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Windows 98 (Win98) general discussion

Posted: 26. Dec 2007, 22:11
by cybertheque
Since this site has no topic search capability, I suggest including a
continuing discussion thread here about Windows 98 issues, to permit
a single point of reference which can include anything useful in
working with these guests, and which can be text searched by the user
offline.

I have a few obversations and a question:
(Win98SE guest on Win2k SP4 host)

1. Scitech Display Doctor 7 needs no 'crack' to disable the 21 day
timeout; it can be 'registered' from the app's user interface using
a known-good registration code. I have tested the timeout by
advancing the clock and report that all references to 'trial period'
are gone.

2. SDD 7 took about six reboots during installation and configuration
to get it to recognize the VM's virtual display adapter and to set and
retain display modes and resolutions. On at least four reboots
the VM hung and needed power cycling.

3. Running the app 'sdd.exe' may sometimes produce no visible window
and it will need to be killed. Often it takes up to five minutes to
display (it seems to be doing system analysis, which it reports
when it is visible).

4. Network IP routing between the guest and host works when IP packet
forwarding is enabled in the host's registry (must be manually
changed) and persistent (published) routes set up on the host,
and the virtual NIC is set up as a TAP interface (not bridging or NAT).

5. Installing 'amnhlt.vxd' on the guest really reduces host CPU load
and does seem to improve guest responsiveness as well.

6. The lack of 'shared folders' support for this guest is really not an
issue; one can set up SMB shares on the host and mount them
in the guest in the conventional fashion.

Question 1:

I need to do IPX packet forwarding in the Win2k Pro host in order
to use the Novell client on the Win98SE guest; what registry changes
and/or components are necessary on the host? What components
moved from Win2k Server, NT3.51 Server or NT4.0 Server to the
Win2k Pro host might work? Win2k Pro has a (limited) version of
'nwlink' and also 'ipxroute.exe'.

Observation 1:

The successful setup of a Win98SE guest inside Win2k Pro (or other
hosts for that matter) permits integration of a number of previously
incompatible environments; for example, I can now use my Canon
CD-300 dye sub photo printer on a Win2k host (or using RDP on
other host O/Ses) even though it is limited to a Win95/98 driver).
Since Virtualbox does not support the parallel port, the printer
must be connected to a network printer server device (I use HP
Jetdirect boxes). Also, if IPX can be made to work, I can now
administer Arcserve 6.x on Netware from Win2k (or other O/Ses)
and avoid the need for a separate Win95/98 client machine for
the task (or dual booting a workstation). This version of
Arcserve serves us well in a heterogeneous environment of Netware
and Unix hosts and newer backup systems have dropped support
for many of them, so maintaining it is essential. The mananger
program won't handle device control on versions of Windows
newer than Win98SE so the virtualization of this environment is
extremely useful.

I also do embedded development on DOS and Win3.1 and find
virtualization very useful here as well. I suspect that there are
many more folks leveraging the environment to enhance mature
software environments than Innotek believes; people please speak
up!

Regards,

Michael

Posted: 27. Dec 2007, 18:45
by cybertheque
I neglected to include mention of the 'green vertical bars' video corruption
problem during Win98 installation; I found that it is not necessary to
change any VM settings (disable APCI, reduce video memory, etc.) to
remedy this problem; simply power cycle the VM and the display will
be restored and the installation will complete. Thereafter the display
will function correctly in the guest.

Finding no interest in assisting with migrating multiprotocol routing to
Win2k Pro to permit using IPX on the Win98 guest, and in the absence
of a bridging interface on Win2k in Virtualbox, I tried VMware 4.x
and was amazed at the speed improvement in the Win98 guest and
enjoy the bridging networking support in Win2k and parallel port
support as well. I doubt that I shall ever see these features included
in Virtualbox, although I would like to be surprised -- if Innotek would
implement a bounty system and publicize it and suggest price points
for certain feature requests, perhaps users would muster up the
resolve to pool resources and get these things implemented.

Re: Windows 98 (Win98) general discussion

Posted: 29. Dec 2007, 01:59
by Ingo
cybertheque wrote:Since this site has no topic search capability, ...
"Search topic title and message text"
Isn't it that what you want?
http://forums.virtualbox.org/search.php

Posted: 29. Dec 2007, 03:09
by cybertheque
Having a topic-only (subject line) search would be helpful since keywords
in the body can appear in a thread on most any topic. And the search
logic seems to be broken; phrases in quotations and combintorics
(AND and OR) don't work for me as advertised.

Regards.

theres a free Win98-VESA-Driver

Posted: 14. Jan 2008, 13:10
by postfix
theres a free Win98-VESA-Driver

I found the following:



VBEMP x86 Project
-------------------
gives you:
- Universal VESA/VBE Video Display Driver (for 9x-family operating systems)
- Universal VESA/VBE Video Display Driver (for NT-family operating systems)

** no crack needed, because it's free! **


Projekt-Seite: http://www.geocities.com/bearwindows/
(folgt man den Download-Links verweist dieser schließlich auf http://www.navozhdeniye.narod.ru/vbemp9x.zip)

Diesen lud ich runter und entpackte es in Diskettenimage. Dann meinem altes Windows98SE VirtualBox (HostOS: Windows 2000 Prof.) installiert und rechtsklickte im freien Win98SE-Desktop; dann im Kontektmenü auf "Eigenschaften"->Register "Einstellungen"->"Weitere Optionen"->Register "Grafikkarte"->"Ändern"->"Weiter"->"Eine Liste der Treiber in einem bestimmten Verzeichnis zum Auswählen anzeigen"->"Weiter"->"Diskette"->dann eingebundenes Diskettenimage "A:\vbe9x\ati\vbemp.inf"->"OK"

...und Vin98SE neu booten.

Danach dann wieder im freien Win98SE-Desktop; dann im Kontektmenü auf "Eigenschaften"->Register "Einstellungen"-> die Farben auf "True Image - 24 Bit" (nie 32Bit einstellen!!) umd Bildschirmbereich z.B. auf "800x600 Pixel" einstellen.

Ich habe diese beiden Einstellung jeweils gesetzt ohne Vin98SE neu zu booten. So blieb es stabil.



*** Und noch rasch "Rain 2.0" auf Win98SE installiert (Quelle: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download430.html) ***

Posted: 15. Jan 2008, 22:14
by BavarianMaster
Hi Postfix!

Million thanks for the Win98-VESA-Driver Link!
It really works!!

BM

Posted: 16. Jan 2008, 00:09
by Technologov
postfix: Thank you VERY much ! I will try those drivers as soon as possible !

Posted: 16. Jan 2008, 06:52
by postfix
I searched all *-PIF-files in my Virtualbox-Win98SE-guest-installation and switched the settings to "full sized" sceen with "25 lines" mode; even I do with "_default.pif" in "c:\windows\"

After that, all pif-files works well, even the fall back in windows98se mode after finish programms started by pif-files.

have fun!

Re: Windows 98 (Win98) general discussion

Posted: 5. Feb 2008, 02:20
by WillyVerr
cybertheque wrote: ........................
6. The lack of 'shared folders' support for this guest is really not an
issue; one can set up SMB shares on the host and mount them
in the guest in the conventional fashion.
..........................

Regards,

Michael

Hallo Michael (cybertheque)

My host is a Vista Premium and my guest is Windows98FE.
Since shared folders do NOT work on Win98 (NO guest additions available), I am looking for other ways to transfer files from the guest to the host.
I don't have any knowledge about networking and SMB shares.
Could you please tell me in detail (all the steps to do) how I can setup SMB shares on the host, and how to mount in the guest (in the conventional fashion as stated in your posting).

Thanks in advance.

Willy

Posted: 5. Feb 2008, 08:18
by stefan.becker
Look in Google for Howtos about Windows Shares.

VESA display drivers

Posted: 19. Feb 2008, 20:46
by notpc
Thanks, Postfix - works beautifully on my WinME guest - now to try it on the Win2k guest.

Thanks also to those nice Russian guys at Yandex for supplying the driver.

Re: VESA display drivers

Posted: 22. Feb 2008, 12:44
by soliars
notpc wrote:Thanks, Postfix - works beautifully on my WinME guest - now to try it on the Win2k guest.

Thanks also to those nice Russian guys at Yandex for supplying the driver.
Yes, It also helped me a lot.

Re: Windows 98 (Win98) general discussion

Posted: 28. Feb 2008, 17:53
by ray5450
How does one install 'amnhlt.vxd', and where to find it?

Thanks.


[quote="cybertheque"]

5. Installing 'amnhlt.vxd' on the guest really reduces host CPU load
and does seem to improve guest responsiveness as well.

Re: Windows 98 (Win98) general discussion

Posted: 28. Feb 2008, 18:31
by ray5450
I searched for this info and only found references for when Linux is the host. Is that what you mean? (My host is Vista,)

[quote="cybertheque"]

6. The lack of 'shared folders' support for this guest is really not an
issue; one can set up SMB shares on the host and mount them
in the guest in the conventional fashion.

Win98SE installation crash

Posted: 24. Mar 2008, 10:16
by hemmerling
cybertheque wrote:I neglected to include mention of the 'green vertical bars' video corruption problem during Win98 installation;
Me too...
I found that it is not necessary to
change any VM settings (disable APCI, reduce video memory, etc.) to
remedy this problem; simply power cycle the VM and the display will
be restored and the installation will complete.
Ahhhh.... I took me a day to find out, and then I did not know if it was by chance that I was able to finish the installation.

In fact, if the green vertical bar problem occurs, it does NOT help to run the RESET function of VirtualBox. I did that again and again.

Maybe I closed VirtualBox at some point, and continued to try installation - at least finally I succeeded and did not exactly what was different with the last try...

Btw, the free VirtualPC by Microsoft offer "guest additions" ( called "Virtual Machine Additions") for Win98SE :-).

Sincerely
Rolf