Via 4 n 1 drivers and Nero 5.5 - One or the other???
Well I have run Win98SE and Win2k previously without a hitch in terms of system stability UNTIL NOW!

Friend came over the other day and says how about a LAN party? Fine I say, but I have Win2k loaded and you have Win98SE... So he reformats and we play till our eyes bulge with pain. Next day I wake up and think "hey if I can dual boot the PC I can avoid having to wait an hour while my friends (or I) have to reformat." So then the story begins...

I fdisk the drive set a partition of 2.5 gigs for Win98 and 7.xx for Win2k (Havent upgraded the hd yet! ) I load Win98 and then load win2k. I choose to install Win2k as a Standard PC and skip all that ACPI crap. I get into Win2k and start installing software. Here is the order that I have been installing software in for the last few months;

OS
Via 4 n 1's (whatever version is the latest at that certain time)
Soundcard Drivers (Liveware 3.0)
Direct X 8
Video card Drivers
SP 2 (used to install SP1 and a load of patches)
Nero 5.5
etc...

Well the above formula had previously worked with the 4.29 4n1's but I cant seem to get the setup to work when using the 4.32 final.

Once I install Nero it first tells me that the installer on my PC is an older version (which totally pisses me off, this is Win2k SP2 for cripes sake ) and then I install the burning ROM and it reboots. Upon opening the program for the first time I get a hardrive light that stays on forever and the program locks on the Banner screen... I have to do a reset and then uninstall Nero and try again, same results

So I finally uninstalled Nero and unistalled the Via PCI driver from the 4.32 4n1's. I then installed Nero and it works!!! So then after that I install the 4.32's and it doesnt work any more... WTF!

I have reformatted this rig 5 times and each time I have changed the order of the above software install and I get the same result each time...

Then on some final despiration attempts yesterday I installed the OS and then the first thing I installed was Nero. It opens the program fine, etc. THen the very next thing I installed was 4.32 and it hangs on the installation of that! And then when I reboot Nero wont open!l lksjdflkjsdflkjs

To Humor myself, I reformatted once more and this time I installed the older 4.29's and Nero. IT WONT OPEN! This configuration of drivers used to work and now it doesnt... I am completely bummed by this string of events....

Lets not forget that another new variable in the mix is the fact that I have a dual boot system setup, Seems that everytime I reformatted the Win2k partition the hd would be mapped to a different drive letter. For instance on the initial dual boot installation the drive for win2k was D and on the last reformat and clean install the drive was F. I am chalking this up to Microsoft but could it be causing an issue???

Oh well your help is much appreciated.

P-!!! 600 EB @ 600 MHz (I dont overclock until I have stability)
256 megs Crucial Cas2 Ram
10.xx Gig Maxtor
HP Cd writer
Creative CD Rom
Win98SE loaded on 2.5 gig partion FAT32 system
Win2k loaded on 7.xx gig partition NTFS file structure
Nvidia GF2 card
Linksys NIC

Nero 5.5 OEM
Via 4.32's and 4.29's...

Bennybone out!

Erm, this don't help much, but why do you need to reformat so you have the same OS for a LAN game? thats just silly. All the networking stuff is independant of the OS.

I'd advise not to use the VIA drivers btw. I don't.

#1) Because we are newbies in the Networking realm

#2) Because I dont want to hear him whining about getting fragged because his system is slower in 98 (Direct 3d) than mine in Win2k (OpenGL).

#3) Because I didnt know I could do that which ties into #1


Why dont you use the 4n1's? For me it seems to do the trick of up'ing system speed ESPECIALLY in terms of the AGP driver...

Well SP2 for 2K supposed to have there own drivers, and whenever I've tried the 4-in-1s in the past, they're caused me some problem or another. My system works fine enough without em.

Can't fault your logic with #1 & 2! heh, though ppl say 98 is generally faster for games.

the problem is VIA's poo poo IDE drivers it seems like. If you install anything just install the AGP drivers and IRQ handling driver. Anything else made by VIA is poop. If you use any VIA IDE drivers use the stand alone 580_3011 VIA UltraDMA BM Drivers. They are on viahardware.com, and work well in 2k. What are your system specs too??

Via 4.3x series drivers are crap. They disable AGP 4x, cause instability, and have USB issues (both on my machine and the 2 at work)

Use 4.29a Those work.

My friend has an Athlon based system and has the 4.32's installed with Nero 5.5 He pointed me to the upgrade patch for Nero that takes it to 5.22.4 or something like that, and so once again I formatted and followed his method of installation which was;

OS first
SP2 next
and Via third...

Upon installation of Nero I rebooted and did not attempt to open the program, I installed the update, rebooted once more and opened the program UNSUCCESFULLY.

I dont seen how it can work on his and not mine, the only difference is

AMD vrs Intel
K266 vrs Asus P3v4x
Non-dual boot config vrs Dual boot config...

I read in another tread of a way to turn off the de-bugging feature in Win2k. I am at work right now but I will try that when I get home, because after it hangs I try to close it via task manager and it says it wont close and is being debugged... WTF ;(

I don't use the 4-in-1s, but when I install Nero 5.5 it stops me from accessing any of my CD drives. I'm sticking with 5.0. I read somewhere that it merges something into the registry causing a conflict. *shrugs*.

Check this Registry key for Lower filters and Upper filters:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}]
"Class"="CDROM"
@="DVD/CD-ROM drives"
"EnumPropPages32"="MmSys.Cpl,MediaPropPageProvider"
"Installer32"="storprop.dll,DvdClassInstaller"
"SilentInstall"="1"
"NoInstallClass"="1"
"TroubleShooter-0"="tshoot.chm,hdw_drives.htm"
"Icon"="-51"
"UpperFilters"=hex(7):43,00,64,00,72,00,61,00,6c,00,77,00,32,00,6b,00,00,00,70,\
00,77,00,64,00,5f,00,32,00,6b,00,00,00,00,00
"LowerFilters"=hex(7):43,00,64,00,72,00,34,00,5f,00,32,00,4b,00,00,00,00,00

This is an excerpt with Roxio filters for ECDC 5.

These filters cause the problem. They authorize use of program specific services placed in some Library which conflict with programs accessing similar hardware resources. Some programs still work without them. You could try to export this key and then erase the Dword containing the filters.

Beware this: most programs using such filters (typical for Adaptec, Roxio, Logitech programs) do not remove these registry entries during unintallation of the program and leave you stuck with permanent conflicts. Their logic is they consider legitimate preventing the replacement of their own program with a competitor's product.