An accumulation of stuff gathered over years…
Caution: This may cause your system to hang on boot.
I must admit, I haven’t done a fresh install of this system since upgrading to Windows 10 1903, moving the NVMe drive from an older laptop to this machine, updating the OS about every week to the latest version of the Insider Preview in the DEV Channel. This is bound to cause issues at one point, I’m aware.
In the late 1990s and early to mid-2000s Gericom released various laptop models and was fairly popular in western Europe. These laptops were sold under the brands Gericom (mainly Germany), Advent (mainly in the UK and Ireland) and in Spain under a brand named Hundyx. (I’ve restored one Pentium III model of this brand a while back. Funnily enough I really can’t seem to find a lot about this brand name at all) This is probably not an exhaustive list, but this is what I encountered over my years repairing vintage (or just plain old) hardware.
Read More “Drivers Windows XP x32 for Gericom X5-Force 1830”
Windows 98 Setup Freezes when “Setting up programs on the Start Menu”
When installing Windows 98 SE on a Dell Latitude D600, the installation freezes at the point after it finishes “Setting up programs on the Start menu” but before it installs Help. Rebooting the laptop does not help. It does a Scandisk, continues to setup, again wants the TimeZone settings, Control Panel and freezes again after finishing Setting up programs on the Start menu. The mouse cursor moves, but there’s no hard drive or CD-Rom activity at all.
Sometimes it’s necessary to install an old Operating System, but you really cannot (or don’t want to) get the old hardware out, even if it would still work.
I was in such a position that I had to install Windows 2000 Server. After locating the installation media, I decided it was a good idea to get it running on the 2019 Hyper-V cluster. This actually can be done, but there are a few hoops to jump through.
Update: This was written with Windows 2000 Adv. Server in mind, but I’ve since discovered the same procedure works for Windows NT4 with SP6a slipstreamed.
Read More “Windows NT4 / 2000 Server and Workstation on a 2019 Hyper-V Cluster”
If you search the web you’ll find a lot statements that the installation of Windows Millennium or Windows ME on Dosbox is just not possible, that it will not work, that it will not even complete setup, no matter what.
I wouldn’t be writing this if I hadn’t found differently. Nowadays it is indeed possible to run Windows ME on Dosbox and, even though it’s not supported, it is fairly stable. At least more stable than I expected and a lot more stable than Windows 98SE on the same environment.
Read More “Windows ME on Dosbox ECE, even on Raspberry Pi4b”
When trying to connect, the app displays a message:
Connection fail. Check your network settings and try again.
The solution to this is that next to port 5000 and 5001, the port 6690 also has to be opened to the Synology NAS. If this port is not opened, the Windows app will fail.
The Android and iOS apps will work with just port 5000 (or 5001 if SSL is selected and the certificate is valid).
SNMP is still available, but now it can be found under:
“Start” –> “Settings” –> “Apps” –> “Apps & Features” –> “Manage optional Features” –> “Add a Feature”
For some reason Microsoft seems to think that “Content” view for search results is the best view. This goes for “generic” folders in general, but me for content view is a view that I’d rather see go completely from Windows. Unfortunately I for me there is no easy setting to change this. This means it’s time to dive into the Windows Registry a little and set everything to use Details view as default.
Folder views are user specific, local and are controlled by the Windows Shell. This means the registry keys can be found under:
HKCU\SOFTWARE\Classes\Local Setting\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell
Here you should remove the keys BagMRU and Bags. Once these two are removed, add the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell{7fde1a1e-8b31-49a5-93b8-6be14cfa4943}
Create 2 DWORD values with:
“LogicalViewMode”=dword:00000001
“Mode”=dword:00000004
Now log off and log back on and every window should be set to Detail view.
When trying to run the Steam version of Caesar IV on Windows 10, a runtime error will pop up and will close the game.
The Eventlog gives this:
Before immediately going for the refund, there are a few things that can be done to get this working. (this does not have to be done in this specific order, as long as it’s done before running the game again)
3. Download and install “DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010)” from the Microsoft page: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109
The system does not have to be rebooted.
Note: This was tested on various versions of Windows 10 up to 20H2 fully patched until January 2021.
Updated on the 27th of January 2021
When installing Windows 2000 (and also Windows NT4 or Windows XP/2003 or even MS Office versions), it’s usually easier and less error-prone to install the OS with the latest service-pack or SP already slipstreamed into the installation media. Quite often this will resolve driver issues which may cause Blue Screens of Death during installation.
This guide assumes you already have a copy of the installation media and SP handy and further assumes you’re working on the D-drive. The mounted image or DVD drive is assumed to be the E-Drive. You can substitute the drive letters with whichever you’re using.
What do we need:
1) At least 1GB free space on the hard disk you’re working on
2) A CDR/CDRW drive to burn the CD or a USB Pendrive with sufficient capacity already made bootable before copying the slipstreamed image
3) A Windows 2000 installation disc or .iso image
4) A copy of Windows 2000 SP4 in the same language as the install media
From here I find it easiest to work with the command prompt. This is just a habit however and there is no real difference between working with the prompt or working with the GUI.
Mount the installation media and create a work-in-progress folder:
mkdir D:\Windows2000\i386
cd D:\Windows2000\i386
Copy the contents of the i386 directory of the installation media to the folder you just created with:
xcopy e:\i386 d:\Windows2000\i386 /e
The servicepack you downloaded, is usually an executable. You can extract this with typing the filename.exe -x, so in my case that is:
D:\SP4\w2ksp4_en.exe -x
You’ll get a popup box asking for the destination of the extracted files. I normally put these in the same directory, so I enter: D:\SP4 and click Ok.
Once this is completed, CD to the directory with the extracted files:
cd D:\SP4\i386\update
Now run the following command to update the Windows 2000 installation folder:
D:\SP4\i386\Update\Update.exe -s:D:\Windows2000
Note: There is a space between Update.exe and the -s switch, but there is no space between the -s and the destination. You don’t need to specify the i386 folder in the path here.
Once this has completed, copy the contents of the Windows2000\i386 directory to your bootable pendrive or burn it to CD/DVD.