Windows 98/4.10.1546/Release Notes: Difference between revisions

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1. GRANT OF LICENSE.
1. GRANT OF LICENSE.
* (a) Microsoft grants you ("Recipient") a limited, non-exclusive, nontransferable, royalty-free license to make and use up to ten (10) copies of the software accompanying this Agreement ("Product") on computer systems located on Recipient's premises, solely to test the compatibility of Recipient's application or other product(s) which operate in conjunction with the Product and to evaluate the Product for the purpose of providing feedback thereon to Microsoft. All other rights are reserved to Microsoft. Recipient shall not rent, lease, sell, sublicense, assign, or otherwise transfer the Product, including any accompanying printed materials. Recipient shall not reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the Product except to the extent that this restriction is expressly prohibited by applicable law. Recipient may not disclose the results of any benchmark testing of the Product to any third party without Microsoft's prior written permission. Microsoft and its suppliers shall retain title and all ownership rights to the Product.
* (a) Microsoft grants you ("Recipient") a limited, non-exclusive, nontransferable, royalty-free license to make and use up to ten (10) copies of the software accompanying this Agreement ("Product") on computer systems located on Recipient's premises, solely to test the compatibility of Recipient's application or other product(s) which operate in conjunction with the Product and to evaluate the Product for the purpose of providing feedback thereon to Microsoft. All other rights are reserved to Microsoft. Recipient shall not rent, lease, sell, sublicense, assign, or otherwise transfer the Product, including any accompanying printed materials. Recipient shall not reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the Product except to the extent that this restriction is expressly prohibited by applicable law. Recipient may not disclose the results of any benchmark testing of the Product to any third party without Microsoft's prior written permission. Microsoft and its suppliers shall retain title and all ownership rights to the Product.
* (b) Recipient agrees to provide reasonable feedback to Microsoft, including but not limited to usability, bug reports and test results, with respect to the Product testing. Recipient will use reasonable efforts to review and comment on all documentation supplied. All bug reports, test results and other feedback made by Recipient shall be the property of Microsoft and may be used by Microsoft for any purpose. Due to the nature of the development work, Microsoft is not certain as to when errors or discrepancies in the Product may be corrected.
* (b) Recipient agrees to provide reasonable feedback to Microsoft, including but not limited to usability, bug reports and test results, with respect to the Product testing. Recipient will use reasonable efforts to review and comment on all documentation supplied. All bug reports, test results and other feedback made by Recipient shall be the property of Microsoft and may be used by Microsoft for any purpose. Due to the nature of the development work, Microsoft is not certain as to when errors or discrepancies in the Product may be corrected.
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Windows 98 provides compelling new features for every type of computer user:
Windows 98 provides compelling new features for every type of computer user:
 
* '''Home System Upgrades.''' Home users who are upgrading existing systems will especially appreciate the increased reliability and Web integration enabled by Windows 98. For example, user interface enhancements make navigation easier, such as single-click opening, icon highlighting, forward/backward buttons, and an easy to customize Start Menu. New wizards and utilities, such as System File Checker, keep PCs running faster and more smoothly. Windows 98 makes computers more entertaining and easier to use by putting Web resources directly on the desktop. Integration with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 provides a new e-mail client and desktop information manager, Outlook™ Express, and supports Internet conferencing capabilities with Microsoft NetMeeting™ software.
·    '''Home System Upgrades.''' Home users who are upgrading existing systems will especially appreciate the increased reliability and Web integration enabled by Windows 98. For example, user interface enhancements make navigation easier, such as single-click opening, icon highlighting, forward/backward buttons, and an easy to customize Start Menu. New wizards and utilities, such as System File Checker, keep PCs running faster and more smoothly. Windows 98 makes computers more entertaining and easier to use by putting Web resources directly on the desktop. Integration with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 provides a new e-mail client and desktop information manager, Outlook™ Express, and supports Internet conferencing capabilities with Microsoft NetMeeting™ software.
* '''Corporate System Upgrades.''' Corporations will especially appreciate increased manageability of Windows 98-based systems. For example, Windows 98 supports the policy-based, central management guidelines and features outlined in Microsoft's Zero Administration Initiative for Windows. New utilities such as Dr. Watson and System Information Utility makes it easier for product support staff to diagnose and correct problems. Windows 98 provides an easy Upgrade Wizard from Windows 95 and Windows 3.x-based systems.  
 
* '''New Hardware Purchasers.''' Support for the newest generation of hardware - including cutting-edge media platforms - makes new Windows 98-based systems significantly easier to use, more entertaining, and more like everyday "appliances." For example, OnNow instantly starts a new PC, making it more like turning on a stereo or TV. Support for the Universal Serial Bus and IEEE 1394 enables the next generation of Plug and Play hardware. Windows 98 redefines the PC's role as an entertainment center by combining previously separate components, such as television, DVD and the Internet, and integrating them with the powerful processing and communications capabilities of the PC. This integration, such as combining television and HTML, results in an experience that is more rich and more convenient. For example, you can review and search for your favorite TV programs with the built-in Program Guide, then instantly view any show on your PC, or set reminders to watch shows at a later time. Producers can also deliver Enhanced Television programming, which will add sports statistics or cooking recipes alongside traditional television shows.
·    '''Corporate System Upgrades.''' Corporations will especially appreciate increased manageability of Windows 98-based systems. For example, Windows 98 supports the policy-based, central management guidelines and features outlined in Microsoft's Zero Administration Initiative for Windows. New utilities such as Dr. Watson and System Information Utility makes it easier for product support staff to diagnose and correct problems. Windows 98 provides an easy Upgrade Wizard from Windows 95 and Windows 3.x-based systems.  
 
·    '''New Hardware Purchasers.''' Support for the newest generation of hardware - including cutting-edge media platforms - makes new Windows 98-based systems significantly easier to use, more entertaining, and more like everyday "appliances." For example, OnNow instantly starts a new PC, making it more like turning on a stereo or TV. Support for the Universal Serial Bus and IEEE 1394 enables the next generation of Plug and Play hardware. Windows 98 redefines the PC's role as an entertainment center by combining previously separate components, such as television, DVD and the Internet, and integrating them with the powerful processing and communications capabilities of the PC. This integration, such as combining television and HTML, results in an experience that is more rich and more convenient. For example, you can review and search for your favorite TV programs with the built-in Program Guide, then instantly view any show on your PC, or set reminders to watch shows at a later time. Producers can also deliver Enhanced Television programming, which will add sports statistics or cooking recipes alongside traditional television shows.


=== Key Windows 98 Features and Benefits ===
=== Key Windows 98 Features and Benefits ===
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==== Easier to Use ====
==== Easier to Use ====
-    User interface enhancements make navigation easier, such as single-click launching, icon highlighting, forward/backward buttons, and an easy to customize Start Menu.
* User interface enhancements make navigation easier, such as single-click launching, icon highlighting, forward/backward buttons, and an easy to customize Start Menu.
 
* Support for hardware innovations such as Universal Serial Bus (USB) enable more powerful device detection and the next generation of Plug and Play hardware.  
-    Support for hardware innovations such as Universal Serial Bus (USB) enable more powerful device detection and the next generation of Plug and Play hardware.  
* On-line Help provides comprehensive, continually updated support information for Microsoft products.
 
* Multi-monitor Support for up to eight monitors that can run at different resolutions gives users more "real estate" for running applications, including more exciting game play.
-    On-line Help provides comprehensive, continually updated support information for Microsoft products.
* Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) supports easier device management on new PCs and enhanced battery performance on new mobile PCs.
 
-    Multi-monitor Support for up to eight monitors that can run at different resolutions gives users more "real estate" for running applications, including more exciting game play.
 
-    Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) supports easier device management on new PCs and enhanced battery performance on new mobile PCs.


==== More Reliable ====
==== More Reliable ====
-    Countless refinements and improvements keep systems running smoothly.
* Countless refinements and improvements keep systems running smoothly.
 
* Windows Update, a new Web-based resource site, allows registered users of Windows 98 to keep their PCs up-to-date by continually providing the latest drivers and operating system files on an on-going basis.
-    Windows Update, a new Web-based resource site, allows registered users of Windows 98 to keep their PCs up-to-date by continually providing the latest drivers and operating system files on an on-going basis.
* Windows 98 can regularly test your hard disk, system files, and configuration information to increase the system reliability, and in many cases automatically fix problems.  
 
* Enhanced backup and restore functionality supports more tape drives and the latest hardware.
-    Windows 98 can regularly test your hard disk, system files, and configuration information to increase the system reliability, and in many cases automatically fix problems.  
* Date-dependent components within Windows 98 are Year 2000 ready.  
 
-    Enhanced backup and restore functionality supports more tape drives and the latest hardware.
 
-    Date-dependent components within Windows 98 are Year 2000 ready.  


==== Faster ====
==== Faster ====
-    Application loading, system startup, and shut down time are faster, based on early performance testing with beta software.  
* Application loading, system startup, and shut down time are faster, based on early performance testing with beta software.  
 
* OnNow technology provides "instant on" capability, rather than requiring users to boot up every time.  
-    OnNow technology provides "instant on" capability, rather than requiring users to boot up every time.  
* The Windows 98 Tune-Up Wizard helps get faster system performance.  
 
* Enhanced FAT32 File System stores files more efficiently and frees up hard drive space.
-    The Windows 98 Tune-Up Wizard helps get faster system performance.  
 
-    Enhanced FAT32 File System stores files more efficiently and frees up hard drive space.


==== Web Integration ====
==== Web Integration ====
-    Windows 98 will be the fastest platform to run the new Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0.
* Windows 98 will be the fastest platform to run the new Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0.
 
* Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 includes the Outlook Express, a new e-mail client and collaboration tool; NetMeeting for Internet conferencing and whiteboarding; NetShow(tm) networked multimedia software for on-demand audio and video capabilities; FrontPad personal Web-page editing tool; and Personal Web Server which makes any Windows 98-based system into a personal Web server.
-    Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 includes the Outlook Express, a new e-mail client and collaboration tool; NetMeeting for Internet conferencing and whiteboarding; NetShow(tm) networked multimedia software for on-demand audio and video capabilities; FrontPad personal Web-page editing tool; and Personal Web Server which makes any Windows 98-based system into a personal Web server.
* The Active Desktop(tm) Interface puts Internet and intranet pages directly on a user's desktop.  
 
* With Channels, users can subscribe to Web sites, including many leading content providers like Disney and Time-Warner.
-    The Active Desktop(tm) Interface puts Internet and intranet pages directly on a user's desktop.  
* An enhanced Windows 98 Explorer integrates local, intranet, and Internet resources into a single, logical view. For example, URLs can now be accessed directly from the Windows 98 Explorer.
 
* New Internet access is easy with a new Internet Connection Wizard that "talks" to your Internet provider for the correct configuration information.
-    With Channels, users can subscribe to Web sites, including many leading content providers like Disney and Time-Warner.
* Enhancements to Dial-Up Networking include the ability to link and synchronize multiple modems and an ISDN Connection Wizard makes it easier to configure hardware.
 
* Support for video and broadcast provides super-fast bandwidth for accessing the Internet.  
-    An enhanced Windows 98 Explorer integrates local, intranet, and Internet resources into a single, logical view. For example, URLs can now be accessed directly from the Windows 98 Explorer.
 
-    New Internet access is easy with a new Internet Connection Wizard that "talks" to your Internet provider for the correct configuration information.
 
-    Enhancements to Dial-Up Networking include the ability to link and synchronize multiple modems and an ISDN Connection Wizard makes it easier to configure hardware.
 
-    Support for video and broadcast provides super-fast bandwidth for accessing the Internet.  


==== More Entertaining ====
==== More Entertaining ====
-    Support for DVD and digital audio delivers high-quality digital movies and audio direct to your TV or PC monitor.  
* Support for DVD and digital audio delivers high-quality digital movies and audio direct to your TV or PC monitor.  
 
* Support for IEEE 1394 bus provides an industry-standard interface to control VCRs, stereos, and other consumer electronic devices from a Windows 98-based PC.  
-    Support for IEEE 1394 bus provides an industry-standard interface to control VCRs, stereos, and other consumer electronic devices from a Windows 98-based PC.  
* DirectX APIs provides graphics and video performance that exceeds console game systems, and support for forced-feedback joysticks to enhance the gaming experience.
 
* Watch TV on your PC and review and search for your favorite TV programs with the built in Program Guide.
-    DirectX APIs provides graphics and video performance that exceeds console game systems, and support for forced-feedback joysticks to enhance the gaming experience.
* Support for Enhanced Television, which combines television and HTML content, delivers new entertainment possibilities.
 
-    Watch TV on your PC and review and search for your favorite TV programs with the built in Program Guide.
 
-    Support for Enhanced Television, which combines television and HTML content, delivers new entertainment possibilities.


==== More Manageable for Corporations ====
==== More Manageable for Corporations ====
-    Support for the Zero Administration Initiative for Windows helps reduce total cost of ownership.
* Support for the Zero Administration Initiative for Windows helps reduce total cost of ownership.
 
* Dr. Watson and System Information Utility makes it easier for product support staff to diagnose and correct problems.  
-    Dr. Watson and System Information Utility makes it easier for product support staff to diagnose and correct problems.  
* Upgrade Wizard provides smooth migration paths from Windows 95 and Windows 3.x-based systems.  
 
-    Upgrade Wizard provides smooth migration paths from Windows 95 and Windows 3.x-based systems.  


==== Windows Update ====
==== Windows Update ====
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Steps to take:
Steps to take:


1)  After you have installed Beta 2, run WinAlign. (Steps are listed below) There will be a version in your Windows directory, and there is an updated version in the \betaonly directory of your CD. File a bug to Microsoft indicating success of running this tool.
# After you have installed Beta 2, run WinAlign. (Steps are listed below) There will be a version in your Windows directory, and there is an updated version in the \betaonly directory of your CD. File a bug to Microsoft indicating success of running this tool.
 
# If you hit any bug, run the WinAlign Undo function (winalign –r) on your system and try to reproduce the bug. Please use the version of WinAlign that is in the \betaonly version of your disc for this undo function.
2)  If you hit any bug, run the WinAlign Undo function (winalign –r) on your system and try to reproduce the bug. Please use the version of WinAlign that is in the \betaonly version of your disc for this undo function.
# When filing a bug to Microsoft, please note all details of having used WinAlign on your system. Please report the full details on the bug you hit; as well as if you could hit the bug again after running “winalign –r”.
 
3)  When filing a bug to Microsoft, please note all details of having used WinAlign on your system. Please report the full details on the bug you hit; as well as if you could hit the bug again after running “winalign –r”.


Every person that files a bug for a successful run of WinAlign will be put in the running for a random draw for a MS Flight Jacket, to be awarded when Beta 3 is ready.
Every person that files a bug for a successful run of WinAlign will be put in the running for a random draw for a MS Flight Jacket, to be awarded when Beta 3 is ready.
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==== FrontPage Express====
==== FrontPage Express====
Microsoft FrontPage Express is a WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) HTML editor based on the editing tools in Microsoft's award-winning, full-featured FrontPage 97 Web authoring and management tool. FrontPage Express brings you the following features:  
Microsoft FrontPage Express is a WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) HTML editor based on the editing tools in Microsoft's award-winning, full-featured FrontPage 97 Web authoring and management tool. FrontPage Express brings you the following features:  
·    '''Personal Home Page Wizard.''' This wizard takes you step by step through the process of creating your own Web page.  
'''Personal Home Page Wizard.''' This wizard takes you step by step through the process of creating your own Web page.
* '''Table Creation and Editing.''' Insert a table into your Web page and then edit either the entire table or individual cells.
* '''Forms.''' Add forms to your Web page that people can fill out and return. Your forms can include text boxes, check boxes, drop-down menus, images, and more. (You must be connected to a server running FrontPage server extensions to use these forms-related features.)
* '''Page Templates and Wizards.''' If you’re connected to a server running FrontPage server extensions, you can also use form-related wizards and templates that let you do the following: create a form by simply selecting the types of information you need to collect; create a page to acknowledge that you’ve received a user’s input; and create a survey form to collect information from readers and store it in a file on your Web server.
* '''Java Applet, JavaScript, Plug-In, and ActiveX Support.''' FrontPage Express supports top Internet technologies from throughout the software industry—including Microsoft’s own ActiveX, of course.


·    '''Table Creation and Editing.''' Insert a table into your Web page and then edit either the entire table or individual cells.  
With FrontPage Express installed, the "Edit" button on the Internet Explorer 4.0 toolbar allows you to easily edit any page you view.  


·    '''Forms.''' Add forms to your Web page that people can fill out and return. Your forms can include text boxes, check boxes, drop-down menus, images, and more. (You must be connected to a server running FrontPage server extensions to use these forms-related features.)
==== Channels ====
 
Windows 98 Beta2 provides live channel contents with Active Desktop.  Beta2 includes the following channel contents:
·    '''Page Templates and Wizards.''' If you’re connected to a server running FrontPage server extensions, you can also use form-related wizards and templates that let you do the following: create a form by simply selecting the types of information you need to collect; create a page to acknowledge that you’ve received a user’s input; and create a survey form to collect information from readers and store it in a file on your Web server.
 
·    '''Java Applet, JavaScript, Plug-In, and ActiveX Support.''' FrontPage Express supports top Internet technologies from throughout the software industry—including Microsoft’s own ActiveX, of course.
 
With FrontPage Express installed, the "Edit" button on the Internet Explorer 4.0 toolbar allows you to easily edit any page you view.
 
==== Channels ====
Windows 98 Beta2 provides live channel contents with Active Desktop.  Beta2 includes the following channel contents:


MSNBC News  
MSNBC News  
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Virtually any graphics adapter can function as a primary display. Any PCI graphics adapter with a Windows 95 or later driver (with the noted exception of motherboard, or onboard video) can be a primary display. In order to function as a secondary display however, the display adapter must be a PCI device supported by Windows 98 as an additional display adapter. The following display adapter chipsets are supported as additional displays in this release:
Virtually any graphics adapter can function as a primary display. Any PCI graphics adapter with a Windows 95 or later driver (with the noted exception of motherboard, or onboard video) can be a primary display. In order to function as a secondary display however, the display adapter must be a PCI device supported by Windows 98 as an additional display adapter. The following display adapter chipsets are supported as additional displays in this release:


*ATI Mach64 GX
* ATI Mach64 GX
*S3 764V+ (765), Trio 64V2
* S3 764V+ (765), Trio 64V2
*S3 ViRGE
* S3 ViRGE
*S3 Aurora (S3M65)
* S3 Aurora (S3M65)
*Cirrus 5436,7548,5446
* Cirrus 5436,7548,5446
*ET6000
* ET6000
*ATI Rage 1 & 2 (VT & greater)
* ATI Rage 1 & 2 (VT & greater)


These drivers have DirectDraw support
These drivers have DirectDraw support


*ATI Mach64
* ATI Mach64
*S3 ViRGE
* S3 ViRGE


These drivers have Direct3D support
These drivers have Direct3D support


*S3 ViRGE
* S3 ViRGE


The following cards cannot be used as a primary display adapter:
The following cards cannot be used as a primary display adapter:


*Permedia (Permedia NT & Permedia-2 OK)
* Permedia (Permedia NT & Permedia-2 OK)


ISA/EISA cards
ISA/EISA cards
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==== WDM Video Capture ====
==== WDM Video Capture ====
WDM video capture provides backward compatibility for VFW applications without the shortcomings of VFW. The goal of WDM video capture is to provide support for the following: USB conferencing cameras, 1394 DV devices, desktop cameras, TV viewing, multiple video streams support, and VPE capture support. It is based on kernel streaming architecture, and tightly integrated with DirectShow(formerly known as ActiveMovie) 2.0. The following DirectShow Filters are provided in the DDK for WDM capture:  
WDM video capture provides backward compatibility for VFW applications without the shortcomings of VFW. The goal of WDM video capture is to provide support for the following: USB conferencing cameras, 1394 DV devices, desktop cameras, TV viewing, multiple video streams support, and VPE capture support. It is based on kernel streaming architecture, and tightly integrated with DirectShow(formerly known as ActiveMovie) 2.0. The following DirectShow Filters are provided in the DDK for WDM capture:  
 
* KsCap.AX: the main capture filter. This is the main proxy filter between the stream class drivers and DirectShow filters. It provides a standardized connection and streaming in the kernel, standardized property sets, standard way of controlling stream flow (start, stop, run), and a standard way of exposing data formats.
·    KsCap.AX: the main capture filter. This is the main proxy filter between the stream class drivers and DirectShow filters. It provides a standardized connection and streaming in the kernel, standardized property sets, standard way of controlling stream flow (start, stop, run), and a standard way of exposing data formats.
* KsTVTune.ax: TV Tuner interfaces. It handles channel to frequency mapping, worldwide frequency tables, multi-standard tuners, support for fine tuning methods using: PLL, signal strength, or Driver specific methods.
 
* KsXBar.ax: A/V crossbar. This is a general signal router for analog or digital (VPE input) video or audio. It provides a MxN general switching matrix, and allows any output to be connected to any input.
·    KsTVTune.ax: TV Tuner interfaces. It handles channel to frequency mapping, worldwide frequency tables, multi-standard tuners, support for fine tuning methods using: PLL, signal strength, or Driver specific methods.
 
·    KsXBar.ax: A/V crossbar. This is a general signal router for analog or digital (VPE input) video or audio. It provides a MxN general switching matrix, and allows any output to be connected to any input.


These filters can be used with DirectShow Graphedt.exe application (provided in the DDK). Also, included is a test application (captest.exe) that build a customized filter graph which utilize these filters, and connects to a WDM video capture mini driver.  
These filters can be used with DirectShow Graphedt.exe application (provided in the DDK). Also, included is a test application (captest.exe) that build a customized filter graph which utilize these filters, and connects to a WDM video capture mini driver.  
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Windows 98 now supports the following OnNow/ACPI interfaces:
Windows 98 now supports the following OnNow/ACPI interfaces:


*Legacy ACPI select
* Legacy ACPI select
*PM timer
* PM timer
*System states S1-S3, and S5
* System states S1-S3, and S5
*CPU states C1-C3
* CPU states C1-C3
*Thermal Model (active & passive cooling)
* Thermal Model (active & passive cooling)
*Configuration of devices (_PRS, _SRS, _CRS, _STA, _DIS)
* Configuration of devices (_PRS, _SRS, _CRS, _STA, _DIS)
*Power & Sleep buttons (though they are hardwired to the Sleep function)
* Power & Sleep buttons (though they are hardwired to the Sleep function)
*Control Method Batteries
* Control Method Batteries
*OnNow Win32 APIs (except Wakeup APIs)
* OnNow Win32 APIs (except Wakeup APIs)
*PCI Config space access through control methods
* PCI Config space access through control methods
*Device power management of the following devices:
* Device power management of the following devices:
*8USB Host controller
* 8USB Host controller
*Display
* Display
*COM ports
* COM ports
*IDE (D0-D1)
* IDE (D0-D1)
*USB Audio & Streaming devices
* USB Audio & Streaming devices
*Input Devices
* Input Devices
*PC-Card Controllers
* PC-Card Controllers


Bus power management on the following busses:
Bus power management on the following busses:


*PCI (including PME# support)
* PCI (including PME# support)
*USB
* USB
*PC-Card
* PC-Card


===== ACPI Questions & Answers =====
===== ACPI Questions & Answers =====
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==== APM 1.2 Extensions ====
==== APM 1.2 Extensions ====
*New APM 1.2 services
* New APM 1.2 services
*New Power Management control panel user interface (including IDE drive spindown user interface)
* New Power Management control panel user interface (including IDE drive spindown user interface)
*New battery meter
* New battery meter


==== Disk Spindown ====
==== Disk Spindown ====
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==== Scanners and Cameras ====
==== Scanners and Cameras ====
Windows 98 includes support for the following scanners and digital still cameras.
Windows 98 includes support for the following scanners and digital still cameras.
 
* Hewlett Packard SCSI SCL flatbed scanners including the 3c, 4c, 4p, and 5p. The 5p includes support for push mode scanning. The TWAIN data source and PictureScan or DeskScan software required to use the scanners via a TWAIN application are '''not''' included in this release. If these components are already installed before an upgrade to Windows 98, they will be used. Otherwise the HP software will have to be installed.
·    Hewlett Packard SCSI SCL flatbed scanners including the 3c, 4c, 4p, and 5p. The 5p includes support for push mode scanning. The TWAIN data source and PictureScan or DeskScan software required to use the scanners via a TWAIN application are '''not''' included in this release. If these components are already installed before an upgrade to Windows 98, they will be used. Otherwise the HP software will have to be installed.
* Kodak DC-25 digital still camera. The TWAIN data source is included in this release. To add a Kodak camera, you need to use "Add New Hardware" in the control panel. Do not do the hardware detection and select the cameras and scanners category. Then select the Kodak DC-25.  
 
* Logitech PageScan USB sheet fed scanner. Support includes the TWAIN data source. This scanner also supports push mode scanning.  
·    Kodak DC-25 digital still camera. The TWAIN data source is included in this release. To add a Kodak camera, you need to use "Add New Hardware" in the control panel. Do not do the hardware detection and select the cameras and scanners category. Then select the Kodak DC-25.  
 
·    Logitech PageScan USB sheet fed scanner. Support includes the TWAIN data source. This scanner also supports push mode scanning.  


Windows 98 support for scanners and cameras includes “push mode” operation. Applications need to be revised to take advantage of this functionality. The Eastman Kodak “Imaging for Windows” application in Windows 98 now operates in push mode and is associate with the USB Logitech and HP 5 p scanners on installation. To further adjust the association of applications with device events use the “Scanner and Camera” control panel. The property page for these scanners contains an “Events” tab. Once an application has registered itself as “push mode ready” it will appear in the application list in this property page. Simply check/uncheck the application and it will be launched when the buttons on these devices are pressed. If more than one application is associated with the same device event, a dialog box will appear asking the user to pick one of the choices. If no choice is made within 20 seconds the dialog box will disappear and no application will be launched.  
Windows 98 support for scanners and cameras includes “push mode” operation. Applications need to be revised to take advantage of this functionality. The Eastman Kodak “Imaging for Windows” application in Windows 98 now operates in push mode and is associate with the USB Logitech and HP 5 p scanners on installation. To further adjust the association of applications with device events use the “Scanner and Camera” control panel. The property page for these scanners contains an “Events” tab. Once an application has registered itself as “push mode ready” it will appear in the application list in this property page. Simply check/uncheck the application and it will be launched when the buttons on these devices are pressed. If more than one application is associated with the same device event, a dialog box will appear asking the user to pick one of the choices. If no choice is made within 20 seconds the dialog box will disappear and no application will be launched.  
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Support for Fast Infrared (FIR) and Serial Infrared (SIR) devices, easy file transferring over Infrared and LAN connectivity. This beta release includes infrared support up to 4Mbps. It includes the Microsoft Infrared Transfer applet that makes file transferring over infrared as simple as click and send. To enable infrared support, perform the following setup steps:
Support for Fast Infrared (FIR) and Serial Infrared (SIR) devices, easy file transferring over Infrared and LAN connectivity. This beta release includes infrared support up to 4Mbps. It includes the Microsoft Infrared Transfer applet that makes file transferring over infrared as simple as click and send. To enable infrared support, perform the following setup steps:


  1.  Go to Control Panel
1.  Go to Control Panel


  2.  Start Add New Hardware
2.  Start Add New Hardware


  3.  Select “No” when the Add New Hardware wizard prompts you to have the system automatically detect any new hardware, and click Next.
3.  Select “No” when the Add New Hardware wizard prompts you to have the system automatically detect any new hardware, and click Next.


3. Select “Infrared” device and click Next.
3. Select “Infrared” device and click Next.
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==== For SIR device: ====
==== For SIR device: ====
  1.  If you have a SIR device, choose “Generic Infrared Port” for built-in infrared port; or choose the name of the manufacturer and the model of the adapter if you have an external Infrared adapter connected to your computer.
1.  If you have a SIR device, choose “Generic Infrared Port” for built-in infrared port; or choose the name of the manufacturer and the model of the adapter if you have an external Infrared adapter connected to your computer.


  2.  When the wizard prompts you to choose the communications port that the IR device is physically connected to, click the port from the list. If you are not certain which physical communications port the IR device is using, make your best guess.  
2.  When the wizard prompts you to choose the communications port that the IR device is physically connected to, click the port from the list. If you are not certain which physical communications port the IR device is using, make your best guess.  


  3.  When you are done with the wizard, click the Finish button to complete the IR device installation. The wizard should have briefly displayed New Hardware Found messages. If the wizard did not display these messages, then restart the computer.
3.  When you are done with the wizard, click the Finish button to complete the IR device installation. The wizard should have briefly displayed New Hardware Found messages. If the wizard did not display these messages, then restart the computer.


  4.  Activate the IR device by clicking the Start button, pointing to Settings, and then clicking Control Panel. Double-click the Infrared icon. If you chose the correct port in Step 2, the Infrared Monitor interface screen appears. If you did not choose the correct port, a message appears telling you that the port you have chosen is being used by another program. Click OK. Right click the Network Neighborhood icon on desktop and choose Properties. Select “Standard Infrared Serial (COM) port” and click Properties. Click the “Advanced” tab, and select “Serial Port” to change the COM port settings. Repeat this step until you have chosen the correct port.
4.  Activate the IR device by clicking the Start button, pointing to Settings, and then clicking Control Panel. Double-click the Infrared icon. If you chose the correct port in Step 2, the Infrared Monitor interface screen appears. If you did not choose the correct port, a message appears telling you that the port you have chosen is being used by another program. Click OK. Right click the Network Neighborhood icon on desktop and choose Properties. Select “Standard Infrared Serial (COM) port” and click Properties. Click the “Advanced” tab, and select “Serial Port” to change the COM port settings. Repeat this step until you have chosen the correct port.


==== For FIR device: ====
==== For FIR device: ====
  1.  If you have a FIR device, contact your hardware manufacture to get the driver for that model of the computer. Click “Have Disk” to install the FIR driver, supplied on a floppy disk by the manufacturer.  
1.  If you have a FIR device, contact your hardware manufacture to get the driver for that model of the computer. Click “Have Disk” to install the FIR driver, supplied on a floppy disk by the manufacturer.  


  2.  When you are done with the wizard, click the Finish button to complete the IR device installation. The wizard should have briefly displayed New Hardware Found messages. If the wizard did not display these messages, then restart the computer.
2.  When you are done with the wizard, click the Finish button to complete the IR device installation. The wizard should have briefly displayed New Hardware Found messages. If the wizard did not display these messages, then restart the computer.


  3.  Activate the IR device by clicking the Start button, pointing to Settings, and then clicking Control Panel. Double-click the Infrared icon.
3.  Activate the IR device by clicking the Start button, pointing to Settings, and then clicking Control Panel. Double-click the Infrared icon.


==== Microsoft Infrared Transfer ====
==== Microsoft Infrared Transfer ====
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WinAlign is a simple program that realigns clusters within a file in such away that sections begin on predetermined boundaries, which allows memory usage to be optimized. A side effect of this realignment is that it will actually increase the size of some files. While this is not a problem for the vast majority of files (since they contain exactly the same contents in slightly bigger container), there are 2 known classes of applications that will have problems with this:
WinAlign is a simple program that realigns clusters within a file in such away that sections begin on predetermined boundaries, which allows memory usage to be optimized. A side effect of this realignment is that it will actually increase the size of some files. While this is not a problem for the vast majority of files (since they contain exactly the same contents in slightly bigger container), there are 2 known classes of applications that will have problems with this:


1) Virus-checkers. These applications often check to see if file attributes such as file size has changed, and may mistakenly interpret that a virus has been run on your system when in fact it had not.
# Virus-checkers. These applications often check to see if file attributes such as file size has changed, and may mistakenly interpret that a virus has been run on your system when in fact it had not.
 
# Driver patch programs. These patch programs will rewrite small sections of a driver based on an offset from the starting of a file. Since we are "stretching" the file, a patch program run on an aligned binary would patch the incorrect area resulting in a broken driver. Driver patch programs are very uncommon, and can be revised to patch the "stretched" binaries.
2) Driver patch programs. These patch programs will rewrite small sections of a driver based on an offset from the starting of a file. Since we are "stretching" the file, a patch program run on an aligned binary would patch the incorrect area resulting in a broken driver. Driver patch programs are very uncommon, and can be revised to patch the "stretched" binaries.


To undo Winalign, just run “winalign -r”
To undo Winalign, just run “winalign -r”
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When you install Internet Explorer 4.0, four security zones are set up:
When you install Internet Explorer 4.0, four security zones are set up:
 
* An Internet zone that by default contains all Internet sites
·    An Internet zone that by default contains all Internet sites
* A Local Intranet zone for computers connected to a local network
 
* A Trusted Sites zone, to which you can assign sites you trust
·    A Local Intranet zone for computers connected to a local network
* A Restricted Sites zone, to which you can assign sites you don't trust
 
·    A Trusted Sites zone, to which you can assign sites you trust
 
·    A Restricted Sites zone, to which you can assign sites you don't trust


Internet Explorer 4.0 does not try to maintain any existing Internet Explorer 3.0 settings, because the security works differently in this new version. In addition to the new security zones, the meanings of the High, Medium, and Low security settings  
Internet Explorer 4.0 does not try to maintain any existing Internet Explorer 3.0 settings, because the security works differently in this new version. In addition to the new security zones, the meanings of the High, Medium, and Low security settings  
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If you need to change any of the following settings for your IMAP account:
If you need to change any of the following settings for your IMAP account:
 
* IMAP server name or port number
·    IMAP server name or port number
* Account type (POP3 or IMAP)
 
* Any logon information
·    Account type (POP3 or IMAP)
 
·    Any logon information


It is recommended that you delete the IMAP account and create a new account with the updated settings.
It is recommended that you delete the IMAP account and create a new account with the updated settings.
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If you are unable to send or receive mail, check the following:
If you are unable to send or receive mail, check the following:
 
* The TCP/IP protocol is installed on your computer.
·    The TCP/IP protocol is installed on your computer.
* All cables are properly connected to your computer, modem, or LAN.
 
* You have a PPP or SLIP account with your Internet service provider.
·    All cables are properly connected to your computer, modem, or LAN.
* Your Internet service provider or LAN server supports POP3 or IMAP and SMTP
 
* Your modem communication parameters (baud rate and type of protocol) are set correctly.
·    You have a PPP or SLIP account with your Internet service provider.
 
·    Your Internet service provider or LAN server supports POP3 or IMAP and SMTP
 
·    Your modem communication parameters (baud rate and type of protocol) are set correctly.


Make sure that you use an account name and password for a news server only if it requires them. If you use an account name and password and they are not required, you will not be able to connect to the news server.
Make sure that you use an account name and password for a news server only if it requires them. If you use an account name and password and they are not required, you will not be able to connect to the news server.
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The Wizard consists of the following three options:
The Wizard consists of the following three options:
 
* '''I want to choose an Internet service provider and set up a new Internet account''' will configure your machine for dial-up access to the Internet and enables you to sign-up for Internet access via an ISP account using the Microsoft Referral Server program. If you sign up for an account using the ICW and Referral server, you will be liable for the charges imposed by the Service Provider.
·    '''I want to choose an Internet service provider and set up a new Internet account''' will configure your machine for dial-up access to the Internet and enables you to sign-up for Internet access via an ISP account using the Microsoft Referral Server program. If you sign up for an account using the ICW and Referral server, you will be liable for the charges imposed by the Service Provider.
* '''I want to set up a new connection to my existing Internet account using my phone line or local area network (LAN)''' allows you to hand-configure your Internet settings for use with an existing ISP or local area network.
 
·    '''I want to set up a new connection to my existing Internet account using my phone line or local area network (LAN)''' allows you to hand-configure your Internet settings for use with an existing ISP or local area network.


'''I already have a connection to the Internet and I do not want to change it''' will reset the Internet Explorer icon on the desktop, and allow you to manually configure your Internet Control Panel settings.
'''I already have a connection to the Internet and I do not want to change it''' will reset the Internet Explorer icon on the desktop, and allow you to manually configure your Internet Control Panel settings.
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'''Wheel Mouse Support''' – for the new Microsoft Intellimouse with the wheel on top, this builds in support for applications that can take advantage of it.
'''Wheel Mouse Support''' – for the new Microsoft Intellimouse with the wheel on top, this builds in support for applications that can take advantage of it.
* Just rotating the wheel causes text to scroll several lines (default 3) per wheel detent.
* In Office97, rotating the wheel while holding down the Ctrl key will zoom in or out (cause the document to be displayed larger or smaller).
* The wheel itself acts as a middle mouse button if pressed.
* By pressing the wheel button in a wheel-aware app (Office97/IE3), you are then in "panning mode". This is indicated by the mouse cursor changing to a special panning cursor. While panning mode is active, just dragging the mouse forward or backward will cause the document to auto-scroll. The speed at which the document scrolls is determined by how far the mouse is dragged away from the position where panning mode was enabled. To exit panning mode, just press any mouse button.
* Not all software that has a scroll bar will work with the wheel. In order for the wheel to work in an application, one of two things must be true:
* The application must be revised to handle the new WM_MOUSEWHEEL message. Office97/IE3 are two examples of this.
* The application must use one of USER's built-in controls. The wheel will work with Notepad because Notepad uses USER's edit control.


·  Just rotating the wheel causes text to scroll several lines (default 3) per wheel detent.
Please note that for this release, if you have an IntelliPoint Wheel mouse, Windows 98 installation may change it to a Standard Serial or PS/2 mouse in Device Manager. This change is only to the description of the mouse in Device Manager, and should not have any effect on the mouse. You should still have full wheel functionality, in fact, with the Windows 98 mouse drivers; the wheel will work in more applications than the original IntelliPoint drivers. As such, please do not re-install the IntelliPoint software to get the "wheel" back.


·  In Office97, rotating the wheel while holding down the Ctrl key will zoom in or out (cause the document to be displayed larger or smaller).
=== Animation ===
6. This includes sliding menus and color highlights on menus and controls to track the mouse position. These settings will be able to be controlled the TweakUI utility located on the cd in the \betaonly directory.


·  The wheel itself acts as a middle mouse button if pressed.
=== Image Color Management 2.0 API ===
 
Better quality, faster and easier color management. The last step for WYSIWYG. The users can get the right content and format of their document from their screen to their printer and from their screen to someone else’s screen. With the new and improved Image Color Management 2.0, ICM 2.0, using applications that support color management, the users will also get consistent color from their screen to their printer and from their screen to someone else’s screen.  
·  By pressing the wheel button in a wheel-aware app (Office97/IE3), you are then in "panning mode". This is indicated by the mouse cursor changing to a special panning cursor. While panning mode is active, just dragging the mouse forward or backward will cause the document to auto-scroll. The speed at which the document scrolls is determined by how far the mouse is dragged away from the position where panning mode was enabled. To exit panning mode, just press any mouse button.
 
·  Not all software that has a scroll bar will work with the wheel. In order for the wheel to work in an application, one of two things must be true:
 
·  The application must be revised to handle the new WM_MOUSEWHEEL message. Office97/IE3 are two examples of this.
 
·  The application must use one of USER's built-in controls. The wheel will work with Notepad because Notepad uses USER's edit control.
 
Please note that for this release, if you have an IntelliPoint Wheel mouse, Windows 98 installation may change it to a Standard Serial or PS/2 mouse in Device Manager. This change is only to the description of the mouse in Device Manager, and should not have any effect on the mouse. You should still have full wheel functionality, in fact, with the Windows 98 mouse drivers; the wheel will work in more applications than the original IntelliPoint drivers. As such, please do not re-install the IntelliPoint software to get the "wheel" back.
 
=== Animation ===
6. This includes sliding menus and color highlights on menus and controls to track the mouse position. These settings will be able to be controlled the TweakUI utility located on the cd in the \betaonly directory.
 
=== Image Color Management 2.0 API ===
Better quality, faster and easier color management. The last step for WYSIWYG. The users can get the right content and format of their document from their screen to their printer and from their screen to someone else’s screen. With the new and improved Image Color Management 2.0, ICM 2.0, using applications that support color management, the users will also get consistent color from their screen to their printer and from their screen to someone else’s screen.  


Microsoft's first implementation of color management support was released in the Microsoft® Windows® 95 operating system as ICM 1.0. This version of ICM was designed for applications that do not work in colors outside of RGB (such as CMYK) and that want color management to work fairly transparently for the end-user. ICM 1.0 requires ICC profiles to be installed for all of the color devices on the user's system, and it requires the application that wants to accurately portray colors to the user to support the ICM 1.0 APIs.  
Microsoft's first implementation of color management support was released in the Microsoft® Windows® 95 operating system as ICM 1.0. This version of ICM was designed for applications that do not work in colors outside of RGB (such as CMYK) and that want color management to work fairly transparently for the end-user. ICM 1.0 requires ICC profiles to be installed for all of the color devices on the user's system, and it requires the application that wants to accurately portray colors to the user to support the ICM 1.0 APIs.  
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=== Display Control Panel Improvements ===
=== Display Control Panel Improvements ===
The Display Control Panel has been enhanced to support new display driver technology. It contains the following new features:
The Display Control Panel has been enhanced to support new display driver technology. It contains the following new features:
 
* '''QuickRes''', the quick resolution switching utility, has been incorporated into the standard control panel. There is a checkbox that will turn on the taskbar notification icon for quick resolution and color depth switching.
·  '''QuickRes''', the quick resolution switching utility, has been incorporated into the standard control panel. There is a checkbox that will turn on the taskbar notification icon for quick resolution and color depth switching.
* '''DynaColor''', the ability to switch display color depths, is now included in the display control panel. (You still need a reboot if you change “font size”.) Many applications and display drivers will work with this automatically, but some may need to be updated. Please send us a bug if you find an application that does not update properly. This feature is useful for game developers who wish to use a specific color depth.  
 
* '''Refresh Rate Support''' is now available from the Change Display Adapter button. This support was built into the Windows 95 Registry, but only a few display adapter drivers support the refresh rate setting. Contact your Display Adapter vendor to get a refresh-rate enabled display driver. Refresh rates are stored in a per-resolution setting.
·  '''DynaColor''', the ability to switch display color depths, is now included in the display control panel. (You still need a reboot if you change “font size”.) Many applications and display drivers will work with this automatically, but some may need to be updated. Please send us a bug if you find an application that does not update properly. This feature is useful for game developers who wish to use a specific color depth.  
* '''Display Adapter Performance Slider''' is now accessible from the Display Control Panel, instead of having to go to the System Properties. This slider is used to diagnose and solve display driver incompatibilities.
 
* '''Hardware Panning''' is now enabled on lower-resolution displays such as VGA-only monitors or laptop LCD panels where the chipset supports it. If your chipset supports this and you have a monitor selected in the Monitor settings that does not support greater than 800x600 resolution, hardware panning will be enabled. Hardware panning is disabled on monitors capable of 1024x768 resolution, as it is not normally needed. If hardware panning is enabled, and the display device is capable of 800x600, there are two graphics sliders - one for the screen resolution and one for the virtual desktop resolution. The screen slider is not shown for 640x480-only displays, as it would be fixed at one setting only.
·  '''Refresh Rate Support''' is now available from the Change Display Adapter button. This support was built into the Windows 95 Registry, but only a few display adapter drivers support the refresh rate setting. Contact your Display Adapter vendor to get a refresh-rate enabled display driver. Refresh rates are stored in a per-resolution setting.
 
·  '''Display Adapter Performance Slider''' is now accessible from the Display Control Panel, instead of having to go to the System Properties. This slider is used to diagnose and solve display driver incompatibilities.
 
·  '''Hardware Panning''' is now enabled on lower-resolution displays such as VGA-only monitors or laptop LCD panels where the chipset supports it. If your chipset supports this and you have a monitor selected in the Monitor settings that does not support greater than 800x600 resolution, hardware panning will be enabled. Hardware panning is disabled on monitors capable of 1024x768 resolution, as it is not normally needed. If hardware panning is enabled, and the display device is capable of 800x600, there are two graphics sliders - one for the screen resolution and one for the virtual desktop resolution. The screen slider is not shown for 640x480-only displays, as it would be fixed at one setting only.


'''Multiple Display Support''' – if multiple displays are enabled, the Settings tab is replaced with a Monitors tab. You can use this Monitors tab to control relative screen placement by dragging, and to set individual adapter settings as described above by selecting the appropriate adapter.
'''Multiple Display Support''' – if multiple displays are enabled, the Settings tab is replaced with a Monitors tab. You can use this Monitors tab to control relative screen placement by dragging, and to set individual adapter settings as described above by selecting the appropriate adapter.
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You can control which files are collected by clicking anywhere on the warning text in the main bug reporting form. The bug reporting tool automatically uploads the following files with each bug report you submit:
You can control which files are collected by clicking anywhere on the warning text in the main bug reporting form. The bug reporting tool automatically uploads the following files with each bug report you submit:
 
* System.1st
·    System.1st
* Setuplog.*
 
* Detlog.*
·    Setuplog.*
* Bootlog.*
 
* Asd.log (if it exists)
·    Detlog.*
* ios.log (if it exists)
 
·    Bootlog.*
 
·    Asd.log (if it exists)
 
·    ios.log (if it exists)


This version is different than versions released previously in that it allows you to save your bugs on your local disk for submission later. There are two ways to access the bug reporting tool. Select Windows Update from the Windows start menu and select the Bug Report button. The other way is to select Run from the Windows Start menu, type bugrep32 and then click OK.
This version is different than versions released previously in that it allows you to save your bugs on your local disk for submission later. There are two ways to access the bug reporting tool. Select Windows Update from the Windows start menu and select the Bug Report button. The other way is to select Run from the Windows Start menu, type bugrep32 and then click OK.
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=== Microsoft System Information Utility 4.1 ===
=== Microsoft System Information Utility 4.1 ===
Windows 98 now contains a centralized system information utility that gathers system configuration information for technical support. This tool is comprised of a collection of ActiveX controls, each responsible for collecting and displaying a certain category of system information in the right frame of MSInfo. A Support Engineer can guide the user experiencing an issue to MSInfo to facilitate the information gathering process. MSInfo includes viewers for the following file formats:  
Windows 98 now contains a centralized system information utility that gathers system configuration information for technical support. This tool is comprised of a collection of ActiveX controls, each responsible for collecting and displaying a certain category of system information in the right frame of MSInfo. A Support Engineer can guide the user experiencing an issue to MSInfo to facilitate the information gathering process. MSInfo includes viewers for the following file formats:  
 
* MSInfo files (*.nfo)
·    MSInfo files (*.nfo)


The information collected by MSInfo can be saved to file (*.nfo) and viewed using another machine.
The information collected by MSInfo can be saved to file (*.nfo) and viewed using another machine.
 
* Cabinet files (*.cab)
·    Cabinet files (*.cab)


Cabinet files uploaded by the Web-based Bug Reporting tool can be opened to access the files therein.
Cabinet files uploaded by the Web-based Bug Reporting tool can be opened to access the files therein.
 
* HWInfo files (hwinfo.dat)
·    HWInfo files (hwinfo.dat)


HWInfo files detail device configuration information, including resources.
HWInfo files detail device configuration information, including resources.
 
* Dr. Watson logs (*.wlg)
·    Dr. Watson logs (*.wlg)


Dr. Watson is invoked by MSInfo to view Watson logs.
Dr. Watson is invoked by MSInfo to view Watson logs.
 
* Text files (*.txt)
·    Text files (*.txt)


The hierarchy displayed in the left pane of the MSInfo container is dependent upon the controls that are installed on the system and registered with MSInfo. This hierarchy may change based on the means used to launch the utility; applications that call it may optimize the layout for support issues concerning it. Windows 98 support tools are made available from the Tools menu.  
The hierarchy displayed in the left pane of the MSInfo container is dependent upon the controls that are installed on the system and registered with MSInfo. This hierarchy may change based on the means used to launch the utility; applications that call it may optimize the layout for support issues concerning it. Windows 98 support tools are made available from the Tools menu.  
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==== Usage ====
==== Usage ====
System Troubleshooter can help you resolve issues that occur when you start Windows 9x normally. These issues include (but are not limited to):
System Troubleshooter can help you resolve issues that occur when you start Windows 9x normally. These issues include (but are not limited to):
 
* Symptoms are not reproducible when launching in Safe mode
·    Symptoms are not reproducible when launching in Safe mode
* Error messages
 
* Hanging
·    Error messages
* Loss of functionality
 
·    Hanging
 
·    Loss of functionality


'''Note: ''' The goal of the Beta process is to eliminate errors that would lead someone to use this tool. Please submit a bug report detailing any issue you encounter testing Windows 98, regardless of your ability to resolve it using System Troubleshooter.
'''Note: ''' The goal of the Beta process is to eliminate errors that would lead someone to use this tool. Please submit a bug report detailing any issue you encounter testing Windows 98, regardless of your ability to resolve it using System Troubleshooter.
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If the symptoms are reproducible with the Normal startup disabled, investigate the following:
If the symptoms are reproducible with the Normal startup disabled, investigate the following:
 
* Advanced troubleshooting options (detailed in the following section)
·    Advanced troubleshooting options (detailed in the following section)
* Protected-mode device driver configuration
 
·    Protected-mode device driver configuration


For information detailing the troubleshooting steps, refer to the “Protected-Mode Device Drivers” section in article Q156126, “Troubleshooting Windows 95 Using Safe Mode.
For information detailing the troubleshooting steps, refer to the “Protected-Mode Device Drivers” section in article Q156126, “Troubleshooting Windows 95 Using Safe Mode.
 
* A file is missing, corrupt, or has been replaced (refer to the System File Checker)
·    A file is missing, corrupt, or has been replaced (refer to the System File Checker)
* Registry corruption (refer to the Registry Scan and Backup Utility)
 
* Virus
·    Registry corruption (refer to the Registry Scan and Backup Utility)
* Faulty hardware/Hardware settings (CMOS)
 
·    Virus
 
·    Faulty hardware/Hardware settings (CMOS)


Unsuccessful upgrade of previous Windows configuration
Unsuccessful upgrade of previous Windows configuration
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The CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT tabs intelligently identifies settings and minimizes the risks inherent in editing configuration files using the following conventions:  
The CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT tabs intelligently identifies settings and minimizes the risks inherent in editing configuration files using the following conventions:  
 
* Disabled checkboxes indicate lines commented out by the tool
·    Disabled checkboxes indicate lines commented out by the tool
* Settings used when the file’s Selective startup option is disabled are identified with a Windows logo
 
* Previously commented lines are listed without a checkbox
·    Settings used when the file’s Selective startup option is disabled are identified with a Windows logo
* Lines edited from within the tool are identified by a yellow pencil  
 
·    Previously commented lines are listed without a checkbox
 
·    Lines edited from within the tool are identified by a yellow pencil  


The System.ini and Win.ini tabs follow the aforementioned conventions as well as identify sections with a yellow folder. Entire sections can by commented out by disabling the checkbox for the section.  
The System.ini and Win.ini tabs follow the aforementioned conventions as well as identify sections with a yellow folder. Entire sections can by commented out by disabling the checkbox for the section.  
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Additional RSVP functionality is available from newer binaries located in the betaonly directory on the CD. To enable this functionality, copy the following binaries to the SYSTEM directory:  
Additional RSVP functionality is available from newer binaries located in the betaonly directory on the CD. To enable this functionality, copy the following binaries to the SYSTEM directory:  


*Rsvp.exe
* Rsvp.exe
*Rsvpsp.dll
* Rsvpsp.dll
*Rapilib.dll
* Rapilib.dll
*Routetab.dll
* Routetab.dll
*Qosname.dll
* Qosname.dll


These binaries enable the following additional functionality:
These binaries enable the following additional functionality:


*WSAGetQosByName
* WSAGetQosByName
*WSCInstallQOSTemplate
* WSCInstallQOSTemplate
*WSCRemoveQOSTemplate
* WSCRemoveQOSTemplate
*Provider Specific Buffer decoding
* Provider Specific Buffer decoding
*Subnet Bandwidth Manager (SBM) support
* Subnet Bandwidth Manager (SBM) support


=== 3rd Party Networking Release Notes ===
=== 3rd Party Networking Release Notes ===
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==== Notes for the TV Viewer ====
==== Notes for the TV Viewer ====
·    Your connection to the Internet must be correctly configured and working to download program guide information from the Web. To verify your connection, confirm that you can successfully view content from <nowiki>http://www.microsoft.com</nowiki> with Internet Explorer.
Your connection to the Internet must be correctly configured and working to download program guide information from the Web. To verify your connection, confirm that you can successfully view content from <nowiki>http://www.microsoft.com</nowiki> with Internet Explorer.
 
* In addition to the keyboard equivalents of remote control keys (see discussion below on remote controls), function key F1 will access help, F6 toggles full screen/windowed viewing, F10 toggles the channel bar.
·    In addition to the keyboard equivalents of remote control keys (see discussion below on remote controls), function key F1 will access help, F6 toggles full screen/windowed viewing, F10 toggles the channel bar.
* Program guide information for your ZIP code (or Postal Code) area is available through channel "TV C" (channel 1).
 
* When using the TV Viewer application to view Web pages containing edit fields expecting numeric input (for example, the ZIP code information for program guide data), you must use the number keys on the keypad to enter the numeric information. Otherwise, the TV Viewing application will interpret the number key entries as channel numbers. ''Certain Web pages specifically authored for use with the TV Viewer allow use of the keyboard number keys.''
·    Program guide information for your ZIP code (or Postal Code) area is available through channel "TV C" (channel 1).
 
·    When using the TV Viewer application to view Web pages containing edit fields expecting numeric input (for example, the ZIP code information for program guide data), you must use the number keys on the keypad to enter the numeric information. Otherwise, the TV Viewing application will interpret the number key entries as channel numbers. ''Certain Web pages specifically authored for use with the TV Viewer allow use of the keyboard number keys.''


The TV Viewer provides a valuable way to make better viewing choices. Using the Search button in the Program Guide, you can sort the program guide information. Please refer to the on-line help provided with TV Viewer for more information.
The TV Viewer provides a valuable way to make better viewing choices. Using the Search button in the Program Guide, you can sort the program guide information. Please refer to the on-line help provided with TV Viewer for more information.
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==== Known Issues for TV Viewer / Broadcast Architecture components for Beta 2 ====
==== Known Issues for TV Viewer / Broadcast Architecture components for Beta 2 ====
·    Channel 1, TV Config, does not work properly on 640x480 displays. To download StarSightÔ program guide information to your computer, use Internet Explorer to go to <nowiki>http://broadcast.microsoft.com</nowiki> and follow the directions there.
Channel 1, TV Config, does not work properly on 640x480 displays. To download StarSightÔ program guide information to your computer, use Internet Explorer to go to <nowiki>http://broadcast.microsoft.com</nowiki> and follow the directions there.
 
* You must have a working sound card driver in addition to a working video card driver and appropriate video hardware to view video. If you don't have a working sound card configured (check to see if you have a speaker icon in your tray) then you will see no video from the TV Viewer and you will receive "no device for this channel" errors whenever you try to watch full screen video.
·    You must have a working sound card driver in addition to a working video card driver and appropriate video hardware to view video. If you don't have a working sound card configured (check to see if you have a speaker icon in your tray) then you will see no video from the TV Viewer and you will receive "no device for this channel" errors whenever you try to watch full screen video.


Only Canadian and U.S. programming information is available through Web download.  
Only Canadian and U.S. programming information is available through Web download.  
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MBPCLOW is installed by default in the Startup Directory. This application works only in systems with a direct broadcast satellite receiver card installed. If MBPCLOW does not detect a satellite driver loaded, it will exit gracefully. If a satellite receiver card driver is located, MBPCLOW stays active (iconized) on the task bar. MBPCLOW does not respond to shutdown events in this version. Work around: Shut down MBPCLOW manually using CTRL-C before Windows shutdown.
MBPCLOW is installed by default in the Startup Directory. This application works only in systems with a direct broadcast satellite receiver card installed. If MBPCLOW does not detect a satellite driver loaded, it will exit gracefully. If a satellite receiver card driver is located, MBPCLOW stays active (iconized) on the task bar. MBPCLOW does not respond to shutdown events in this version. Work around: Shut down MBPCLOW manually using CTRL-C before Windows shutdown.
 
* There may be an error generated by the Webcast receiver on startup - WebCast1 10055(0x2747). This error message indicates that the Webcast receiver could not find a suitable broadcast-network capable card in your computer. This message will be generate if there is no LAN, digital broadcast satellite receiver card, or compatible analog video tuner card detected in your hardware setup, or if one of these cards is disabled in your hardware profile. You can remove the broadcast announcement listener (which generates this message) by clicking the "Auto-Start" toolbar button in Annui.exe.  
·    There may be an error generated by the Webcast receiver on startup - WebCast1 10055(0x2747). This error message indicates that the Webcast receiver could not find a suitable broadcast-network capable card in your computer. This message will be generate if there is no LAN, digital broadcast satellite receiver card, or compatible analog video tuner card detected in your hardware setup, or if one of these cards is disabled in your hardware profile. You can remove the broadcast announcement listener (which generates this message) by clicking the "Auto-Start" toolbar button in Annui.exe.  
* The Announcement Listener must be stopped before running any disk tools. If it is not, disk tools will fail because the announcement listener keeps files open on the disk. The easiest way to do this is to boot Windows 98 into Safe Mode before running any disk tools. Please refer to the disk tools documentation for more information.
 
* The Hughes Network Systems satellite receiver filter exposes four pins when a card is in the system. Two are for streaming the encoded video and audio, and the other two represent the analog (composite) video and audio connections. Currently, only the analog pins are used.
·    The Announcement Listener must be stopped before running any disk tools. If it is not, disk tools will fail because the announcement listener keeps files open on the disk. The easiest way to do this is to boot Windows 98 into Safe Mode before running any disk tools. Please refer to the disk tools documentation for more information.
* Video is displayed only in a "hard" 4/3 aspect ratio. This causes black bars (letter box effect) and occasional magenta bars above or below the video window.
 
* Help and TV Viewer setup currently work best in 800X600 display mode.  
·    The Hughes Network Systems satellite receiver filter exposes four pins when a card is in the system. Two are for streaming the encoded video and audio, and the other two represent the analog (composite) video and audio connections. Currently, only the analog pins are used.
* In Help, the Watch TV button is inactive.  
 
* Accessing the DIRECTV Web site from the troubleshooting section of Help causes a scripting error.
·    Video is displayed only in a "hard" 4/3 aspect ratio. This causes black bars (letter box effect) and occasional magenta bars above or below the video window.
* With Beta 2, occasionally the TV Viewer loses focus, which makes it impossible to scroll through channels or use the Toolbar by pressing F10. The work-around is to change focus away from the TV Viewer (Alt-TAB) and back again.
 
* On very busy systems, or systems under stress, it is likely that ANNCLIST.exe will generate errors in BPCFTS.dll. There is no work around. Recovery requires stopping and restarting the ANNCLIST.exe process. A reboot may be required in some instances.
·    Help and TV Viewer setup currently work best in 800X600 display mode.  
* Each of the five Webcast providers accessible from the IE4 Webcast channel displays the same list of content by default. When receiving content from an appropriate network, you will also receive an updated list of available content.  
 
* Each of the five Webcast providers display the same available content. In future releases, different content will be available from different providers. Different networks will allow for different amounts of bandwidth to be dedicated to Webcasting and content will be sized accordingly.
·    In Help, the Watch TV button is inactive.  
* User restrictions do not work for tuning channels.
 
* Performance and stability is undesirable on 16MB systems.
·    Accessing the DIRECTV Web site from the troubleshooting section of Help causes a scripting error.
* A Windows Protected Storage dialog may pop-up when going to the Program Guide from TV Viewing. Enter your Windows password to dismiss this dialog.
 
* When an advertisement or show title (Web link) is clicked in the program guide, the Internet Explorer window is sometimes hidden by the TV Viewer. The work-around is to use ALT-tab to switch to the IE4 window.
·    With Beta 2, occasionally the TV Viewer loses focus, which makes it impossible to scroll through channels or use the Toolbar by pressing F10. The work-around is to change focus away from the TV Viewer (Alt-TAB) and back again.
 
·    On very busy systems, or systems under stress, it is likely that ANNCLIST.exe will generate errors in BPCFTS.dll. There is no work around. Recovery requires stopping and restarting the ANNCLIST.exe process. A reboot may be required in some instances.
 
·    Each of the five Webcast providers accessible from the IE4 Webcast channel displays the same list of content by default. When receiving content from an appropriate network, you will also receive an updated list of available content.  
 
·    Each of the five Webcast providers display the same available content. In future releases, different content will be available from different providers. Different networks will allow for different amounts of bandwidth to be dedicated to Webcasting and content will be sized accordingly.
 
·    User restrictions do not work for tuning channels.
 
·    Performance and stability is undesirable on 16MB systems.
 
·    A Windows Protected Storage dialog may pop-up when going to the Program Guide from TV Viewing. Enter your Windows password to dismiss this dialog.
 
·    When an advertisement or show title (Web link) is clicked in the program guide, the Internet Explorer window is sometimes hidden by the TV Viewer. The work-around is to use ALT-tab to switch to the IE4 window.


When you install Windows 98, the Task Scheduler defaults to "stopped" rather than started. Since Reminders and the Loaders require the Task Scheduler, you need to have the Task Scheduler running to use these features. To enable the Task Scheduler, go to Start Menu, Programs, Accessories, System Tools and select Scheduled Tasks. Go to the menu item Advanced, in the Scheduled Tasks window. Select "Start Using Task Scheduler". To easily tell if it is running, look for the schedule icon in the lower right portion of the Task Bar next to the Windows system clock.
When you install Windows 98, the Task Scheduler defaults to "stopped" rather than started. Since Reminders and the Loaders require the Task Scheduler, you need to have the Task Scheduler running to use these features. To enable the Task Scheduler, go to Start Menu, Programs, Accessories, System Tools and select Scheduled Tasks. Go to the menu item Advanced, in the Scheduled Tasks window. Select "Start Using Task Scheduler". To easily tell if it is running, look for the schedule icon in the lower right portion of the Task Bar next to the Windows system clock.
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3. Configure Windows Messaging (a.k.a. Exchange or the Inbox) for your Classic MSN account:
3. Configure Windows Messaging (a.k.a. Exchange or the Inbox) for your Classic MSN account:
 
* On the Start menu, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel;
·    On the Start menu, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel;
* Double-click the Mail (and Fax) icon;
 
* Click the Show Profiles button;
·    Double-click the Mail (and Fax) icon;
* Click the Add button to add a mail profile;
 
* Select The Microsoft Network Online Service as your information service and click Next;
·    Click the Show Profiles button;
* Type the name you want to use for the profile (e.g. "MSN") and click Next;
 
* Follow the instructions on the screen until you click Finish - using the default settings is usually a good idea unless you are comfortable playing around with directories;
·    Click the Add button to add a mail profile;
* Click Close;
 
·    Select The Microsoft Network Online Service as your information service and click Next;
 
·    Type the name you want to use for the profile (e.g. "MSN") and click Next;
 
·    Follow the instructions on the screen until you click Finish - using the default settings is usually a good idea unless you are comfortable playing around with directories;
 
·    Click Close;


4. Once in a while, download any Classic MSN Mail you might have by launching Windows Messaging (the Inbox icon) and selecting "Tools", "Deliver Now (Ctrl+M)";
4. Once in a while, download any Classic MSN Mail you might have by launching Windows Messaging (the Inbox icon) and selecting "Tools", "Deliver Now (Ctrl+M)";


5. After you've downloaded your messages, launch Outlook Express:
5. After you've downloaded your messages, launch Outlook Express:
 
* Click on the Start Menu, select Internet Explorer, and click on Outlook Express (you can also do that by clicking on the MSN Quick View Menu and then clicking on the line that containing the Mail Notification information);
·    Click on the Start Menu, select Internet Explorer, and click on Outlook Express (you can also do that by clicking on the MSN Quick View Menu and then clicking on the line that containing the Mail Notification information);


6. Click on File, select Import and click on Messages;
6. Click on File, select Import and click on Messages;
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==== Known Internet Explorer 4.0 incompatibilities with MSN 2.5 ====
==== Known Internet Explorer 4.0 incompatibilities with MSN 2.5 ====
As both IE 4.0 and MSN 2.5 beta 2 are in Beta testing there is some interaction problems between the two products. Specifically,
As both IE 4.0 and MSN 2.5 beta 2 are in Beta testing there is some interaction problems between the two products. Specifically,
 
* '''Multiple Log-in screens once you’ve connected'''– You may see multiple login screens once you’ve connected to MSN; approximately one per page frame. If you click the “Connect” button every time you see this screen, you will eventually see the page you’re going to.  
·    '''Multiple Log-in screens once you’ve connected'''– You may see multiple login screens once you’ve connected to MSN; approximately one per page frame. If you click the “Connect” button every time you see this screen, you will eventually see the page you’re going to.  
* '''VB Script Errors''' --You may see VB script Error messages particularly in the Find and Member Services areas of MSN. Our content is in the process of being upgraded to Internet Explorer 4.0 standards.
 
* '''General Protection Fault (GPF) Errors—'''You may encounter a GPF on the Find site. If you close the Program Viewer while in the middle of a navigation to another Web site, this can cause a General Protection Fault error in the Program Viewer.
·    '''VB Script Errors''' --You may see VB script Error messages particularly in the Find and Member Services areas of MSN. Our content is in the process of being upgraded to Internet Explorer 4.0 standards.
 
·    '''General Protection Fault (GPF) Errors—'''You may encounter a GPF on the Find site. If you close the Program Viewer while in the middle of a navigation to another Web site, this can cause a General Protection Fault error in the Program Viewer.


'''Display differences between Internet Explorer 3.0 and Internet Explorer 4.0'''- you may also notice that some of the pages you view on MSN will look or behave differently with IE 4.0.
'''Display differences between Internet Explorer 3.0 and Internet Explorer 4.0'''- you may also notice that some of the pages you view on MSN will look or behave differently with IE 4.0.
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==== DirectX ====
==== DirectX ====
This release of Windows 98 contains a release candidate version of DirectX 5, including drivers and new API support. For this release, DirectX 5 features:
This release of Windows 98 contains a release candidate version of DirectX 5, including drivers and new API support. For this release, DirectX 5 features:
 
* AGP Support
·    AGP Support
* MMX support in both Direct3D and DirectDraw
 
* Support for DirectX applications on multiple monitors
·    MMX support in both Direct3D and DirectDraw
* Support for force feedback and USB input devices
 
* 3D audio hardware support
·    Support for DirectX applications on multiple monitors
 
·    Support for force feedback and USB input devices
 
·    3D audio hardware support


Enhanced performance and robustness
Enhanced performance and robustness
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===== Known Issues =====
===== Known Issues =====
Users running DirectDraw applications on secondary displays on multiple monitor systems may experience the following problems:
Users running DirectDraw applications on secondary displays on multiple monitor systems may experience the following problems:
 
* Secondary monitors may not repaint properly when exiting DirectX applications.
·    Secondary monitors may not repaint properly when exiting DirectX applications.
* If the primary and secondary monitors are running at different bit depths, DirectX applications running on secondary displays may display with an incorrect palette.
 
·    If the primary and secondary monitors are running at different bit depths, DirectX applications running on secondary displays may display with an incorrect palette.


A fullscreen application on one monitor will be minimized when focus is given to another application on a different monitor.  
A fullscreen application on one monitor will be minimized when focus is given to another application on a different monitor.  


'''Sound Card Issues'''
'''Sound Card Issues'''
 
* '''MIDI playback not working-''' Some models of CreativeTechnologies sound cards may experience problems playing MIDI files after upgrading to Windows 98. If the Device Manager shows the sound card as having an I/O resource conflict, try unchecking the Use Automatic Settings box. If this was the problem, please file a detailed bug report listing your installed hardware and model of sound card.
·    '''MIDI playback not working-''' Some models of CreativeTechnologies sound cards may experience problems playing MIDI files after upgrading to Windows 98. If the Device Manager shows the sound card as having an I/O resource conflict, try unchecking the Use Automatic Settings box. If this was the problem, please file a detailed bug report listing your installed hardware and model of sound card.


'''Sound card removed by Setup -''' If your sound card was working prior to installing Windows 98 and is not listed in the Device Manager after Memphis setup completes, try running the Add New Hardware applet from the Control Panel to let detection search for the card. If you are sure the Device Manager listed your card prior to running Setup make sure to file a bug report including the type of sound card your Detlog.txt, System.1st and System.dat files.
'''Sound card removed by Setup -''' If your sound card was working prior to installing Windows 98 and is not listed in the Device Manager after Memphis setup completes, try running the Add New Hardware applet from the Control Panel to let detection search for the card. If you are sure the Device Manager listed your card prior to running Setup make sure to file a bug report including the type of sound card your Detlog.txt, System.1st and System.dat files.
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=== Running ScanDisk after bad shutdown ===
=== Running ScanDisk after bad shutdown ===
If you don’t shut your system down cleanly, or if your disk suffers a hard error, ScanDisk will be run automatically when your system restarts. By default, a message will be displayed before ScanDisk is started. You can override this behavior by setting the AutoScan variable in the [options] section of your MSDOS.SYS file:  
If you don’t shut your system down cleanly, or if your disk suffers a hard error, ScanDisk will be run automatically when your system restarts. By default, a message will be displayed before ScanDisk is started. You can override this behavior by setting the AutoScan variable in the [options] section of your MSDOS.SYS file:  
 
* AutoScan=0 will disable this feature entirely.
·  AutoScan=0 will disable this feature entirely.
* AutoScan=1 is the default; the system will stop and prompt you before running ScanDisk. After one minute, ScanDisk will run automatically.
 
* AutoScan=2 will launch ScanDisk (if required) automatically, without stopping and prompting first.
·  AutoScan=1 is the default; the system will stop and prompt you before running ScanDisk. After one minute, ScanDisk will run automatically.
 
·  AutoScan=2 will launch ScanDisk (if required) automatically, without stopping and prompting first.


The TweakUI utility provides a way to change these settings automatically.
The TweakUI utility provides a way to change these settings automatically.
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== AVI DLLs ==
== AVI DLLs ==
Beta sites have reported that attempts to animate scenes created with the following applications result in a system lock up.  
Beta sites have reported that attempts to animate scenes created with the following applications result in a system lock up.  
 
* Asymetrix 3D FX
Asymetrix 3D FX
* Micrografx Webtricity
 
* Micrografx Simply 3D (standalone or from Micrografx Graphics Suite)
Micrografx Webtricity
* Caligari TrueSpace 3
 
* JASC VideoTrope
Micrografx Simply 3D (standalone or from Micrografx Graphics Suite)
* Autodesk Animator Studio
 
Caligari TrueSpace 3
 
JASC VideoTrope
 
Autodesk Animator Studio


As a temporary work around, copy the following files from your Win95 system folder to the system folder in Windows 98: avifile.dll and avifil32.dll.
As a temporary work around, copy the following files from your Win95 system folder to the system folder in Windows 98: avifile.dll and avifil32.dll.
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== DOS based applications & PnP Sound Cards ==
== DOS based applications & PnP Sound Cards ==
Use of DOS based applications in combination with PnP sound cards may result in application malfunction. To correct this problem, the user will need to rerun the sound setup utility in order for the sound to properly work. Applications known to exhibit this type of problem include:
Use of DOS based applications in combination with PnP sound cards may result in application malfunction. To correct this problem, the user will need to rerun the sound setup utility in order for the sound to properly work. Applications known to exhibit this type of problem include:
 
* Aces of the Deep ver 1.0  
Aces of the Deep ver 1.0  
* Spell-It  
 
Spell-It  


== Multi Monitor ==
== Multi Monitor ==
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== SHARE.EXE ==
== SHARE.EXE ==
Windows 98 no longer supports real-mode MD-DOS Share. However, some applications check for the existence of a file named share.exe. To work around this issue, create a dummy file named share.exe in the \windows\command directory. The following applications require this work around:
Windows 98 no longer supports real-mode MD-DOS Share. However, some applications check for the existence of a file named share.exe. To work around this issue, create a dummy file named share.exe in the \windows\command directory. The following applications require this work around:
 
* Do It Yourself Lawyer by Expert Software  
Do It Yourself Lawyer by Expert Software  
* Resume Write by Expert Software  
 
* Great Gourmet by Expert Software  
Resume Write by Expert Software  
* Quattro Pro 6.0  
 
* MS Works 3.0  
Great Gourmet by Expert Software  
 
Quattro Pro 6.0  
 
MS Works 3.0  


== WINSOCK ==
== WINSOCK ==
The following applications will not run after uninstalling Windows 98:
The following applications will not run after uninstalling Windows 98:
 
* Internet Explorer 3.0
Internet Explorer 3.0
* Eudora
 
* Netscape  
Eudora
* CoolTalk
 
Netscape  
 
CoolTalk


To re-enable functionality, reinstall the application. This is a winsock.dll issue and will be fixed in a future version of the operating system.  
To re-enable functionality, reinstall the application. This is a winsock.dll issue and will be fixed in a future version of the operating system.  

Latest revision as of 12:40, 15 July 2020

Microsoft® Windows® 98

Beta 2
Release Notes

July 31, 1997

This guide contains, technical application notes and known issues for the new features included in this release. Please read this guide carefully. This guide is not a complete documentation for all product features. This guide will not be available in the final product, but the material will be merged into the standard printed documentation and help files. The purpose of this guide is to enable you to focus on beta testing the new and updated components.

This document is provided as part of a pre-release product, is subject to change without notice, and may be changed substantially prior to commercial release.

THIS DOCUMENTATION PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, MICROSOFT FURTHER DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. THE ENTIRE RISK ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THIS DOCUMENTATION REMAINS WITH RECIPIENT.

This is a preliminary document provided as part of a pre-release product and may be changed substantially prior to final commercial release. This document is provided for informational purposes only and Microsoft Corporation makes no warranties, either express or implied, in this document. The entire risk of the use or the results of the use of this document remains with the user. Companies, names, and data used in examples herein are fictitious unless otherwise noted. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose, without the express written permission of Microsoft Corporation. If however, your only means of access is electronic, permission to print one copy is hereby granted.

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This is a legal agreement between you (either an individual or an entity) and Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft"). By installing this software, you indicate your acceptance of this Microsoft Corporation License Agreement. If this software was not provided to you directly by Microsoft or you do not agree to the terms of this License Agreement, Microsoft Corporation is unwilling to license this software to you and you may not use or copy the software.

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(for Microsoft Pre-Release Product Windows 98)

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Contents

General Information............................................................................................................... 1

Before You Start............................................................................................................... 1

Read this Guide................................................................................................................... 2

Windows 98 Overview...................................................................................................... 3

Product Overview.................................................................................................. 3

Key Windows 98 Features and Benefits..................................................... 4

What’s New in Windows 98.................................................................................................. 7

What’s New in Beta 2........................................................................................................ 9

Feature Notes.......................................................................................................................... 13

Hardware Support.......................................................................................................... 13

FAT32............................................................................................................................... 13

Multiple Display Support................................................................................ 14

Win32 Driver Model (WDM)............................................................................... 17

PCMCIA........................................................................................................................... 22

Power Management and OnNow................................................................... 23

Device Drivers......................................................................................................... 29

Network Card Drivers....................................................................................... 30

Disk Drives.................................................................................................................. 31

IrDA Device Drivers and Utilities............................................................... 33

Smart Card Support............................................................................................. 35

Under the Hood..................................................................................................... 36

Internet............................................................................................................................... 37

About Internet Explorer 4.0 Zones Security...................................... 37

Internet Explorer 4.0 Known Issues......................................................... 39

Task Scheduler Known Issues....................................................................... 42

Microsoft Virtual Machine for Java...................................................... 42

Microsoft Outlook Express.......................................................................... 42

Web-Based Enterprise Management support...................................... 45

NetMeeting................................................................................................................ 45

Internet Connection Wizard......................................................................... 46

Shell, User and GDI........................................................................................................ 46

My Documents Folder Enhancements.................................................... 46

Icons! Features....................................................................................................... 47

Accessibility............................................................................................................. 47

Animation.................................................................................................................... 48

Image Color Matching 2.0 API........................................................................ 48

Display Control Panel Improvements.................................................... 48

Support Tools................................................................................................................... 50

Windows 98 HelpDesk.......................................................................................... 50

Windows Update Manager............................................................................... 50

Web-based Bug Submission............................................................................... 50

Dr. Watson.................................................................................................................. 51

Registry Scan and Backup............................................................................... 51

Microsoft System Information Utility 4.1............................................ 52

System File Checker............................................................................................ 53

System Troubleshooter.................................................................................... 53

Automatic Skip Driver Agent........................................................................ 56

Communications and Networking............................................................................ 56

3rd Party Networking Release Notes...................................................... 58

Applets and Utilities...................................................................................................... 61

MS Paint........................................................................................................................ 61

Backup.......................................................................................................................... 61

Compression Agent.............................................................................................. 62

Disk Defragmenter Optimization Wizard............................................. 62

Task Scheduler....................................................................................................... 63

Calc................................................................................................................................. 64

WordPad...................................................................................................................... 65

MSD................................................................................................................................... 65

HyperTerminal......................................................................................................... 65

Windows Scripting................................................................................................ 65

Imaging by Eastman Kodak.............................................................................. 66

Microsoft Fax Installation for Windows 98...................................... 66

Broadcast Architecture Components................................................... 69

TV Viewer Application........................................................................................ 69

Webcast Receiver Application..................................................................... 72

Hardware Support for the Broadcast Architecture................. 73

The Microsoft Network (MSN)....................................................................... 76

Online Services................................................................................................................ 78

America Online (AOL)........................................................................................... 78

AT&T WorldNet Service..................................................................................... 78

MSN................................................................................................................................... 78

Prodigy......................................................................................................................... 79

General & Miscellaneous........................................................................................... 79

Version.......................................................................................................................... 79

Invoking Startup Menu with F8 Key.......................................................... 81

TweakUI........................................................................................................................ 81

OLE/DCOM..................................................................................................................... 81

Microsoft Family Logon.................................................................................. 81

Multimedia................................................................................................................. 82

Windows Management Infrastructure.................................................. 83

Running ScanDisk after bad shutdown................................................. 83

Updated Time Zone, Daylight Savings Time and International Dialing Codes settings 84

Service Packs........................................................................................................... 84

Platform SDK........................................................................................................... 84

General Application Issues................................................................................................. 84

AVI DLLs............................................................................................................................. 84

Disk Utilities..................................................................................................................... 85

DOS based applications & PnP Sound Cards......................................................... 85

Multi Monitor.................................................................................................................. 85

Network Games from 3D Realms............................................................................... 85

SETVER................................................................................................................................ 85

SHARE.EXE........................................................................................................................ 85

WINSOCK............................................................................................................................ 86

Application Specific Issues.................................................................................................. 86

Adobe Premiere 4.2................................................................................................ 86

Adobe Type Manager (ATM)............................................................................... 86

Agent 95........................................................................................................................ 86

Ascend 97 Franklin Day Planner................................................................. 87

Chessmaster 4000.................................................................................................... 87

Cheyenne Backup 2.0............................................................................................ 87

Doom 95......................................................................................................................... 87

Longbow AH-64D...................................................................................................... 87

Macromedia Director 4.04............................................................................... 87

MagnaRAM 97.............................................................................................................. 87

MechWarrior 2 DOS 1.1........................................................................................ 88

Microsoft Office Standard for Windows 95 version 7.0............ 88

MS Office 4.0.............................................................................................................. 88

MSVC++ 4.2................................................................................................................... 88

Netroom 3.04.............................................................................................................. 88

Norton Utilities/Anti-Virus/Navigator for Windows 95.............. 88

PCAnywhere 7.0........................................................................................................ 89

PC-cillin version 2.0 by Trend Micro, Inc.............................................. 89

PhotoShop 4.0........................................................................................................... 89

Reachout 95 version 7......................................................................................... 89

Savage: The Ultimate Quest for Survival........................................... 89

Where In The USA Is Carmen Sandiego...................................................... 90

Winshield Version 1.0.1....................................................................................... 90

Zip-It 95.......................................................................................................................... 90

ZipFolders.................................................................................................................. 90


General Information

Welcome to Windows 98, the next major release of Windows. This is the second Beta release. We believe that this beta test release contains most of the features and functionality that will be included in the final product. We also believe that this beta version is a robust and stable beta, suitable for widespread use and testing.

This document describes the new and updated features, and documents a few key known issues. We believe that this is a solid release and a good platform for testing hardware and application compatibility. YOUR participation and YOUR timely feedback are critical to the success of this product. Please install this product on as many different hardware configurations as possible, and any problems that you may encounter as soon as possible. We prefer that you report bugs using the web-based bug report tools available from your Help menu. If you are unable to use the web-based bug tools, you may use MSReport. Please see the Beta Guide for information on the specific bug reporting procedures.

Before You Start

First, a word of caution. Although we have put much effort into the verification of this software, it is pre-release software that will be used by every application that you run. Microsoft strongly suggests that you back up any important existing data and programs before you install or run any of this software. Also, be sure to make a new Startup disk when running Setup. Startup disks created with Windows 95 are not compatible with some features of Windows 98.

NOTE: Setup requires approximately 120 MB hard disk space to complete. Of this, about 45 MB is temporary space used during setup.

Caution: Sites using this software may encounter minor problems, and in rare cases, it is possible that some sites may encounter loss or destruction of data. Microsoft is not responsible for any problems resulting from the use of this beta software, as detailed in the License agreement at the beginning of this document.

For more detailed setup information including installation, please refer to the Beta Guide document that was shipped with your kit. An electronic version of this document is also available on the CD itself in the \betadocs directory. If you do not have access to Word 97, you can install the Word 97 Viewer located in the \other directory on the CD.

Read this Guide

Please read the Beta Guide and Release Notes before installing Windows 98. These documents contain important beta and product information that you may need.

Beta Guide

General Information

Installing the Software

Technical Support – Internet Newsgroups, Web site

Administrative Issues – change of address, etc.

Reporting Bugs

General Q&A

Release Notes

General Information

What’s New in Windows 98 – Highlights

Application Notes – Feature Descriptions and Known Issues

Release Notes – Known Third-Party Application Issues


Windows 98 Overview

The Microsoft ® Windows® 98 operating system makes computing easier, more reliable, faster, and is fully integrated with the Internet. Building on Windows 95 innovation as the easiest path to a 32-bit desktop, Windows 98 defines cutting-edge capabilities - such as enabling powerful new hardware technologies and entertainment platforms - while at the same time maintaining the best support for older Windows-based applications and technologies. For corporations, Windows 98 provides new manageability features that help reduce total cost of ownership (TCO). Windows 98 will also be the fastest platform for running the new Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0.

Product Overview

Windows 98 - previously code-named "Memphis" - builds on the innovations of Windows 95. In addition to countless refinements and improvements, including many user-requested features, all users will benefit from interface enhancements that make Windows 98-based PCs easier to use. New wizards, utilities, and resources proactively keep systems running more smoothly. Performance is faster for many common tasks such as application loading, system startup, and shut down. Finally, full integration with the Web makes Windows 98-based systems easier to use, more powerful, and more entertaining.

Windows 98 provides compelling new features for every type of computer user:

  • Home System Upgrades. Home users who are upgrading existing systems will especially appreciate the increased reliability and Web integration enabled by Windows 98. For example, user interface enhancements make navigation easier, such as single-click opening, icon highlighting, forward/backward buttons, and an easy to customize Start Menu. New wizards and utilities, such as System File Checker, keep PCs running faster and more smoothly. Windows 98 makes computers more entertaining and easier to use by putting Web resources directly on the desktop. Integration with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 provides a new e-mail client and desktop information manager, Outlook™ Express, and supports Internet conferencing capabilities with Microsoft NetMeeting™ software.
  • Corporate System Upgrades. Corporations will especially appreciate increased manageability of Windows 98-based systems. For example, Windows 98 supports the policy-based, central management guidelines and features outlined in Microsoft's Zero Administration Initiative for Windows. New utilities such as Dr. Watson and System Information Utility makes it easier for product support staff to diagnose and correct problems. Windows 98 provides an easy Upgrade Wizard from Windows 95 and Windows 3.x-based systems.
  • New Hardware Purchasers. Support for the newest generation of hardware - including cutting-edge media platforms - makes new Windows 98-based systems significantly easier to use, more entertaining, and more like everyday "appliances." For example, OnNow instantly starts a new PC, making it more like turning on a stereo or TV. Support for the Universal Serial Bus and IEEE 1394 enables the next generation of Plug and Play hardware. Windows 98 redefines the PC's role as an entertainment center by combining previously separate components, such as television, DVD and the Internet, and integrating them with the powerful processing and communications capabilities of the PC. This integration, such as combining television and HTML, results in an experience that is more rich and more convenient. For example, you can review and search for your favorite TV programs with the built-in Program Guide, then instantly view any show on your PC, or set reminders to watch shows at a later time. Producers can also deliver Enhanced Television programming, which will add sports statistics or cooking recipes alongside traditional television shows.

Key Windows 98 Features and Benefits

New Windows 98 features and benefits fall into six key areas.

Easier to Use

  • User interface enhancements make navigation easier, such as single-click launching, icon highlighting, forward/backward buttons, and an easy to customize Start Menu.
  • Support for hardware innovations such as Universal Serial Bus (USB) enable more powerful device detection and the next generation of Plug and Play hardware.
  • On-line Help provides comprehensive, continually updated support information for Microsoft products.
  • Multi-monitor Support for up to eight monitors that can run at different resolutions gives users more "real estate" for running applications, including more exciting game play.
  • Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) supports easier device management on new PCs and enhanced battery performance on new mobile PCs.

More Reliable

  • Countless refinements and improvements keep systems running smoothly.
  • Windows Update, a new Web-based resource site, allows registered users of Windows 98 to keep their PCs up-to-date by continually providing the latest drivers and operating system files on an on-going basis.
  • Windows 98 can regularly test your hard disk, system files, and configuration information to increase the system reliability, and in many cases automatically fix problems.
  • Enhanced backup and restore functionality supports more tape drives and the latest hardware.
  • Date-dependent components within Windows 98 are Year 2000 ready.

Faster

  • Application loading, system startup, and shut down time are faster, based on early performance testing with beta software.
  • OnNow technology provides "instant on" capability, rather than requiring users to boot up every time.
  • The Windows 98 Tune-Up Wizard helps get faster system performance.
  • Enhanced FAT32 File System stores files more efficiently and frees up hard drive space.

Web Integration

  • Windows 98 will be the fastest platform to run the new Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0.
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 includes the Outlook Express, a new e-mail client and collaboration tool; NetMeeting for Internet conferencing and whiteboarding; NetShow(tm) networked multimedia software for on-demand audio and video capabilities; FrontPad personal Web-page editing tool; and Personal Web Server which makes any Windows 98-based system into a personal Web server.
  • The Active Desktop(tm) Interface puts Internet and intranet pages directly on a user's desktop.
  • With Channels, users can subscribe to Web sites, including many leading content providers like Disney and Time-Warner.
  • An enhanced Windows 98 Explorer integrates local, intranet, and Internet resources into a single, logical view. For example, URLs can now be accessed directly from the Windows 98 Explorer.
  • New Internet access is easy with a new Internet Connection Wizard that "talks" to your Internet provider for the correct configuration information.
  • Enhancements to Dial-Up Networking include the ability to link and synchronize multiple modems and an ISDN Connection Wizard makes it easier to configure hardware.
  • Support for video and broadcast provides super-fast bandwidth for accessing the Internet.

More Entertaining

  • Support for DVD and digital audio delivers high-quality digital movies and audio direct to your TV or PC monitor.
  • Support for IEEE 1394 bus provides an industry-standard interface to control VCRs, stereos, and other consumer electronic devices from a Windows 98-based PC.
  • DirectX APIs provides graphics and video performance that exceeds console game systems, and support for forced-feedback joysticks to enhance the gaming experience.
  • Watch TV on your PC and review and search for your favorite TV programs with the built in Program Guide.
  • Support for Enhanced Television, which combines television and HTML content, delivers new entertainment possibilities.

More Manageable for Corporations

  • Support for the Zero Administration Initiative for Windows helps reduce total cost of ownership.
  • Dr. Watson and System Information Utility makes it easier for product support staff to diagnose and correct problems.
  • Upgrade Wizard provides smooth migration paths from Windows 95 and Windows 3.x-based systems.

Windows Update

Windows Update is a new Web-based resource site that allows registered users of Windows 98 to get more out of their PC. Designed to help users improve their computing experience, Windows Update keeps users systems up-to-date by providing access to the latest drivers and operating system files on an on-going basis. Windows Update also makes computing easier and more enjoyable by providing product assistance that is constantly updated, while allowing users to easily find the answers they need.

What’s New in Windows 98

The features highlighted below are features that are new or significantly improved in Windows 98.

New Setup – The first thing you will see is that setup has been redesigned and streamlined to improve the experience for existing Windows 95 users upgrading to Windows 98. Full hardware detection during the initial setup is no longer necessary. Windows 98 setup also uses the information on applets and utilities that you have installed already, and updates just those.

Multiple Display Support – Possibly one of the neatest new features, if you have a PCI machine and have two PCI display adapters and monitors. Multiple display support enables reading of e-mail and clicking on an HTTP link with the browser popping up on the adjacent monitor. It also enables a game to have left, right and center displays, or a separate instrumentation console. Not to mention the old standby dual-monitor uses – desktop publishing and presentations/notes, or just to get an expanded desktop.

Win32 Driver Model (WDM) – The all-new, unified driver model for Windows 95 and Windows NT. All your existing “legacy” drivers will continue to work just fine. WDM enables new classes of devices and busses to have a single driver for both operating systems. Examples are USB, HID, IEEE 1394, Digital Audio, DVD players, still image and video capture. See below for more information on these device classes in Windows 98.

ACPI Power Management – ACPI is a new power control specification that supports new hardware interfaces in future PCs. Many OEMs are developing their ACPI machines. We expect that the industry will be able to deliver ACPI-enabled PCs when Windows 98 ships.

FAT32 in-place converter – Converts existing FAT16 partitions to FAT32, allowing increased performance and disk space utilization..

Web-based support tools – A new Internet driver and component update utility will help reduce cost of ownership by providing a simple, controllable update engine. A new web-based bug reporting tool will be used both for beta bugs and, when we’ve shipped, for reporting problems to product support groups along with appropriate configuration information.

Scripting – Windows 98 includes Windows Scripting Host, a shell that you can use to take advantage of ActiveX scripting (VBS and JS) directly from the shell or the command line, without embedding in HTML.

OLE DCOM- Distributed component object model extensions for existing OLE interfaces.

Dr. Watson 32 – New and improved, when your application generates a GPF, the “details” button now provides a whole host of advanced technical information. This should help technical support desks get their users up and running faster, and help application developers find and fix bugs easier.

Icons Tab – We’ve built-in the Full Window Drag, Font Smoothing, and other user interface enhancements formerly available as part of the Plus! package, and added the Icons tab to the standard display control panel.

Backup – All-new Backup applet, supports SCSI Tape and a host of other new backup devices.

Windows Sockets 2 – Windows Sockets 2 (WinSock 2) utilizes the sockets paradigm that was first popularized by Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) UNIX. It was later adapted for Microsoft Windows in the Windows Sockets. Windows Sockets 2 has changed its architecture to provide easier access to multiple transport protocols. Following the Windows Open System Architecture (WOSA) model, Windows Sockets 2 now defines a standard service provider interface (SPI) between the application programming interface (API), with its functions exported from WS2_32.DLL, and the protocol stacks. Consequently, Windows Sockets 2 support is not limited to TCP/IP protocol stacks as is the case for Windows Sockets 1.1

Performance – We have done a number of things to improve performance, and will continue improvements in this area. We have improved system boot time, application load time, system shutdown time, and general system-wide performance. We are introducing the Windows Tune Up Wizard in this beta release which automatically schedules tune up jobs to maintain your computer on regular basis.

Multimedia - DirectShow 2.0 and DirectX 5 - These multimedia enhancements provide improved gaming and multimedia infrastructure.

Drivers – We have greatly enhanced the networking, display, printing, monitor and modem device driver support among others. Please check for your favorite device, and let us know if it’s not supported. Hardware vendors, if you haven’t been in touch with WHQL or other program management and you are interested in adding support for your new devices in Windows 98, please contact WHQL for more information. You can find more information on WHQL contacts and logo information at http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev. For more information on WDM, busses and classes in Windows 98 please visit http://www.microsoft.com/hwtest.

Broadcast Architecture & TV Viewer  - Windows 98 includes software that broadcast-enables your computer. A broadcast-enabled computer is a versatile next-generation computer that blends television with exciting new forms of information and entertainment. It blurs the line between television, web pages, and computer content. It also enables the reception of broadcast web pages and other live data feeds, such as stock quotes, news feeds and even streaming audio and video.

In addition to viewing television programming from cable, over-the-air, and satellite networks, broadcast reception hardware can also be used as "receive only" network devices. You'll receive true data broadcasts of web pages, multimedia streams, and data packets from television stations and networks that provide this information.

For more information visit http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/pcfuture/bcast1.htm For more information on broadcasts of internet-standard information over regular television signals visit http://info.internet.isi.edu/in-drafts/files/draft-panabaker-ip-vbi-00.txt.

How to Win a MS Flight Jacket

The WinAlign program explained below which will run automatically in later betas, allows a Memphis performance feature to be better used. There are currently only 2 known problems with the tool (listed below), and we want to make sure there are not more when we integrate the tool with setup.

Steps to take:

  1. After you have installed Beta 2, run WinAlign. (Steps are listed below) There will be a version in your Windows directory, and there is an updated version in the \betaonly directory of your CD. File a bug to Microsoft indicating success of running this tool.
  2. If you hit any bug, run the WinAlign Undo function (winalign –r) on your system and try to reproduce the bug. Please use the version of WinAlign that is in the \betaonly version of your disc for this undo function.
  3. When filing a bug to Microsoft, please note all details of having used WinAlign on your system. Please report the full details on the bug you hit; as well as if you could hit the bug again after running “winalign –r”.

Every person that files a bug for a successful run of WinAlign will be put in the running for a random draw for a MS Flight Jacket, to be awarded when Beta 3 is ready.

Every person that files a bug that appears when WinAlign is run, but disappears after running the restore option of WinAlign, will be put in a second pool for a MS jacket.

What’s New in Beta 2

Memory Manger Improvements.

We have implemented some significant improvements in the memory management algorithms used in Windows 98 for Beta 2. This should have the effect of increasing performance, reducing memory usage and swapfile size, and improving application start times on memory-constrained machines.

Preliminary tests have shown that on a 16MB machine, with Microsoft Excel97 and Microsoft Outlook97 both loaded, the swapfile use will be ~1.4MB smaller. This can result in a better system response as you run multiple applications.

A portion of the memory manager improvements are built-in to the system. However, in order to take full advantage of the memory manager improvements for Beta 2, you need to run an additional utility called “winalign”. You should exercise caution, however, as this utility may cause some applications to not function correctly. There is an undo (rollback) feature for winalign if you do think you are experiencing problems due to it. Please see “Under the Hood – Memory Manager Improvements” section below for details and known problems with this new feature.

DirectAnimation

It is the latest API in the DirectX media family. It provides an animation runtime that allows for the integration of different media types (2D, 3D, vector graphics, sound, streamed media, and text) along a timeline and with user input.
In addition to being accessible directly on Web pages via scripting, using JScript and VBScript, and for standalone content through other languages such as VisualBasic, Java, and C++, DirectAnimation provides a set of windowless multimedia controls that make the functionality easily accessible to page designers and Web masters. DirectAnimation content can take advantage and interact with Dynamic HTML page elements, enabled by Internet Explorer 4.0.

DirectAnimation is built on the DirectX foundation APIs, DirectDraw, DirectSound, Direct3D, and is fully integrated with DirectShow. The integration among the different DirectX technologies allows content to automatically exploit all the power provided by hardware accelerators, providing the best possible performance and multimedia experience.

NetShow

Microsoft NetShow is a platform for streaming multimedia over networks that range from low bandwidth dial-up Internet connections to high bandwidth switched local area networks. From simple audio to sophisticated interactive Web-based applications, companies use NetShow to offer new streaming content for applications such as training, corporate communications, entertainment, and advertising to users all over the world. The NetShow player is installed with Windows 98. For more information about NetShow and viewing live and on-demand NetShow broadcasts, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/NetShow.

FrontPage Express

Microsoft FrontPage Express is a WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) HTML editor based on the editing tools in Microsoft's award-winning, full-featured FrontPage 97 Web authoring and management tool. FrontPage Express brings you the following features:

  • Personal Home Page Wizard. This wizard takes you step by step through the process of creating your own Web page.
  • Table Creation and Editing. Insert a table into your Web page and then edit either the entire table or individual cells.
  • Forms. Add forms to your Web page that people can fill out and return. Your forms can include text boxes, check boxes, drop-down menus, images, and more. (You must be connected to a server running FrontPage server extensions to use these forms-related features.)
  • Page Templates and Wizards. If you’re connected to a server running FrontPage server extensions, you can also use form-related wizards and templates that let you do the following: create a form by simply selecting the types of information you need to collect; create a page to acknowledge that you’ve received a user’s input; and create a survey form to collect information from readers and store it in a file on your Web server.
  • Java Applet, JavaScript, Plug-In, and ActiveX Support. FrontPage Express supports top Internet technologies from throughout the software industry—including Microsoft’s own ActiveX, of course.

With FrontPage Express installed, the "Edit" button on the Internet Explorer 4.0 toolbar allows you to easily edit any page you view.

Channels

Windows 98 Beta2 provides live channel contents with Active Desktop. Beta2 includes the following channel contents:

MSNBC News

Disney

Business

Travel and Life Style

PointCast

MSN

News and Technology

Entertainment

Channel Guide

Sports

Users can get the channel contents by right click on the desktop, select Active Desktop and click on View as Web Page.

Calculator

New calculator that uses an infinite precision math package to eliminate binary integer math precision errors. Other features in this calculator include:

Factorial works for non-integers

Odd roots of negative numbers.

Tune-Up Wizard

New maintenance feature to keep your computer running smoothly. Schedule regular tune ups to optimize your system. This will allow your programs to run faster, free up space on your hard disk drive and give you optimal system performance.

Welcome.exe

New welcome screen that helps you navigate the exciting new features of Windows 98. Easy to follow links and an upbeat music score help you locate handy new tools and features of the operating system.

Icons Display Tab

We’ve incorporated the basic display enhancements included on the “Plus! Tab in the display control panel such as Full Window Drag and Font Smoothing. We’ve renamed the Plus! Tab to “Icons” to better describe the features it provides.

Scandisk automatically fixes errors on boot

If the system is not shut down normally, scandisk now automatically fixes errors on boot instead of notifying users and requiring keystrokes. This means the system will reboot in case of power failures, etc. without user intervention. In the event you need to run advanced data recovery utilities, the data is still on the hard disk if necessary. See the details in the Scandisk on boot section about this implementation and how to change and customize this behavior.

Task Scheduler

Task Scheduler provides a friendly user interface for scheduling applications that is the same one on both Windows 95 and Windows NT, with the exception of added security features in Windows NT. The user interface is fully integrated into the operating system, and is accessible from the My Computer icon on your desktop. Users can drag-and-drop programs right into Task Scheduler to quickly add a new task or use the provided “Add Scheduled Task” wizard. You can schedule any script, program, or document to be invoked at any time or any interval, every day to once a year, and on events like system boot, user logon, or system idle. This new service replaces the System Agent that was included in the Windows Plus! Pack and also offers a COM programing interface for developers.

Windows 98, Memphis and Windows 95 Strings

We are in the process of converting our code strings and bitmaps from “Memphis” to “Windows 98”. Please do not submit any bugs on “Memphis” strings in any dialog boxes, title bars, setup, help/readme files, or other places in the product at this time. Please wait until Beta 3 to bug any stray “Memphis” strings that you find.

If you find “Windows 95” strings, please go ahead and file a bug. However, we do know about the Windows 95 string on the printer test page, and when you run “winver”, so please don’t file bugs against those issues.

Feature Notes

Hardware Support

FAT32

FAT32 is an improved version of the File Allocation Table file system that allows disks over 2GB to be formatted as a single drive, and which uses smaller clusters than on FAT16 drives, resulting in a somewhat more efficient use of space on large disks (over 1 GB).

FAT32 drives have a different on-disk format than FAT12 or FAT16 drives. To date, all known disk utilities have already been revised to work on FAT32 volumes, including all the major vendors. You may need to update your disk utilities if you have an older version. The disk utilities included with Windows have already been revised to include FAT32 support, in particular: FDISK, Format, ScanDisk, Defrag and DriveSpace (however, DriveSpace3 does not support compressing FAT32 drives).

For more detailed information on Fat32 please refer to theFat32 document located in the \betadocs directory on your CD.

Release notes for FAT32

Dual Boot and FAT32

You cannot use FAT32 on a machine that you need to dual-boot to another operating system, including the original release of Windows 95, Windows NT and Windows 3.1 or MS-DOS 6.x. Other operating systems are unable to access a FAT32 partition. This is simply because these older operating systems do not recognize the new data structures. You CAN dual boot to another operating system if drive C: is FAT16, but if you have other partitions that are FAT32, they will not be visible to other operating systems. Windows 98 also supports dual-booting between Windows 98 and older MS-DOS operating systems (e.g. MS-DOS 6.22) using the same “F4” dual-boot that Windows 95 supports, provided you are using FAT16. You cannot at this time, however, multi-boot between Windows 95 and Windows 98 as Windows 98 replaces Windows 95.

FAT32 and Disk Free Space

Some applications will be unable to display free or total disk space over 2GB, even on larger FAT32 drives. These applications show the correct free space up to 2GB, but at that point they will max out and only show 2GB. This is typically due to limitations in those applications that were written when free space could never exceed 2GB because of the previous FAT16 limitations. Windows 98 provides new DOS and Win32 APIs that applications can utilize to determine free or total disk space over 2GB.

FAT32 Converter

You can convert a hard drive from FAT16 to FAT32 by running the FAT32 converter in your System Tools menu. After running the FAT32 converter, Defrag will run on that drive during your next boot. Defragmenting your drive after it has been converted may take several hours. You can stop the defragmenter and run it at another time, but your system performance may not be optimal until you allow the defragmenter to complete on this drive.

InterLnk from MS-DOS 6

The InterLnk networking product contained in MS-DOS 6.x will not function properly in MS-DOS mode if you are using FAT32.

Ontrack Systems Disk Manager

If you use Ontrack Systems’ Disk Manager product on a system that is booting from a FAT32 drive, it may result in a long pause at boot time and/or the drive will be set to run in compatibility mode. With version 7.0x, you can use the /L=0 option with Disk Manager to avoid this pause. If you are running an earlier version of Disk Manager, you should update to at least version 7.04 and use the /L=0 switch if you use FAT32.

SyQuest SQATDRV.SYS and SQDRIVER.SYS Drivers

The SQATDRV.SYS driver may cause systems containing FAT32 drives to hang during boot. Remove this driver from the CONFIG.SYS file if you are using FAT32 drives on a system with this device driver. Versions of these drivers that are compatible with FAT32 boot drives will be added to the Windows Driver Library (on the Windows CD and downloadable from the Internet) shortly.

Multiple Display Support

You can use Multiple Display Support to use multiple monitors and/or multiple graphics adapters on a single PC. If you have the opportunity to install multiple PCI adapters and monitors on a single PC, you should try this feature. We think that it will greatly expand the horizons for Windows. Potential uses for Multiple Display Support are:

Desktop Publishing

Presentation Graphics (projection and presenter’s notes simultaneously)

Games – multiple views (simulator with simultaneous front, left and right views), or front view and status information on different displays.

Business – reading email, clicking on a link with the browser on the adjacent screen.

Monitor walls.

People who have been using Multiple Display Support for the past few months love it – and say that it would be hard to go back to a single display.

For more detailed information on Multiple Display support please refer to the Multiple Display Support document located in the \betadocs directory on your CD.

Changes for Multiple Display Support

The user interface has been modified to recognize a desktop that spans multiple monitors, with no restrictions on size or position. For monitors attached to the same system but showing different images simultaneously, the different displays might have differing X,Y resolution and refresh rates as well as differing display capabilities.

To support this capability, APIs have been added to the Win32 API set to allow any application to take advantage of multiple monitors. Applications do not need to be modified to work on a PC with multiple monitors, but some application developers may want to take special advantage of this feature by calling the new APIs. See the \BETAONLY\MDS folder for an overview of Multiple Display Support, and documentation of the Win32 API changes.

Enabling Multiple Display Support

Enabling this feature is fairly straightforward. The primary requirement is that both of the display adapters must be PCI devices. The setup instructions vary according to the following two scenarios:

Your computer has PCI display on the motherboard and you have a second PCI display adapter to plug in.

If your computer has a built in PCI display chipset on the motherboard, follow these steps exactly when setting up Windows 98:

1. First, run Windows 98 Setup with only the motherboard video in the computer.

2. After Setup has completed successfully, shut down and add additional display adapters.

3. Boot the computer, and restart when prompted.

4. In control panel, display, you should notice a “Monitors” tab replacing the “Settings” tab. If you do not see this tab, see the “Troubleshooting Multiple Display Support” section.

5. Select the secondary display/monitor combination, and select “Use this device as part of the desktop”.

Notice you can independently set the resolution and color depth for each display by selecting the Settings button when the desired monitor/adapter pair is selected. Other notes with regard to systems with built in motherboard display adapters are:

The built in display will usually become your secondary display (or tertiary, etc., depending on the number of graphics boards you have in the system). The system will disable the onboard video at boot time, and the add-in card will become your primary display. This is a function of the BIOS and is not under our control.

It is important you set up Windows 98 for the first time with only your onboard video in the system. If another adapter is present before you start Windows 98 for the first time, it is likely that Setup will not be able to initialize your onboard video properly.

If you follow the instructions, and your onboard video does not function correctly as the secondary display, it probably never will. It’s likely that Setup is unable to find and read the complete ROM of the adapter in order to initialize it properly. You will have to use two add-in adapters for multiple monitor support.

You have two separate plug-in PCI display adapters.

If your computer’s display adapter is an add-in card (i.e., none of the display adapters in the system are on the motherboard or built-in), you have the option of installing the additional graphics cards before setting up Windows 98. The instructions in the preceding section will also work.

Secondary graphics drivers that support Multiple Display Support

Virtually any graphics adapter can function as a primary display. Any PCI graphics adapter with a Windows 95 or later driver (with the noted exception of motherboard, or onboard video) can be a primary display. In order to function as a secondary display however, the display adapter must be a PCI device supported by Windows 98 as an additional display adapter. The following display adapter chipsets are supported as additional displays in this release:

  • ATI Mach64 GX
  • S3 764V+ (765), Trio 64V2
  • S3 ViRGE
  • S3 Aurora (S3M65)
  • Cirrus 5436,7548,5446
  • ET6000
  • ATI Rage 1 & 2 (VT & greater)

These drivers have DirectDraw support

  • ATI Mach64
  • S3 ViRGE

These drivers have Direct3D support

  • S3 ViRGE

The following cards cannot be used as a primary display adapter:

  • Permedia (Permedia NT & Permedia-2 OK)

ISA/EISA cards

Troubleshooting Multiple Display Support:

Under some circumstances you may find that you either cannot see the new “Monitors” tab in control panel, display, or you otherwise cannot use the additional display(s) as part of your desktop. Here are a few known scenarios to be aware of:

Motherboard, or onboard video

Certain problems can occur using onboard PCI video with additional displays:

PCI motherboard video is hidden from enumerator and may be identified incorrectly.

Some systems vendors hide the motherboard video from PCI when another video card is detected in the system. If plug and play can’t find the device, Setup cannot start it. If you have this particular problem, there is nothing you can do. If you look in control panel, system, device manager, and only your add-in card is present and working, this could likely be your problem.

Windows 98 cannot read the ROM from a motherboard video device. We may be able to overcome this problem for now, provided you set up Windows 98 without any other display adapters in the system. See the preceding section for Setup instructions.

The primary display is using the VGA driver, or a Windows 3.x driver

Again, virtually any PCI graphics adapter can be used as the primary display. However, if the driver used for the device is an old Windows 3.x driver, or the standard VGA driver, any secondary displays will not start. The standard VGA driver is used whenever the desktop resolution is 640x480 and the color depth is 16 colors.

Unsupported secondary display

Secondary displays must be PCI devices that meet certain criterion. One of these is the capability of running in “GUI” mode, or running without using VGA resources. They must also have a Windows 98 driver that enables them to be the secondary display. If any of these conditions is not met for any additional graphics adapters in the system, they will not work as secondary displays. See the list of supported chipsets in the section Secondary graphics drivers that support Multiple Display Support:

Application Compatibility: Please file bug reports on any applications that do not behave properly when using multiple display surfaces.

Adobe Type Manager: Adobe Type Manager (ATM) is not compatible with multiple display support. When ATM is installed, multiple display support is disabled.

Full Screen MS-DOS boxes: These will only display on the primary display (the “VGA” display.

DirectX Applications: Full screen DirectX applications will run normally. Windowed DirectX applications (such as DirectShow) will not display across two displays simultaneously at this time. This will be fixed in a future beta.

Toshiba Tecra: It is possible to specify the memory address range of the video ROM on this notebook computer. It must be set to either C000 or E000 in order to work with Multiple Display Support.

Diamond Stealth 64 Video 2001: The 1.03 or 1.06 BIOS of this card may hang a system if used as a secondary in a multi-monitor setup behind one or more PCI-PCI bridges.

Quick Time: You may notice problems running Quick Time applications with multiple display support enabled. Applications may not run correctly on a secondary display, or crash. If you have these problems, edit your QTW.INI as follows:

Change the line Optimize=driver (or whatever value) to Optimize=bmp.

Win32 Driver Model (WDM)

Note for developers: For more detailed technical information on WDM, ACPI, USB, DVD, and the other new technologies, please refer to the hardware development web site:

http:// www.microsoft.com/hwdev

WDM enables new classes of devices and busses to have a single driver for both operating systems, by adding selected Windows NT Kernel services in a new NTKern.VXD, while maintaining full legacy device driver support for existing device drivers in existing code.

USB Support

Includes support for USB hubs, Universal and Open host controller interfaces, and HID compliant USB devices (see Human Interface Devices (HID)). The new WDM Stream-class support in Windows 98 provides infrastructure for USB audio and camera devices.

Human Interface Devices (HID)

Keyboards, keypads, mice, pointing devices, and game controllers that are compliant with the USB I/F Human Interface Devices (HID) Firmware Specification Version 1.0 are automatically supported by Windows 98 when connected via the Universal Serial Bus (USB). Input data from these devices is routed to applications through the legacy input driver architecture in a totally transparent way. Multiple USB/HID keyboards can be connected and used simultaneously, but the multiple input streams are merged and passed to the single active application window in focus. Similarly, multiple USB/HID mice and pointing devices can be connected and used simultaneously, but the input streams are merged to control the movement of the single pointer on the screen. USB/HID game controllers, however, are treated as distinct devices just as can be expected so that applications can distinguish which input data comes from which device, or user, and react appropriately.

Windows 98 does not automatically support devices that implement HID functionality that goes beyond the capabilities of the input device types listed above. For example, HID-compliant virtual reality devices, simulation devices, monitor control devices, power devices, etc, while recognized as HID-compliant devices by the OS, are not automatically supported since these device types require additional, device-specific software (e.g. drivers, special applications or control panel applets, etc.) to be installed on the system. The device-specific software needs to be developed and supplied by device vendors or EOM’s. Software developers should consult the WDM DDK for details about how to develop custom drivers and applications for HID-compliant devices.

This release of Windows 98 includes an interim release of DirectInput 5.0, which in turn includes a new Control Panel applet for Game Controllers which replaces the Windows 95 Joystick Control Panel applet. While the new Game Controllers applet should work fine with USB/HID game controllers, it is not yet Plug and Play aware, etc. Also, the “Add Other…” button in the Add Game Controller dialog is not functioning properly. Instead, launch the Add New Hardware applet directly instead from the Control Panel. These issues will be addressed in upcoming releases of Windows 98.

To get USB/HID game controllers to work on a machine that’s NOT equipped with a legacy game port or sound card, the following steps must be followed – after you have installed this release of Windows 98 - to ensure that all required files get installed properly:

1. open the Control Panel (Start/Settings/Control Panel),

2. double-click on the Add New Hardware icon to launch the Add New Hardware Wizard, then click on the “Next” button,

3. Windows 98 will first search for new plug and play devices on you system, click “Next”,

4. select “No” to “Do you want Windows to search for your new hardware?” and click “Next”,

5. select “Sound, video, and game controllers” as the hardware type, and click “Next”,

6. select “Microsoft” as the manufacturer, and then select “Non-Gameport Joystick” as the model, click “ Next”, and then click “Finish” to complete the installation of the Microsoft Non-Gameport Joystick.

This release of Windows 98 supports devices that are compliant with the final HID 1.0 Specification (Version 1.0 Draft #4), as well as earlier 1.0 drafts (#2 and #3) for backwards compatibility reasons. The final HID 1.0 core specification as well as the new supplemental HID Usages Table specification v0.9 is available on the USB Implementers’ Forum Web site at http://www.usb.org.

IEEE 1394

Support for the IEEE 1394 bus includes the 1394-bus class driver and mini-drivers for both the Texas Instruments PCI-LYNX, and the Adaptec 8940 200Mbps host controllers. A Stream-class driver for the Sony desktop camera (CCM-DS250) is also provided.

The following contact information is provided for those interested in testing Windows 98 1394 support:

Adaptec contact information:

1394@corp.adaptec.com, http://www.adaptec.com, (800) 442-7274

Texas Instruments contact information:

MikeField@tx.slr.com. http://www.ti.com/sc/1394, (800) 317-8354

WDM Digital Audio

This version of Windows 98 contains support for audio over USB speakers. During the test period from now to release, speakers will be available to Windows 98 beta testers from Altec Lansing Multimedia and Philips Semiconductors. Specific details on how to order these speakers can be found in the \betaonly\usbspeak directory on this CD. The altec directory contains the file Altec.doc. To see the offer from Philips, point your web browser at philips.htm in the Philips directory.

If you are not planning on testing USB speakers, this note should not be of use to you. Conventional sound cards that operated prior to Windows 98 should continue to operate exactly as they did before Windows 98. The bugs and features listed below should be of no relevance to systems with conventional audio systems installed.

The code is under intense development at Microsoft and will be evolving in future releases. Many features are not yet implemented and the only USB audio devices supported are those made available with this release.

As of this release audio is output only. No record capability has been implemented.

WDM audio includes a software emulator for DOS games running under Windows 98 that provides an interface that emulates the Sound Blaster 2.1 hardware. There will be no support for real-mode DOS Sound Blaster register sets for USB audio. DOS games will run in ‘DOS Boxes’ (DOS virtual machines that run under Windows 98). Some games will not run in DOS emulation mode. At this time we do not have a list of which games will and will not run in DOS emulation mode.

The current emulation only supports monaural 8-bit audio. Future versions of Windows 98 will emulate the Sound Blaster Pro interfaces. This is also known as Sound Blaster 3.2 and features stereo audio.

OPL-2 and OPL-3 music synthesis is not emulated. These are the FM synthesis chips manufactured by Yamaha. The OPL-2 was used in the Adlib and Sound Blaster boards. The OPL-3 is used in Sound Blaster Pro and Sound Blaster 16 hardware. Emulation of these music synthesis chips is not now and will not in the future be supported by USB audio.

The MPU-401 is a music synthesis hardware interface defined by Roland. Most recent DOS computer games support this register interface for generating music. The MIDI emulation today supports General MIDI wavetable music synthesis.

Normally RedBook or CD audio is supported by sending a command to the CD drive that causes the CD to play audio with an onboard DAC. This DAC is connected to the system sound card that controls volume levels. This is impractical for USB audio so Windows 98 reads bits off the CD over the computer interface (SCSI or ATAPI) and sends them out to the USB speakers.

Few CD drives are supported today. More drives will be supported in the future. Today we do not identify which drives work and which do not. This will be fixed in future versions of Windows 98.

Normally CD-audio will play out headphone jacks on the front of the CD drive. Usually there is a volume control near the headphone jack. Playing audio through this headphone jack is not supported in this version of Windows 98.

Most Windows applications use 16-bit APIs to play audio. These APIs will be supported exactly as they have been in earlier versions. Today only audio playback is supported.

The mixer is used to set volume controls. This API is not supported in this release of Windows 98; however, the mixer is implemented. For example, CD-Audio, wavetable music synthesis, and 16-bit Windows applications can all play through a USB speaker simultaneously.

The released version of Windows 98 will support DirectSound 5. Beta versions of Windows 98 will support Direct Sound 5 as it becomes available.

DirectShow is the preferred 32-bit API for audio. DirectShow is supported natively by USB audio. This is the native mode for USB audio support.

Today MIDI under Windows is supported by USB audio in the form of the 16-bit MIDI APIs. MIDI in is not supported in this beta version; only MIDI out is supported. Patch caching is not supported, but it will become an important memory optimization feature of future releases of Windows 98.

Wavetable music synthesis is supported with kernel resident software. The quality is better than earlier FM synthesis hardware. System latency will be improved in future releases.

DVD Storage and UDF File System

DVD-ROM drives as a storage media are being supported for the first time in Windows 98. In order to be able to use a DVD-ROM drive, you must have a drive that is compliant to the Mt. Fuji specification (also called SFF8090). The CD-ROM class driver that existed in Windows95 has been updated to support DVD-ROM drives as well.

We also have a new file system, called UDF (Universal Disk Filesystem). It is currently a read-only file system; you can not write UDF to a disk. This is implemented because DVD movies will always have a UDF file system on them, while they may or may not have an ISO9660 file system on them. All DVD-ROM drives are required to support DMA. You will have to enable this on your own for now. To enable support for DMA, please go to Device Manager, select properties of the drive, check the DMA box presented, and reboot to run on DMA.

DVD Movie Playback

DVD movie playback requires the following components:

Hardware:

DVD-ROM drive

DVD movie media

DVD (MPEG/AC-3) decoder

Software:

DVD storage support

WDM Stream class driver

Stream minidriver specific to your decoder hardware (not written by Microsoft)

DirectShow filtergraph specific to your decoder

DVD Movie playback application

The above list will allow DVD movie playback on a NTSC or PAL display, if the decoder card has such an output. If output on a VGA is desired, then there should be a physical connection between the decoder card and the graphics adapter, and a DirectDraw HAL with VPE support should be written for the graphics adapter.

There is the possibility for the decoders to be in software rather than hardware on faster processors. If you are interested in help on your stream class minidriver, please talk to your Microsoft contact about visiting the WDM porting lab to further your efforts.

On the WDM DDK Preview, there is a test application for DVD movie playback in the \betaonly\dvd directory. This can be used to try movie playback on your PC. Microsoft is not yet providing DVD movie content.

WDM Still Image Capture

Windows 98 contains support for scanners and digital still cameras. This support includes kernel components for SCSI, USB, and serial devices. There is a new control panel for integration and configuration of scanners and cameras. Support for “push mode” image acquisition has been added. This allows devices with buttons or paper detect switches to launch an application and start the process of getting an image from the device. The control panel allows the user to configure which applications respond to the devices events.

WDM Video Capture

WDM video capture provides backward compatibility for VFW applications without the shortcomings of VFW. The goal of WDM video capture is to provide support for the following: USB conferencing cameras, 1394 DV devices, desktop cameras, TV viewing, multiple video streams support, and VPE capture support. It is based on kernel streaming architecture, and tightly integrated with DirectShow(formerly known as ActiveMovie) 2.0. The following DirectShow Filters are provided in the DDK for WDM capture:

  • KsCap.AX: the main capture filter. This is the main proxy filter between the stream class drivers and DirectShow filters. It provides a standardized connection and streaming in the kernel, standardized property sets, standard way of controlling stream flow (start, stop, run), and a standard way of exposing data formats.
  • KsTVTune.ax: TV Tuner interfaces. It handles channel to frequency mapping, worldwide frequency tables, multi-standard tuners, support for fine tuning methods using: PLL, signal strength, or Driver specific methods.
  • KsXBar.ax: A/V crossbar. This is a general signal router for analog or digital (VPE input) video or audio. It provides a MxN general switching matrix, and allows any output to be connected to any input.

These filters can be used with DirectShow Graphedt.exe application (provided in the DDK). Also, included is a test application (captest.exe) that build a customized filter graph which utilize these filters, and connects to a WDM video capture mini driver.

PCMCIA

PCCard16 now supports 3.3volt & multi-function (i.e. net/modem) cards.

PCCard32 (Cardbus) now supported.

Power management for PCCard Modems is now supported. These devices are put in a low power state when software is not actively using the modem. See the power management section for more information.

Cardbus Release Note:

Laptop Specific issues

If you hot attach an external HP CDROM to the back of the HP 800ct laptop, you will see a blue screen right after attaching the unit. A fatal exception OE has occurred at 0028:C0261D4D in VXD CONFIGMG(05) + 00000D4D. Workaround is to boot up with unit attached. (This behavior did not happen in Ver B of Windows 95)

Xircom Cardbus card does not work on most of the cardbus laptops. There is no workaround for this at this time.

Toshiba Laptops - Some of the Newer Toshiba Tecra's and Portege's will not work with R2 net cards in Cardbus mode. The workaround for now is to boot up into the bios of the computer, change the last option on the screen from Cardbus / 16 bit to PCIC Compatible and then the Net cards will work . (Cardbus Net cards work in Cardbus mode).

Card specific issues

3com 3c562 Multifunction Net & Modem will show code 12 in device manager on the net side of the device class. Issue is understood and will be fixed after beta 2. This issue is global to both PCIC and Cardbus controller laptops.

The SMC Cardbus Ethernet pccard will produce a blue screen message when the card is inserted after you boot up , A fatal exception OD has occurred at 0028;xxxxxxxx in VxD SMCPWRN(03) . If the card is left in at boot time, a Windows Protection Error from Comfigmg is seen. An updated driver from SMC solves the blue screen message and the driver will be updated in the next beta release.

Power Management and OnNow

New Power Control Panel Schemes

The new control panel features power schemes, which are groups of power settings optimized according to computer use.

ACPI

Windows 98 contains basic ACPI support, to enable PC Manufacturers to begin testing their prototype ACPI systems.

Supported ACPI features

Windows 98 now supports the following OnNow/ACPI interfaces:

  • Legacy ACPI select
  • PM timer
  • System states S1-S3, and S5
  • CPU states C1-C3
  • Thermal Model (active & passive cooling)
  • Configuration of devices (_PRS, _SRS, _CRS, _STA, _DIS)
  • Power & Sleep buttons (though they are hardwired to the Sleep function)
  • Control Method Batteries
  • OnNow Win32 APIs (except Wakeup APIs)
  • PCI Config space access through control methods
  • Device power management of the following devices:
  • 8USB Host controller
  • Display
  • COM ports
  • IDE (D0-D1)
  • USB Audio & Streaming devices
  • Input Devices
  • PC-Card Controllers

Bus power management on the following busses:

  • PCI (including PME# support)
  • USB
  • PC-Card
ACPI Questions & Answers

Answers to frequently asked questions about how Microsoft operating systems interact with ACPI as well as ACPI development tools and tests can be found at:

http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/onnow.htm

Questions regarding ACPI on Windows 98 or Windows NT should be posted to the Windows 98.DDK.ACPI beta newsgroup.

Suspend button & the Start Menu

Windows 98 seeks to encourage people to put the computer into standby (previously referred to as suspend) instead of shutting the computer off. One of the ways it does this is by moving Suspend from the Start menu to the Shutdown dialog box.

Battery Notes

Do not rely on Low Battery or Critical Alarm function when monitoring your battery life. This function, located in the Power Management Control Panel under the Alarms tab, is unfortunately not yet in operational condition.

On some portables, the Battery Meter will not indicate time remaining. This will be fixed in future releases.

Power Management Driver and System Notes

Problems with automatic power management on machines upgraded from Win95

Problem: Computers upgraded from Win95 or Memphis Beta 1 will not have the appropriate registry settings to initialize the power management subsystem.

Symptoms: Changes made to monitor, disk, or standby timers in the Power Control panel only have affect until the machine is rebooted. After the machine reboots, the settings are no longer used. Computers go into standby mode after only a few minutes (or seconds) despite the settings in the power control panel (with BIOS timers disabled).

Solution: A fix has been put on the Internet. You can download this fix via the Windows Download Manager as follows:

  1. On the Start Menu, choose Windows Update. This will launch Internet Explorer and connect you to www.microsoft.com.
  2. Under System Tune Up, choose Windows Update Manger.
  3. Install the Power Management Registry Fix

Crystal Audio System CODEC on Toshiba laptops

When attempting to suspend a Toshiba laptop with the Crystal Audio System CODEC, Windows 98 will produce a non-recoverable Fatal Exception 0Eh.

The user can work around this problem by either renaming the hidden file Vwstream.vxd in the \Windows\System folder or by disabling the Crystal PnP Audio System CODEC in safe mode. This can be done with the following steps:

  1. Restart the computer and strike the F8 key as soon as the BIOS beep sounds.
  2. That will cause the Windows 98 startup menu to appear. Choose Safe Mode (option 3).
  3. Upon boot to Safe Mode, click on Start, Settings, then Control Panel.
  4. Double-click on the System icon in Control Panel and click on the Device Manager tab.
  5. Expand the Sound, video and game controllers section by clicking on the “+” next to it, click on “Crystal PnP Audio System CODEC” to highlight it, and click the Properties button.
  6. Under the General tab, click on the checkbox labeled “Disable in this hardware profile.”
  7. Restart the computer as normal.

This will cause lack of sound and inability to play MPEG files, but will prevent the Fatal Exception 0E when attempting to suspend the computer.

Matrox Millenium

Users of the Matrox Millenium (MGAX64) display adapter may experience resumption failures when they invoke the “suspend” option from their start button or when their system auto-suspends. This issue revolves around the Matrox dirvers’ inability to fully and correctly configure themselves during boot and to then successfully re-configure themselves when the ‘resume’ command is given. Users may want to disable APM functionality in their systems’ BIOS in order to avoid failed resumes when the system auto-suspends. Users may also want to contact their hardware vendor regarding updated software drivers for their device.

Toshiba Infinia

If you are having problems using Standby on your computer, and have updated the BIOS in the past, you may need to install the latest TAPM.VXD driver. The TAPM.VXD driver must match the version of your BIOS. See Toshiba’s website (http://www.toshiba.com/tais/csd/support/infinia.htm) for updates.

Toshiba Techra 740CDT

Waking from Standby on a Techra 740CDT with the CD-ROM drive installed may take as much as 2 minutes. This is a known problem that is being investigated by Microsoft and Toshiba. Waking from Standby without the CD-ROM drive installed should wake quickly (approximately 10 seconds).

Crystal Audio Drivers and Standby problemsComputers with Crystal audio drivers may not work correctly when waking from a Standby state. Disable the audio drivers in device manager to allow the machine to go into and out of Standby smoothly. Microsoft & Crystal are investigating this problem.

IBM MWAVE Problems

IBM ThinkPad computers that use MWAVE drivers will not properly wake from Standby Mode. To make Standby mode correctly, disable the MWAVE drivers using Device Manager.

IBM PC-Card IF Problems

IBM ThinkPad computers that use PC-Card IF driver will not properly wake from Standby Mode. To make Standby mode correctly, disable the PC-Card IF driver using Device Manager. Unfortunately, this workaround will cause the PC-Card slots on the computer to no longer work correctly.

Network does not come back after machine wakes

Microsoft has fixed many bugs in this area. If you encounter any problems with Microsoft networking components not working after waking the computer from Standby, please file a bug report via the web whenever you encounter these problems

S3 Video and Standby

Due to a bug under investigation, Windows will not allow the computer to sleep on systems using an S3 video driver in 640x480 mode. In any other resolution, Standby will work fine.

PCMCIA SCSI Device

When installing Windows 98 from a PCMCIA SCSI device (such as an external SCSI CD-ROM with a PCMCIA SCSI adapter), Vpowerd.vxd and Power.drv, the drivers responsible for Advanced Power Management support, will not load. This occurs due to the fact that upon first boot, the PCMCIA SCSI drivers are not loaded, so setup will fail to find Windows 98 files, resulting in a dialogue box stating, “File not found… Please inset the Windows 98 CD-ROM.”

Because of this, Windows 98 will not properly load Advanced Power Management Support. This can be corrected by following these steps:

  1. Once the machine has booted successfully into Windows 98 and is properly accessing the Windows 98 CD-ROM, open Start \ Settings \ Control Panel and double-click on System.
  2. Click on the Device Manager tab, and expand the System Devices tree (if it is not already expanded). If Advanced Power Management Support appears here:
  3. Click on Advanced Power Management Support to highlight it, and click Properties.
  4. On the general tab, “(code 8)” should appear at the end of the Device Status section. Click on “Reinstall Device” farther down the page and walk through the wizard as though new hardware were being installed.

If Advanced Power Management Support does not appear here:

3. Go back to the Control Panel and run Add New Hardware to detect it.

Upon rebooting the machine, Advanced Power Management should be fully installed.

APM 1.2 Extensions

  • New APM 1.2 services
  • New Power Management control panel user interface (including IDE drive spindown user interface)
  • New battery meter

Disk Spindown

Reduces power consumption, drive wear and low noise. This may cause a slight delay in system response when the disk needs to spin back up. You can control the power down delay as well as disable disk spindown in the Power Management control panel. Typical settings for desktop machines are 30 to 60 minutes.

Release Note: Some older systems may hang when the disk is spun down or back up. You should disable disk spindown on these systems.

PCMCIA Modem Power Down & Resume on Ring

Power management for PCCard Modems is now supported. These devices are put in a low power state when software is not actively using the modem. Look in the Power management control panel to control this feature.

Modem Power-Up Delay

If you get a message Modem Not Found or Not Ready, you may need to increase the modem power up delay. The default delay is 2 seconds.

Some PC Card modems require an extra delay when PC Card Power Management is enabled, before they are ready. You may be experiencing this if the modem doesn’t respond on the initial try, yet works if you immediately try again.

If you encounter this with your PC Card modem, increase the delay. To do this, you can either Disable PC Card Power Management in the Power management control panel, or you can add a Registry key using Regedit:

  1. Navigate to the key: \HKey_Local_Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\Modem
  2. Go to the key for the modem that you are trying to use, and add a key in the root of the modem key.
  3. Edit / New, create a DWord named ConfigDelay

This value is in milliseconds. Set the value equal to "3000" for a 3 second delay. Experiment to get enough delay.

Please submit a bug with the delay necessary for your modem, and your computer manufacturer and model information, and we will add this to our list.

USR Winmodem

Known issues:

  1. Standard modem in addition to you Winmodem listed in the Control Panel\Modems - It safe to remove the additional modem.
  2. Continuous reboot loop if Winmodem is uninstalled using control panel\winmodem\uninstall - boot in to safe mode and remove the Winmodem using the control panel\winmodem\uninstall .

Device Drivers

Display

These are DirectX 3 and/or DirectX 5 drivers, with multiple display support enabled.

New for Windows 98: Tseng ET6000, 3Dfx VooDoo, 3Dlabs Permedia, Chips 6555x

Updated for Windows 98: ati3d, chips, cirrus, cirruslg, cirrusmm, i128, mach64, rendition, s3mm, s3v.

For more technical documentation on Display Drivers - see the DirectX DDK.

Windows 98 display driver upgrade testing procedure

Microsoft is working to make the Windows 95-to-Windows 98 upgrade process as smooth as possible. Part of this is insuring that display drivers are upgraded only when appropriate. The drivers included with Windows 98 are the most solid drivers available for Windows, and provide support for most available video adapters. However, some hardware-dependent third-party software may not run properly on the generic Microsoft-provided drivers. Similarly, some nonstandard third-party Windows 95 drivers may not function properly under Windows 98. To provide the Windows 98 team with the information needed to verify the current setup algorithm, we are asking all beta testers to perform this simple display driver upgrade test.

* Take note of the display you have in your system prior to installing Windows 98

1. Install Windows 98

2. This is the "BEFORE" scenario. Take note of whether your system is running properly. Pay special attention to software that came with system or video card (e.g. custom control panels, taskbar icons, TV tuners, TV-output). Have any applets/control panels disappeared? Do they continue to function properly? Are some controls disabled? Would you accept this behavior in the final release of Windows 98?

3. Run "Internet System Update".

4. If any display drivers are available for update, choose to install them. Otherwise, skip to step 6.

5. This is the "AFTER" scenario. Repeat step 2 for this scenario.

6. Use the Windows 98 Bug Reporting tool to send this information to Microsoft regardless of whether there are any problems or not. Tell us whether the upgrade went as you expected, and if not, what you think should happen. Include as much information you can about the "BEFORE" and "AFTER" states of your system. Be sure to clearly separate the two scenarios in your report. Be sure to choose "YES, include my computer's configuration files with my report" on the "OK to Include System Information page". Indicate that the bug is on this machine, and "system hangs" for "Problem Severity".

Note: It is important that you run Step 6 exactly as specified. You need to perform these steps even if your machine works perfectly BEFORE & AFTER the upgrade to provide us with the information we need to improve the driver upgrade process.

The default drivers that come with Windows 98 for the Matrox Millenium can be replaced with the Matrox Millenium drivers available at http://www.compaq.com/support/files/desktops/Windows95/Deskpro6000/5166.htm

These files work for my specific machine configuration and others are available from the Compaq page for other computers.

It is important NOT to keep the newer versions of files when conflict dialogs are displayed. (This way the Windows 95 files are replaced).

Audio

Updated Audio drivers from DirectX 3, and an updated Windows Sound System driver from DirectX 5. Full DirectX 5 support will be in the next release.

Windows 98 does not ship with Yamaha OPL sound drivers at this time. However, if you have Yamaha OPL hardware, the drivers can be found in Other\audio\Yamaha OPL4.03 on the Windows 98 CD-ROM. You can point to this location in the following situations:

1. While running Windows 98 setup, if the program cannot find the drivers for the device.

2. If the device shows “not present, not working properly, or does not have all the drivers loaded” in device manager, you can go to the Driver tab and click on “update driver”, pointing the program to this location.

During hardware detection if you are asked for drivers.

Modems

Approximately 300 new modems are supported, to bring Windows 98 up to compatibility with Windows NT 4.0.

Printers

599 new printers are supported. This release also includes the 839 printers that shipped with Windows 95 OSR-2.

Network Card Drivers

New Support for Network: 170 Adapters

Adapters Affected by Updated Drivers: 198

Currently the option to upgrade drivers for Network Adapters is not available. This will be addressed in a future release.

Resource conflicts between different devices are presently not indicated accurately in the Device Manager. The property sheet for a conflicting device may list the wrong device as causing or having a conflict with the conflicting device. There also have been a few cases where conflicts are reported but there are no actual conflicting resources.

NDIS 2.0 Functionality

In previous beta releases of Windows 98, NDIS 2.0 support was removed for many network cards. In this beta release of Windows 98, support for NDIS 2.0 drivers is present for many of the network cards supported in Windows 98. If your network card is not supported with NDIS2.0, you will need to obtain a driver from the manufacturer that does support NDIS 2.0. These drivers can typically be installed by decompressing the downloaded file, selecting “Have Disk” in the driver selection dialog box, and directing Windows 98 to the directory where the drivers are located.

Diamond Multimedia ISDN Adapter

It is strongly recommended not to install the Diamond Multimedia's ISDN adapter drivers on Windows 98. During installation Diamond's setup will prompt for the location of Microsoft's ISDN Accelerator Pack 1.1..

Disk Drives

Floppy Disk Driver

Windows 98 includes an all-new “HSFLOP.PDR” floppy disk driver. This new driver offers significantly enhanced performance on many machines. It should also work on some portable machines that required custom HSFLOP.PDR files in the past. This new driver should work on 100% of all known hardware. If you encounter problems with this new code, please report as soon as possible.

LS 120 Support

The real mode MS-DOS kernel, protect mode file system components, and the various formatting utilities have been updated to support the LS-120 (120MB) floppies built in to some newer PCs.

IDE Disk Driver

This is an updated IDE hard disk driver that includes support for:

Bus Mastering chipsets such as Intel Triton and Opti Viper M

SMART (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology), a hard-drive fault prediction system developed by Compaq and several hard drive vendors

IDE Tape backup units

ATAPI-CD-Changers (with up to 7 CD slots), including the Sanyo/Torisan 3CD changer

Bus Mastering

Caution:

Some hard drives which were originally designed to support this DMA functionality were found during joint Intel and Microsoft testing to contain firmware bugs which can cause data corruption. Only OEMs should enable the DMA feature when they ship compatible hard disk drives. End Users should not enable the DMA feature on their PCs if their PC Manufacturer did not enable it originally.

Notes:

Bus Mastering should only be enabled for specific hard drive models that are certified by their manufacturer to work properly with a Windows bus master driver.

The drives in question must indicate that they support DMA in the drive ID data (both ATA and ATAPI drives).

Go to the System Control Panel, Device Manager, select the individual Disk Drive (not drive controller), and select Properties. If a checkbox for DMA shows up under the Int13, then you can try the Bus Master DMA transfers. If no checkbox appears, then your motherboard chipset does not support a compatible bus master interface. If the checkbox is not checked after your system reboots, then your hard drive probably does not support bus mastering, and it has been automatically disabled again.

CD-ROM-Changers

CD ROM Changer support is now available for ATAPI-CD-Changer compliant CD-ROM drives with up to 7 CD slots. CD ROM devices with more than 7 slots are generally considered “CD Jukeboxes” and are not supported with these drivers. This driver set also includes support for the Sanyo/Torisan 3CD changer.

CD Disk Driver

CDFS.VXD and CDVSD.VXD have been updated as follows:

ISO-9660 format CDs greater than 4GB in size are now supported

CDFS Read ahead behavior is now more intelligent, to better support slower hardware and applications that access the CD randomly

CDI disks are now supported (with appropriate application software)

Monitors

We’ve added approximately 175 new monitors to the built-in supported list.

Human Input (Keyboards, Joysticks, Mice, Game pads)

Look for new drivers built-in for these devices in the next beta release.

Using the MS Sidewinder Pro with Longbow Gold - switching resolutions may cause the joystick to stop responding.

A patch exists for this problem at http://www.ea.com/janes/news.htm

Scanners and Cameras

Windows 98 includes support for the following scanners and digital still cameras.

  • Hewlett Packard SCSI SCL flatbed scanners including the 3c, 4c, 4p, and 5p. The 5p includes support for push mode scanning. The TWAIN data source and PictureScan or DeskScan software required to use the scanners via a TWAIN application are not included in this release. If these components are already installed before an upgrade to Windows 98, they will be used. Otherwise the HP software will have to be installed.
  • Kodak DC-25 digital still camera. The TWAIN data source is included in this release. To add a Kodak camera, you need to use "Add New Hardware" in the control panel. Do not do the hardware detection and select the cameras and scanners category. Then select the Kodak DC-25.
  • Logitech PageScan USB sheet fed scanner. Support includes the TWAIN data source. This scanner also supports push mode scanning.

Windows 98 support for scanners and cameras includes “push mode” operation. Applications need to be revised to take advantage of this functionality. The Eastman Kodak “Imaging for Windows” application in Windows 98 now operates in push mode and is associate with the USB Logitech and HP 5 p scanners on installation. To further adjust the association of applications with device events use the “Scanner and Camera” control panel. The property page for these scanners contains an “Events” tab. Once an application has registered itself as “push mode ready” it will appear in the application list in this property page. Simply check/uncheck the application and it will be launched when the buttons on these devices are pressed. If more than one application is associated with the same device event, a dialog box will appear asking the user to pick one of the choices. If no choice is made within 20 seconds the dialog box will disappear and no application will be launched.

Video Capture

Look for new drivers built in for these devices in the next beta release.

VFW issue with Compaq Presario 4700 and 4800 series

If you have a Compaq Presario 4700 or 4800 series and want to use Video For Windows applications (like Net Meeting, VidCap, Adobe Premier, etc.), then please follow these steps so your video applications will function properly:

1--open Regedit.exe and expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.

2--expand System and then expand CurrentControlSet.

3--expand Control and then expand MediaResources.

4--expand msvideo.

5--select the key named 'msvideo' (under the 'msvideo’ of step 4) and make sure the description includes "driver = vidshell.dll".

6--if driver = vidshell.dll, select the msvideo key (under the 'msvideo' key from step 4) and press ‘delete’ (or right-click on the key and choose ‘delete’), and then click ‘Yes’ to confirm that you want to delete the key.

7--verify that there is another key under step 4's ‘msvideo’ key called "msvideo.VFWWDM" or an 'msvideo' key with "driver = vfwwdm.drv".

IrDA Device Drivers and Utilities

Support for Fast Infrared (FIR) and Serial Infrared (SIR) devices, easy file transferring over Infrared and LAN connectivity. This beta release includes infrared support up to 4Mbps. It includes the Microsoft Infrared Transfer applet that makes file transferring over infrared as simple as click and send. To enable infrared support, perform the following setup steps:

1. Go to Control Panel

2. Start Add New Hardware

3. Select “No” when the Add New Hardware wizard prompts you to have the system automatically detect any new hardware, and click Next.

3. Select “Infrared” device and click Next.

4. When the wizard prompts you to choose a manufacturer’s name for your IR device, choose “Microsoft (Standard Infrared Serial Port)” if you have a computer with a SIR infrared device, or choose the name of the manufacturer and the model of the computer if you have an FIR device.

If you are over installing this version of Memphis over a previous version of Windows, including a Memphis Beta, you must perform the following file extraction and copy operation to ensure that you are using the newest Infrared drivers and program files.

1. Create the temp directory c:\ir_temp.

2. Open dos box. (Choose: Start Menu->Programs->MS-Dos Prompt)

3. cd to the directory where the Memphis/Windows98 .cab files are (on beta1 CD they are in the Memphis dir, not sure where they are on the beta2 CD)

4. Type in the following (without quotes) "extract /Y /A /E /L c:\ir_temp net5.cab irxfer.exe"

5. Repeat the previous step, but replace "irxfer.exe" with "irmini.sys", then "irshell.dll", and then "infrared.cpl"

6. Boot to dos (Start Menu/Shutdown/Restart in Dos Mode)

7. Copy ixrfer.exe from c:\ir_temp to c:\windows

8. Copy irmini.sys, irshell.dll, and infrared.cpl from c:\ir_temp to c:\windows\system

9. Reboot system

For SIR device:

1. If you have a SIR device, choose “Generic Infrared Port” for built-in infrared port; or choose the name of the manufacturer and the model of the adapter if you have an external Infrared adapter connected to your computer.

2. When the wizard prompts you to choose the communications port that the IR device is physically connected to, click the port from the list. If you are not certain which physical communications port the IR device is using, make your best guess.

3. When you are done with the wizard, click the Finish button to complete the IR device installation. The wizard should have briefly displayed New Hardware Found messages. If the wizard did not display these messages, then restart the computer.

4. Activate the IR device by clicking the Start button, pointing to Settings, and then clicking Control Panel. Double-click the Infrared icon. If you chose the correct port in Step 2, the Infrared Monitor interface screen appears. If you did not choose the correct port, a message appears telling you that the port you have chosen is being used by another program. Click OK. Right click the Network Neighborhood icon on desktop and choose Properties. Select “Standard Infrared Serial (COM) port” and click Properties. Click the “Advanced” tab, and select “Serial Port” to change the COM port settings. Repeat this step until you have chosen the correct port.

For FIR device:

1. If you have a FIR device, contact your hardware manufacture to get the driver for that model of the computer. Click “Have Disk” to install the FIR driver, supplied on a floppy disk by the manufacturer.

2. When you are done with the wizard, click the Finish button to complete the IR device installation. The wizard should have briefly displayed New Hardware Found messages. If the wizard did not display these messages, then restart the computer.

3. Activate the IR device by clicking the Start button, pointing to Settings, and then clicking Control Panel. Double-click the Infrared icon.

Microsoft Infrared Transfer

To use the Microsoft Infrared Transfer, simply right-click the file you want to transfer and select “Send to->Infrared Recipient”.

Smart Card Support

This beta release is based on the PC/SC Workgroup Interoperability Specification for ICCs and Personal Computer Systems. It provides the necessary files needed to enable smart card-aware Windows application(s) and/or service provider(s) to communicate with a smart card through a reader attached to a Windows PC. The base components included on the distribution media require a device driver from a smart card reader manufacturer in order to be useful. No device drivers are included with this beta release. Likewise, a Smart Card Service Provider (SCSP) dynamic link library is needed to expose the services of a given smart card for use by a Windows application and should be distributed with the smart card by the card issuer. Only generic service providers are included with this release for common, low-level card services.

This release does not include the Smart Card SDK and Smart Card DDK components. These must be obtained separately from Microsoft. In order to develop a device driver or service provider, one must obtain a licensed copy of the Smart Card DDK and Smart Card SDK, respectively.

Installation

To install the Microsoft Smart Card Base Components on a target machine, run SETUP.EXE from the betaonly\scard directory of the distribution media.

There is a known problem with the setup utility when installing the smclib.sys file on Windows 98. The setup utility incorrectly installs the smclib.sys file in

%SystemRoot%\system32\iosubsys

instead of

%SystemRoot%\system32\drivers

The workaround for this problem is to move the smclib.sys file from the iosubsys directory to drivers directory.

After installation of the Microsoft Smart Card Base Components and any smart card reader device driver(s), the machine must be rebooted for the new settings to take effect.

Uninstall

To uninstall the Microsoft Smart Card Base Components go to the Control Panel (under ‘Settings’ on the Start menu) and start the ‘Add/Remove Programs’ applet. Select “Microsoft Smart Card Base Components" from the list of programs displayed in the scroll box and then click the ‘Add/Remove’ button. After uninstall of the Microsoft Smart Card Base Components and any smart card reader device driver(s), the machine must be rebooted.

Notes:

The smclib.sys common library used by the smart card reader driver is not removed during uninstall. This is because device drivers may still be installed in the system and they depend on smclib.sys to start and run. It is not removed during uninstall of the Microsoft Smart Card Base Components to avoid problems.

The smclib.sys file may be safely removed after all smart card reader device drivers have been removed.

The C Runtime and Microsoft Foundation Class files, msvcrt.dll and mfc42.dll, are not removed by the uninstall utility, since they are shared resources.

The install utility may replace your advpack.dll system file. The updated file is not removed by the uninstall utility.

Under the Hood

The following are some ongoing changes “under the hood” that we have made to the core Windows 98 operating system.

Memory Management Improvements:

We have implemented some recent improvements in the memory management algorithms used in Windows 98. This should have the dual effect of increasing performance and reducing application load time on memory-constrained machines and reducing memory usage and swapfile size.

Preliminary tests have shown that on a 16MB machine, with Microsoft Excel97 and Microsoft Outlook97 both loaded, the swapfile use will be ~1.4MB smaller. This can result in a better system response as you run multiple applications.

If you are experiencing problems you think are related to the Memory Manager improvements, you can turn them on or off with the following files located on the Windows 98 Beta CD in the \BetaOnly\MapCache directory. Clicking on MC_OFF.REG will turn off the improvements and MC_ON.REG will turn them back on. You must restart your computer after doing so for the changes to take affect. Please only use this as a troubleshooting step and only leave the improvements disabled if you absolutely have to.

Winalign

Caution: Winalign implements a new method of memory management that may not be compatible with all your applications. You should use this carefully on your main system. That said, we would like you to give it a try, and let us know if you hit problems. That’s the only way we can find and fix them all. There is a “rollback” feature in winalign, see below to undo the changes it makes.

We have not fully automated the full benefits of the new memory management algorithms for Beta 2. To get the most benefit of this feature, you need to run the winalign.exe utility installed in the windows directory. You can just do a Start/Run and type “winalign”.

WinAlign is a simple program that realigns clusters within a file in such away that sections begin on predetermined boundaries, which allows memory usage to be optimized. A side effect of this realignment is that it will actually increase the size of some files. While this is not a problem for the vast majority of files (since they contain exactly the same contents in slightly bigger container), there are 2 known classes of applications that will have problems with this:

  1. Virus-checkers. These applications often check to see if file attributes such as file size has changed, and may mistakenly interpret that a virus has been run on your system when in fact it had not.
  2. Driver patch programs. These patch programs will rewrite small sections of a driver based on an offset from the starting of a file. Since we are "stretching" the file, a patch program run on an aligned binary would patch the incorrect area resulting in a broken driver. Driver patch programs are very uncommon, and can be revised to patch the "stretched" binaries.

To undo Winalign, just run “winalign -r”

Registry Improvements

We’ve rewritten the Registry handling code to be faster and improve robustness. The in-memory data structures are more optimized. You won’t see any changes in the Registry structure as exposed through the APIs or Regedit. But how it’s handled in code has been significantly improved.

Please note that the NameNumericTail registry workaround detailed in the resource kit is not compatible with any Windows 98 upgrade scenario, and should not be used.

Power Management

Power management improvements throughout the system in User, device drivers, network stacks, and many other places should improve the power performance, and enable the ACPI machines to work even better.

Internet

About Internet Explorer 4.0 Zones Security

New Security Settings Are Available

The new Internet Explorer 4.0 security options enable you to assign specific Web sites to various zones, depending on how much you trust the content of the specific Web site.

When you install Internet Explorer 4.0, four security zones are set up:

  • An Internet zone that by default contains all Internet sites
  • A Local Intranet zone for computers connected to a local network
  • A Trusted Sites zone, to which you can assign sites you trust
  • A Restricted Sites zone, to which you can assign sites you don't trust

Internet Explorer 4.0 does not try to maintain any existing Internet Explorer 3.0 settings, because the security works differently in this new version. In addition to the new security zones, the meanings of the High, Medium, and Low security settings

have changed. After you install Internet Explorer 4.0, you should review the default security settings and adjust them to your needs as necessary.

You can view and change all the security settings by clicking the Internet icon in Control Panel, and then clicking the Security tab.

Remember that security on the Internet is as good as your settings. Internet Explorer 4.0 provides you with the information you need to make good security decisions, and more flexible tools to implement those decisions.

Setting Up the Internet Zone

By default, the Internet zone is set to the Medium security level. If you are concerned about possible security problems browsing the Internet, you might want to change the setting to High. If you raise the security setting, some pages will not be allowed to perform certain potentially hazardous operations.

If you are an expert user, you might want to choose Custom Settings so that you can control each individual security decision for the zone. To do this, from the Security tab, click Custom, and then click Settings.

Adding Sites to the Trusted and Restricted Zones

There are two zones available to which you can assign Web sites that you specifically trust more or less than the Internet or the local intranet. To add sites to these zones, first choose the zone, and then click Add Sites.

The Trusted Sites zone is assigned a Low security setting by default. If you assign a site to the Trusted Sites zone, the site will be allowed to perform more powerful operations. Also, Internet Explorer will ask you to make fewer security decisions. Add a site to this zone only if you trust all of its content never to do anything potentially harmful to your computer. For the Trusted Sites zone, we strongly recommend use of the HTTPS: protocol so that the site can be connected to securely.

The Restricted Sites zone is assigned a High security setting by default. If you assign a site to the Restricted Sites zone, the site will be allowed to perform only minimal, very safe operations. This zone is for the rare case of a site you don't trust.

Setting Up the Local Intranet Zone (for Network Administrators)

To be secure, it is imperative that the Local Intranet zone be set up in conjunction with the proxy server and firewall. All sites in the zone should be "inside the firewall," and proxy servers should be configured so that they do not allow an external DNS name to be resolved to this zone.

By default, the Local Intranet zone consists of local domain names and those set in proxy override of the Connections tab. The network administrator should confirm that these settings are indeed secure for the installation, or adjust the settings as needed to be secure. You can check that the Local Intranet zone is configured correctly by browsing to various Intranet and Internet pages and confirming that the correct zone is shown in the status bar.

After the Local Intranet zone is confirmed secure, consider changing the zone's security level to Low to enable a wider range of powerful operations to be performed. It is also possible to adjust individual security settings in the Custom Settings dialog box.

If there are parts of the Intranet that are less secure or otherwise not trustworthy, they can be excluded from this zone by assigning them to the Restricted Sites zone.

The Local Intranet zone is intended to be set up via the Internet Explorer Administration Kit, although the options on the Security tab in the Internet Properties dialog box can also be used.

Internet Explorer 4.0 Known Issues

Intermittent hangs loading large files over modems This may be fixed by replacing \windows\system\mshtml.dll with the version located in \betaonly\ie40.

Please do not use the Active Desktop screensaver in this release as it is not functioning properly.

Microsoft Money: Online Banking Requires Download To Work

If you install Microsoft Money 97 on a computer running Internet Explorer 4.0, online transactions will not work. This is because Microsoft Money is using an older version of the file Schannel.dll. To work around this problem, open the following Web site: http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ie40/download

Click on Internet Explorer 128-bit Version and follow the prompts to obtain the schannel upgrade package.

When installing the upgrade package, a Version Conflict will appear. Choose to NOT keep the original file.

Microsoft Access: Database Replication Does Not Work

If you try to replicate an Access database, you will get the following error message: Microsoft Access cannot complete this operation because it can't find or initialize the dynamic-link library Msjtrclr".

Some Encryption Settings Do Not Work in Internet Properties

If you change the ssl or pct settings on the Advanced tab in the Security dialog box, the settings will not be changed in the registry. To work around this problem if you are an expert user, you can change these settings manually in the registry.

Cannot Import Messages from Outlook or Exchange

If you try to import messages from an Outlook or Exchange .pst file, you will get an error message.

You Must Restart for Some ActiveX Controls to Work

If an ActiveX control is installed to your \System directory, a message will appear asking you to restart your computer. After you restart your computer, the control will work properly.

Telcom Fax: Unable to Send Network Faxes

This product currently does not work with Internet Explorer 4.0.

Cannot Add New Instrument in MIDI Properties

If you open MIDI Properties from either the Multimedia dialog box in Control Panel or Media Player, you will not be able to add a new instrument. The Add New Instrument button is not available.

Cannot Turn Off Cookies

You can still specify whether you want to be warned before accepting a cookie. However, there is no setting for turning cookies off completely.

Cannot Print Using Some PCL Drivers

If your printer is using a PCL driver that relies on metafiles, you will not be able to print to it.

Shockwave: Some .dcr Files May Not Run

Certain Macromedia .dcr files may not display in Internet Explorer 4.0 if the file was previously downloaded to the local computer. Downloading the Shockwave Director Active X Control version 6.0 or later from www.macromedia.com may fix this problem.

File Upload Control Does Not Work Properly

The File Upload Control does not work in this release. It will be supported in the next release.

Outlook Express Connection May Be Dropped

When you are using Outlook Express news, it's possible for the server to drop its connection to Outlook Express. This often happens when the client has been sitting idle for a while and the server is trying to conserve resources, or because of network and modem problems. To reconnect, click the View menu, and then click Refresh.

Outlook Express Settings

In OE, if you go to Tools/Options/Security Tab and click on the Settings button you will not be able to exit the resulting dialog box except through Ctrl-Alt-Del, highlighting OE and choosing End Task.

Toolbar Buttons and Icons Might Not Display Properly

If Internet Explorer 4.0 is installed, toolbar buttons and icons for some applications may not display correctly.

Installing updated versions of IE 4.0 over Windows 98:

We do not recommend that you install IE 4.0 over Windows 98. This is because we use two different setup programs and setup scripts. IE4 setup is web-based whereas Windows 98 setup is Windows & DOS based (for clean installs). This affects beta testing in that when you install IE 4 updates over Windows 98, you are using the IE4 setup program, and no longer have a pure Windows 98 system for testing.

We post interim builds of Windows 98 to our website and FTP site weekly so you won’t be out of sync long. These builds will have updated versions of IE 4.0 in them.

Known issues with Channels:

After upgrading Windows 98 beta2 over an existing build of Windows 98, the channels contents will be empty. To get the channel contents, follow the instruction below:

1 - right click on the desktop

2 - Choose the "Web" tab

3 - Press the "Reset Allt" button

4 - Press the "OK" button

One side-effect is that this will remove the HTML desktop background

To fix this a user can again:

1 - right click on the desktop

2 - Choose the "Background" tab

3 - Choose the "Browse" button

4 - Choose the filetype of HTML Document

5 - Choose the "Web" Directory

6 - Choose the WallPaper.HTM

This will restore the HTML background, and have the channel bar showing when AD is enabled. Note that this is not an issue on a clean installation of Windows 98 beta2.

Task Scheduler Known Issues

AM/PM Indicators Not Available in Some International Formats

If the AM/PM indicators do not appear in the dialog box where you specify the time you want a task to begin; you can use the 24-hour time format to enter the time. For example, if you want a task to start at 11:15 AM, specify the setting as 11:15. If you want the task to start at 11:15 PM, specify the setting as 23:15. In either case, the time will be displayed as 11:15, but the correct value will be used.

Some Scheduled Tasks Don't Run Properly on Windows NT

If you are running Internet Explorer 4.0 on Windows NT 4.0, and you schedule a task to run when your computers starts or when you log on, the task will not run. This will be fixed in a future release.

Some Scheduled Tasks Don’t Run Properly with OnNow enabled

If you computer supports OnNow and goes into sleep mode, schedule tasks will not run at that time. This will be fixed in a future release.

Microsoft Virtual Machine for Java

Windows 98 includes the latest Microsoft virtual machine for Java. This second-generation virtual machine includes the following features:

Modular design - the virtual machine can be invoked in the browser or on a standalone basis

Performance leadership - the fastest way to execute Java code

Compatibility - the most support for JDK 1.1 features of any browser

Windows integration - get the productivity benefits of the Java language while exploiting the full power of the Windows operating system.

Component support - automatic, bi-directional integration between ActiveX components and Java components

Application Foundation Classes - the richest set of foundation classes to help build modern applications more quickly with Java.

Capabilities-based security model - granular access outside the Java sandbox to build richer applications

Package manager - automatic installation and versioning of classes on the local machine

For more information about Microsoft Virtual Machine for Java, including developer details, please see the MSVMJAVA.DOC in the \betaonly\docs directory.

Microsoft Outlook Express

Outlook Express Known Issues

When receiving a message using a GeoCities mail account, you might be unable to view any of the original message, or you may see only the following information: Postage Paid by [graphic].

You will not be able to see embedded objects or images sent from people using Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Exchange, or Windows Messaging. File attachments work fine, however.

If you use HTML in your signature, and you send the message before any included images have finished drawing, the text you add to the message may be lost.

Some mail clients send Cyrillic messages with tags indicating that they are in a western European character set. As a result, Outlook Express uses a western-European font to display the message, which then appears garbled. To work around this problem, click the View menu, click Language, and then choose a Russian character set, such as K0I8. The message should display properly using the Russian font.

Inbox rules are not available for IMAP accounts.

If you are using Outlook Express with a SUN Solstice, Netscape, or Innosoft IMAP server, it may cause your server to stop responding. Please contact the third-party provider for an update to the IMAP server software to correct this problem.

Outlook Express S/MIME does not verify the status of digital IDs before sending encrypted or signed messages. This means that a digital ID that is revoked, expired, not trusted or that has an incorrect e-mail address will be used without providing any warning.

In order to send signed messages and receive encrypted messages, you must have a digital ID. Currently, the only way to get a digital ID for use with Outlook Express is to use Internet Explorer 4.0 and go to the VeriSign Web site, http://digitalid.verisign.com.

Sending and receiving signed or encrypted mail to many mail programs that also support secure messaging (other than Outlook Express) does not work in this release. The interoperability issues have been identified and will be corrected in a future release.

While sending and retrieving messages, closing Outlook Express and restarting it will cause Outlook Express to crash. In Outlook Express News, if the option "Get 300 headers at a time" is turned on, the following commands: Get New Headers, Get New Messages, Get All Messages, and Get Marked Messages will retrieve only 300 (or the number that you specify) headers at a time. To prevent this, you should turn off this option.

To cancel a news message, you must be using the same message encoding options as was used for the original message. If no folders are displayed for your IMAP server or if you want to refresh the list of IMAP folders you need to download the folder list from the server. To do this, select the IMAP server. If you connect to the server by using a modem, click the Tools menu, and then select Offline > Dial. If you connect to the IMAP server by using a LAN, you can skip this step. After you have connected to the server, click the File menu, click Folders, and then click Refresh Folder List.

If you need to change any of the following settings for your IMAP account:

  • IMAP server name or port number
  • Account type (POP3 or IMAP)
  • Any logon information

It is recommended that you delete the IMAP account and create a new account with the updated settings.

Outlook Express is designed to work only with IMAP4 compliant servers. IMAP2bis servers are not supported in this release.

If you rename a news server account name and then attempt to perform some action on it, for example copying messages from the server, you may receive an error message. To work around this problem, close OE and restart after the renaming of a server.

If encrypting a message when there is not a certificate for one of the recipients, an error will display stating that there is not a certificate for that recipient as well as the sender.

Certificates are now handled on a per account basis. You must reselect which certs to use for each account. This can be done via the Accounts menu item. Select the account you wish to configure for security features and check the box to use a certificate when sending secure messages. You must also click the Certificate button to select which to use.

If you used Internet News for reading newsgroups, any messages in your "Posted Items" folder will be moved into the "Sent Items folder when you upgrade to Outlook Express.

Troubleshooting

If you run into a problem, try the troubleshooters in online Help or on the Microsoft Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/support/tshooters.htm. To start the online Help troubleshooters, carry out the following steps:

1. In Outlook Express, click the Help menu, and then click Help Topics.

2. Double-click the "Troubleshooting" topic on the Contents tab.

Check your connection to your Internet service provider.

The troubleshooter help files do not work properly when you try to run them from a dialog box or the shell. This problem will be fixed in the next release. To work around the problem, start the troubleshooter from the HTML Help table of contents. Double-click Troubleshooters, click a troubleshooter topic, and then click the troubleshooter button.

If you are unable to send or receive mail, check the following:

  • The TCP/IP protocol is installed on your computer.
  • All cables are properly connected to your computer, modem, or LAN.
  • You have a PPP or SLIP account with your Internet service provider.
  • Your Internet service provider or LAN server supports POP3 or IMAP and SMTP
  • Your modem communication parameters (baud rate and type of protocol) are set correctly.

Make sure that you use an account name and password for a news server only if it requires them. If you use an account name and password and they are not required, you will not be able to connect to the news server.

To access the Microsoft peer product support newsgroups, carry out the following steps:

1. Click the Tools menu, and then click Accounts.

2. Click Add, and then click News on the drop-down menu.

3. Follow the directions on your screen.

4. When you are prompted for a server name, type msnews.microsoft.com

If your Internet service provider doesn’t find that name, you can type 131.107.3.27 instead.

You do not need to log on to this news server.

Support for Microsoft Outlook Express

For the latest information about Outlook Express as well as a list of Frequently Asked Questions, see our Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ie40/collab/imn. You may find that your questions can be answered here.

A newsgroup is dedicated to the discussion of Microsoft Outlook Express and provides peer support:

news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.inetexplorer.ie4.OutlookExpress

To read it, follow the procedure outlined in the Troubleshooting section above.

This site is the best place to go if you are experiencing a problem, as someone else who experienced the same problem might already have posted the solution.

Web-Based Enterprise Management support

The Windows 98 Beta contains the WBEM infrastructure and a number of data Providers (see the WBEM Development kit on http://wbem.freerange.com/wbempdk for more details). A data Provider that provides data from WMI is also provided as part of the WBEM components.

NetMeeting

NetMeeting has temporarily been removed from Windows 98. The current version, NetMeeting 2.0, is not fully compatible with Windows 98. Specifically, the application sharing feature does not work at all. The phone, chat and video features, however, do function properly. If you use NetMeeting, you can download the current version from http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ie40.

The next beta test version of Windows 98 should include a new and improved NetMeeting that supports Windows 98.

Internet Connection Wizard

The Internet Connection Wizard (ICW) provides Windows users with all the functionality necessary to get their desktop connected to the Internet. With ICW installed, a user can easily configure their machine for Internet communication, sign up for an account with any participating Internet Service Provider of their choice, and setup any custom software required by that provider.

If you do not currently have an Internet account, the first setup option is a good way to choose an Internet Service Provider that offers a flat monthly rate, which you may find useful while participating in the Windows 98 beta program.

The ICW is automatically run when launching Internet Explorer or The Microsoft Network icons the first time a new PC is booted or the first time following an upgrade.

The Wizard consists of the following three options:

  • I want to choose an Internet service provider and set up a new Internet account will configure your machine for dial-up access to the Internet and enables you to sign-up for Internet access via an ISP account using the Microsoft Referral Server program. If you sign up for an account using the ICW and Referral server, you will be liable for the charges imposed by the Service Provider.
  • I want to set up a new connection to my existing Internet account using my phone line or local area network (LAN) allows you to hand-configure your Internet settings for use with an existing ISP or local area network.

I already have a connection to the Internet and I do not want to change it will reset the Internet Explorer icon on the desktop, and allow you to manually configure your Internet Control Panel settings.

Shell, User and GDI

My Documents Folder Enhancements

Windows 98 implements several improvements to the My Documents folder from Windows 95 applications. There is a shell extension DLL that will cause My Documents to have special behavior that will make it easier for users to take advantage of a common data storage area.


Installing Windows 98 will place a shortcut to the My Documents folder on the desktop, and change the behavior of the Common File Dialogs to default to this folder. You can delete the desktop shortcut, or you can drag it to your start menu, or anywhere else on your hard disk.

Icons! Features

The Plus! Tab in the display applet has been renamed to “Icons”. The following items have been removed from “Icons”. These have been moved to the explorer’s view – options menu – advanced tab and the Display Control Panel as appropriate.

Full Window Drag

Font Smoothing

Wallpaper stretching

.

Accessibility

New Accessibility API support in GDI and User to enable support helper applications for disabled computer users. This includes support for screen readers, larger, high contrast font displays, and more. For more information about Microsoft Accessibility support, and for API information, please see:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enable

Wheel Mouse Support – for the new Microsoft Intellimouse with the wheel on top, this builds in support for applications that can take advantage of it.

  • Just rotating the wheel causes text to scroll several lines (default 3) per wheel detent.
  • In Office97, rotating the wheel while holding down the Ctrl key will zoom in or out (cause the document to be displayed larger or smaller).
  • The wheel itself acts as a middle mouse button if pressed.
  • By pressing the wheel button in a wheel-aware app (Office97/IE3), you are then in "panning mode". This is indicated by the mouse cursor changing to a special panning cursor. While panning mode is active, just dragging the mouse forward or backward will cause the document to auto-scroll. The speed at which the document scrolls is determined by how far the mouse is dragged away from the position where panning mode was enabled. To exit panning mode, just press any mouse button.
  • Not all software that has a scroll bar will work with the wheel. In order for the wheel to work in an application, one of two things must be true:
  • The application must be revised to handle the new WM_MOUSEWHEEL message. Office97/IE3 are two examples of this.
  • The application must use one of USER's built-in controls. The wheel will work with Notepad because Notepad uses USER's edit control.

Please note that for this release, if you have an IntelliPoint Wheel mouse, Windows 98 installation may change it to a Standard Serial or PS/2 mouse in Device Manager. This change is only to the description of the mouse in Device Manager, and should not have any effect on the mouse. You should still have full wheel functionality, in fact, with the Windows 98 mouse drivers; the wheel will work in more applications than the original IntelliPoint drivers. As such, please do not re-install the IntelliPoint software to get the "wheel" back.

Animation

6. This includes sliding menus and color highlights on menus and controls to track the mouse position. These settings will be able to be controlled the TweakUI utility located on the cd in the \betaonly directory.

Image Color Management 2.0 API

Better quality, faster and easier color management. The last step for WYSIWYG. The users can get the right content and format of their document from their screen to their printer and from their screen to someone else’s screen. With the new and improved Image Color Management 2.0, ICM 2.0, using applications that support color management, the users will also get consistent color from their screen to their printer and from their screen to someone else’s screen.

Microsoft's first implementation of color management support was released in the Microsoft® Windows® 95 operating system as ICM 1.0. This version of ICM was designed for applications that do not work in colors outside of RGB (such as CMYK) and that want color management to work fairly transparently for the end-user. ICM 1.0 requires ICC profiles to be installed for all of the color devices on the user's system, and it requires the application that wants to accurately portray colors to the user to support the ICM 1.0 APIs.

After meetings with multiple industry leaders in the color field, Microsoft has designed ICM 2.0. The new APIs are a complete superset of the ICM 1.0 APIs and add a new range of capabilities:

ICM 1.0 compatible

ICC compliant

Scalable: Simple APIs for applications such as Microsoft Office, complete control for applications such as Adobe PhotoShop

Same APIs for Windows 95 and Windows NT operating systems

Support for Profile management at API and user interface level

Bitmap v5 header support

Standard Color Space support: sRGB

Broader color space support: RGB, CMYK, LAB, and others

Broader support for bitmap formats

Improved palette handling

Device driver participation on the Windows 95 and Windows NT operating systems

Support for multiple Color Management Modules (CMM)

Faster default CMM that supports all ICC-compliant profiles

Easier installation of profiles

This new version of ICM will be integrated in Memphis and Windows NT 5.0. For more information on ICM 2.0, please see the document in the \betaonly\icm20 directory.

A beta version of the ICM 2.0 SDK is located on:http:/www.microsoft.com/msdn/sdk/icm20.htm

There is a white paper on ICM 2.0 on: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/platform/colormgntwp.htm

Display Control Panel Improvements

The Display Control Panel has been enhanced to support new display driver technology. It contains the following new features:

  • QuickRes, the quick resolution switching utility, has been incorporated into the standard control panel. There is a checkbox that will turn on the taskbar notification icon for quick resolution and color depth switching.
  • DynaColor, the ability to switch display color depths, is now included in the display control panel. (You still need a reboot if you change “font size”.) Many applications and display drivers will work with this automatically, but some may need to be updated. Please send us a bug if you find an application that does not update properly. This feature is useful for game developers who wish to use a specific color depth.
  • Refresh Rate Support is now available from the Change Display Adapter button. This support was built into the Windows 95 Registry, but only a few display adapter drivers support the refresh rate setting. Contact your Display Adapter vendor to get a refresh-rate enabled display driver. Refresh rates are stored in a per-resolution setting.
  • Display Adapter Performance Slider is now accessible from the Display Control Panel, instead of having to go to the System Properties. This slider is used to diagnose and solve display driver incompatibilities.
  • Hardware Panning is now enabled on lower-resolution displays such as VGA-only monitors or laptop LCD panels where the chipset supports it. If your chipset supports this and you have a monitor selected in the Monitor settings that does not support greater than 800x600 resolution, hardware panning will be enabled. Hardware panning is disabled on monitors capable of 1024x768 resolution, as it is not normally needed. If hardware panning is enabled, and the display device is capable of 800x600, there are two graphics sliders - one for the screen resolution and one for the virtual desktop resolution. The screen slider is not shown for 640x480-only displays, as it would be fixed at one setting only.

Multiple Display Support – if multiple displays are enabled, the Settings tab is replaced with a Monitors tab. You can use this Monitors tab to control relative screen placement by dragging, and to set individual adapter settings as described above by selecting the appropriate adapter.

Release Notes for Display CPL:

On some chipsets (older S3 chipsets such as 801 and Cirrus Laguna), lower resolution modes may cause some older monitors to lose sync. This is because the lower resolution modes are driving the pixel clock too high. It might help to reset your display settings to VGA settings (640 x 480 x 16 color).

Support Tools

Windows 98 HelpDesk

Launching Windows 98 HelpDesk is the first step in resolving a technical support issue. It links you to local and Internet resources, including Online Help, Troubleshooting Wizards, the Microsoft Knowledge Base, the MTS Windows Support Home Page, Windows Update Manager, and the Windows 98 Web-based Bug Reporting Tool. You can launch the Windows 98 HelpDesk from the Start menu.

Windows Update Manager

The Windows Update Manager is a Web-based service that scans your system to determine what hardware and system software you have installed, and compares it to a back end database to determine whether there are updated drivers or system files available that you may wish to install. Any applicable updates will be listed with descriptions to aid you in determining whether or not to install them. Any updates installed with this service can be uninstalled.

To run the Windows Update Manager, start Helpdesk by clicking Start->Help. Under the "Contact a Support Engineer" section, click Windows Update Manager.

Note:  The Windows Update Manager is implemented as an ActiveX control, requiring the use of a browser, such as Internet Explorer version 3.0 or higher, that supports ActiveX controls.

Web-based Bug Submission

A bug reporting tool has been provided for you in the Windows 98 Beta. This is a Win32 application that scans your computer and generates a profile of your hardware. This application is very aggressive about collecting system configuration files.

This is to give us the best chance to understand and reproduce the bugs you report. Your registry along with other configuration files are built into a compressed CAB file.

You can control which files are collected by clicking anywhere on the warning text in the main bug reporting form. The bug reporting tool automatically uploads the following files with each bug report you submit:

  • System.1st
  • Setuplog.*
  • Detlog.*
  • Bootlog.*
  • Asd.log (if it exists)
  • ios.log (if it exists)

This version is different than versions released previously in that it allows you to save your bugs on your local disk for submission later. There are two ways to access the bug reporting tool. Select Windows Update from the Windows start menu and select the Bug Report button. The other way is to select Run from the Windows Start menu, type bugrep32 and then click OK.

If you encounter problems such that you cannot bring up Windows, you may still be able to upload helpful information to Support. A DOS utility called Dosinet has been provided. It runs in DOS mode. It can be found in the Windows directory. This utility will only work if you have service through an ISP that supports PPP (e.g., it will not work with CompuServe). It only works with modems connected to the COM1 or COM2 ports.

Dr. Watson

Dr. Watson collects detailed information about the state of your system at the time of a fault. Dr. Watson intercepts the software faults, identifying the software that faulted and offering a detailed description of the cause. When enabled, this tool logs this information to disk (*.wlg), and can be used to display it on screen (click Details on the dialog box that is displayed when a fault occurs). This information can be used to assist product support personnel in determining the cause of the fault.

The snapshot generated by Dr. Watson presents a comprehensive picture of the software environment in its Advanced view. If it is capable, Dr. Watson will diagnose the issue and offer a suggested course of action. Additional tabs list software loading in real-mode, software loading at startup, 16-bit modules, 32-bit modules, User and Kernel drivers, running tasks, as well as detail the system itself.

Note:  If you discover a reproducible error, please use Dr. Watson to record the state of your system. Comment the system snapshot with the steps to reproduce the error and save the log file with a descriptive name by choosing “Save As” from the File menu. Watson logs (*.wlg) are not uploaded with your bug report by default; manually attach the file to the report to aid our diagnosis of the issue.

Dr. Watson is not loaded by default. To launch Dr. Watson automatically, create a shortcut in your Startup group to \Windows\DrWatson.exe.

Registry Scan and Backup

Windows 98 automatically scans the system registry for corruption when booting; creating a backup of system files once daily. If registry corruption is detected, the utility will automatically restore a previous day’s backup (SCANREG /RESTORE). If no backup is available, the utility will attempt to repair it (SCANREG /FIX).

ScanRegW.exe is a protected-mode version of this utility that can both create a backup of the system files and scan the registry for corruption. If corruption is detected, it will refer to the real-mode utility, Scanreg.exe, for a resolution.

Windows 98’ Setup invokes Scanreg.exe to verify the integrity of the existing registry before upgrading an installation. If registry corruption is detected it will attempt to fix it automatically. Failing that, it will halt the upgrade. If you experience this, please save the corrupt System.dat and User.dat to a different file extension (*.old) and attach them to a bug report detailing your experience. In this event, your only recourse is to either install Windows 98 to a clean directory from the command prompt, or to manually remove the corrupted files before launching setup.

The Registry Scan and Backup tool can be configured with the Scanreg.ini file. Configurable settings include enabling/disabling the utility, the number of backups maintained, the location of the backup directory, as well as settings to add files to the backup set.

Backups made to a file can now be restored in real-mode. Simply specify the full path to the backup file as the parameter for ‘RESTORE’ (i.e. RESTORE C:\MyBackup.QIC). Note that you must make sure that the device you backed up to can be seen when you boot from the ER disk. There may be special drivers that you need to load in order to see the device in real-mode.

Known Issues:

If your registry contains an entry referencing a file, such as a VxD, that no longer exists, it will not be ‘fixed’ by ScanReg. Such errors are not damaging; manually removing the entry will alleviate the symptoms.

The amount of conventional memory required by ScanReg is determined by the size of your registry. Upwards of 580k of free conventional memory may be required to complete the repair process. If you encounter an "out of memory" error message, optimize your memory by commenting out TSRs and loading device drivers into the upper memory area (UMA). For more information concerning the optimization of your real-mode configuration, see Microsoft Knowledgebase Article Q134399, “How to Increase Conventional Memory for MS-DOS-Based Programs” (http://www.microsoft.com/kb/articles/q134/3/99.htm)

Making an ER disk with a SCSI drive doesn’t copy the ASPI driver to the disk.

When making an ER disk for a SCSI drive, you must copy the ASPI driver (ASPI8DOS.SYS for example) to the first disk manually. You don not need to edit the CONFIG.SYS, just copy the file to the disk and the drive should show up when you boot to the ER disk.

Some SCSI and IDE drives may no longer show up in Backup.

Some SCSI and IDE drives may no longer show up in Backup even though they do show up in the Device Manager. This can be fixed by replacing the PCONFIG.DCF file in the \Accessories\Backup\System directory with an updated one, or the one from the Beta 1 release. This issue will be resolved in Beta 3. These are the known drives currently affected: ARCHIVE Python SCSI; Exabyte EXB-8900 SCSI; and Exabyte Eagle TR-4 IDE.

Microsoft System Information Utility 4.1

Windows 98 now contains a centralized system information utility that gathers system configuration information for technical support. This tool is comprised of a collection of ActiveX controls, each responsible for collecting and displaying a certain category of system information in the right frame of MSInfo. A Support Engineer can guide the user experiencing an issue to MSInfo to facilitate the information gathering process. MSInfo includes viewers for the following file formats:

  • MSInfo files (*.nfo)

The information collected by MSInfo can be saved to file (*.nfo) and viewed using another machine.

  • Cabinet files (*.cab)

Cabinet files uploaded by the Web-based Bug Reporting tool can be opened to access the files therein.

  • HWInfo files (hwinfo.dat)

HWInfo files detail device configuration information, including resources.

  • Dr. Watson logs (*.wlg)

Dr. Watson is invoked by MSInfo to view Watson logs.

  • Text files (*.txt)

The hierarchy displayed in the left pane of the MSInfo container is dependent upon the controls that are installed on the system and registered with MSInfo. This hierarchy may change based on the means used to launch the utility; applications that call it may optimize the layout for support issues concerning it. Windows 98 support tools are made available from the Tools menu.

Known Issues:

This version of MSInfo does not open cabinet files (*.cab) created by the Windows 98 Bug Reporting Tool or the Registry Scan and Backup Utility.

System File Checker

System File Checker (SFC) verifies the integrity of your operating system files and offers to restore missing, corrupted, or replaced files. SFC can be configured to backup/not backup the existing file before restoring the original. A log file (SFCLog.txt) is generated by default. Additional options include the ability to customize search criteria based on folder and/or file extension, choose a different verification data file, create a new verification file, or restore the default verification data file (DEFAULT.SFC).

Known Issues:

When running System File Checker for the first time it may report that a number of files have changed. This is because the default file checksums are not up-to-date for the current build of Windows 98. If System File Checker reports that a file has changed, select "Update verification information for all changed files", and click OK.

System Troubleshooter

System Troubleshooter (Tshoot.exe) automates the routine troubleshooting steps used by Microsoft Technical Support Engineers when diagnosing issues with the Windows configuration.

Modifying system configuration files has been an inherently dangerous task, as the only tools available were basic text editors such as Notepad and System Configuration Editor (SysEdit.exe). Tshoot permits the user to modify the system configuration with checkboxes, disabling/enabling items without a risk of spelling errors. This tool significantly reduces the reliance on a user's technical knowledge to troubleshoot issues with the system. Resolving issues with the Windows configuration has largely been reduced to a process of elimination using checkboxes.

Usage

System Troubleshooter can help you resolve issues that occur when you start Windows 9x normally. These issues include (but are not limited to):

  • Symptoms are not reproducible when launching in Safe mode
  • Error messages
  • Hanging
  • Loss of functionality

Note:  The goal of the Beta process is to eliminate errors that would lead someone to use this tool. Please submit a bug report detailing any issue you encounter testing Windows 98, regardless of your ability to resolve it using System Troubleshooter.

Troubleshooting

To launch System Troubleshooter, click the Start button, choose Run, type "tshoot" (without quotation marks) in the Open box, and then click OK.

Before the troubleshooting session begins, backup your current system configuration files with Tshoot. To do so, click the Backup button located on the General tab. Establishing a baseline configuration ensures the modifications made during this session are reversible.

1. Select Diagnostic startup to create a clean software environment

The following steps create a clean environment for troubleshooting. This action determines if the issue can be isolated using Tshoot.

1. Click the Diagnostic startup option, click OK, and restart the computer as prompted.

2. The Windows 98 Startup menu will be automatically enabled. Select Step-by-Step from the menu options, choosing to process all but the Config.sys and Autoexec.bat files. If the system hangs bypassing these files, restart the computer and step through them line by line, choosing to load all drive overlay and compression software required to access your boot disk.

3. Determine if the symptoms are alleviated in this environment.

If the symptoms are alleviated, isolate the source of the issue using the selective startup options.

If the symptoms are reproducible with the Normal startup disabled, investigate the following:

  • Advanced troubleshooting options (detailed in the following section)
  • Protected-mode device driver configuration

For information detailing the troubleshooting steps, refer to the “Protected-Mode Device Drivers” section in article Q156126, “Troubleshooting Windows 95 Using Safe Mode.

  • A file is missing, corrupt, or has been replaced (refer to the System File Checker)
  • Registry corruption (refer to the Registry Scan and Backup Utility)
  • Virus
  • Faulty hardware/Hardware settings (CMOS)

Unsuccessful upgrade of previous Windows configuration

2. Isolate the issue using the Selective startup options

Select the Selective startup option to isolate the source of the issue. Using a process of elimination, strategically enable options until the symptoms are reproducible. Once the problem reappears, isolate the issue by narrowing the suspect options down to one source.

To determine the source of the problem:

1. Identify issues with the real-mode configuration by disabling all but the Config.sys and Autoexec.bat files and restarting.

2. Enable the System.ini and Win.ini and restart as prompted to determine if the problem lies in the Windows configuration files.

3. Test the software loading at startup by enabling the Winstart.bat and Startup options and restarting the system.

3. Identify the problem using the appropriate tab(s)

The CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT tabs intelligently identifies settings and minimizes the risks inherent in editing configuration files using the following conventions:

  • Disabled checkboxes indicate lines commented out by the tool
  • Settings used when the file’s Selective startup option is disabled are identified with a Windows logo
  • Previously commented lines are listed without a checkbox
  • Lines edited from within the tool are identified by a yellow pencil

The System.ini and Win.ini tabs follow the aforementioned conventions as well as identify sections with a yellow folder. Entire sections can by commented out by disabling the checkbox for the section.

The Startup Tab lists items loading at startup from the Startup group, Win.ini load= and run=, and the Registry.

Advanced Options

The Advanced Options tab may be used to further narrow the scope of an issue with Windows 95. The options invoke many of the diagnostic switches for Windows (equivalent to WIN.COM /D:<switch>). Options include the ability to disable 32-bit disk access and force the display to VGA. In addition, use the advanced options to limit the memory used by Windows (commonly used to identify issues with physical memory), enable the Startup menu, disable ScanDisk after bad shutdowns, and enable/disable SCSI double-buffering (this option is grayed out if the system requires Dblbuff.sys to access the drive).

Automatic Skip Driver Agent

Automatic Skip Driver Agent (ASD.exe) will identify potentially dangerous failures that are known to have hung Windows 95 systems and mark them to be bypassed on subsequent boots. ASD performs as follows:

1. Identifies specific device(s) that fail to enumerate as expected

2. Reports that it has detected a failure that may cause a system hang

3. Offers to bypass this action on subsequent boots

If an error to this effect is ever displayed, the Hardware Troubleshooting Agent can be invoked by running ASD.EXE. All devices that have failed enumeration are listed by the HTA. The user can enable any device previously disabled by ASD and Windows will attempt to enumerate it on the next boot. Choosing Details identifies the failing device as well as suggests a course of action.

Communications and Networking

Windows 98 contains many extensive communications and networking enhancements. Built in support is now avaialable for the following features:

  • Dial-Up Networking and Dial-Up Scripting
  • Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP)
  • TCP/IP
  • TAPI 2.1
  • ISDN 1.1 Accelerator
  • NDIS 2 and NDIS 5
  • ATM with LANE Emulation Support
  • Windows 98 TCP-IP
  • WinSock 2
  • Resource ReSerVation Protocol (RSVP)

Client for Microsoft Networks

For more detailed information on these offerings please refer to \betadocs\comnet.doc on the CD for a full description of the feature and any issues you may encounter in using it.

Known Issues:

Application Failures when using Microsoft's IPX/SPX Compatible Protocol as the Only Configured Transport Protocol

If your machine is configured to run with Microsoft's IPX/SPX compatible protocol and no other transport protocol, and you now experience failures while running Windows 95 applications that were functional prior to installing this version of the Windows 98 beta , then you will need to replace a current Windows Sockets 2 API file with a version that resides in the Windows 98 Beta 2 CD \betaonly\winsock2 directory.

To do this:

  1. Click "Start", "Shut Down", "Restart the Computer in DOS mode", "Yes".
  2. After reboot is finished, change directories by typing "cd %windir%\System <enter>"
  3. Now that you are in the Windows System directory type "ren WSOCK32.DLL WSOCK32.MB2 <enter>".
  4. You will now need to copy the WSOCK32.DLL file that is in the betaonly directory on Windows 98 beta 2 CD into the current directory. To do this Type "copy <your CD-ROM Drive letter> :\betaonly\Wsock32.dll" (example: "copy E:\betaonly\WSOCK32.DLL")
  5. Reboot your machine

Your Windows 95 applications should now work as they used to prior to installation of this beta."

Memphis Beta 2 supports the Resource Reservation Protocol ( RSVP ). This functionality is enabled directly through Winsock 2 and does not require any additional installation steps. For a complete description of how to use RSVP with Winsock 2, see the documentation on the following FTP site: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/WinSock/winsock2/ in the document wsgqos.doc.

Additional RSVP functionality is available from newer binaries located in the betaonly directory on the CD. To enable this functionality, copy the following binaries to the SYSTEM directory:

  • Rsvp.exe
  • Rsvpsp.dll
  • Rapilib.dll
  • Routetab.dll
  • Qosname.dll

These binaries enable the following additional functionality:

  • WSAGetQosByName
  • WSCInstallQOSTemplate
  • WSCRemoveQOSTemplate
  • Provider Specific Buffer decoding
  • Subnet Bandwidth Manager (SBM) support

3rd Party Networking Release Notes

FTP Software’s OnNet32 TCP/IP Stack

The only way that the OnNet32 IP Stack can be installed on Windows 98 is by upgrade from previous install or follow the instructions under the Winsock 2.0 section to return to Winsock 1.1 before installing OnNet32. When upgrading the system, it may hang on first boot. If this occurs, shutdown the machine and restart. The software will also ask you to “install protocol that matches your hardware” select “cancel” to continue.

When using the OnNet32’s IP Stack with Client for Microsoft Networks, there may be some difficulty in transferring files with other Windows 9x or NT machines.

Novell Release Notes

NovellNP.dll error on boot

If you receive an error of "Unable to load the dynamic link library: NovellNP.dll ... " please, reinstall Novell's Client32 one more time. This will correct the error.

Client 32 and InterNetware Client

Note: Please update to Novell’s Beta Client32 2.20a later before upgrading to Windows 98. Releases of Client32 before 2.20a will not install properly on Windows 98.

If Client32 functionality is lost during the upgrade, the following steps MAY restore functionality:

  1. Ensure you have a locally accessible copy of the installation media for all installed clients.
  2. Write down your current network configuration, including client, protocol, and NIC settings.
  3. Switch the primary network logon to a setting that is neither the current setting nor Client32. If you are asked for client files, direct Windows 98 to the installation media.
  4. If step 3 works, you may be able to return the primary network logon to its original setting and still have Client32 functionality.

If the user has a physical or logical drive F and they install NWRedir, drive F will be replaced with network drive to the Novell server.

Solution:

  1. Goto "Control Panel -> Network"
  2. Select "Client for NetWare Networks"
  3. Click on "Properties"
  4. Change "First network drive" field to a letter greater than F
Novell 32-bit ODI NIC drivers

If you upgrade over a Novell provided 32-bit ODI driver and you receive the Hardware Troubleshooting Agent (asd.exe) for your network card every other boot, please switch to NDIS drivers. Microsoft is investigating this issue.

VLM Client

VLM Client Kit 1.21 not compatible with Windows 98

Do not install VLM Client Kit 1.21 over Windows 98, or install Windows 98 over Client Kit 1.21. The system will not boot to normal mode with Netware.drv 3.10.96.201 installed. VLM Client Kit 1.21 is available for download from Novell and is also the version of VLM shipped with NetWare 4.11 and IntraNetware.

Netware.drv version 3.03.94.280, included with the version of the VLM shell shipped with NetWare 4.10, is compatible with Windows 98.

Banyan Vines Release Notes

Cannot upgrade Banyan Vines client using NEWREV

If you are using the Banyan Vines client for 95 you will not be able to upgrade your existing client by using NEWREV. This only applies if you have an older version then what is on the Banyan server you are connecting to. This may happen if your administrator has upgraded the server to the latest edition and it is newer then your existing client. Please contact your LAN administrator or Banyan Vines to get the latest upgrade.

Unable to map NT drive in GUI when the Banyan 16 bit client and Client for Microsoft Networks is loaded without Microsoft’s Client for NetWare Networks.

If the Banyan Vines 16 bit client and Client for Microsoft Networks is installed, a general network error occurs when trying to map a local drive to an NT server. The workaround is to install the Microsoft Client for NetWare in addition to the Banyan 16-bit client and the Client for Microsoft Networks then the mapping will be successful.

Uninstall fails when the Banyan 16bit RM client is installed

If you have the Banyan vines 16-bit client installed in Win95 and you have upgraded to Windows 98 you will not be able to Uninstall Windows 98 back to Win95. Currently there is no workaround.

Opening and closing Network control panel when Banyan Vines 16 bit client is installed

If you access the Network Control panel and proceed to make any changes with any client or protocol and you have the Banyan Vines 16-bit client installed you will be prompted to reboot your computer and the Vines drivers will need to be reinstalled. You can reinstall the drivers by rebooting the computer then logging into the Vines network; you will be prompted to install the drivers from the Vines server.

Incorrect error message when upgrading OS from the Vines server.

If you are using the Vines 16 bit client and you upgrade to Windows 98, upon the second reboot of upgrading the OS you will be prompted with a incorrect error message: "Setup cannot access network to complete installation. Do you want to: "1: reboot if you skipped login 2: Change network settings before continuing (prompts for net setup) 3: Continue w/out access to the setup files"“ Select option 3 to continue Windows 98 installation.

Common login with Vines 32 bit client

If common login is not selected and your primary network is Banyan Vines and you logoff and login as a different user then you will not be prompted to login. Windows will automatically log you in to an NT domain.

Upgrades and installs of the OS over a Vines network using the 16 bit client

When Windows 98 is installed or upgraded over a Vines network, the network interface card will be disabled in Device Manager. This happens before first boot, so real mode drivers will not load. In the case of upgrades, if the NIC has been disabled, or simply not enabled, the machine will enter a continuous Windows restart loop.

Windows does not display the correct properties for Banyan Vines mapped drives.

When you right click on a mapped Banyan Vines drive the properties such as drive size, capacity, and name will show up incorrectly.

Extended characters with Banyan Vines 16 or 32 bit client

If you are using Banyan Vines in conjunction with Client for Microsoft Networks, and your computer name has an extended character in it then your computer name will not be recognized properly over an NT domain. The current workaround is to not use extended characters.

Other Banyan Problems

A number of Vines issues can be corrected by downloading the latest version of Banyan’s 32-bit Vines client from www.Banyan.com.

Artisoft LANtastic Release Notes

LANtastic Real-Mode 16-bit Server does not function

Currently 16-bit versions of LANtastic’s Server (versions 5.x and 6.x) software do not function while Windows 98 is loaded. It is possible to boot the system to command prompt only in order to start the server software and access the system. Starting windows will stop the server service however and restarting in MS-DOS mode will not restore functionality. If operated from command prompt only, the server will not be able to function to full capacity. Support for real-mode share has been dropped and the server used this to provide greater functionality. The 16-bit LANtastic client software still functions under Windows 98.

Installing LANTastic 7.0 for the first time causes missing MSRRDIR.VXD message

Installing LANtastic 7.0 for the first time on a system with Windows 98 causes an error message. The message states that setup cannot find the file MSRRDIR.VXD and to look for it on the Windows 98 install media. This is a LANtastic file that cannot be found on any Windows 98 install media. To continue with setup have type in the path for your windows\system folder, typically c:\windows\system. The file can be found there and the LANtastic setup will continue.

For more help, information and the latest patches for LANtastic 7.0, contact Artisoft. Their website is http://www.artisoft.com.

Applets and Utilities

MS Paint

MS Paint now supports loading and saving GIF and JPEG images if the appropriate Office97 Graphics Import Filters are installed. If the filters are installed, the Open and Save As dialogs will include GIF and JPG extensions.

Backup

The new Windows 98 Backup applet adds support for parallel, IDE/ATAPI, and SCSI devices. Devices supported include QIC-80, QIC-80 Wide, QIC-3010, QIC-3010 Wide, QIC-3020, QIC-3020 Wide, TR1, TR2, TR3, TR4, DAT (DDS1, 2, & 3), DC 6000, 8mm, and DLT. This includes drives branded by Conner, Exabyte, HP/Colorado, Iomega, Micro Solutions, Seagate, Tandberg, WangDAT, and Wangtek. In addition, the Windows 98 Backup applet supports backups to local, removable, and network drives.

Backup Known Issues:

The tape formats have changed since earlier pre-beta releases.

You may not be able to restore or append to backups created in previous pre-beta releases of Windows 98 because the tape formats have changed to accommodate more features.

Seagate Backup v2.0 will not work with Backup installed.

Seagate Backup v2.0 and Windows 98 Backup will not coexist. You will have to remove one and reinstall the other if you have both installed.

Some tape devices such as parallel drives may not show up in the Device Manager.

To fix this, run C:\Program Files\Accessories\Backup\System\PNPWTape.EXE and reboot your computer. If the drive is installed correctly, it should be added to the Device Manager after rebooting.

Can not emergency restore backups made with Windows 95 Backup.

Any backups made with the Windows 95 Backup applet can only be restored in Windows.

Can not make emergency restore backups to non-tape media.

Any backups made to removable media or to a hard drive can not be restored with real-mode emergency restore.

Can not restore multiple tape backups made with Windows 95 Backup.

Currently only one tape Windows 95 backups can be fully restored. Only the first tape of multiple tape backups made in with Windows 95 will be restored.

Compression Agent

Windows 98 includes the Compression Agent utility from MS-Plus! that enables scheduled high-compression to happen when you are not using your machine.

Disk Defragmenter Optimization Wizard

Disk Defragmenter has been enhanced to make your programs start faster. The new Disk Defragmenter Optimization wizard allows you to pick the programs you use most often and steps you through creating a program log. Disk Defragmenter uses the log to arrange program files in the order they are accessed when the program starts. This allows the program to start more quickly.

To run Disk Defragmenter Optimization Wizard:

1. Click Start, point to Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and then click Disk Defragmenter. Note: If the Disk Defragmenter Select Drive dialog appears, click "Settings" and then click "Create Program Log".

2. On the Disk Defragmenter Optimization Wizard window, click "Create a log now to optimize my disk(s)" and click Next.

Follow the instructions to complete the wizard.

Answers to Commonly Asked Questions about Disk Defragmenter Optimization Wizard

Q: Some of my programs do not appear in the list of programs provided by the Disk Defragmenter Optimization Wizard. Why?

A: The programs shown in the list are programs that have a link in the Start menu or on the Desktop and a program file size of 800 KB or larger. You may add other programs by clicking the "Other" button in the wizard.

Q: When I start Defrag the Disk Defragmenter Optimization Wizard does not appear. How do I start the wizard?

A: On the Defrag Select Drive dialog, click "Settings" and then click "Create Program Log".

Q: Do I have to run the Disk Defragmenter Optimization Wizard and create a program log each time I want to defragment my hard disk?

A: No, once you have completed the Disk Defragmenter Optimization Wizard the log information is stored on the hard disk and is used each time you defragment the drive. Typically you only need to run the wizard again if you want to add or remove a program or if you have upgraded one of your programs.

Q: How do I add a new program to the program log or remove one of the programs that I logged previously?

A: To add or remove a program, run the Disk Defragmenter Optimization Wizard and create an entirely new log by selecting all of the programs you want to optimize.

Q: Defrag keeps restarting and has been running for a long time without making much progress. Why is it restarting?

A: Defrag must keep track of where files are stored and where free space is located; therefore, Defrag must reread the disk information anytime a program writes to the hard disk. If Defrag is restarting often you may be running another program that is making frequent writes to the disk. Try quitting other programs while Defrag is running. If you are running the Microsoft Office Find Fast utility, you may need to pause Find Fast while Defrag runs. To pause Find Fast, click Start, point to Settings, and click Control Panel. Double-click the Find Fast icon and then click "Pause Indexing" in the Find Fast Index menu.

Task Scheduler

Microsoft Task Scheduler helps you automate routine tasks for your computer.

The new Task Scheduler replaces System Agent on Windows 95 computers, which was included in Microsoft Plus!, and the Windows NT AT service. If you have Microsoft Plus! installed, your existing tasks will be upgraded to the new format. Existing AT tasks on Windows NT will also be upgraded.

If you have scheduled tasks to run:

1. Open the Scheduled Tasks folder.

2. Click the Add Scheduled Task Icon.

Remotely Managing Tasks on Windows NT from a Windows 95 Computer:

If you want to use Task Scheduler to manage scheduled tasks on Windows NT from a Windows 95 client computer; you must install some additional networking components on your Windows 95 computer. These components allow Windows 95-to-Windows NT registry access. For more information, see the section on networking and the registry in the Windows 95 setup documentation.

Executing Tasks When the Computer Is Idle

If you used a computer running Windows 95 to schedule a task, and you set the start time to run when the computer has been idle for a specified period, computers running Windows NT ignore the setting. However, the setting is preserved if the task is again run on a computer running Windows 95. This will be fixed in a future release.

Differences Between Windows 95 and Windows NT

Because these operating systems are different, you will see the following differences in functionality:

  • Windows 95 supports Power management.
  • Windows NT supports Task security via the NTFS file system.

Some Scheduled Tasks Don't Run Properly on Windows NT

If you are running Internet Explorer 4.0 on Windows NT 4.0, and you schedule a task to run when your computers starts or when you log on, the task will not run. This will be fixed in a future release.

AM/PM Indicators Not Available in Some International Formats

If the AM/PM indicators do not appear in the dialog box where you specify the time you want a task to begin, you can use the 24-hour time format to enter the time. For example, if you want a task to start at 11:15 AM, specify the setting as 11:15. If you want the task to start at 11:15 PM, specify the setting as 23:15. In either case, the time will be displayed as 11:15, but the correct value will be used.

More Information

The Task Scheduler Help files are integrated with the system Help files. If you want to display only Task Scheduler Help, carry out the following steps:

1. On the Start menu, click Run.

2. Type the path to the Task Scheduler Help file, Mstask.hlp. For example, you might type C:\Windows\Help\Mstask.hlp

If you don't know the path to the Mstask.hlp file, you can use the Find command on the Start menu to locate it.

Calc

Windows 98 now contains an updated, high precision calculator. The math engine in the calculator has been updated to fix the nagging problems due to binary to decimal math conversion errors. Please test this version of Calc with all of your favorite Calc bugs, and let us know if you find any new ones or if any old ones still exist.

WordPad

The main new features since Win95 are support for Unicode text files, Word97 files, and richedit2.

MSD

The old MS-DOS “MSD” utility on the CD has been updated. The older version would sometimes indicate an incorrect CPU model on non-Intel CPUs. Windows 98 System Control Panel displays the correct CPU, so the CPU display has been eliminated from MSD to avoid confusion and incorrect information. In addition, Dr. Watson and System Info both provide CPU identifier information. There are no other changes to MSD.

HyperTerminal

HyperTerminal: Will not save newly created connection sessions.

Currently it is not possible to save newly created sessions (.ht files) within HyperTerminal. You can save changes to existing sessions.

If you wish to create a new session, copy an existing session and rename it to the name of the new session you want to create. Open this session and change the phone number and other data to what you need for the new session and then save the changes on this new session.

TAPI: Getting "No dial tone" connection causes GPF in TAPISRV when exiting HyperTerminal

Make sure that the phone line is properly connected and that you can get a proper dial tone on the phone line before using HyperTerminal. If for some reason you get a "No Dial Tone" message when dialing out, do not immediately shutdown HyperTerminal. Exiting HyperTerminal after getting this message will cause a general protection fault in the TAPISVR component. It is suggested that you save any information in any open applications before exiting HyperTerminal. It is also suggested that you reboot the machine before using HyperTerminal again should you get this problem.

HyperTerminal adds empty folders to root directory when executed.

Any time HyperTerminal is executed a folder titled "Start Menu" will be created in the root of the drive where HyperTerminal is executed. This folder and its subfolders can be deleted without causing any problems.

Windows Scripting

Windows gets Scripting built-in. With the Windows 98 and NT 5 releases, we will be supporting direct script execution from the shell or the command line. We include direct support for Visual Basic Scripting (VBScript) and JavaScript. The scripting host, however, is extensible to additional language by third parties.

Internet Explorer installs an ActiveX control that interprets VBS and JavaScript. Windows 98 will include the “Windows Scripting Host” which is just a simple executable that provides a direct interface into the scripting ActiveX controls.

Windows Scripting Host: A Shell-based Host for Integrated Scripting in Windows

The Windows Scripting Host (WSH) is a language-independent scripting host for 32-bit Windows platforms. Microsoft provides both Visual Basic Scripting Language® and JScript scripting engines with WSH. Microsoft anticipates that other software companies will provide ActiveX™ scripting engines for other languages such as Perl, TCL, REXX, and Python.

WSH can be run from either the Windows-based host (WSCRIPT.EXE), or the command shell-based host (CSCRIPT.EXE). When you double click a .VBS or .JS file in the shell, WSCRIPT is used. When you do a Start XXX.VBS from the command line, Wscript is also used. To execute in command line mode, you must explicitly start the command shell host using the syntax “cscript xxxx.vbs”.

For more information on the Windows Scripting Host, please review the documentation in the \betaonly\wsh directory on the CD.

Imaging by Eastman Kodak

Imaging is a new FAX viewer utility that has replaced FAXVIEW. It offers improved functionality for viewing faxes, as well as improved performance under some circumstances. It also includes TWAIN32 support, which works with many scanner devices. This application now supports the push mode of scanning. This allows the application to be launched by events from a scanner or camera. The HP 5p and the Logitech USB scanner included in this release each support buttons that trigger this behavior. See the above section on WDM drivers for scanners and cameras for more information.

Microsoft Fax Installation for Windows 98

If you have difficulties using Microsoft Fax on Windows 98, the problem may be due to installation and configuration. If you have problems using Microsoft Fax, follow these detailed step-by-step installation instructions before reporting bugs in Microsoft Fax.

Step-By-Step Installation Instructions for Microsoft Fax

After a successful upgrade or installation of Windows 98, open the “Control Panel” by clicking on the Start button, then the Settings menu option and then the Control Panel option.

1. Double click on the “Add / Remove Programs” icon.

2. Click on the “Windows Setup” tab, and install all the options concerning the “accessories”, “communications”, “disk tools”, and “Microsoft Fax” components.

3. Click “OK” to any message boxes that appear.

4. When the “Inbox Setup Wizard” dialog asks, “Have you used Windows Messaging before?” click on “NO” and then “Next”.

5. When asked, “Select the information service(s) that you want to use with Windows Messaging” – make sure that the Microsoft Fax option is checked.

6. Next, at the prompt for “Location Information” enter your telephone area code and optionally, fill in the other fields. Click “Close” when done.

7. The “Dialing Properties” dialog appears with a “My Location” tab. Fill in the appropriate fields then click “OK”.

8. The “Inbox Setup Wizard” window will then ask, “What do you want to use to send and receive faxes?” Choose “Modem connected to my computer” and click the “Next” button.

9. The “Install New Modem” dialog appears. Allow the system to automatically detect your modem; do not check on the “Don’t detect my modem; I will select from list” feature. Click on “Next”.

10. Verify that modem has been correctly detected. Click “Next”, then “Finish”

11. The “Inbox Setup Wizard” appears without the detected modem in the list. Click “Next”.

12. The Setup Wizard will display “You have not selected a fax modem. That’s OK, but you will only be able to work offline. Do you want to select a fax modem?” Select “No”.

13. The “Inbox Setup Wizard” will ask you to enter a name and fax number. Fill in the fields and then click on “Next” and “Finish”.

14. An error message box may appear describing an error in MLSET32 (i.e.: MLSET32 caused an invalid page fault in module KERNEL32.DLL at 0157:bff7a020). If this occurs, click on the “Close” button and proceed to the next step.

15. At this step, the Microsoft Fax feature is installed. To finish, right-click (right mouse button) on the Inbox icon located on the desktop.

16. Click on Microsoft Fax in the “Services” box.

17. Click on “Properties” button.

18. Click on the “Modem” tab

19. Click on “Set as Active Fax Modem”

20. Click on “OK”

21. Click on “OK”

Microsoft Fax should now be operational now.

NB: Another method of getting Microsoft Fax operational, is to do a hardware detection on modem first (via control panel / hardware detect), reboot, and then add on Microsoft Fax (via control panel / “Add Remove Programs” icon).

Updated awfxcg32.dll

With Microsoft fax installed as a MAPI service provider, you may encounter a page fault on exiting a MAPI client such as exchange or outlook. This has been corrected with a new version of the awfxcg32.dll binary. You can copy this file from betaonly\fax\awfxcg32.dll to your windows\system directory, copying over the old awfxcg32.dll file.

Microsoft Fax and Exchange 5.0

There are problems with the installation order of Microsoft Fax and Exchange 5.0. We recommend installing Microsoft Fax before upgrading to Exchange 5.0. However, if Exchange 5.0 is installed prior to Microsoft Fax, you will need to edit the c:\windows\system\mapisvc.inf file.

In the mapisvc.inf, file; add the following line to the sections indicated:

[Services]

AWFAX=Microsoft Fax

[Default Services]

AWFAX=Microsoft Fax

Then, add the following statements:

[AWFAX]

PR_DISPLAY_NAME=Microsoft Fax Messaging Service

PR_SERVICE_DLL_NAME=awfaxp.dll

PR_SERVICE_ENTRY_NAME=ServiceEntry

WIZARD_ENTRY_NAME=WizardInformation

Providers=AWFAX_AB, AWFAX_XP

PR_RESOURCE_FLAGS=SERVICE_SINGLE_COPY|SERVICE_NO_PRIMARY_IDENTITY

PR_SERVICE_SUPPORT_FILES=awfaxp,awfxab,awcl1_,awdevl,awrndr,awfxcg

[AWFAX_AB]

PR_PROVIDER_DISPLAY=Microsoft Fax Address Book

PR_DISPLAY_NAME=Microsoft Fax Address Book

PR_PROVIDER_DLL_NAME=awfxab.dll

PR_RESOURCE_TYPE=MAPI_AB_PROVIDER

PR_RESOURCE_FLAGS=00000000

[AWFAX_XP]

PR_PROVIDER_DISPLAY=Microsoft Fax Transport

PR_PROVIDER_DLL_NAME=awfaxp.dll

PR_RESOURCE_TYPE=MAPI_TRANSPORT_PROVIDER

PR_RESOURCE_FLAGS=00000000

Microsoft Fax and Outlook Express

Microsoft Fax is not supported in Outlook Express.

Broadcast Architecture Components

The Broadcast Architecture components enable you to

Watch TV from analog (over-the-air or cable) television networks

Download TV listings from the Web or over-the-air from StarSightâ Telecast,Ô Inc.

Receive Web pages over multicast-enabled IP networks (including some cable television and satellite television networks)

Browse content received over-the-air through Internet Explorer channels

With future releases, you can

Watch TV on your computer from satellite digital television networks, with an all-digital path, at resolutions unobtainable with current television receivers.

Receive gigabytes of information per day from digital television networks, so popular content will be instantly available on your computer, without direct connections to the Internet.

Receive and display Enhanced Television shows -- shows that combine broadcast video with interactivity provided by your computer.

The Broadcast Architecture components are optionally installed using a Custom Setup, or installed through the Add Programs control panel. The TV Viewer enables tuning and display of television programming, as well as a program guide. The Webcast receiver filters and stores information received from broadcast networks based on your preferences.

Summary of changes for Beta 2

The ATI All-in-Wonder analog TV Tuner card has WDM drivers in Beta 2. Using this card, the TV Viewer can tune and display television programming. The ATI Drivers are NOT installed automatically. Please see installation instructions below.

The TV Viewer has a new look.

Web content can be received through the Webcast Client and stored in your Internet Explorer cache. This is supported on a limited basis in various cities through various networks.

Web content received from broadcast networks can be viewed on Internet Explorer channels.

Drivers for certain direct broadcast satellite receiver cards are supported.

TV Viewer Application

Windows 98 includes a TV Viewer application (installable as an optional component) that works in conjunction with video capture cards/drivers that are compatible with DirectShow 2.0 and WDM. With TV Viewer, program listings can be viewed and sorted through a Program Guide. With appropriate hardware, you can select and tune among hundreds of analog or digital (satellite) television programs, and navigate to Web channels and other information broadcast through these networks. Check the Broadcast Architecture portion of the Windows Beta Web site (http://winbeta.microsoft.com/bpc) for more information on supported hardware.

If your computer doesn't have broadcast reception hardware

You'll still be able to download program listings for your TV viewing area (cable or broadcast) from the Web, and use the Program Guide feature. You can even set reminders to watch your favorite shows!

Notes for the TV Viewer

  • Your connection to the Internet must be correctly configured and working to download program guide information from the Web. To verify your connection, confirm that you can successfully view content from http://www.microsoft.com with Internet Explorer.
  • In addition to the keyboard equivalents of remote control keys (see discussion below on remote controls), function key F1 will access help, F6 toggles full screen/windowed viewing, F10 toggles the channel bar.
  • Program guide information for your ZIP code (or Postal Code) area is available through channel "TV C" (channel 1).
  • When using the TV Viewer application to view Web pages containing edit fields expecting numeric input (for example, the ZIP code information for program guide data), you must use the number keys on the keypad to enter the numeric information. Otherwise, the TV Viewing application will interpret the number key entries as channel numbers. Certain Web pages specifically authored for use with the TV Viewer allow use of the keyboard number keys.

The TV Viewer provides a valuable way to make better viewing choices. Using the Search button in the Program Guide, you can sort the program guide information. Please refer to the on-line help provided with TV Viewer for more information.

New for Beta 2

Only hardware for which WDM Video Capture drivers are available will work with TV Viewer. For Beta 2, this includes the ATI All-in-Wonder card. These drivers can be installed from BETAONLY/AIW on your Beta 2 CD-ROM. Note that these drivers are NOT installed by default.

Drivers for direct broadcast satellite receiver cards are located in BETAONLY\SATRCVR

Remote Controls

The TV Viewer is designed to work with remote controls available (or to-be-available) from your computer manufacturer. For this beta release of the Windows 98 software, the following keystrokes may be used with the TV Viewer application:

Standard PC Keyboard

The following keys are functional inside the TV Viewer. The most frequently used keys are listed first.

Keystroke Action
F10 Bring up toolbar menu (favorites, guide, logins, preferences, etc. are accessible from the toolbar)
F6 Toggles windowed/full screen mode. Windowed mode is useful for displaying video while using desktop applications.
0-9 0-9 – used for changing channels. Channels are three digits.
Enter Enter
Arrow Keys Scroll up/down when viewing programming grid.
Win Bring up Start Menu
Win+Ctrl+Shift+z Show the Program Guide (grid view)
Win+Ctrl+z Bring up TV Viewer if not yet started, otherwise toggle between desktop and full screen
Win+Ctrl+v Volume Up (on Master Mixer)
Win+Shift+v Volume Down (on Master Mixer)
Win+v Toggle Mute (on Master Mixer)
Win+Ctrl+Alt+z Channel Up
Win+Ctrl+Alt+Shift+z Channel Down
Win+Ctrl+Alt+Shift+f Arrow Left (some apps may interpret as REWIND)
Win+Ctrl+Alt+Shift+p Arrow Up (some apps may interpret as PLAY)
Win+Ctrl+Alt+f Arrow Right (some apps may interpret as FORWARD)
Win+Ctrl+Alt+Shift+g Recall (some apps may interpret as EJECT)
Win+Ctrl+Alt+p Arrow Down (some apps may interpret as STOP)
Win+Ctrl+Alt+g PAUSE


Gateway Destination Remote control

When you install Windows 98 and BPC software, the registry settings in \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\TV Services\Explorer\RemoteKeys are already installed. You can start using the Gateway Destination remote control immediately. The Recall button on the Gateway remote control has no function with the TV Viewer application.

Using other remote controls with Beta1

The use of arbitrary HID devices to control the TV Viewer application will be available in a later beta release. 

Other remotes can be used with the TV Viewer by supporting the keystrokes in the table for the standard PC Keyboard, or the TV Viewer can be set to alternate keystroke mappings.

To remap any of the keystrokes (i.e. because your remote control won't map to the default keystrokes), you can change registry values as follows:

\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\TV Services\Explorer\RemoteKeys has the following values you can change: CHANNELDOWN, CHANNELUP, DOWN, LEFT, MENU, RECALL, RIGHT, UP.

Do not modify ctrlkeys.

For example:

CHANNELDOWN = 5a 80 80 80 80 00 00 00 00

In this example, 5a = "z". The next 4 bytes represent Win, Ctrl, Menu, Shift, where 80 indicates pressed and 00 indicates not pressed. So CHANNELDOWN = Win+Ctrl+Alt+Shift+z.

Note that MENU = 5a 80 00 80 00 00 00 00 00, which indicates Win+Alt+z. F10 will also work.

2. \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\TV Services\Explorer\RemoteKeys\WakeupKeys has the following values you can change: GUIDE, MUTE, TV, VolumeUp, VolumeDown.

For example:

TV = 5a 10 10 00

The 5a = z. The next 4 nibbles represent Ctrl,Shift,Win,Alt, where a nibble of 1 indicates pressed and 0 indicates not pressed. This means TV = Win+Ctrl+z.

3. \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\TV Services\Explorer\RemoteKeys\CommandLines has no values you can change. Note, however, that Guide and TV strings must contain the correct path to where tvx.exe (TV Viewer) is run.

Webcast Receiver Application

The Broadcast Architecture includes a flexible way of filtering incoming broadcast data. One application that takes advantage of this filter and store architecture is the Webcast receiver. This application exists on channel 720 in the Program Guide, and provides a means to subscribe to content which may be broadcast over your LAN, local TV stations, or Direct Broadcast satellites. This application is also available through the Webcast Channel in the Internet Explorer Channel Bar. When a subscription is made through channel 720 or the Webcast Channel, the Webcast filter constantly listens for content, and when received, will automatically store this content in your Internet Explorer cache. Unlike Internet Explorer subscriptions, your computer never requests this information, but instead waits for this information to arrive through a broadcast interface. This feature is being tested through participating broadcast television networks in selected cities, as well as through direct broadcast satellite networks.

Web content transmitted over DIRECTV is available from Channel 720 or form the IE4 Webcast channel. Additionally, the IE4 Webcast channel allows you to subscribe to five possible sources of Webcast content. The KIRO and KCTS Webcasts are available to users in the Seattle area with analog TV tuner cards supporting VBI data with appropriate Windows 98 drivers (such as the ATI All-in-Wonder card). The two additional entries are used on corporate LANs; in the future, they will be customizable for a particular corporation's network.

If you don't have the necessary hardware or drivers, you can still try out the Webcast user interface and report bugs against it. If you are affiliated with the TV industry and are interested in providing Webcast or other data over broadcast networks, please contact bpcfeed@microsoft.com.

Hardware Support for the Broadcast Architecture

To display video in the TV Viewer application, the general requirement is video capture cards/drivers that are compatible with DirectShow 2.0 and WDM. For satellite reception, drivers specifically written for the Broadcast Architecture are required. Information on writing these drivers is available through platform DDK.

ATI All-in-Wonder Card

The Windows 98 Beta 2 release supports the ATI All-in-Wonder video adapter and analog tuner card. The driver for this card is NOT installed by default. To enable video capabilities, after installing Windows 98 on a system configured with this card, you must upgrade the Display Adapter driver from the BETAONLY\AIW directory of the Windows 98 CD-ROM. Follow these steps:

1. Right-click on "My Computer" on the desktop, select properties, then click on Device Manager.

2. In the Device Manager, click to expand the Display Adapters entry and then select the ATI Rage/Rage II+ driver.

3. Press the Properties button, then the Driver tab button. Press the Upgrade Driver button.

4. Press the Next button, then click on the radio button for "Create a list of all drivers in a specific location…", then Next.

5. In the dialog that displays the Models available, press the "Have Disk" button, and then type in the path to the BETAONLY\AIW directory of your CD-ROM drive.

6. Select the ATI Rage/Rage II driver, press Next. If you're warned that the driver is older than the one currently installed, proceed regardless.

7. After the driver is installed, press the Finish button, and then "Don't restart my computer now".

8. Close the Display Driver dialog.

9. In the device manager window, press "Refresh"; your system will discover two new devices -- these devices are Display Drivers, and are also located in the BETAONLY\AIW directory -- follow steps 4 through 7 for these drivers (ATI TuneP - WDM TVTuner and Bt829 Video Capture drivers)

Note that for this release, you must have a working sound card driver installed to display video.

Pre-release Satellite Receiver Cards

If you have a prerelease version of a digital satellite receiver card, there may be a driver available on the Windows 98 CD-ROM. To install a driver, use the Add New Hardware icon in the Control Panel, then choose the correct driver under the BETAONLY\SATRCVR directory. Check with your card manufacturer for additional drivers.

Known Issues for TV Viewer / Broadcast Architecture components for Beta 2

  • Channel 1, TV Config, does not work properly on 640x480 displays. To download StarSightÔ program guide information to your computer, use Internet Explorer to go to http://broadcast.microsoft.com and follow the directions there.
  • You must have a working sound card driver in addition to a working video card driver and appropriate video hardware to view video. If you don't have a working sound card configured (check to see if you have a speaker icon in your tray) then you will see no video from the TV Viewer and you will receive "no device for this channel" errors whenever you try to watch full screen video.

Only Canadian and U.S. programming information is available through Web download.

Pressing F1 for help in the TV Viewer application will start Internet Explorer Help in addition to TV Viewer help. Canceling the IE4 help dialog enables successful use.

With video drivers installed, working, and displaying video using the TV Viewer, changes to the video card resolution or color depth will cause errors in the video renderer. The work around is to either reboot after changes to the display settings, or making the display changes while no video applications (such as TV Viewer) are running.

If multiple WDM video capture devices are installed (such as a USB Camera), video will not be displayed in the TV Viewer.

If an upgrade installation of Data Services only is done over a complete TV Viewer installation, there may be benign error messages displayed on startup ("BPC.WebcastFilter.858208653 - Class not registered - Could not load filter. Remove from active filter list?).

Editing a user when there is no Program Guide information loaded (e.g. on first startup) will fail.

MBPCLOW is installed by default in the Startup Directory. This application works only in systems with a direct broadcast satellite receiver card installed. If MBPCLOW does not detect a satellite driver loaded, it will exit gracefully. If a satellite receiver card driver is located, MBPCLOW stays active (iconized) on the task bar. MBPCLOW does not respond to shutdown events in this version. Work around: Shut down MBPCLOW manually using CTRL-C before Windows shutdown.

  • There may be an error generated by the Webcast receiver on startup - WebCast1 10055(0x2747). This error message indicates that the Webcast receiver could not find a suitable broadcast-network capable card in your computer. This message will be generate if there is no LAN, digital broadcast satellite receiver card, or compatible analog video tuner card detected in your hardware setup, or if one of these cards is disabled in your hardware profile. You can remove the broadcast announcement listener (which generates this message) by clicking the "Auto-Start" toolbar button in Annui.exe.
  • The Announcement Listener must be stopped before running any disk tools. If it is not, disk tools will fail because the announcement listener keeps files open on the disk. The easiest way to do this is to boot Windows 98 into Safe Mode before running any disk tools. Please refer to the disk tools documentation for more information.
  • The Hughes Network Systems satellite receiver filter exposes four pins when a card is in the system. Two are for streaming the encoded video and audio, and the other two represent the analog (composite) video and audio connections. Currently, only the analog pins are used.
  • Video is displayed only in a "hard" 4/3 aspect ratio. This causes black bars (letter box effect) and occasional magenta bars above or below the video window.
  • Help and TV Viewer setup currently work best in 800X600 display mode.
  • In Help, the Watch TV button is inactive.
  • Accessing the DIRECTV Web site from the troubleshooting section of Help causes a scripting error.
  • With Beta 2, occasionally the TV Viewer loses focus, which makes it impossible to scroll through channels or use the Toolbar by pressing F10. The work-around is to change focus away from the TV Viewer (Alt-TAB) and back again.
  • On very busy systems, or systems under stress, it is likely that ANNCLIST.exe will generate errors in BPCFTS.dll. There is no work around. Recovery requires stopping and restarting the ANNCLIST.exe process. A reboot may be required in some instances.
  • Each of the five Webcast providers accessible from the IE4 Webcast channel displays the same list of content by default. When receiving content from an appropriate network, you will also receive an updated list of available content.
  • Each of the five Webcast providers display the same available content. In future releases, different content will be available from different providers. Different networks will allow for different amounts of bandwidth to be dedicated to Webcasting and content will be sized accordingly.
  • User restrictions do not work for tuning channels.
  • Performance and stability is undesirable on 16MB systems.
  • A Windows Protected Storage dialog may pop-up when going to the Program Guide from TV Viewing. Enter your Windows password to dismiss this dialog.
  • When an advertisement or show title (Web link) is clicked in the program guide, the Internet Explorer window is sometimes hidden by the TV Viewer. The work-around is to use ALT-tab to switch to the IE4 window.

When you install Windows 98, the Task Scheduler defaults to "stopped" rather than started. Since Reminders and the Loaders require the Task Scheduler, you need to have the Task Scheduler running to use these features. To enable the Task Scheduler, go to Start Menu, Programs, Accessories, System Tools and select Scheduled Tasks. Go to the menu item Advanced, in the Scheduled Tasks window. Select "Start Using Task Scheduler". To easily tell if it is running, look for the schedule icon in the lower right portion of the Task Bar next to the Windows system clock.

The Microsoft Network (MSN)

Windows 98 allows the user to install the latest beta version of MSN, version 2.5. Note that this version of the Microsoft Network is also a beta; thus there are some interaction problems running MSN 2.5 beta 2 on Windows 98 and on the beta version of Internet Explorer 4.0 that ships with Windows 98.

The previously shipping version of MSN on Windows 95 (msn13.exe) is available on the Windows 98 CD if the user wishes to install that version instead.

The most recently shipped version of the Microsoft Network, MSN 2.0, is not supported on Windows 98.

Known Incompatibilities with MSN 1.3

Undeliverable Mail – You may not be able to receive or send mail using the Exchange mail client after upgrading to Windows 98. This appears to be a compatibility problem when you upgrade to Windows 98/Windows Messaging. Reinstalling MSN 1.3 from the Windows 98 CD (\Windows 98\OLS\MSN\MSNSetup\Compnts\msn13.exe) will re-enable MSN 1.3 mail.

Known Windows 98 Incompatibilities with MSN 2.0

Windows 98 does not support MSN 2.0.

Known Windows 98 Incompatibilities with MSN 2.5 beta 2

Undeliverable Mail – You may not be able to receive or send mail using the Exchange mail client after upgrading to Windows 98. You will however be able to access your new Internet Mail account (see “Outlook Express Mail & News using MSN 2.5” section below). Additionally, running the MSN13.EXE file from the Windows 98 CD (\Windows 98\OLS\MSN\MSNSetup\Compnts\msn13.exe)will re-enable your MSN Classic e-mail account on your machine. Please also note that this will not affect MSN 2.5 functionality.

To access your classic email double click on the Inbox icon on your desktop and follow the steps outlined below..

1. Install MSN 2.5 by double-clicking the MSN icon on your desktop;

2. Double-click the MSN13.EXE package from your Memphis Beta2 CD, located under <path>;

3. Configure Windows Messaging (a.k.a. Exchange or the Inbox) for your Classic MSN account:

  • On the Start menu, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel;
  • Double-click the Mail (and Fax) icon;
  • Click the Show Profiles button;
  • Click the Add button to add a mail profile;
  • Select The Microsoft Network Online Service as your information service and click Next;
  • Type the name you want to use for the profile (e.g. "MSN") and click Next;
  • Follow the instructions on the screen until you click Finish - using the default settings is usually a good idea unless you are comfortable playing around with directories;
  • Click Close;

4. Once in a while, download any Classic MSN Mail you might have by launching Windows Messaging (the Inbox icon) and selecting "Tools", "Deliver Now (Ctrl+M)";

5. After you've downloaded your messages, launch Outlook Express:

  • Click on the Start Menu, select Internet Explorer, and click on Outlook Express (you can also do that by clicking on the MSN Quick View Menu and then clicking on the line that containing the Mail Notification information);

6. Click on File, select Import and click on Messages;

7. Select Windows Messaging and click Next;

8. Select your profile and click OK;

9. Select the folders you wish to import (at a minimum your Inbox) and click Import;

You now can reply to any of those messages using Outlook Express.

Known Internet Explorer 4.0 incompatibilities with MSN 2.5

As both IE 4.0 and MSN 2.5 beta 2 are in Beta testing there is some interaction problems between the two products. Specifically,

  • Multiple Log-in screens once you’ve connected– You may see multiple login screens once you’ve connected to MSN; approximately one per page frame. If you click the “Connect” button every time you see this screen, you will eventually see the page you’re going to.
  • VB Script Errors --You may see VB script Error messages particularly in the Find and Member Services areas of MSN. Our content is in the process of being upgraded to Internet Explorer 4.0 standards.
  • General Protection Fault (GPF) Errors—You may encounter a GPF on the Find site. If you close the Program Viewer while in the middle of a navigation to another Web site, this can cause a General Protection Fault error in the Program Viewer.

Display differences between Internet Explorer 3.0 and Internet Explorer 4.0- you may also notice that some of the pages you view on MSN will look or behave differently with IE 4.0.

Outlook Express Mail & News using MSN 2.5 Beta

As part of the MSN Beta Setup program, MSN will install and configure Microsoft Outlook Express for IE 4.0. Your e-mail address when using these programs will be:

       Your_MSN_Login_ID@email.msn.com

So, if your MSN Login ID is Bob, then your new Internet mail account address will be Bob@email.msn.com.

This will be a separate Internet Mail account, which will not affect your Original (MSN Classic), mail account (Your_MSN_Login_ID@msn.com).

Messages sent to your Original (MSN Classic) Mail account will have to be retrieved in the same way as you do today (with Microsoft Exchange/Windows Messaging or Microsoft Outlook).

In order to receive messages via the Microsoft Outlook Express Mail, they’ll have to be explicitly addressed to your new Internet Mail account: Your_MSN_Login_ID@email.msn.com (the full address).

During this Beta Phase, you should think of these e-mail addresses as completely separate mail accounts. In fact, that's exactly what they are.

Once the MSN Beta Phase is complete, we'll provide a mechanism for you to combine these two accounts into one, so you won't have to check for messages on two separate accounts anymore. In the meantime, however, this will be necessary and we'll provide you with means (a button on the Communicate Home Page and a link on the Beta FAQ) to switch back and forth between these two mail accounts.

You'll find lots of good information on the MSN Beta Internet Mail FAQ, which is available from:

      http://msnbeta.msn.com/limbeta/faq/mail/

These pages are also available from the Communicate Site "Frequently Asked Questions" link (under "Setting up E-mail").

Online Services

America Online (AOL)

In order to setup America Online in this Beta release you will need to perform the following steps:

1. Copy AOL30US.exe (and/or AOL30UK.exe or AOL30CA.exe) from the CD "\BetaOnly" directory to the "\Program Files\Online Services\AOL" directory on your local hard drive.

2. Open the "Online Services" folder on the desktop and click the "AOL" shortcut to launch AOLsetup.exe, or open the Start Menu and choose "\Programs\Online Services\AOL". You can also launch AOLsetup.exe directly via Explorer from the "\Program Files\Online Services\AOL" directory.

AT&T WorldNet Service

Known issues:

1. AT&T Setup doesn't reset the "Connect to the Internet using a modem" property if a LAN or proxy server were previously selected.

2. AT&T Setup automatically configures mail client for receiving email successfully, but not for sending email.

MSN

Please see the section in this document titled The Microsoft Network (MSN).

Known issues:

1. User may get the following error during phase 2 of Setup:

"Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site...

A connection with the server could not be established"

2. User may encounter some VB script errors and/or GPF's.

Please see the section in this document titled The Microsoft Network (MSN).

Workaround:

1. Open the Internet Properties Control Panel, choose the Connection tab, select "Connect to the Internet using a modem" and verify that the dial-up Settings... are set for "MSN"

Prodigy Internet

This is a new service for Windows.

General & Miscellaneous

Version

The final version number for the Windows 98 release of Windows has not yet been determined. The current beta test version will report 4.10.xxxx (where xxxx is the build number). The released version will be at least this version or higher.

Windows 98, Memphis and Windows 95 Strings

We are in the process of converting our code strings and bitmaps from “Memphis” to “Windows 98”. Please do not submit any bugs on “Memphis” strings in any dialog boxes, title bars, setup, help/readme files, or other places in the product at this time. Please wait until Beta 3 to bug any stray “Memphis” strings that you find.

If you find “Windows 95” strings, please go ahead and file a bug. However, we do know about the Windows 95 string on the printer test page, and when you run “winver”,so please don’t file bugs against those issues.

Disk Defragmenter Optimization Wizard

This wizard enables your programs to run faster.

To run Disk Defragmenter Optimization Wizard:

1. Click here: file:defrag.exe

 -- OR --

Click Start, point to Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and then click on Disk Defragmenter. If the Disk Defragmenter Select Drive dialog appears, click "Settings" and then click "Create Program Log".

2. On the Disk Defragmenter Optimization Wizard window, click "Create a log now to optimize my disk(s)" and click Next.

3. Follow the instructions to complete the wizard.

How it works:

Disk Defragmenter Optimization Wizard lets you pick the programs you use most often. It then runs each program and monitors disk access as the program starts. This information is stored in a program log file. After the programs have been logged, Disk Defragmenter runs and arranges the program files in the order they are accessed when the program starts. Arranging the files in this manner reduces the number of seeks that the hard drive

performs when the program starts. This allows the program to start more quickly.

Q&A:

Q: Some of my programs do not appear in the list of programs provided by the Disk Defragmenter Optimization Wizard. Why?

A: The programs shown in the list are programs that have a link in the Start menu or on the Desktop and a program file size of 800 KB or larger. You may add other programs by clicking on the "Other" button in the wizard.

Q: When I start Defrag I do not get the Defrag Optimization Wizard. How do I start the wizard?

A: On the Defrag Select Drive dialog, click "Settings" and then click "Create Program Log".

Q: Do I have to run the Disk Defragmenter Optimization Wizard and create a program log each time I want to defragment my hard disk?

A: No, once you have completed the Disk Defragmenter

Optimization Wizard the log information is stored on the

hard disk and is used each time you defragment the disk.

Typically you only need to run the wizard again if you want to add or remove a program or if you have upgraded one of your programs.

Q: How do I add a new program to the program log or remove one of the programs that I logged previously?

A: To add or remove a program run the Disk Defragmenter

Optimization Wizard and create an entirely new log by

selecting all of the programs you want to optimize.

Q: Defrag keeps restarting and has been running for a long time without making much progress. Why is it restarting?

A: Defrag needs to keep track of where files are stored and where the free space is located. Each time a program writes to the hard disk Defrag must restart. If Defrag is restarting often you may be running another program that is making frequent writes to the disk. Try quitting other programs while Defrag is running. If you are running the Microsoft Office FindFast utility, you may need to pause FindFast while Defrag runs. To pause FindFast, click Start, point to Settings, and click Control Panel. Double-click on the Find Fast icon and then click "Pause Indexing" in the Find Fast Index menu.

Invoking Startup Menu with F8 Key

The "Starting Windows" message and the two-second boot delay (provided in Windows 95 for invoking the Startup menu with the F8 key) have been removed to reduce Windows 98' boot time. As a result, using the F8 key to invoke the Startup menu may be difficult. The Startup menu can now invoked by depressing the CTRL key throughout the boot process. The CTRL key will not overload the keyboard's buffer, so it can be held down for the duration of the boot. If holding down the CTRL key during startup invokes anything but the Windows 98 Startup menu, please submit a report detailing your experience.

TweakUI

A test version of TweakUI for Windows 98 is located in the \betaonly\tweakui directory. You can control issues such as menu and window animation with this version. Right Click on the INF file and select Install to install this version.

OLE/DCOM

Distributed COM (DCOM) extends the Component Object Model (COM) infrastructure which underlies ActiveX™, transparently and naturally adding support for reliable, secure, and efficient communication between ActiveX Controls, scripts, and Java applets residing on different machines in a LAN, a WAN, or on the Internet. With DCOM, your application can be distributed across locations that make the most sense to your customer and to the application.

Because DCOM is a seamless evolution of COM, the world's leading component technology, you can leverage your existing investment in all ActiveX applications, components, tools, and knowledge to move into the world of standards-based distributed computing. As you do so, DCOM handles the low-level details of network protocols so you can focus on your real business: quickly providing great ActiveX solutions to your customers.

You can configure your components for DCOM using the DCOM Configuration tool. To start DCOM Configuration, select Run from the start menu, then enter "dcomcnfg" at the prompt.

For more information about Distributed COM, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/oledev/olemkt/oledcom/.

Microsoft Family Logon

User profiles allows multiple users on one computer to save their personal preferences such as wallpaper, recently used resources and Start menu based on the logon information. Windows 98 includes a new feature that makes creating user profiles easier to setup and maintain. A new icon in Control Panel called “Users” starts the Family Logon Wizard which will walk you through enabling user profiles and adding new users.

Multimedia

DirectX

This release of Windows 98 contains a release candidate version of DirectX 5, including drivers and new API support. For this release, DirectX 5 features:

  • AGP Support
  • MMX support in both Direct3D and DirectDraw
  • Support for DirectX applications on multiple monitors
  • Support for force feedback and USB input devices
  • 3D audio hardware support

Enhanced performance and robustness

Testing DirectX 5

Most of DirectX 5's new features for this Windows 98 beta are designed to enable new hardware functionality, while still preserving compatibility with older versions of DirectX and Windows. To test DirectX, please run your existing DirectX games and other applications on Windows 98, and report any problems or compatibility problems you find through normal Windows 98 bug reporting channels.

Known Issues

Users running DirectDraw applications on secondary displays on multiple monitor systems may experience the following problems:

  • Secondary monitors may not repaint properly when exiting DirectX applications.
  • If the primary and secondary monitors are running at different bit depths, DirectX applications running on secondary displays may display with an incorrect palette.

A fullscreen application on one monitor will be minimized when focus is given to another application on a different monitor.

Sound Card Issues

  • MIDI playback not working- Some models of CreativeTechnologies sound cards may experience problems playing MIDI files after upgrading to Windows 98. If the Device Manager shows the sound card as having an I/O resource conflict, try unchecking the Use Automatic Settings box. If this was the problem, please file a detailed bug report listing your installed hardware and model of sound card.

Sound card removed by Setup - If your sound card was working prior to installing Windows 98 and is not listed in the Device Manager after Memphis setup completes, try running the Add New Hardware applet from the Control Panel to let detection search for the card. If you are sure the Device Manager listed your card prior to running Setup make sure to file a bug report including the type of sound card your Detlog.txt, System.1st and System.dat files.

DirectShow

DirectShow 2.0 is an architecture that controls and processes streams of multimedia data; it is also a run time that uses this architecture to allow users to play digital movies and sound encoded in various formats, including MPEG 1. The runtime is what is shipping with Windows 98. DirectShow’s playback capability makes use of video and audio hardware cards that support the Microsoft DirectX ™ set of API’s. DirectShow 2.0 also plays movie files in .avi or Apple® QuickTime® .mov format. Please test DirectShow runtime functionality and provide feedback you may have.

Windows Management Infrastructure

The Windows Management Infrastructure collects information about configuration of devices and the system as a whole. This information is stored in the Registry, and made available through extensions to the Registry API. This software is the foundation of Microsoft’s support for DMI. The package can be installed through “Add/Remove Programs” in the control panel. The package is selected from the list under “Windows Setup”. When Windows Management Infrastructure is installed, a new key is created in the Registry, HKLM\DesktopManagement. There will be many entries under this key, and instrumentation code (which “mines” device information) will be installed.

Running ScanDisk after bad shutdown

If you don’t shut your system down cleanly, or if your disk suffers a hard error, ScanDisk will be run automatically when your system restarts. By default, a message will be displayed before ScanDisk is started. You can override this behavior by setting the AutoScan variable in the [options] section of your MSDOS.SYS file:

  • AutoScan=0 will disable this feature entirely.
  • AutoScan=1 is the default; the system will stop and prompt you before running ScanDisk. After one minute, ScanDisk will run automatically.
  • AutoScan=2 will launch ScanDisk (if required) automatically, without stopping and prompting first.

The TweakUI utility provides a way to change these settings automatically.

You can set the default behavior that Scandisk uses to respond to specific error conditions by editing the SCANDISK.INI file in the \windows\command directory.

Note: Beta 2 introduces a new behavior. Scandisk now automatically runs and fixes up any errors it finds without stopping or prompting for undo. Most average users do not know what to do when faced with scandisk due to abnormal shutdown. The best solution, in most cases, is to accept the defaults and fix up the hard disk. Rarely, if ever, is valid data recovered from CHK files or undo floppies. Advanced users who are able to take advantage of these error recovery techniques might want to change the defaults to be less automatic in scandisk.ini. Note also that marking a lost cluster as a CHK file just makes it into a file. If any valuable data was in the lost cluster, even if scandisk automatically doesn’t create the CHK file, advanced data recovery utilities can still recover the data from the hard disk sector itself, which is what usually has to happen anyway.

Updated Time Zone, Daylight Savings Time and International Dialing Codes settings

Since Windows 95 originally released, a number of changes have occurred in the time zones, daylight savings time start/stop dates, and local participation in daylight savings time. In addition, a number of telephone systems worldwide have changed their international dialing codes. Please verify the cities & their time zones, check the daylight savings times switchover dates and check the international dialing codes for various countries.

Service Packs

Windows 98 contains the complete set of fixes that were made available in Service Pack 1 for Windows 95: For a complete list of SP1 changes see http://www.microsoft.com.

There is no need to install SP1 on top of Windows 98. If you inadvertently install SP1 on Windows 98, however, no harm will be done. All of the Windows 98 files have a newer version, so SP1 files will ignore them automatically.

Platform SDK

The Microsoft Platform Software Development Kit (SDK) is the successor of the Win32 and BackOffice SDKs and provides a single, integrated SDK that developers can use to obtain documentation, samples, and a common build environment for Microsoft platforms. The web-based version at http://www.microsoft.com/msdn/sdk provides the most current documentation drops, an up-to-date build environment, and the most recent versions of Platform SDK component technologies. As it becomes available, developer information on new technologies shipping in Windows 98 can be found on the Platform SDK web site.

General Application Issues

AVI DLLs

Beta sites have reported that attempts to animate scenes created with the following applications result in a system lock up.

  • Asymetrix 3D FX
  • Micrografx Webtricity
  • Micrografx Simply 3D (standalone or from Micrografx Graphics Suite)
  • Caligari TrueSpace 3
  • JASC VideoTrope
  • Autodesk Animator Studio

As a temporary work around, copy the following files from your Win95 system folder to the system folder in Windows 98: avifile.dll and avifil32.dll.

Disk Utilities

In general, older disk utilities that perform low-level disk functions, such as defragmenters, disk repair tools and disk compression utilities, will not function properly on FAT32 drives. In most cases, the vendors have updated their utilities to be FAT32 aware. The older versions of these utilities should continue to work properly on Windows 98 on FAT16 drives. The disk utilities included with Windows 95 (ScanDisk and Disk Defragmenter) have already been modified and fully support FAT32. A version of DriveSpace 3 is included with Windows 98 that handles drives up to 2 GB, but it will not compress on a FAT32 volume.

DOS based applications & PnP Sound Cards

Use of DOS based applications in combination with PnP sound cards may result in application malfunction. To correct this problem, the user will need to rerun the sound setup utility in order for the sound to properly work. Applications known to exhibit this type of problem include:

  • Aces of the Deep ver 1.0
  • Spell-It

Multi Monitor

DOS and Windows applications were not developed with Multi Monitor in mind. As a result, some applications may display some abnormal behavior while operating with more than one monitor.

Network Games from 3D Realms

Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior and other games from 3D Realms may not work on a network. To work around this situation, remove the IPX protocol form your network properties and rename nwlink.vxd in your windows\system directory. This will be fixed in a future version of the operating system.

SETVER

SETVER has been removed from the default environment to save memory and increase performance. If you need to have the version set for MS-DOS apps, you can load setver in the config.sys file by adding the appropriate line.

SHARE.EXE

Windows 98 no longer supports real-mode MD-DOS Share. However, some applications check for the existence of a file named share.exe. To work around this issue, create a dummy file named share.exe in the \windows\command directory. The following applications require this work around:

  • Do It Yourself Lawyer by Expert Software
  • Resume Write by Expert Software
  • Great Gourmet by Expert Software
  • Quattro Pro 6.0
  • MS Works 3.0

WINSOCK

The following applications will not run after uninstalling Windows 98:

  • Internet Explorer 3.0
  • Eudora
  • Netscape
  • CoolTalk

To re-enable functionality, reinstall the application. This is a winsock.dll issue and will be fixed in a future version of the operating system.

Application Specific Issues

The following applications may not install or function properly with this beta version of Windows 98. Please promptly submit bug reports via the on-line bug reporting tool or MSREPORT if you discover any additional application incompatibilities introduced by the Windows 98 Beta.

Additionally, because we are interested in knowing about the performance of all applications, not just those which have resulted in problems, please take a moment to complete the Applications Compatibility Survey, located at the above web site, for each application you are running on Windows 98. Thank you.

Adobe Premiere 4.2

During installation, Adobe Premiere 4.2 incorrectly detects Windows 98 as a 16-bit version of Windows. Currently, the only way to avoid this problem is to install Adobe Premiere prior to upgrading to Windows 98. This problem will be fixed in a future release of the operating system.

Adobe Type Manager (ATM)

Due to irregular desktop appearance issues, Multi-Monitor is disabled when this application is running.

Agent 95

This application fails to start after installation. The vendor is working on a resolution.

Ascend 97 Franklin Day Planner

To allow this application to properly install, rename MFC42.dll in the system directory. Ascend 97 will now use its own MFC42.DLL and complete the installation process.

Chessmaster 4000

In order to run the Book Editor on Chessmaster 4000 without experiencing video problems while dragging a window, complete the following steps:

Go to Explorer, View, Options…

Select the Advanced Tab

Uncheck the “Show window contents while dragging” option, then click Apply

Cheyenne Backup 2.0

This application does not correctly complete the backup operation. Please contact the vendor for their Service Pack to correct this problem.

Doom 95

This game is known to malfunction with the S3 968 video card. .

Longbow AH-64D

Using the MS Sidewinder Pro and switching resolution from 640x480 to 320x240 will cause the joystick to stop responding. Hitting one of the arrow keys will restore joystick input. A patch to correct this problem exists at http://www.ea.com/janes/news.htm

Macromedia Director 4.04

This application will not start on a system with more the 2GB of free drive space. The work around is to run this program on a hard drive with less than 2 GB of free disk space or upgrade to Director version 5.0 or 6.0.

MagnaRAM 97

Running this application on Windows 98 results in a ‘blue screen’. Add the following to the system.ini to avoid this behavior:

[386Enh]

ConservativeSwapFileUsage=1

[Vcache]

ConservativeSwapFileUsage=1

This will be fixed in a future version of the OS.

MechWarrior 2 DOS 1.1

This game does not function properly on Windows 98. To correct this problem, download the Mech2v11.exe patch provided by Activision on their web site at http:\\www.Activision.com.

Microsoft Office Standard for Windows 95 version 7.0

If you install Microsoft Office Standard for Windows 95 version 7.0 on a machine running Windows 98, and you perform certain ODBC operations, you will receive an error “Failure to load expression service” when using the Access ODBC driver from Office apps such as Excel or Word. To correct this problem you need to obtain the Microsoft Office for Windows 95 version 7.0b release from Microsoft Product Support. You can obtain a copy of Microsoft Office for Windows 95 version 7.0b by calling the Microsoft Order Desk at (800) 360-7561. If you are outside of the United States, contact the Microsoft Subsidiary in your area. To locate your subsidiary, call the Microsoft International Sales Information Center at 206-936-8661. This problem does not affect any versions of Microsoft Office Pro. Also, if you do not use these ODBC functions, you do not need the updated versions.

MS Office 4.0

This version of Office will not install on Windows 98 because share.exe is missing. Creating a dummy version of share.exe will not correct this problem.

MSVC++ 4.2

File versions conflicts will occur when installing this version of VC++ on Windows 98. When prompted, do not permit OLDER versions of files to be copied over the newer versions. Installing older versions will disable the Windows 98 active desktop.

Netroom 3.04

Netroom’s Customize has been reported to hang the system. Before setting up, verify that Cacheclk is not being loaded in the autoexec.bat file, the boot process of Windows 98 is interrupted as a result. Windows 98 will boot normally if cacheclk.exe, Netroom\Stacks.exe and Netroom\Setcfg.exe are disabled.

Norton Utilities/Anti-Virus/Navigator for Windows 95

Many of the utilities contained in the original release of these products will not function properly on FAT32 drives. In some cases, (e.g. Norton Disk Doctor), they will not function properly on FAT16 drives under Windows 98. The 2.x versions of these utilities support FAT32 completely. If you use the older versions of these products on Windows 98, in many cases warning dialog boxes will be displayed indicating that you should obtain an updated version of the program from Symantec. Please submit bugs if you find cases where these dialog boxes are being displayed when they shouldn’t be, or if you encounter problems for which no warning dialog box is displayed.

If you are using Norton Anti-Virus 2.x and plan to convert your boot drive to FAT32, be sure to adhere to the release note in the “FAT32” section of the Application Notes.

PCAnywhere 7.0

When establishing a Remote Control connection by modem in PCAnywhere 7.0, you will experience an error message that reads "Error initializing modem.", the following steps below detail this issue.

1. Click on remote control and double click on the modem icon.

2. PCAnywhere initializing modem window appears.

3. Enter the phone number you wish to dial and click enter.

4. An error message box appears that reads "Error initializing modem."

5. Click OK and the error dialog box closes.

You are able to complete your task with no further difficulties and the modem dials out successfully.

PC-cillin version 2.0 by Trend Micro, Inc

PC-cillin will not uninstall correctly after loading. Additionally, WordPad and MS Paint become disabled after PC-cillin is installed. Reinstalling both applications, WordPad and MS Paint, corrects the problem.

PhotoShop 4.0

When using the pull down menu Select, Color Range, a page fault results. Adobe has a patch on their web site (PhotoShop V 4.01) which corrects this problem.

Reachout 95 version 7

Installing or running this application on an ET6000 monitor with colors set at 256 or higher disables Multi-Monitor support and results in a GPF. As a work around, boot into safe mode (hit F8 during boot process) and change colors back to 16 (through the control panel). This permits you to boot back into Windows 98 without Multi-Monitor support.

Savage: The Ultimate Quest for Survival

This game has been known to hang during set up, occasionally display a double cursor and malfunction with the use of a S3 Trio64+ video card. To overcome these problems, reboot your PC. If the problems persist, the vendor recommends installing the 16-bit version of this game.

Stacker 4.1

Windows 98 will not run on a Stacker compressed hard drive. If you currently have Stacker v4.1 installed on your computer you must uninstall Stacker before to upgrading to Windows 98.

Where In The USA Is Carmen Sandiego

Unable to initialize graphics when running on Windows 98. This will be fixed in a future version.

Winshield Version 1.0.1

If you have Winshield version 1.0.1 loaded on your PC, do the following prior to upgrading to Windows 98:

1. Uninstall Winshield using the setup program found on the install disks.

2. When the uninstall is finished immediately upgrade to Windows 98.

VERY IMPORTANT: To avoid the deletion of all devices in your device manager, proceed directly to the installation of Windows 98 after Winshield is uninstalled. Do not reboot, do not use the add new hardware wizard or attempt to use the device manager before the installation of Windows 98 is complete.

Winshield version 1.5 does not exhibit this behavior.

Zip-It 95

This application will not install on Windows 98. It mistakenly believes Windows 98 is NT.

ZipFolders

Some Beta sites have reported that while attempting to convert a Zip file to a self-extracting archive, a general protection fault occurs. All other functions of this program work fine. This will be fixed in a future release of the operating system.