Forgive me father, because I tried Windows Me...

[Paddy]

as clean as a very clean thing

[Bixler]

Paddy: Thinking back to the last time I did this, you may be right...Some of the problems that I experienced when I did my last upgrade may have been 98Lite related. (Although I had several other hardware and version problems.)

I'm sorted out and stable now. Shane Brooks recommended that I go through a couple of "shell swaps" to make sure there weren't some damaged files during the install. I'd recommend the same, including a reinstall of DX7--more or less following the excellent sequence and instructions above.

If you're still getting lockups you might try to reinstall from scratch again, and let 98Lite create it's own configuration and 95 compatible files (wordpad and notepad etc.) rather than using the ones I sent you...there could be some information in those files that's unique to my machine, which, of course, would confuse yours. If you've got a 95a or 95b CDRom, 98lite's install program will take care of all this for you.

Good Luck! And check the help forums over at Shanes site. There may be some suggestions there.

[Paddy]

The micro install boots in under 20 seconds! Not bad for a P2 300!

I went for the chubby install in the end - it may have cost me a bit more disk space, and an extra 10 seconds boot time, but it is very stable.

I have just finished reinstalling Win2K, one more machine to go....

If it stays this stable in a couple of weeks time then i think i will register to show my appreciation.

Cheers for all the help Tim.

[Bixler]

Cheers Paddy!

Have you tried "Sleek" or did you go straight from "Micro" to "Chubby?" I prefer sleek since it allows you to use IE but has NONE of the so called integration.

Like I said before, play around with a few shell swaps and you may find MICRO to be more stable. Shane did warn that MICRO was a very aggressive "slim down" and could be a bit of trouble in certain applications.

I just LOVE my clean 95 desktop and lightning fast explorer, and no evil blue "E" that I didn't ask for and can't be deleted.

[Paddy]

Now if only i ccan get 2K on a diet....
Even on a clean install its a bit podgy about the edges!

Still if it aint broke...

Cheers once again!

[Gurm]

Bixler:

Enlighten me as to how 98lite helps with a clean install of ME?

The best way to install ME is to fdisk and blow away your hard drive, then reboot off the ME cd and take it from there.

Or are you somehow thinking you can remove IE from ME (which is pretty absurd right now, although I don't discount the possibility in the future)?

- Gurm

------------------
Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Bixler]

Gurm:

Here's what I "meant" by clean install:

Don't take offense at the unecessary detail below, others may need the sequence.

From 98/ME boot disk with CDRom Support

1. Format C:/s
2. MD c:\98lite
3. Insert 98lite floppy
4. copy a: 98pro30.exe c:\98lite
5. C:\98lite\98pro30.exe --this command expands 98lite and creates a folder called 98Setup within which is the actual program.
6. c:\98setup\98lite.exe

While still under DOS, the program gives you 4 options for installation "Micro" "Sleek" "Chubby" and "Overweight"

If you select "micro" for the initial install, IE never touches your HardDrive or registry in any meaningful way.

You are then prompted for the win98/me CD and you run MS's setup program. As you watch the install, 98lite will break in from time to time with a couple of questions...but it is completely seamless and automatic from there.

Brooks claims that nothing in his hack affects the kernel, although outlook express (of course) won't run, and any other program that needs the MS HTML engine will not run, unless you select chubby or above.

"Micro" uses 95's explorer, Desktop, Wordpad, and Notepad. All other elements are standard 98 files.

From here if you run shell swap and choose Sleek, Chubby, or Overweight, Lite will install IE from the .cabs that it originally copied over to your harddrive.

Overweight is, of course, the full 98 install with all the eye candy.

Shell swap back to Micro and all references to IE and the program itself are deleted.

Edit:

All of this refers to 98 but the documentation that I just read back over claims that my version is ME compatible. I don't have ME so I don't really know what would have changed.


[This message has been edited by Bixler (edited 04 October 2000).]

[Gurm]

Egads! Well, I wouldn't try it under ME. That's all. They've removed enough of the legacy code to make it a VERY dangerous proposition to fiddle with the versions of the DLL's and whatnot.

In addition, the built in self-healing code will rip out any changes you've made at the very next reboot anyhow.

- Gurm

------------------
Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Bixler]

Gurm:

98Lite keeps some special .dlls in a subfolder for each shell swap (at least that's my dim understanding) Shell swapping involves a reboot-so the proggy seems to take care of this for you. I've noticed that some empty folders and such get left behind, but basically I've stopped swapping anyway and just stay in Micro.

I'm certainly not recommending this as a panacea, it just works for me, and I'm willing to put up with a few inconveniences in order to have quick and easy control of my OS environment.

One caveat: IE5 must be reinstalled (over the top) when migrating from MICRO to any other version, if you have made the upgrade from 4 to 5. My Win98 OEM install has IE4 so that's no problem to me, but users who constantly swap from Micro (NO IE at all) to other shells would probably find this to be a pain. Brooks couldn't distribute some special .dll's with his program and MS won't (obviously) support his solution.