I have received two reports of taskbar problems when using simplicity v1.9 and up (which uses taskbar3.dll v0.305) on Windows 9x (95, 98, ME)

I would appreciate it if 9x users would do the following: (cutting and pasting from my site... ohussain.cjb.net)
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There is an issue, not so much with the installer but with the included theme (simplicity), on Windows 9x platforms. I have received two reports from users running LiteStep 0.24.7Beta3 (they both used a recent version of my installer) that the taskbar does not function correctly.

Jeremy Murphy (Win98 SE) reports that when an application is closed, its icon is removed from the taskbar, but the space occupied by the icon is not freed up. Also, newly launched applications' icons do not show up until after a recycle.

Kim Hoang (WinME) wrote in to tell me that the taskbar shows no icons for running applications, just empty squares.

If you're using Windows 9x and are savvy enough with LiteStep, I would appreciate it if you could see what version of taskbar3 works for you and let me know. If you're not comfortable enough with LiteStep to do that, don't fret, I've got something else you can do.

Here are two past versions of simplicity: v1.8 and v1.6.

Please download and install both of them. You can install them normally, they extract to simplicity_1.8 and simplicity_1.6 folders so you need not worry about overwriting whatever version of simplicity you're using right now. Please test both v1.8 and v1.6 and let me know which one works for you. I'm hoping v1.8 does the trick myself since it's obviously more recent and uses taskbar3.dll (v1.6 uses jugg's good old tasks.dll which is a bit tricky to make a taskbar out of).
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I heard back from Kim already and he says both v1.6 and v1.8 lock up and bluescreen his machine when he tries to switch to them. I have absolutely no idea how that could be. I'm just letting you all know what he reported. :|

v1.8 might have taskbar issues on 9x - I'm hoping it doesn't but it might since it uses taskbar3 0.303. :( v1.8's been out a while though and i don't recall receiving any bug reports about the taskbar... :|

v1.6 had better damn well work on 9x since I developed it on win98 and it uses jugg's tasks.dll. ;)

So Windows 9x users (95, 98, ME) please download and test those two themes and post your results.

Thank you.

i didn't think *amn was a bad word, i'll be more careful in the future. ;)

And please: don't be like me: stay on topic ;)

Im using XP pro and the icons for programs like msn and eMule just dissapear when you put em down.

oh, I'm sorry to hear that (on xp pro here I don't have windows messenger's icon disappearing on minimize) - I was really looking for feedback from win9x users though. :P

I'm afraid there's not really anything I can do about that Marrre, you should contact jesus_mjjg (developer of taskbar3) and submit a bug report.

For the 9x users I was merely trying to ascertain what version of taskbar3.dll works for them. For NT/2k/XP users, the latest version of taskbar3 is as good as it gets. (Which is pretty good IMHO.) ;)

Tried both themes on my brother's 98 machine...no problems with the taskbar, except the icons flickered when using the tinted option in v1.6. No crashes or anything, though...

Forgot to mention...I'm using Indie LiteStep 2-09-03.

Thanks for the info. cas. :) The tinting in v1.6 of the theme causes flickering on XP too.

I'm glad to hear both seemed ok on 98... I think I'll probably modify simplicity (the next release) to load taskbar3 v0.303 on 9x.

Update:

Jeremy Murphy has informed me that v1.8 of simplicity (so in other words taskbar3.dll v0.303) works fine.

Kim Hoang reports that v1.6 of simplicity does indeed work fine after all, but the taskbar in v1.8 still has problems.

(As I said above though, I think I'll just go with v0.303 on 9x - sorry Kim - I'm hoping that will be good enough.)

i have windows 98 se as well. i've tried simplicity 1.8, and i had the same taskbar problems as in the most recent version; 1.6 is working, though, and that's what i'll stick with.

thanks for the info. stepon... Jeremy Murphy has determined that the problem seems to be caused by the combination of taskbar3 0.305 and 0.24.7, and a post by ilmcuts on the litestep.net (or litestep.com - I can't remember :|) forums confirms this.

ilmcuts also said that the issue would be resolved with the next release of 0.24.7