rishooty wrote:

I find it interesting that 7-zip, usb drivers, daemon tools, notepad++, and directx 7 are near universal but everyone seems to disagree on codec, pdf, and browser solutions. I should also mention that this is to be an out of the box pack just to run games, so kernelex doesn't count.

Likely comes down to:
People using what they have always used
The fact that 98 works on 486->i7 machines
Real or perceived bloat in software
Impatience on software response so use something more responsive.
Bad experience with software or company so use something else

DosFreak wrote:

Likely comes down to: People using what they have always used The fact that 98 works on 486->i7 machines Real or perceived bloat […]
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rishooty wrote:

I find it interesting that 7-zip, usb drivers, daemon tools, notepad++, and directx 7 are near universal but everyone seems to disagree on codec, pdf, and browser solutions. I should also mention that this is to be an out of the box pack just to run games, so kernelex doesn't count.

Likely comes down to:
People using what they have always used
The fact that 98 works on 486->i7 machines
Real or perceived bloat in software
Impatience on software response so use something more responsive.
Bad experience with software or company so use something else

Yeah. I'm starting to think a pack like this that would be widely used wouldn't be feasible. A pack of minimal slipstreamed updates for each OS is one thing, but it seems everyone is gonna set up their stuff the way they always have. Oh well. Still a nice thread.

[EDIT] I'm tempted to run patchmem on each fully patched OS in a vm just to get their vmm.vxd, vcache.vxd, and vmm32.vxd. But honestly i don't even feel like doing the labor at the moment. I'll probably feel differently tomorrow. If anyone happens to run patchmem on their windows 95, 98, or ME, pm me the files I guess 🤣.

once adobe dropped support for 9x, PDFs that were encoded with a higher version stopped opening, also I find its a bloated reader compared to Sumatra or Foxit, both extremly light weight and have more compatibility with later PDF files encoded with later versions of PDF. I should investigate if there is a version of sumatra PDF that will run on 9x without kernel EX. Since I really prefer that over Foxit since it doesn't have add ware in it.

Well if everyone discussed why they like this or that then a consensus could be reached, if not then likely a minimum software consensus could be reached. If not then just putting all the software in one folder and saying "here you go install yourself!" could be done. This software gets tougher to find as the years go on

Might be worth it to load up a 486 in pcem and see which of the various software loads the fastest and once determined see if the loss of features is worth it or not when not using the latest version.

Warlord wrote:

once adobe dropped support for 9x, PDFs that were encoded with a higher version stopped opening, also I find its a bloated reader compared to Sumatra or Foxit, both extremly light weight and have more compatibility with later PDF files encoded with later versions of PDF. I should investigate if there is a version of sumatra PDF that will run on 9x without kernel EX. Since I really prefer that over Foxit since it doesn't have add ware in it.

I believe you're looking for this https://www.oldapps.com/sumatra_pdf.php?system=Windows_98

DosFreak wrote:

Well if everyone discussed why they like this or that then a consensus could be reached, if not then likely a minimum software consensus could be reached. If not then just putting all the software in one folder and saying "here you go install yourself!" could be done. This software gets tougher to find as the years go on

That was exactly the idea! Even if all i'm doing is throwing a bunch of packages together, it still has use in this community because they get harder and harder to find. Especially ideal or latest versions.

Some people swear by opera but problem is that you need kernel EX to use laterversions, and its onlly later versions that offer TLS 1.2. RetroZilla has TLS 1.2 thanks to roytam1, and without TLS1.2 you cannot really do anything anymore with webbrowsing even if retrozilla isn't as compatible with later webstandards as Opera with kernel EX + modified opera files.

For my purposes...this is pretty much the exact load on my 486 DX4-100 at the moment....and probably also the P100 NEC...

- Circuitmaker 2000
- Diablo
- Cakewalk Pro Audio 4.5 (yes, I do DAW work with the 486, it does surprisingly well)
- RetroZilla
- mIRC 5.91 (or later)
- AOL Instant Messenger (AIM Phoenix)
- WinAmp
- RandyTab

I could list all the games I use as well but that would take an entire page worth post.

Taskbar Shuffle : https://nerdcave.webs.com/
I use it on XP also, wonderful little program ~

Visual Basic runtimes 1-6
Early VS C++ runtimes
Borland C runtimes.
KernelEx 😉

Most of the tools, that I used were mentioned here already, but I would add few more.

Probably the most important its Total Commander. It's pretty much the first app, that I'm installing on any computer, no matter if modern or retro, and even the latest version is still 9x compatible!
Then IrfanView 4.44 as a image viewer (because using MS Paint for looking at full folder of a pictures is not fun), Putty (from win32old folder on FTP) for SSH connection to my remote Linux server and also Notepad2 1.0.12 as a Notepad replacement.

I would also install diagnostic stuff like aida64 and hd sentinel pro, I think latest versions of both still work on win98 too... on my winXP+ PCs I also install diskeeper 2013 which solves all fragmentation issues, but for win98 seems like diskeeper 9 is the last version and I cant find it anywhere

A lot of these are great suggestions, but yeah they all vastly differ from eachother. I'm starting to think I should just host them on my lifetime 500GB pcloud and let the users handle it. It would only take the smallest fraction of it.

Similar to this but more organized by OS and purpose:
http://www.tmeeco.eu/9X4EVER/GOODIES/

I agree about the total commander, I use that but purposely left out commercial software that wont work without keys that you can't distribute in a package like this.

DosFreak wrote:

PDF Ghostscript may be the least bloated. Not sure which ver is 9x compatible […]
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PDF
Ghostscript may be the least bloated. Not sure which ver is 9x compatible

OTHERS
PDFCreator 2.1.2
Foxit 2.3
Foxit 4.31 (KernelEX)

To make PDFs, I'd stick with PDF Creator 1.7.x. I think that newer versions are more "bloated", and they lack Image2PDF. Other option would be using an external PDF creator (I've got a Raspberry Pi that shares a CUPS PDF printer, so you can install an HP Color Laserjet driver with that printer and get a PDF on the Raspberry Pi).

Yes thats correct Ghostscript + cutepdf is the least bloated way to create PDFs. You can print anything out and save to file. Again the title of the thead is what 9x software is essential. It's not essential to create PDFs if all you are doing is playing games.

So, realizing the situation, and that most of the apps have their own installers and require restarts, I'm thinking a solution that sortof meets a happy medium between just a bunch of hosted packages and ease of use. The closest thing I could think of otherwise is a script or batch that just launches them in a particular order, waits for them to finish, and launches the next one. But even that's too specific.

The idea is that the pcloud folder will be split up into numbered categories, in which the number is the order in which you install them. Within these folders are a folder for Win95 and a folder for 98/ME, and perhaps a TXT file describing how your supposed to deal with that folder (i.e. pick one DX version move on to the next step, only install core packages if using 98lite, etc). They will contain the latest packages that run without kernelex, or those of interest for any particular reason.

Like a repository that doubles as a generalized tutorial.

• Example:
  1 - DirectX
  * Direct X 7
  * Direct X 8
  * Direct X 9
  * 1 - DirectX.txt --> Install DX7, only install later if your card requires it (radeon 7500, 9000, etc)
  2 - Drivers
  * Big ol collection of drivers, organized by chipset, system and OS. Perhaps anything not on vogons drivers, and then a link.
  3- IE
  * IE 5.5 sp2
  * IE 6
  * USP3.6
  * 3 - IE.txt --> install ie 5.5 in most cases, directions on how to fix ie6's issue, directions on how to install core files
  4- Media
  * K-Lite Codec Pack
  * Win95
  ** WMP 6.4
  * WMP 6.4 codec pack
  and so on...

Nvidia drivers should match the card's release date, because the newest drivers often suck a lot. (My Geforce DDR is having a hard time with drivers from mid 2001 but have no issue with drivers from late 1999 for example)

what i was doing was just opening one of problem childs older USPs skipping the actual service pack and selcting IE core 5.5sp2 and then closing it 🤣 There is quite a few things in those service packs "add ons" that are pretty useful and good, like the reg clean, the the Service packs themselves give my computer AIDS 😵

So noone have mentioned benchmarks/stress testing: tools
-3dmark 99
-3dmark 2k
-3dmark 2001SE

3dmark03 latest version isn't working. You need to use earlier version.

I also use Everest for sysinfo.

Also since I use stable 45.23 Nvidia drivers for my gf4 I also like to keep period correct DX version 9.0b. I think k-lite codec pack actually recommends dx9 for max stability.