Win98 display blurry on ZV5220 - driver issue?

My dad has the HP ZV5220US laptop, which came preloaded with Windows XP. He has to have Windows 98 installed on the computer, and I have successfully gotten most of the devices to work -- audio, wireless networking and, to an extent, the video. The problem I'm having is finding video drivers that WORK correctly. The current drivers I have installed now show the video card as being an nVidia GeForce4 Go 420 with 32 MB. They seem to work okay, though everything is a little bit blurry on the screen. The resolution is currently 1024x768 and the color depth is 32-bit.

I know that there is some way to get a crisp display, because I had figured out how to do is last year. I remember it being difficult, but somehow I managed to get the display looking perfect, even under Windows 98.

I guess what I'm wondering is, does anybody know what I can do to get the display looking right again? HP doesn't offer any Windows 98 drivers for this machine, and I'm just not exactly sure where to go. It seems like the drivers I have installed now are close, but not quite right.

Any help would be very much appreciated! Thanks!

 

Make sure the resolution is set to native res (don't you have a 1280x800 widescreen? Do the drivers offer that option?) at 60Hz refresh, though I'd have thought that HP would be using a digital video link rather than analog and refresh rate wouldn't matter? Still, it's the only thing I can think of.

What is Win98 required for? I'm surprised it works at all.

 

It is a widescreen, and maybe that's why the standard 4:3 ratio isn't looking good. The drivers don't offer 1280x800 (which, by the way, sounds familiar, now that I think about it).

I guess I'm just not finding the correct drivers, unless -- do you think that the monitor drivers could also be an issue? Do I need to look at that and select something specific for the monitor that would allow the widescreen resolutions?

Windows 98 is required because he is a court reporter, and the transcription software he uses will not run on 2000 or XP, even under compatibility mode. It stinks to be forced to use 98, but an upgrade of this software might cost a couple thousand bucks, so he's trying to make do with 98 for now.[ ]

 

1280x768 is close enough. I suspect your drivers predate 1280x800 res screens, you're lucky to find the 1280x768 option.

A better solution would be to get VMWare Workstation and install Win98 as a guest OS hosted by WinXP or Linux. See http://www.vmware.com. They offer a free 30-day trial IIRC. You'll need at least 1GB RAM for this to work well, though I'm sure you could get by with 512MB.

 

I have an update on the situation. I've been clicking around in the nVidia tab of the Display settings, and I found out that it was essentially "stretching to fit." So that would explain why 1024x768 would take up the full screen yet look distorted. I managed to fix that, and now I can select the resolution of 1280x768, which looks good; it just leaves a thin black stripe at the top and bottom of the screen.

1280x800 isn't an option anywhere, and I can't remember if I had ever actually gotten that resolution working. Is there something I'm missing? 1280x768 looks so much better anyway, so if I have to leave it at this, then it's certainly not a big deal.

Thanks for your help!

 

That's interesting about VMWare. What is it exactly? Maybe an operating system emulator? To be honest, I would LOVE to be able to have him use Windows XP if there were some way to get around this finicky old software.

I hadn't even thought about something like that, but maybe it would be the smartest solution![ ]

 

Yes, VMWare is a Virtual Machine emulator that works very well. You can get Win98 installed fully and it'll operate like it's on a different computer, but shares all your components on your system. This is an excellent way to get around this problem. You can run it in a small window or even go full screen with it.

There's just one thing I need to ask about this problem. Does the user account your dad is using in XP have administrative rights? The reason I ask is because I've come across some problems with old Win98 apps that will only run if the user has administrative access to the system, otherwise it fails to run. If it's the only account on the system, then it's not related to access levels.

-Vb-

 

Thanks for the additional info, Venombite. When XP is installed and I'm logged in as Administrator (or a user with admin rights), the software still doesn't work with compatibility mode, unfortunately. I think it's a pretty well-known issue with this version of the software, and I've had the creators of the software tell me many times that it just will not work under XP.

The idea of VMWare is pretty exciting. I was looking at VMWare Workstation per Brian's suggestion, and it looks like it costs around $200. Is that the one I should be looking into, or is there an older/different version to get?

Right now, I plan to install Windows XP on his machine, download the trial version of VMWare and then attempt to install 98 over that. I sure hope this works![ ]

 

One quick question about using VMWare -- should I use a FAT32 file system, since Windows 98 will be running using VMWare? Or will it still work with NTFS?

 

Awesome to hear. I'm in the middle of formatting the notebook's 80GB hard drive to the NTFS file system, and then I'll install XP, then VMWare.

VMWare sounds like it might be the perfect answer. One thing I want to make sure it can do, though, is be able to access the parallel port on the computer. The reason being is this Windows 98-only software comes with a security device that must be plugged into the parallel port at all times for the software to run. If VMWare can access that, too, then it sounds like a perfect fit.

This is exciting. I can't wait to get XP installed and then start using WMWare. I'll let you guys know how it works![ ]

Luke

 

Lukearndt,

VMWare verion 5 is the latest version available & would drfinitely try this one (better features & faster).

Regarding the files system, don't worry, you can use NTFS or FAT32, VMWare operates differently. But I'd definitly recommend setting up your XP system with NTFS as this will allow files to be larger than 4GB in size, plus there increased security features.

The way VMWare works is that it creates a Virtual computer located in a file that is created. All chnages to that virtual system is all stored in that same file. This way, nothing in your actual system gets affected by any chnages you make in VMWare. Cool isn't it?!

When setting up VMWare, it'll ask you the type of OS you want to install, also things about your hardware you want to setup for this Virtual Machine & how big you want the "HDD" to be. This will allocate the space for this Virtual Machine (allocating 2GB will use 2GB of actual HDD space from your computer, so make sure you have enough HDD space). You will then "Power On" your Virtual Machine and it'll boot up just like a computer, with a BIOS and all. Just insert your Win98 CD, boot off the CD and install while in the Virtual System.

There's a lot of other options you can look into like NAT for your virtual network cards to allow for Internet & network connectivity.

Just some things you should know before you start:
1. You must click you mouse onto the VMWare screen before you can start typing on that screen

2. To release the mouse so you can do other stuff on your actual XP system, just hit Ctrl+Alt at the same time and that'll release the mouse control back to your actual system (that's before you install the VMWare tools).

Don't want to get too into it before you start using, but I'm sure you'll pick up on how to use it pretty quick. The program is very straight forward.

Let us know how it works.

Good Luck!

-Vb-

 

Unfortunately, this all didn't work like I had hoped.[ ]

I got Windows XP installed and running perfectly, got VMWare installed and setup Windows 98SE as a virtual machine. All worked well, except for this software (Case CATalyst) that I'm running would not correctly detect the parallel security device. It would detect it "somewhat," but not enough to allow the program to work.

It would be terrific if VMWare could work with this software and the security device, but it just doesn't seem like that's the case, unfortunately. Oh well... I suppose it's back to Windows 98 for now.

Thanks so much, everyone for the help and the ideas! I really do appreciate it.

Luke

 

Maybe the company that wrote the program could help you work around the security key issue? I should think that it's in their interest to make their software work under VMWare. Are they using the usual FLEXlm licensing?