mr don

When I tried running CCleaner 2.35 in Win 98, it gave an error stating: The Microsoft Layer for Unicode was not found - unicows.dll. Download the file from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=73ba7bd7-ed06-4f0d-80a4-2a7eeaee17e2&DisplayLang=en When you have that file, extract the contents to a folder. Then, create a folder with your CCleaner.exe & .ini file & drop the unicows.dll in it. You can now run CCleaner 2.35 in Windows 98. CCleaner is now ready for your flash drive. I tried Defraggler with the XP Kernel32 file in the same folder as Defraggler & the ini file, but it said: The Defraggler.exe file is linked to missing export Kernel32.dll:SetFilePointerEx. I also tried it with the W98 version of it on a different folder & still got an error. I will try some other things later when I have time to see if it is possible to make Defraggler run on W98. Peace! P.S. You will find that using mass storage controller drivers for your kingston/cruzer etc drives may not work for enabling access on Windows 98. What DOES work, however, is to burn a CD with the backup from your XP system of the USB mass controller driver, then browse in Windows 98 under the Device Manager to your USB device with the yellow ? mark beside it & update the driver using the XP USB mass storage driver. You can back that up using Double Driver: http://www.boozet.org/dd.htm This is one nice guy. He listened to some suggestions I had earlier, concerning the ability to back up drivers from a system drive that could not boot as well as other minor things. I send feedback for a few other changes, so it should get even better later on. If you are able to donate to Piriform, or the double driver guy, both people well deserve it. You will want to burn the USB mass storage controller driver after you back it up, to a CD so that you can install it in W98 so that you can now see your flash drive. Hope this helps! Hopefully, I will get Defraggler working on 98 later, but it make be a while before I have the time. I will update you all later. Edit: Recuva also needs the same Unicows dll to work under 98SE Attempting to use the XP video/audio drivers in 98 will probably fail do to the use of NT Kernel elements. So, don't bother backing up those with Double Driver or Driver Magician Lite to use under 98. Since XP uses the System32 folder for it's drivers & W98 uses the System folder, I plan to next try copying all the XP System32 files to the 98 System32 folder. There should be no conflict, because 98 uses the System folder for system files. I will update later to let you know if this does anything...

"And the sky could well fall in tomorrow, killing us all... More proof less than nothing is needed? Not to be mean, yawn, but aren't they hosted on relatively safe servers? Besides, you should know not to use IE by now! Put on your protection while surfing the web! Use Firefox!

Yeah, I agree. It was meant to show what I was thinking of, but I would definitely put Applications first, then Internet, then Windows. In alphabetical order. If they did this, I am like you, I want it in order too. Sorry for getting the tabs backwards!

I agree. It would be easy to slip while you are eating your cookies & hit the wrong thing, or someone scare you & you click the button. Having that 1 prompt would be something that isn't necessary, but it helps prevent something from being deleted that you may want back. The way around this, if this were implemented, would be to automatically backup to a .reg key the path that was deleted so it can be restored if necessary.

CCleaner is pretty easy to use. But the way it is set up now, it has Internet Explorer grouped with Windows. I just thought it would be easier to group Internet Explorer with Firefox, Google, Safari etc & call it browser or internet cleaning. I can imagine some get confused searching for IE under windows & FF under Applications... I included a few screenshots so you can see my idea. Please let me know if you + or - this idea. Thanks!

Usually, you have what sounds like a good suggestion. But what the? I am confused! Should include startup items? What does that mean? CCleaner already shows startup items... Did you mean something else?

Yes, it could. But the update text already built into CCleaner could be overlooked as well. So far as being afraid you cannot see what you are downloading, then why are you worried? Don't most "updaters" for programs show the name of the EXE or file being downloaded, in addition to a progress bar? If CCleaner.exe is infected when you click the download update button, might it not also be infected if you click the normal way of updating? The internet IS still the internet, right? If they still want you to download so you can have the toolbar option, why not just build that into the updater so the user can keep it checked if they want it, or uncheck it? Am I missing anything here? Thanks!

Nice logic... But a decent: - Firewall that drops incoming packets & filters outgoing goes a long ways to prevent such infections - Decent Antivirus helps - Using Firefox stops 100% of Active-X based exploits (found in Internet Explorer) if you use it instead of IE How can you get infected if it can't get: - Get to you - Run if it does? Peace!

The best point you made is about why use windows 7 when windows 8 is right around the corner? Won't that like, deprecate windows 7? Legacy OS? Uh oh! Windows 7 lovers! Windows 7 will soon be the new DOS! Anyway, back in the day, 300 mhz pentium machines were not good for much more than text messages, or basic gaming. Very low powered. Today's processors/ram/harddisks are far more than 99% users ever need. Most people STILL do nothing other than email, occasional games, dvd ripping, etc. Why do you need Windows 7 for that? Peace!

Would you care to elaborate the reason why XP cannot run it? - You seem to have 4 processors from what I can see. XP does support 4 processor systems. - If you mean the amount of ram, XP 64 bit can run all your ram. RAM limits is NOT an OS issue, it is more of a 32 bit vs 64 bit issue. They DO make 64 bit XP Did I miss anything? Thanks!

Oh, I still like DOOM, Heretic, Hexen, & a few other DOS games because the action is kewl! Bad graphics, awesome gore! Why kill off a good thing when it works great?

I already have Ubuntu. I also have a windows 7 skin for it that someone made to make it more "windowish" to use. I will check for an "XPish" version later... The problem with 7 is that XP works. 7 kills some programs off before they even have time to load because the wait to kill hung app timer is way too fast in the registry settings by default. Plus, Vista had errors copying files from one drive to another that XP plowed through fine. Gave an out of space error, even though that was a lie because the destination drive was newly formatted & had more than enough (At least 50% free space left) to go. Sure, it looks pretty, I understand all that. Sure, it is relatively stable, & I understand that too. Sure it is newer, yes, I totally agree with you. Yes, yes, yes, but it is not faster than XP & it just doesn't work as good in many situations because of problems like this! 7 is just a new Win ME waiting to happen. The problems aren't readily apparent to the normal user yet. Give them a few years. You will see!

I knew about these other types running, but did not think about renaming them. Good idea. Now I can rename system restore (maybe?) to a .com & see if it will run restore to a former date. Guess I have to download another virus, just to see if this works with that idea! If it works, I will be able to make an emergency self extractor to drop the .com version into the system32 folder in the right place & go with it! Awesome! A while back, a program a friend had was labeled falsely by Norton AV as a trojan when I tried to upload it to my email. Nsis scripts seem to be bad for that! I got around it by sending it to a zip file, then adding a password to the zip, then removing the .zip extension. Norton failed to be able to scan it, did not know what it was or what to do with it, so it let it through. I was able to download it & bypass the scanner. Yippppppeeee! P.S. Vispa is also marked & auto deleted for being based on nsis scripts by norton/mcaffee/avg/comodo etc. But Vispa is awesome for editing settings!

Cool. What if they include the yahoo toolbar in the auto update, & the give the user the same option to install it as they do in a normal installation? Combine the toolbar with the update & still give them the same options, minus the trouble of re-downloading it to "reinstall"? Would that work?

Why just have either? If CCleaner user's can select whether they are wanting the install version or portable version, it can auto select right click for the installed version, & a shred box for portable that it can save to .ini file. Why not have both? Then you can shred regardless of being installed or ran portably?

What DLL/OCX/Reg key is responsible for the extra information panel in Vista/7? I can check later, I guess but I feel lazy. Perhaps if you let me know, I can backport a version to work with XP. Thanks!

You are very right! UAC is a joke. Try downloading Raise My Rights or other programs & see what they do... There are ways around it, but ahem, try googling, lol!

I didn't mean to sound harsh, Hazel. In the past, after using ZA pro, then deciding to uninstall it, all internet access was killed to my machine till I reinstalled it & used ZA to grant full access, then uninstalled again. It did not matter how many reboots I had. Same thing happened once in using Ashampoo firewall. Simply put, they left a filter driver on the system due to a poorly written uninstallation procedure that did not full remove all they put up there. A lot of programs do that, & firewalls especially are very tricky to deal with at times. A sample of information repositories that can be left is in the user %appdata% folder, %programfiles%\common files folder, sometimes even remnants in the %programfiles% folder, files dumped to the %windir%\system32 folder, even using C:\Windows, the registry HKEY_Local_Machine & HKEY_Current_User trees. Additional clutter can be scattered anywhere in the registry including extensions listing, restore point data, MS software\plugins folders. I followed proper uninstall & reboot procedure, but this particular version had the problem. If you are in doubt of this, perhaps I can send you a copy of the file for personal testing sometime, Ok, so maybe I wouldn't go to that extreme level, but I could perhaps posts screenshots of the entire process for your viewing pleasure/displeasure! Peace! Night!

That is very interesting. I wonder how Ubuntu 10 does on it? There is also a Mint version (not peppermint), etc. They used to have a lindows version before MS sued & they changed to linspire. Will have to keep that in mind. Thanks for the heads up on peppermint!

Yes. I agree. Sometimes I wonder if making the registry cleaner a separate program might be a better idea, because of the dangers of removing file types no longer used that are "no longer in use" by an application simply because a program stole exclusivity to run that extension, then never gave it back on uninstall leaving that extension with nothing associated to run it with. Of course, I could go on about users who checkmarked everything under CCleaner & removed hundreds of website auto form fill info's... Couldn't remember their login info, & kerplunk! There went there access to that site! I was thinking it could be added with a warning in CCleaner, enable an "advanced mode" for advanced users warning that improper use can cause a PC to not boot. Be careful. After all, it can't be any more dangerous than the systems the registry cleaner has on occasion killed off, can it?

Null, as "advanced" as Windows 7 is, with the Win FS layered on top of still more deprecated code. (They never seem to break clean, just layer one service on top of another), I don't see your point with breaking clean. Windows 7 is newer than XP, but XP runs more programs better & faster, saving companies $$$. How is slower better? Windows 7 media player is definitely newer than some media players out, but KM Player, Gom Player, VLC Player & many others play files that Windows Media Player just cannot handle! Windows 7 search is newer perhaps, but locate32 still trounces 7's search utility by the speed of search (10's of thousands of files instantly located for perusing, while 7 doesn't show all of them without some serious tweaking) Locate 32 also allows you to search for files containing text, so I was able to use that feature to find out where MS arcade games saved my name during setup from floppies. Too bad 7 doesn't do this! 7 also hides certain system files, even with show all files, super hidden files etc checked. Well, but then 7 is newer, after all, so who am I to really complain about all the free DRM, TCP, wait to kill timer being too short, etc? At this rate of astounding progress, it won't be long before people have terrabyte sized OS installs, nightmares fixing windows, tons of things that won't work (or if they do, not properly). When I hear people like you pose, it just goes through my head... MS fanboy, shill, etc, lol! Gotta have the latest? Keep up with the Joneses eh? I had friends who had to have the latest ipods. I keep hoping people like you will recognize one day that simply updating to the latest isn't always in your best interest. Microsoft will, of course, push stuff out there trying to sell it, but they are having a harder time because in Win 95, GUI was awful + crashes etc. Win 98 improved a bit, but still had cross linked files from not running things in seperate memory spaces, 4 gb file size limits, etc, Win Me improved the looks but crashed more, XP was truly stable, fast, easy, worked. Once that happend, a revolution happened. People realized, hey! If I have an OS that does all I want or need it to do, why do I need to upgrade every year to programs who are bigger, slower, & don't even do all I need it to? Up to you man, but always trying to buy, buy, buy helps line the pockets of MS with more Gold. It really isn't necessary since anything you wanna do in 7, you can already do it in XP faster, better. - Visual Style - Royal (Media Center) - Browser - Firefox - Firewall - XP firewall (for now) - Antivirus - AVG - System search - Locate32 - Office - Abiword, Notes++, Open Office, etc - Cleaner - CCleaner, DCleaner, FCleaner, Privacy Mantra, AFT, etc (I am testing a lot of files, so, yes, yes, yes!) - Sidebar (Not using, but google sidebar is exactly like that in Vista/7) - Startup - Nirsoft Startup - Hosts checker - Abelha Digital I have too many to list here. I have notes programs, audio conversion/playing/creation etc programs, video create/edit/view, image create/convert/edit/view, unrar files such as extract now that handle multiple content types plus passwords. I seriously doubt there will ever be critical files that I do not have a replacement for that is free/open source & works better/faster than stuff in 7. If you can think of things 7 can do that really apply to business & does it faster/better than XP, let me know, but from what I have seen/used of 7, it is just bloatcode & slower to boot!

MBAM is great. So is Super Antispyware. There are malware like fake antivirus solutions that if they are removed (whether manually or with a program that automatically removes them) they take out your registry keys necessary to run executable programs, leaving you unable to load anything but Windows. No task manager, ccleaner, mbam, antivirus, just only load into windows! No application associated to run EXE type error! I alerted Super Antispyware to this problem a while back, & though I had a way to repair it, they thanked me & sent me their version, which worked wonderfully. I reported the success to them & they are definitely great people as well. MBAM is good. I second that. Might want to add an EXE fixer to your arsenal though, because if MBAM encounters a malware that wipes out your EXE associations on removal, you won't be even able to load system restore. The EXE fix file doesn't launch a normal EXE process, it launches uses a .com executable, so it is able to instantly repair the problem.

I don't know if this is good or bad. On the one hand, PC tools Antivirus was plagued with false positives a while back, causing machines to blue screen from taking out critical components necessary for windows to run. On the other hand, a lot of their stuff was free. Maybe Symantec will make them, ahem!, better? *Crosses fingers!* P.S. I am not certain how their firewall stacked up, but I should have a version, or multiple versions backed up where I downloaded them over time. I will be testing them later to see how they do on leak tests/flaws etc.

That is the trouble with the "newer" OS, Anomaly. It simply is going backwards into technology, not forward. Anytime you release an OS that is newer, bigger, prettier, slower than your predecessor, & doesn't do anything more, you are going backwards, not forwards. There is nothing 7 can do that XP cannot do faster, better, save more $$$. How is 7 saving more $$$ for business when it runs so much slower? I don't get your logic. 7 is newer, therefore it is better? For one thing, in Vista, it has errors cloning files from one MP3 player to a flash drive while XP doesn't. I can elaborate if you need me to, but I am trying to keep this short for the sake of making this readable. This is only one of the many bugs & flaws in the dinosaur Vista that the people killed off by not buying from MS in droves. Windows 7 is much improved over Vista, but it still has terrible bugs, like the wait to kill application timer will kill some applications off in like, 2 seconds after you click them, give you an error that they were hung & could not load, & auto kill them off with no second chance for your program. Is it really going forward in usability when you have to hack the registry key for hung application timer settings in order to make it work when they just worked in XP & faster too? No! I can see using newer & better tech/machines/methods when they work, but 7 is going backwards. Tell me again how slower = more money in company pockets?

What possibly could be different about Office 15, anyway? Faster? No! Smaller? No! More DRM? YES! What could you possibly do besides word, outlook, powerpoint, excell, access, etc, etc, etc? I don't see the point of endlessly upgrading to Office 12, 13, 14, 19, 235... No new features? Slower? What good is it then? Sure, the older XP is well, older, but it is stable, faster than 7 for sure, & 7 just can't hang with XP on useability because 7 on a default install has the wait to kill hung app timer waaaaay too short. Some applications get killed before they even get to load to the first prompt! As well as numerous other bugs in 7. I hand it to Microsoft. 7 really does do better than Vista, but that is not saying that much because Vista has serious bugs & flaws. I tested Vista & had problems on copying certain things that XP plowed through with no errors or problems at all. I was testing direct flash drive to MP3 player among other file operations to see how Vista handled it & I was like, wow! I can't believe they really released this garbage! 7 does do better than Vista, & is perhaps better looking, but I would rather have something that I can get things done on like XP any day than a dinosaur behemoth 4 something GB install of 7 that just looks better while running slower & hindering production. The point of computing is not to waste corporate dollars on sitting there looking pretty but on actually: - Working, not killing off your app because it is "hung" simply because the kill timer is too short! - Getting work done faster to save $$$, not looking all glassy & pretty. Sure I know these effects can be turned off, but I have a machine that is pretty fast with several gigs of high speed ram, & even with visual effects turned off on 7, XP just can't be beat for getting things done! Besides, try searching for files on your flash drive in 7, or comparing the way the start menu is in 7 to XP & it takes more steps to launch, not less. Yes, I can type last time I tested my average type speed at around 100 WPM, but why do I want to waste time doing that? 7 sometimes shows results that are nothing related to what you are looking, doesn't show you all the results but a top listing of the most likely, & sometimes just doesn't launch the right thing! External searches? Try running around the house a few times & tying your garden hose in knots, then running back around to the back door again & then you get an idea of the pain 7 puts you through to try to see all the files on your drive. I do not know how much testing you have done, but Windows Vista & 7 have files they will not show you while XP will show you all files. Even turning on the show system files, or letting you see protected operating system files in Vista or 7 is a joke because some files, it never shows you at all! I was trying to view some files on a game directory where it saved the user game data on Vista & it never would show me that folder, but only the game itself! I had a problem with certain hidden Spybot Search & Destroy files not showing either, especially the one marked as a system file called SD.exe! XP doesn't have this problem! My question back to you is, so again, why do I want a newer, slower OS that looks prettier while becoming more equivalent to a brick (not less) complete with enhanced digital rights management to spy on me, trusted computing platform to control what I copy or do, & all the while taking a lot longer to do it than XP? Sure you can turn off 7 services, & 7 appearance thingies to "performance mode" but it still ain't as fast as XP! Why do I want newer/slower?