Incompatible protected mode drivers Thursday, October 15, 2009 at 9:44 pm Windows Me Annoyances Discussion Forum Posted by Ed (659 messages posted) I upgraded from Win3.1 to Win98 myself, so I've experienced this same problem - many many years ago! The answer is that the 16-bit protected mode Win3.1 driver you are loading is incompatible with your 32-bit Win98 hardware: Windows is detecting the incompatibility, and is deleting the driver from system.ini (so that it does not load), as the alternative to offering you the Blue Screen Of Death. The solution is to upgrade to a 32-bit Win98 protected mode driver (e.g. from www.DriverGuide.com). You appear to believe that protected mode Win3.1 drivers function like real mode DOS drivers. They do not. Real mode (i.e. DOS) drivers will function correctly under Win98/ME, since DOS still underlies the 9x O/S; but it is not possible to fool the 9x O/S into loading an incompatible (i.e. Win3.1) protected mode driver. There is no workaround for an incompatible protected mode (i.e. non-DOS) driver. The only protected mode drivers that Win 9x will load are Win 9x drivers. Ed On Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 2:23 pm, madman420 wrote: >Okay... I can see why you are a windows user. My actions are not unwise. Microsoft >went to extra lengths to "disable" DOS-mode drivers (and even DOS-mode itself) with >Windows ME - everyone knows that. But, for the most part, Windows ME is just Windows >98 SE with some updates & less compatibility testing. The driver that I speak of >*WORKS* in Windows ME just fine. As a matter of fact, it seems to work better than >the Win98 driver (for CS4236B sound). I have *patched* start-up files: command.com, >io.sys, and regenv32.exe - which effectively re-enable the DOS-mode (If you boot >from the "emergency boot disk" or the Windows ME CD-ROM, you get real-mode DOS, that's >what these patches use). > >I have used the patches for years with no trouble at all (besides the fact that the >startup logo doesn't appear). This is my first shot at loading real-mode or 16-bit >protected-mode drivers in the Config.sys and Autoexec.bat. Like I said, everything >works when I try it, however, when I reboot, *my* settings get wiped out (in system.ini). > OpenWatcom (a sophisticated C/C++ development >environment) supplies DOS, Win16, and Win32 facilities for debugging purposes; *their* >line (for a 16-bit virtual device driver) doesn't get removed: >device=C:\WATCOM\binw\wdebug.386 > >There must be some workaround for this (some registry setting?) > >Thanks for reading my posts, but if you don't have any information that could lead >to a solution, don't tell me what color to paint my bikeshed. > Thanks. > > > Written in response to: re: System.ini entry gone on reboot (madman420: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 2:23 pm) Responses to this message: re: Incompatible protected mode drivers (madman420: Thursday, October 15, 2009 at 11:58 pm) All messages in this thread [show all] System.ini entry gone on reboot (madman420: Fri, Sep 25, 2009, 4:10 pm) re: System.ini entry gone on reboot (madman420: Tue, Sep 29, 2009, 2:16 pm) re: System.ini entry gone on reboot (Ed: Tue, Oct 13, 2009, 1:58 pm) re: System.ini entry gone on reboot (madman420: Tue, Oct 13, 2009, 2:23 pm) Incompatible protected mode drivers (Ed: Thu, Oct 15, 2009, 9:44 pm) re: Incompatible protected mode drivers (madman420: Thu, Oct 15, 2009, 11:58 pm) Reply or follow-up to this message Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows Me Discussion Forum