Two quick questions about my recently-acquired secondhand HP Omnibook XE3 laptop... I'm guessing these will be pretty straightforward to anyone who knows about Win98 but unfortunately i'm pretty stumped!
1. On startup the Win98 intro screen appears but it's a tiny little thing in the middle of the display surrounded by acres of black space - is there any way of making it bigger? Obviously not a major issue but a niggly one nonetheless - i've had other Win98 machines in the past where it filled the whole screen. I'm thinking its because a display seeting hasn't been configured properly somewhere but then everything else displays correctly on the LCD.
2. Further into the bootup sequence (when the desktop background appears) I get a dialog box asking for my Microsoft networking password. The machine isn't networked (just linked via the Ethernet port to a broadband router) and in fact clicking either 'OK' or 'Cancel' gets rid of the box without a password being entered, but it's annoying as it pauses startup at this point and in the past I've forgotten about it when leaving the laptop to boot up and come back to have to click through it...
If it helps the OS and programs were installed on the fully formatted HDD by the girl i acquired the machine from using the original HP CD-ROM that came with it new way back in 2001. I think this disk has a full version of Win98 plus other HP-specific programs and I do have a legit Win98 product key on a label attached to the bottom of the machine.
Apologies for my probable ignorance on this - I'm only just rediscovering the joys of Win98 (might use it for my desktop PC, old machines seem to run really well on it!)
Laptop specs are as follows if any use to anyone:
2001 HP Omnibook XE3
700 MHz
Intel Pentium III Processor
64 MB RAM
10GB Hard Drive
Win 98 (2nd Edition)
14" LCD
2 x USB
2 x PCMIA
DVD-ROM
Thanks in advance for any help!
Last edited by rich_edwards79; 09-08-2007 at 03:17 PM.
Sorry for the delay, I've been off-line for a week and a half relocating across the country. New ISP etc.
1. On startup the Win98 intro screen appears but it's a tiny little thing in the middle of the display surrounded by acres of black space - is there any way of making it bigger? Obviously not a major issue but a niggly one nonetheless - i've had other Win98 machines in the past where it filled the whole screen. I'm thinking its because a display seeting hasn't been configured properly somewhere but then everything else displays correctly on the LCD.
Right click on an empty area of your desktop, choose Properties, then Settings. Increase your screen resolution to the next step up. ie; from 640X480 to 800X600, or from 800X600 to 1024X768.
If this doesn't set the proper viewing size, you may have to download the video display drivers for your model; (You didn't state which of the four you have)
2. Further into the bootup sequence (when the desktop background appears) I get a dialog box asking for my Microsoft networking password. The machine isn't networked (just linked via the Ethernet port to a broadband router) and in fact clicking either 'OK' or 'Cancel' gets rid of the box without a password being entered, but it's annoying as it pauses startup at this point and in the past I've forgotten about it when leaving the laptop to boot up and come back to have to click through it...
Open Control Panel, Network, and remove the Client for Microsoft Networks. All your shared drives/folders (if you have any) should stay shared and accessible from within another computer on your network (if any).
If you want to get rid of the Windows Logon as well, search in the Windows folder for the current Username (if using one) and delete the username.pwl file.
Reboot, and at the Windows logon screen don't enter a password. Just click on OK, you'll be prompted to confirm the "password" again (leaving the password fields empty) click on OK.
Post back with your results and any further questions.
Your instructions on getting rid of the MS Networking password dialog worked a treat, and for some reason I've never had an issue with an unwanted Windows logon box - possibly because it's a clean install and a password was never set up? Either way it's sorted, so thank you.
The small screen thing on startup still seems to be happening. I did change the size setting however it's already on the largest resolution supported by this display, which is 800 x 600. As I expected, setting it to 640 x 480 just seemed to give my desktop the same effect as the Win98 title screens - about an inch of space around each edge. It's really weird, because as I said everything else displays on the full extent of the screen (desktop, programs etc) it's just these 'blue sky' startup / shutdown title screens.
Maybe it's just a quirk of this HP edition of Win98 that I'll have to live with! Don't want to mess with the machine too much anyway as for the time being it's my only functioning PC - the aforementioned desktop finally died on me last night, but that's a story for another thread...
So how do I find out which of the 4 XE3 models I have? I ask because mine isn't marked according to the list on the HP site; all the identifying stickers seem to just say 'Omnibook XE3 1'. It does seem quite a basic machine even for its day in some respects - I think it's a 'de-tuned' version of a higher-spec model which had features like separate audio controls on the front panel, a bigger LCD and the ability to connect to a desktop docking station. On the other hand it has a respectable (for 2001) PIII Celeron but only 64MB of RAM (upgradeable to 256MB though!) Still, I paid nothing for it so I'm not complaining!
Download, install, and run Everest Home Edition on this machine. (Clean FreeWare) Once it's finished loading and running, click on the Report Wizard in the Menu Bar. Save all hardware related pages (the default) to a TEXT file in a location of your choice. (It will default the location to C:\Program Files\Lavalys\EVEREST Home Edition\Reports.)
Attach that text document to your next posting. (When posting, click on Advanced, and just below the posting box you'll see "Additional Options", and within that, "Attach Files". Click on "Manage Attachments" and follow the prompts. Browse to the file and choose UPLOAD.)
I'll have a look at the hardware and see if I can match up the proper machine to the available drivers.
Upload Errors
Report.txt:
Your file of 142.0 KB bytes exceeds the forum's limit of 97.7 KB for this filetype.
Is there any way i can email or PM you with the report instead? I don't have Word on this machine yet (Office disks in the post from my mom!) so can't convert it to .doc format
Sorry, I keep forgetting that there's a limit on the (entire) upload.
In the report (or program) look up Computer, Summary, Display, or under Display, PCI/AGP Video. This will tell you what display adapter/chip you have. (Video Adapter and 3D Accelerator.)
