WIN98 SE & Drivers

Topic

New Reply

Is there some knack needed to get drivers off the upgrade CDROM for WIN98SE? There seems to be something odd about the way they’re bundled together, compressed, or indexed.

I have just been given a laser printer from the dark ages that I know works well and has a nearly new toner installed. Control Panel / Install New Hardware knows all about it – Epson / EPL7100 – and tells me to put the CDROM in, but then can’t find the driver. It’s looking for
FINSTALL.DLL – I say skip file so then it looks for
ICONLIB.DLL – I say skip file so then it looks for
UNIDRV.DLL – I say skip file so then it looks for
HPPCL.DRV – which is probably what it needs although it sounds more like a Hewlett Packard driver.
The CDROM seems to have a lot of drivers bundled into cabinet files.

I had similar trouble with an ATI display adapter a few months ago and had to download the driver across the internet because the .INF file Windows expected wasn’t found on the CDROM that came with the adapter.

Reply | Quote

Replies

Is there a chance that you need to point the install to the DRIVERS subdirectory on the CD? There’s also a PRINTERS sub-subdirectory under that but I don’t know where your particular Epson might be. Windows IS pretty stupid when it comes to directing itself to the correct place!

Reply | Quote

I do NOT think there are any drivers on the upgrade of 98 to SE. It was a OEM only release, I think you need to put in the orginal Win 98 Fe CD to get the drivers.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

Reply | Quote

Thank you, Big Al.

The Win98 SE upgrade disk has a directory marked Drivers with a subdirectory marked Printer and that has a subd. for Epson and another for HP. Well, it looks as though they just put theSecond Edition’s new/additional drivers for these two makes in those directories.

It turned out that the subdirectory I needed was WIN98 DRIVER11.CAB: I found FINSTALL.DLL in there all right, and evidently once I had pointed the installer to FINSTALL.DLL the library file led the installer to the other three files it needed.

I had never noticed that these cabinets behave like folders, under the influence of Windows Explorer revealing the names of the files they contain. The odd thing is that, just like the Windows installer, Find / Files and Folders cannot find the contents of .CABs , which is why I gave up and cried out for help. As you say, its a pretty stupid arrangement.

Reply | Quote