For some reason i think that was the one i could not get to load high when i tried a long time ago, But it doesn't bother me i just let them load low, Do what i got to do and then unload them.
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Just how good was the Windows 95 OSR 2.x USB Supplement?
- Thread starter computerdude92
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For some reason i think that was the one i could not get to load high when i tried a long time ago, But it doesn't bother me i just let them load low, Do what i got to do and then unload them.
Chuck(G)
25k Member
Is the source for D1000dd available anywhere? It would seem that implementing a simple IOCTL call to notify it of a device change instead of unloading and reloading.
Robbbert
Experienced Member
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Thanks for the info - I was unaware of the existence of that product.
Think I'll keep my ethernet solution though - it does all I need.
No idea about WinME - it was deeply unpopular here, and in fact I've never seen one in the flesh. Apparently it looks like W2K, but whether it inherited W2K's excellent USB support is another matter entirely.
gslick
Veteran Member
WinME was unpopular everywhere, even inside of Microsoft at the time. After Windows 98SE shipped almost everyone moved on to different groups from the Win9x group and most people assumed the Win9x project line was done. When they decided to drag out one more release as WinME they didn't exactly have the top people working on it anymore. More of a lipstick on a pig operation at that point.
Up through Windows 98SE the core USB driver development was done in the Win9x group and dropped into the W2K group. After Windows 98SE shipped all of the core USB driver development effort was absorbed into the W2K group.
The USB mass storage driver usbstor.sys from W2K was backported into WinME through the use of the usbntmap.sys shim driver which hooked it into IOS (the Win9x I/O Supervisor). I can't remember now if the usbntmap.sys driver was a full port driver or a SCSI miniport driver. That was 20 years ago. I do remember that it was ugly, and surprising that it worked as well as it did. (I was the primary dev for the usbstor.sys and usbntmap.sys drivers in the W2K group at the time).
I don't remember how much of the bug fixes and enhancements to the core USB drivers during W2K development were backported into WinME. Maybe it was just selective bug fixes that were ported back into WinME instead of trying to keep WinME completely in sync with the W2K versions.
If I wanted to run a Win9x system for some reason myself, personally I would just stick with Windows 98SE and the USB support that came in the box, and wouldn't have any interest in trying to hot rod the USB support into something that didn't exist at the time.
computerdude92
Veteran Member
As I said I don't have this computer anymore. I was using it as an example for this thread. The onboard USB 1.1 ports worked great in WinXP.
BTW... I'm curious. Why would they want to install such an old set of OS's on the GX1's when tech in the 90's moved by so fast? To have speedier systems, I guess. GX1's first came out in 1998, along with the 440BX chipset, so they should have originally came with NT 4.0 or Win98FE installed.
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computerdude92
Veteran Member
I dunno about that, I installed Win95C on a K6-2 system I once had, and I never installed any USB patch, only the AMD K6 patch. Best to my observation, the system worked well but I never tried USB.
Robbbert
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Thanks for that info, it explains a few things.
I have a win98SE to run dos games such as Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein-3D and similar. The desktop is the "menu". The games mostly run 100%. Redneck Rampage crashes at the end, but otherwise works well.
For internet, unfortunately there's not many sites that still work. IE6 is the last version for Win95,98,NT,ME and W2K, but the reputation of IE6 isn't that great.
Apart from DOS-based games and utilities, I feel there's not really a compelling reason to use win9x much now.
I have a win98SE to run dos games such as Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein-3D and similar. The desktop is the "menu". The games mostly run 100%. Redneck Rampage crashes at the end, but otherwise works well.
For internet, unfortunately there's not many sites that still work. IE6 is the last version for Win95,98,NT,ME and W2K, but the reputation of IE6 isn't that great.
Apart from DOS-based games and utilities, I feel there's not really a compelling reason to use win9x much now.
computerdude92
Veteran Member
Hate 98/98SE/ME, but love 95 when it's configured right.
USB on 90's systems is just a bell & whistle for me at this point. Internal ZIP drives and my external parallel port PCMCIA reader with compact flash cards do the job well for transferring files coming from much newer systems running WinXP or later.
So, they designed pre-Win98 era motherboard chipsets with USB support and onboard USB headers in hopes of a better OS and drivers in the future. Makes sense. Funny the old USB ports from like 430HX for example work so well when the system is upgraded to Windows XP, seeing how old they are. Well, they are standard USB 1.x ports, so it's all up to the OS drivers. Though I would think that the chipset may play some part, but i've never seen anything unusual.
Thanks for the info, I appreciate it.
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computerdude92
Veteran Member
I like to have my retro systems to be both useful and fun, but that's just me. I want to live back in time. So I do haphazard things like trying to modernize these systems to compete with the awesomeness of WinXP in the offline side of things.
Stone
10k Member
Duh... why run DOS games from Windows?
Whenever I want to run 'dos games such as Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein-3D and similar' I do so from DOS.
You’re right. I guess you don’t have to install that usb patch first, but if you install the amdk6upd and then decide later to install the usb update, it might in some cases downgrade, without prompting, some of the windows files that were fixed with the amdk6upd. I guess that’s why I was incorrectly remember that it was required. I guess it’s just a good idea to install it first.
VERAULT
Veteran Member
To the OP, The optiplex GX1 is a great machine. I remember them when they were in service and I have two still. Picked up my second one within the past 5 or 6 years from a hospital that was using it as a controller for a medical device. I am not a fan of Dell, but I give credit where credit is due. This machine is a beast. And the BX chipset will run either PII or PIII at 66MHz bus. I have an adapter so I can run the PIII 1.1Ghz cpu in it.
I had initially wanted 95 with usb but I had a hell of a time with drivers and compatibility so I run win98 on it.
I had initially wanted 95 with usb but I had a hell of a time with drivers and compatibility so I run win98 on it.
Robbbert
Experienced Member
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Yeah, it's nice when you can get old systems to do new things. I like experimenting with that kind of thing too.
For example I recently found out how to enable IE8 on XP to use TLS 1.1/1.2 which gets it onto most https websites. I'm sure there's lots of other tweaks out there as well.
computerdude92
Veteran Member
Yeah, it's nice when you can get old systems to do new things. I like experimenting with that kind of thing too.
For example I recently found out how to enable IE8 on XP to use TLS 1.1/1.2 which gets it onto most https websites. I'm sure there's lots of other tweaks out there as well.
How did you do it?
maxtherabbit
Veteran Member
the best way to use XP online is with the Pale Moon XP builds - see here: https://msfn.org/board/topic/177125-my-build-of-new-moon-temp-name-aka-pale-moon-fork-targetting-xp/
Robbbert
Experienced Member
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It's a registry hack, one for each TLS. Open registry editor on your fully up-to-date XP machine.
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\AdvancedOptions\CRYPTO, and look for the 2 folders TLS1.1 and TLS1.2 (if they are not there, you're way behind on updates).
Have a look in each folder, look for the key OSVersion - it will say 3.6.1.0.0 - change it to 3.5.1.0.0 in both TLS1.1 and TLS1.2
Now close registry editor and reboot.
Now, open IE8, Tools, Internet Options, Advanced. Scroll down almost to the bottom, and you'll see 2 new checkboxes that weren't there before: Use TLS 1.1, and Use TLS 1.2 - turn them on.
Now visit a https site that wasn't accessible before - if you get a security certificate warning, click to continue on to the website. Now you can visit many sites that you couldn't before.
However it doesn't fix all the issues, for example Youtube will tell you to upgrade your browser; MEGA will show a blank screen; and so forth. This is because IE8 is missing a lot of new features that many sites use.
That's where Firefox ESR will usually do the job - MEGA works at least.
Caluser2000
Banned
Easy. For some it is a nostalgic thing. Wrt to usb Win98 with fixpacks(works fine for 98 first edition and SE) or ME are a far better option using a dos backed Windows.
It's usually polite to introduce yourself on the first post instead of coming in here swinging right of the bat.
Agent Orange
Veteran Member
A day or so ago I was fooling around with my A7N8X-E Deluxe (XP) period gamer, and I was Googling for something with Mozilla which went okay. A little while latter I opened Firefox, and to my surprise, Bing game up. I haven't had time to get to the bottom of this. BTW, IE8 runs pretty good on XP in this machine.