0x00200000
SWCWIN=0x00800004
TCVWIN=0x00200000
TCW=0x00400000
TCWIN=0x0004
TERRAIN=0x00400000
TISETUP=0x00200000
TL6=0x08000000
TME=0x0100
TMSWIN=0x20000000
TMTWIN=0x00200000
TMTWINCD=0x00200000
TOUCHUP=0x00400000
TURBOTAX=0x00080000
VB=0x0200
VEWINFIL=0x00400000
VISIO=0x00000004
VISIOHM=0x00000004
VISION=0x0040
W4GL=0x4000
W4GLR=0x4000
WGW=0x00440000
WIN2WRS=0x1210
WINCIM=0x4
WINLINK=0x20000000
WINPHONE=0x0004
WINSIM=0x2000
WINTACH=0x00200000
WORDSCAN=0x02200000
WPWINFIL=0x00000006
WPWIN60=0x00000400
WPWIN61=0x02000400
WSETUP=0x00200000
XPRESS=0x00000008
ZETA01=0x00400000
ZIFFBOOK=0x00200000

[Compatibility32]
CLWORKS=0x00A00000
MCAD=0x00600000
PHOTOSHP=0x00208000
PODW=0x00200000
SPSSWIN=0x00200000
TYPSTRY2=0x00200000
V32VM20=0x02000000
VISIO=0x00000000
VISIOHM=0x00000000
WINPHONE=0x00000004
WRDART32=0x00400000
SHELL=0x80000000
USTATION=0x80000000

[Compatibility95]
CHAOS OV=0x80000000
CONF=0x00000002
MSDEV=0x00000002
IMAGE32=0x80000000
INST32=0x80000000

[ModuleCompatibility]
ACEROOBE=0x0004
AIRNFM=0x0002
ALDNCD=0x0002
AMRES=0x0002
ATM=0x0002
ARCHANGEL=0x0002
CSNOV=0x0002
DEFDEMO=0x0002
DIBWND=0x0002
DIB=0x0002
DS=0x0001
EMLIB=0x0002
EMSAVE=0x0002
FH4=0x0002
GEDIT=0x0002
GEORGE=0x0002
GVBSETUP=0x0002
HRWCD=0x0002
ISLFAXPR=0x0002
KIDDESK=0x0002
KIDSTYPE=0x0000
KNPS=0x0002
LIONKING=0x0002
MAUI_DRV=0x0002
MGXWMF=0x0002
MEMMAP=0x0002
MSARTIST=0x0002
MSCRWRTR=0x0002
MSCUISTF=0x0001
MVIEWER2=0x0002
MWAVSCAN=0x0002
MYINV=0x0002
OLESVR=0x0002
PDOXWIN=0x0002
PLANIT=0x0002
PP3=0x0002
PP4=0x0002
PPPP=0x0002
PXDSRV2=0x0002
REVIEWRT=0x0002
ROULETTE=0x0002
RRIRJ=0x0002
RR1=0x0002
RR2CD=0x0002
STL_DLG=0x0002
TECO=0x0001
TER=0x0002
TLW0LOC=0x0002
TMSWIN=0x0002
USA=0x0002
VOICE=0x0002
WFXVIEW=0x0004
WINFORM=0x0002
WPWIN61=0x0002

[TrueType]
FontSmoothing=0

[mci extensions]
mid=Sequencer
rmi=Sequencer
wav=waveaudio
avi=AVIVideo
cda=CDAudio
aif=MPEGVideo
aifc=MPEGVideo
aiff=MPEGVideo
au=MPEGVideo
m1v=MPEGVideo
m3u=MPEGVideo
midi=MPEGVideo
mov=MPEGVideo
mp2=MPEGVideo
mp3=MPEGVideo
mpa=MPEGVideo
mpe=MPEGVideo
mpeg=MPEGVideo
mpg=MPEGVideo
mpv2=MPEGVideo
qt=MPEGVideo
snd=MPEGVideo

[MCICompatibility]
QTWVideo=0x0001
MCIXSND=0x0001
GDAnim=0x0001

[mciavi]

[Desktop_Shell]
Current=Win

[Pscript.Drv]
ATMWorkaround=1

[Ports]
LPT1:=
LPT2:=
LPT3:=
COM1:=9600,n,8,1,x
COM2:=9600,n,8,1,x
COM3:=9600,n,8,1,x
COM4:=9600,n,8,1,x
FILE:=

[embedding]
Package=Package,Package,packager.exe,picture
midfile=MIDI Sequence,MIDI Sequence,C:\WINDOWS\mplayer.exe /mid,picture
SoundRec=Wave Sound,Wave Sound,C:\WINDOWS\sndrec32.exe,picture
mplayer=Media Clip,Media Clip,C:\WINDOWS\mplayer.exe,picture
PBrush=Paintbrush Picture,Paintbrush Picture,C:\Progra~1\Access~1\MSPAINT.EXE,picture
Paint.Picture=Bitmap Image,Bitmap Image,C:\Progra~1\Access~1\MSPAINT.EXE,picture
Wordpad.Document.1=WordPad Document,WordPad Document,C:\PROGRA~1\ACCESS~1\WORDPAD.EXE,picture
Imaging.Document=Image Document,Image Document,C:\WINDOWS\KodakImg.Exe,picture
WangImage.Document=Image Document,Image Document,C:\WINDOWS\KodakImg.Exe,picture
avifile=Video Clip,Video Clip,C:\WINDOWS\mplayer.exe /avi,picture

[Extensions]
IMA=C:\PROGRAM FILES\WINIMAGE\WINIMAGE.EXE ^.IMA
IMG=C:\PROGRAM FILES\WINIMAGE\WINIMAGE.EXE ^.IMG
IMZ=C:\PROGRAM FILES\WINIMAGE\WINIMAGE.EXE ^.IMZ
DSK=C:\PROGRAM FILES\WINIMAGE\WINIMAGE.EXE ^.DSK
WIL=C:\PROGRAM FILES\WINIMAGE\WINIMAGE.EXE ^.WIL
WLZ=C:\PROGRAM FILES\WINIMAGE\WINIMAGE.EXE ^.WLZ
BWZ=C:\PROGRAM FILES\WINIMAGE\WINIMAGE.EXE ^.BWZ
VFD=C:\PROGRAM FILES\WINIMAGE\WINIMAGE.EXE ^.VFD

[Devices]

[PrinterPorts]

[Sounds]
SystemDefault=,

[MCI Extensions.BAK]
aif=MPEGVideo
aifc=MPEGVideo
aiff=MPEGVideo
au=MPEGVideo
m1v=MPEGVideo
m3u=MPEGVideo
midi=MPEGVideo
mov=MPEGVideo
mp2=MPEGVideo
mp3=MPEGVideo
mpa=MPEGVideo
mpe=MPEGVideo
mpeg=MPEGVideo
mpg=MPEGVideo
mpv2=MPEGVideo
qt=MPEGVideo
snd=MPEGVideo



Also, I'm not sure what mm32.vxd is... it almost seems like a typo, because this file doesn't seem to exist anywhere I look for it online or on any of my 9x computer backups. I see mention of it in error messages online, but nothing about fixing it or even locating it.

I'd say, whatever is calling that win.com mm32.vxd command, is what is causing the problem. Some configuration file is probably either corrupt or was tampered with by some shoddy shareware installer. If you see that line anywhere in any file on that PC (check msdos.sys as well), make a copy of the file and try editing or removing that line (maybe it should be vmm32.vxd... or maybe it shouldn't even be there). I just searched the contents of all the files backed up from one of my 98SE systems and there's no mention of mm32.vxd at all.
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Phaleron
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Re: Anyone remember how to fix Windows 98?

Wed Aug 23, 2017 1:41 am

There are some potential solutions for you here:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... ient=opera
 
Captain Ned
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Re: Anyone remember how to fix Windows 98?

Wed Aug 23, 2017 4:45 am

Just for the record, VXD = Virtual Device Driver.

Also, give this a whirl for VMM.VXD problems.

http://www.helpwithwindows.com/techfiles/vmm32.html
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setaG_lliB
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Re: Anyone remember how to fix Windows 98?

Thu Aug 24, 2017 7:03 pm

I couldn't find anything referring to mm32.vxd in any of the startup or configuration files, and I couldn't tell which file was pointing to mm32. Regular old vmm32.vxd was in its proper location, though. I think win.com is supposed to load vmm32, but transplanting win.com from my experimental install didn't fix anything.

I also transplanted system.ini, win.ini, and a few other files I thought might be important. Even attempted to rebuild vmm32. Nothing at all.

So I finally just reinstalled Win98 over itself and...to my great surprise...IT ACTUALLY BOOTED TO MY OLD DESKTOP. I didn't even have to reinstall any drivers. Everything came back in blazing 1280x1024 High Color! :D Even my internet connection worked. I didn't completely get off scot-free, though. Some games and applications aren't launching; they'll obviously need a reinstall. But overall, it's working a lot better than I thought it would.

Thanks for all the help!
 
Captain Ned
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Re: Anyone remember how to fix Windows 98?

Thu Aug 24, 2017 7:07 pm

setaG_lliB wrote:
Even my internet connection worked.

I do hope that that connection is behind an enterprise-grade firewall.

Ah, who am I kidding. What hacker expects to find a Win98 machine to exploit these days. Most of today's hackers wouldn't even recognize/grok Win98.
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
Ryu Connor
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Re: Anyone remember how to fix Windows 98?

Sun Aug 27, 2017 3:46 pm

Captain Ned wrote:
setaG_lliB wrote:
Even my internet connection worked.

I do hope that that connection is behind an enterprise-grade firewall.

Ah, who am I kidding. What hacker expects to find a Win98 machine to exploit these days. Most of today's hackers wouldn't even recognize/grok Win98.


Yeah, the OS basically has security through obsolesce at this point.

I suspect that modern malware can't execute on the OS. The hybrid Win32/DOS design of 9x makes it an oddball. When 9x was relevant, there were many targeted exploits that could not run on NT4.
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Mr Bill
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Re: Anyone remember how to fix Windows 98?

Sun Aug 27, 2017 5:14 pm

ludi wrote:
I remember seeing that screen full of extended ASCII characters once or twice in the bad old days. You can try the old trick of installing Windows over itself (at the risk of breaking any DLLs or device drivers that have been updated by other software in the meantime), but I would go for the reinstall.

And if you don't have a backup, this time take your clean install and blind copy it to a backup location. Typically you could restore any Win9x version by simply copying the entire directory sturcture to a disk with a parimary partition, and then booting from a DOS disk and running the "SYS C:" command.
I remember doing this back in the day and now that you bring it up; I think this is good way to move a functioning installation to a larger volume (e.g. <1GB to 32GB). A few months ago I used IDE to SATA adapters to spoof my two instrument PCs that run win95 in my lab into using 32GB SSD's instead of the old 500MB IDE spinners. But PQMagic left the volume the same size when I copied it. This sounds like a good way to get the rest of the SSD usable without significant risk.
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