By way of introduction, I need a copy of win98SE. win2k blows goats, and the creatins who manufacturer my motherboard and graphics card lacked the foresight to include support for win98 first edition. As for winXP, I'm wouldn't touch that with a stick...

I thought I'd pick one up on ebay for �5 + postage or so, but damn AOLers are pushing the bidding up to at least �25-�30 for the CD alone.

I can't "make an illegal copy", as no one I know is smart enough to own win98SE.

As a last resort, I spent a couple of days (few/no seeds) downloading a copy from bittorrent. I was looking for an .ISO but for some reason people think it's better to rip software CDs and collect the contents as a huge collection of loose files, with no way of knowing if it's complete.

So, I ended up going for a .zip file of 602mb - which at least seemed about right.

I finish the lengthy download, and open the file up in winrar to see what's going on. Only to find that some MOTHERFUCKER has stuck a password on the .zip.

I follow the tracker link to a website (trackermania.com) which is all in spanish, hispanic, or some other shite. It looks to me like they have some sort of membership system, and I'm guessing only reveal the password for downloaded files to members.

Anyway, I know that software is available that can bruteforce .zip passwords is available. So I'd be grateful if someone could recommend one that: a) works, and b) doesn't carry a virus/worm/tragan etc.

I'm running an athlon xp2000+ at 1.67ghz, 256mb ram and a nice new sata HDD.

I mainly posted a request here because it's also an opportunity to complain about these stupid punks :mad: I see the name "trackermania" a lot on suprnova and it really riles me to think that some jumped up kids are trying to stamp ownership on a free, peer-to-peer filesharing network. Like faggots that only "trade" on kazaa.

Rar! :mad:

Don't waste your time. Forget the brute-force method.

Example: a case-sensitive password "ItsTimeToKickAssAndChewBubbleGum", the base is 52 (26+26 characters) and the length is 32. A good brute-force cracker tests up to 1 Billion passwords per second.

To find the password above the cracker must run up to (52^32/1Billion) seconds ~ 8*10^45 seconds
or 9*10^40 days or 2*10^38 years or..... forget it :D

There's a flaw in the security of ZIP files created with WINZIP. If there are at least 5 encrypted files in a WINZIP archive you can crack the archive in just 1 hour regardless of the password complexity and length... with 2 known cracker utilities.... the Passware Password Recovery Kit and the Elcomsoft Advanced Archive Recovery.

But if there are 4 or less encrypted files in the archive or it's an archive created with Pkware PKZIP, then try to find the password at another place (FAQ/homepage of the cracker group etc.)... or delete the crap and download another copy of Win98SE.

Anthony,

I have a bin/cue image of Win98SE that I'd be willing to share with you. I'd put it up on the FTP, but that server has some serious configuration issues. Do you have access to USENET?

EDIT: If you DO have access to USENET, check alt.binaries.cd.image. Someone posted a bootable copy of 98SE there.

Well, thanks for the replys so far guys.

I've given up on the cracker idea. I thought it was practical for passwords up to about 8 characters though.

Anyway, I don't need it as the password is: "trackerpedido"

I can't understand a word of spanish, but I managed to fudge my way through signing up for their site, and finding the correct password in their forum. I have no idea why they want people to sign up, they get nothing from it. Maybe the organisers just want to feel that they have friends?

Thanks for the link swenmfan, not sure why you deleted it though... You are aware that all deleted posts remain readable to staff? :)

Anywho, the .zip contains some links to their website, a serial in a .txt file, and a disclaimer. Of interest are two files: win98 SE.mdf and win98 SE.mds. Aside from bunging them into Nero and seeing what it makes of them, I'm not too sure what to do with them.

To be honest, I haven't ever tried to make a bootable CD from downloaded material before, but I'm on last choices at the moment.

According to google, mdf is a type of particle board (which I already knew) and the Manic Depression Fellowship. Might be a Main Database File, but no indication of how to use them.

Removed it and emailed the same thing to you instead.. didn't want to have the whole world swamping my server.. ;-)

MDS = Media Descriptor CD Image File
MDS and MDF are writeable with Alcohol 120%

Oh and the original Win98 cd isn't bootable.. I used to make a win98 bootfloppy then made a bootable cd with nero..

Aha, thankyou, I'll give that program a try.

I also just found an email from you in my junk email folder, thanks.


EDIT:

Those damn spics have thwarted me one final time - the copy of windows is entirely in spanish! I managed to understand enough to get through the DOS prompts and installation. I was hoping that once windows actually loaded up, I'd be able to select a different language pack, but the only things I managed to change were the timezone and keyboard layout :( Fudge...

Will give your copy a try swenmfan...

Sounds like someone is having fun on the internet. :p

This is how I used to install w98..
Make a bootfloppy on a working win98 or download it at http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

Loadup nero and create a bootable cd using the floppy as bootimage and just dumping the win98 folder on it.

boot on cd and fdisk and format harddrive if needed, reboot.
boot on cd and go in to the win98 folder and start smartdrv.exe, create a win98 folder on your harddrive, copy all files from cd to harddrive,, ie. xcopy d:/win98/*.* c:/win98/
Start the setup in the harddrive win98 folder, I used to start the setup with the switches /ie /iv /is /p j

/ie removes the create rescue floppy, /iv removes upgrade screens, /is removes scandisk and /p j makes win98 use ACPI instead of APM and PnP

The reason for copying the files to HD is that the win98 setup reboots after a while then it all of a sudden doesn't find the cd and you get stuck. It is also alot faster.

But you realy should have another look at XP Pro, Win98 is old, buggy and unsupported nowdays. But stay away from XP Home

If not 98se, then 2000pro.

XP, NT, and ME are puke bait. :p

I found two way with your copy swenmfan. Both involve burning the contents of the zip to a CDR(W).

The first, was to install my authenticate copy of win98 first edition, load windows, pop the cd in, find setup.exe and run. It then installs SE over the top for you. Long-winded though.

The second and best was to startup with a 98 boot disk, to load the cdrom driver, then simply run the setup.exe on the cd in dos, then away it goes. No problems with rebooting and being unable to find the cdrom, as the first time it restarts, it boots from the HDD.

Finally, I thought that victory was mine as I successfully installed quake2 - I could almost smell the super shotgun again... No sound though, no problemo gringo (see, picking up the spanish) just load the audio driver from my mobo cd. Problem is that this involves also loading some shite from the windows cd. Can't find what it needs on your cd, nor on my first edition disk.

I only want to play some classic games! When will those arrogant software designers realise the importance of backwards compatibility for us poor souls stuck in the early ninties?

I'm just thinking of trouble I'm going to have in the distant future when cdroms have been long obsolete and I want to play monkey island, simon the sorcerer, nuke nukem 3D or doom. Maybe I should cache a 486 now...

Anyway, someone I know has unearthed a genuine copy of 98SE, so I'll beg/borrow that.

If anyone else would like a moan or rant, feel free to add your two cents. At least then I won't feel like I'm the only grumpy, bitter person around here :)