aMule Forum

English => aMule Help => Topic started by: dave010 on January 11, 2006, 12:45:15 PM

Title: Windows 9x and Amule, can not install
Post by: dave010 on January 11, 2006, 12:45:15 PM
My previous install of aMule doesn't work anymore, it crashes always when I try to start it. So, I downloaded the latest binary for Windows, 2.1.0. When I try to install it, it just pops up an error message that the binary is for Windows 2000/XP only since it requires unicode. By using Google I found out that most of the sites list aMule 2.1.0  as "Win9x/ME/2000/XP compatible" though it isn't correct...

The question is, is there any way to get aMule for Windows 9x any more? The previous release (2.0.3) did not have a binary for Windows. The aMule website didn't say anything the release being for Windows 2000 and XP only, and neither did the file name ("aMule-2.1.0-Win32.zip", Win 9x is a 32-bit Windows IMHO).

My OS is Windows 98 SE, English language. It seems pretty stupid idea to buy a Windows XP upgrade for this old PC just to get aMule running, but is there any other option?
Title: Re: Windows 9x and Amule, can not install
Post by: kreegee on January 11, 2006, 12:51:44 PM
1. You might try an older Version, i guess they are all available on the SourceForge-Page of the Project. There is a 2.0.3 version for windows.

2. Try eMule, it should support Win98, but you need to install a unicode-update. ( http://www.emule-project.net/home/perl/general.cgi?l=1&rm=download )
Title: Re: Windows 9x and Amule, can not install
Post by: dave010 on January 11, 2006, 01:10:41 PM
Well,  SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/amule) says: "Operating System  : All 32-bit MS Windows (95/98/NT/2000/XP)" which is incorrect. There's no clue which version(s) do work on Windows 9x, maybe I just have to try from 2.1.0 backwards until I found some version that does work. Could the information be updated to note which versions do work on older Windowses and which doesn't?

Anyway, Sourceforge doesn't have binaries (win9x) for 2.0.3 either - or 2.0.2, 2.0.1... The newest one (besides 2.1.0) is 2.0.0. It DOES install correctly and the installer doesn't bug me with "You need Win2k", but it overwrote my older install (damnit) and when starting: "This program uses Unicode and requires WinME/2k/XP, up yours." - blah :(

And for personal reasons, I don't want to go back to eMule since I already once got rid of it ;)
Title: Re: Windows 9x and Amule, can not install
Post by: Gerd78 on January 11, 2006, 01:33:48 PM
http://download.berlios.de/amule/aMule-2.0.2-ansi-installer.exe

That's the most recent non-unicode binary I can find.
Title: Re: Windows 9x and Amule, can not install
Post by: wuischke on January 11, 2006, 01:59:22 PM
There is a fix for Win 9.x (at least eMule needs one, take a look at emule-project.net for more information) which *should* solve the problem.
Regards
Title: Re: Windows 9x and Amule, can not install
Post by: thedude0001 on January 11, 2006, 02:25:24 PM
Quote
Originally posted by dave010
Well,  SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/amule) says: "Operating System  : All 32-bit MS Windows (95/98/NT/2000/XP)" which is incorrect.

No, that is perfectly correct. amule 2.1.0 works perfectly fine on Win9x. Period.

The trouble you are experiencing is based on the fact that the  binary you're using was compiled for unicoded Windows (2k/XP and up). So all you need is an amule 2.1.0 binary compiled for Win9x. The problem here is that our Windows packager has gone MIA and I'm not sure if anybody here still has Win9x running...
Title: Re: Windows 9x and Amule, can not install
Post by: Gerd78 on January 11, 2006, 02:27:18 PM
Quote
Originally posted by wuischke
There is a fix for Win 9.x [...]
You mean this one?

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=73BA7BD7-ED06-4F0D-80A4-2A7EEAEE17E2&displaylang=en

That's not a "fix", it's a Microsoft library that was not originally distributed with the old Windows versions, so people must either install it separately or just install the latest Internet Explorer (it comes with Internet Explorer, too).

And yes, eMule can use it, but aMule can't. This library extends the Win32 API, but aMule doesn't use the Win32 API at all. aMule uses wxWidgets,so it needs an ANSI (non-Unicode) build of wxWidgets on these old Windows versions (just like wxGTK is always built in ANSI mode with old GTK versions).
Title: Re: Windows 9x and Amule, can not install
Post by: wuischke on January 11, 2006, 02:49:28 PM
Thank for your correction, didn't think properly again...:(

BTW: Why don't you simply install Linux or another free OS on your PC?
Title: Re: Windows 9x and Amule, can not install
Post by: Gerd78 on January 11, 2006, 03:02:15 PM
You could try do build it yourself.

http://www.amule.org/wiki/index.php/HowTo_compile_on_Win32

But it's not easy. Especially if the PC is slow because you have to build many libraries from source.

By the way, there was another request for a Windows 9x binary today:

http://forum.amule.org/thread.php?threadid=6009

And another "By the way": Does aMule support cross-compilation for Windows from a Linux system?
Title: Re: Windows 9x and Amule, can not install
Post by: dave010 on January 11, 2006, 03:09:48 PM
Thanks, I tried the ANSI installer and it worked. Or, "worked", the installation went fine, but the program itself crashes like earlier. This is getting interesting :) I had the 2.0.2 ansi previously installed, and fc /b didn't find any differences between the previously installed version of amule.exe and the reinstalled one. So it seems the source for the crash is somewhere else, I just thought the .exe is corrupted or something.

I do have Linux on my laptop, but this PC has some rare software that works only on Windows. Emulation doesn't work, and there isn't similar software for Linux either, so that's why I have to stick with Windows.

But thanks for the link to the working installer, it solved this problem though the original problem still exists. The program though worked yesterday and I didn't install any updates for Windows or any additional software.

Code: [Select]
AMULE caused an invalid page fault in
module AMULE.EXE at 027f:00428029.
Registers:
EAX=00000002 CS=027f EIP=00428029 EFLGS=00010202
EBX=0185d400 SS=0287 ESP=010ee160 EBP=010ee218
ECX=00000010 DS=0287 ESI=00b9e738 FS=19b7
EDX=0174ce10 ES=0287 EDI=010ee320 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 80 64 01 00 00 85 c0 75 1d 8d 45 a4 89 04 24
Stack dump:
0174ce10 0092e220 00000010 010ee200 780013c3 00000010 780013ac 0000000c 010ee1e0 0174ce10 010ee1a0 00aa2324 010ee1a4 00922f48 010ee158 01c1edb0

Just have to live without aMule, I assume, until I found out what the heck has happened between the last two reboots.
Title: Re: Windows 9x and Amule, can not install
Post by: Gerd78 on January 11, 2006, 03:26:06 PM
Just if someone is interested:

- wxWidgets seems to have optional MSLU support, so it could theoretically be possible to create a binary that runs on Windows 9x and Windows NT.

- there seem to be alternatives to MSLU with MinGW, although I don't know how to use them and how good they are.

http://opencow.sourceforge.net/
http://libunicows.sourceforge.net/