installing drivers in win98 -> "please insert win98 cd" -- did THIS ruin my optical drive setup?

1)

That is the default behaviour and, forgive my opinion, the correct one. This will ensure the installation of an approved (working!) driver for the hardware.

This was excellent when Win98 was released ait included a large number of drivers for almost all the hardware available in those days.

Some years later, it's just natural that recent hardware cannot find the drivers in that "oldish" Win98 CD, but of course the default behaviour remains.

Nothing really to worry about.

2)

The non-working drivers and devices may ba a result of the hardware testing you do regularly.

What happens is that most of the hardware that you install and uninstall remain as "ghosts".

And even if you don't see it in Device Manager, in Normal Mode, it can interfere with the corerct work of the system, specially, as it seems this is the case, you are constantly installing and uninstalling hardware.

You can probably solve this problem by starting in Safe Mode, after tapping F8 at startup, and going to Control Panel > System > Device Manager.

You will now be able to see all the "ghost" hardware that Windows has kept without you being aware of that.

To solve it, delete ALL entries per device/branch and reboot letting Windows reinstall the drivers.

Don't touch any System Devices and please do it step by step, i.e., start with Display Adapter, delete, reboot.

Restart in Safe Mode, delete Sound, etc., reboot.

If you try a one step cleanup it may be troublesome.

Hope the above helps.

Cheers,

Zee

dgrr,

If you want to ask for a refund on this question, please do, as the problem was solved on your other question.

Cheers,

Zee

That was a bit garbled, but I hope you catch the idea.  I also notice that I showed "e;\win98cd\drivers" twice in the top list.  Just ignore that and use something like that shown in the example .REG file.

Another thing to watch when installing and uninstalling drivers.  The uninstall routines often leave behind one or more *.INF files in the C:\Windows\INF or C:\Windows\INF\other folders.  Both of these paths are set as known directories in the following registry key against the values named "DevicePath" and "OtherDevicepath":

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

This causes Windows to look there first when installing drivers.  The main reason is that .INF files used for installing drivers will often specify the following in their header:

[version]
LayoutFile= Layout.inf, Layout1.inf, Layout2.inf
signature="$CHICAGO$"
SetupClass=BASE

Those "Layout?.inf" files are in the C:\Windows\INF folder, and contain a complete listing of all files available on the Windows CD, the .CAB files cntaining them, their file sizes and file versions, and where they have to be installed to.  This is the lookup table, so that an installer knows where to find a file on the CD if it needs a Windows file that isn't already installed, and several other reasons.

Hopefully this sheds a bit of light on the Windows annoyance you despise ;-)

Yes, blue zee -- I apologize -- this whole thing was a huge learning experience for me (a couple weeks ago -- I was out for a while).  My original problem with the optical drives was caused by my not having a good driver the PC Management BUS. (The old one didn't even have a license.)

I'll never ignore an "unknown device" again. I just assumed that, when the PC works at all, then the "motherboard" must be happy, in general... (lol)


BillDL  -- those tips remind me of how much is customizable in win98 and beyond. (and before?)  I will make a note of these changes, and may use them. (not sure -- I reinstall win98 so often - but If I save the reg files, why not?)

Thank you, dgrr.

If, as you say, you reinstall Win98 often, then might I suggest a method that will speed this up greatly.

On the Win98 and Win98se CD you will find a folder CD:\tools\reskit\batch.
In there, you will see a "setup.exe" file that will install the MS Batch Editor.
When you open this from the new start menu icon after installing, you will see a "gather now" button.
When you click that, it retrieves a lot of settings from the registry and serves as the starting point to generate a custom setup file containing pre-configured instructions that can be used during the Win98 setup.

Once you go through all the tabs and set the options, you can generate your setup instruction file.  The default filename is "MSBATCH.INF", but you can create a few different setup options and save as .INF files with other names.

The command to make setup.exe use the *.inf file for instructions is (assuming the default name):

setup [[drive:\][path\]msbatch.inf /other_options

For best results, the next time you format your hard drive, boot to a Win98 boot floppy and use FDISK to delete existing partitions, and then do as follows:
1. Create a new Primary DOS Partition, but don't make it 100% of the drive's capacity.
    It depends on the capacity of your drive, but you want to leave room for a 2nd partition.
2. Create an "Extended DOS Partition" in the remaining % of the drive
3. Create one logical drive in that Extended DOS partition ie. to 100% of the % occupied by the Extended Partition
4. Make the Primary DOS Partition "Active"
5. REBOOT to the floppy and choose "With CD-Rom Support)
6. Format the C: drive (your primary dos partition) and then the D: Drive (the logical drive in the extended partition)
7. Change to the CD-Rom's drive letter, and then to the win98 folder
8. Run setup using the following options that speed things up a bit:

setup /m /id /im /is /iq /iv /IW

/m       Bypass playing Setup sound (.wav) files
/id      Ignores the Disk Space check
/ie       Skip the Startup Disk screen <------- leave this one out for now
/im      Skip the check for low conventional memory
/is      Do not run ScanDisk
/iq      Skips the test for cross-linked files
/iv      Do not display billboards
/IW       Bypasses needing to read the License screen.
      (Needs to be upper case when run within Windows)

9. Choose the "custom" option, and untick as many of the optional components as you can to get a fast and slim Win98.
10. Once installed, create a new folder on your D: Drive named eg. WIN98CD
11. Copy the "win98" and "tools" folders from your Win98 CD into it:
12. Create a new folder named DRIVERS and copy all your hardware drivers into new and appropriately named
     sub-folders
13. Do the same for the essential programs, .reg files, or applications that you always need from the word go.
14. Install MS Batch from the D:\WIN98CD\tools\reskit\batch folder
15. Generate and save a new MSBATCH.INF file to the D:\WIN98CD\win98 folder
16. Create a new batch file named INSTALL.BAT in the root of the D:\WIN98CD folder from the following text:

@echo off
cd win98
setup msbatch.inf /m /id /ie /im /is /iq /iv /IW
exit

17. Install WinZip (or your preferred compression program)
18. Navigate in Windows Explorer to the C:\Windows\Command\EBD folder and zip up the CONTENTS of the folder
19. Save it to the D:\WIN98CD as "EBD.zip".

The /ie option used in the "install.bat" file saves time by not prompting to create a new boot floppy during setup, but it also doesn't create the folder C:\Windows\Command\EBD and doesn't copy the setup files required to create a new boot floppy into it.  All you need to do after the reinstallation is complete is to unpack your EBD.ZIP file with Winzip to the C:\Windows\Command folder, so that it creates the EBD folder.

Actually, creating a new boot floppy from the Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs will try to source the required files from the CD in the absence of the EBD folder, but the file C:\Windows\Command\BOOTDISK.BAT needs the EBD folder.  The idea here is to avoid having to fetch your CD each time.

Not all of those options shown in the above batch file will be needed, depending on the options you chose while using the MS Batch Editor, and perhaps you would choose to leave out the scandisk ones just to be sure that the drive is sound for each new install.

So now, instead of running Setup.exe, just boot to the Win98 boot floppy, change to the D:\WIN98CD folder, and type INSTALL.  A whole lot easier than having to remember all the switches to use with setup.exe.

Setup in Windows 98 cannot be completely automated, as is possible in Windows 2000 and XP, but at least it can avoid having to fill in the CD-Key and choose the regional settings, etc.  It can be a 15 minute job installing without all the user intervention from the hard drive as opposed to a 35 minute job from the CD with all the user intervention.

You have all your essential drivers immediately available on the extra partition, so they can be speedily installed after setup.  The question of how large to make the 2nd partition is your choice, but the "win98" and "tools" folders from the Win98 CD need about 160 MB minimum before you start copying your drivers setup files and program installers into it.  A good idea is also to copy the setup files for your most essential Windows Updates to the 2nd partition, eg. IE6 SP1, and the most recent cumulative update for IE 6 SP1 and OE6 SP1.

I have made a habit of exporting a .REG file (using regedit) from the relevant "Current_User" section of the registry for each of the installed programs for which I like to save those configuration settings I prefer.  You just edit out the unique values such as date values, etc, and concentrate on the ones like layout and preferences.  The same goes for .INI files created by programs to store user preferences.  By copying these files into the sub-folders on your 2nd partition alongside the setup files, you can install them and then configure them (by merging the .reg file or copying back the saved .INI files to the new program folder) before even opening the newly installed programs.

I use Office 2000, and my spare partition is large enough to contain the contents of the two CD's.  Using the Office 2000 Custom Setup Wizard, you can generate a custom *.MST file and save it to the root of the "Drive" (ie. the folder hat acts as the root of the Office 2000 CD).  By modifying the "MST1=" line under the [MST] section header in the file SETUP.INI to call for the named *.mst file, you can run setup.exe for that Office CD and it will perform a fully automated installation that would only halt on errors if those are the options you chose in the Custom Setup Wizard.  When first run, Office then prompts for the CD-Key, and you can have that stored in a .TXT file in the root of the folder acting as the Office CD.

Hopefully these additional hints will be helpful to you in the future.
Bill

Add another step in there, we'll call it No. 6 (a).  I always reboot to the floppy after formatting the partitions, although it isn't strictly required.  The reboot AFTER using fdisk, but BEFORE formatting IS an essential step that must not be ommitted.

dgrr,

Thanks!

Cheers,

Zee