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Can't get any of winmxworld's patched versions to work (3.53 worked before), so I thought I would see what the much maligned Pie patch was all about.

I understand from another post that AutoUpdate doesn't work on 98. Does everything else work with 98? Any gotcha's to watch out for?

If Pie patch works with 98, and I do the complete uninstall reinstall bit, will I destroy my Hosts file?

I have a large Hosts file (created by Spybot Search & Destroy). Could I just download and then append (copy) the Pie patch hosts in to that file?

Also, the 'Wordly' advise says to deep 6 PG2. I take it that is also the Pie patch recommendation, since yousupply PG Lite?

How does a Win98 user update the block libraries if auto update isn't available?

Its correct, the Pie auto updater does not work with 98, my best advice would be to upgrade, you are now almost 10 years out of date, but i suspect thats not an option you wish to entertain?

So the best thing you can do is DL the manual patch HERE and as you say, simply c&p the entries into your hosts, that way you will ofc preserve your host entries as they are.

With regard to blocking, the best thing i can suggest is you stay on a Winmx secondary connection, this will mean you wont need to worry about blocking.

The auto updater wont run on 98 and as such there is no auto update function available, if you really feel you need to go primary, you could always add the Winmx specific blocklist to you firewall?

Thank you for the clarification. Everything is running smoothly, again.

A secondary connection is fine for me, no desire to be a primary, and yes, the Win98 machine is doing all it can just to keep that OS running. I do plan to upgrade to SE for the upgraded USB support, but that's it.

Glad to hear a secondary doesn't have to be concerned with being an inlet for flooders.

As to the autoupdate function, what is it updating and what will I, as a secondary, be missing out on? I assume I can uninstall the Pie Auto Updater 1.0 software?

Also, I noted in something I read, that the patch installed PG Lite, yet I don't find that app installed on my machine. Does a secondary need PG Lite?

If you installed manually, pglyte wont be there, and from memory i dont think pglyte runs on 98 anyway. As far as auto features, the updater automatically checks for updated blocklists every 2 hours and changes in cache addresses every 24 hours.

So the only thing you as a secondary user would be missing out on is auto changes to cache addresses, but in fairness, should you suddenly become out of date you can simply post here and we can let you have the new cache addresses.

Thank you Nobby, WIN98 lives to serve another day.

I guess the time I'll know my cache addresses are out-of-date is when I can't get connected?

How many WinMX associated cache addresses should I have in my hosts file?

If it's not too much trouble, could you post the most current list for me, or point me to where I can copy it? Would like to make sure I did everything correctly during the last install / update.

I run 2 win98 computers as winmx fileservers - and host a chatroom on one.

I write my own hosts list but that is now not as easy as it used to be. When KM had his winmxgroup site up, he had a cache server status page which gave the IPs of the servers he was running and a list of others also. Now whoever is running that show has decided not to publish the IPs that the DLL uses.

I did install the pieautoupdater on one of my win98 computers to test it. It does install but PGLyte won't run since it is not compatible with win98. But the updater does grab a 'new' hosts list and overwrites the existing one completely. Not a nice thing to do if you have other spam and adblockers using the hosts list too, but users are warned that will happen, and how to work around it.


So for DIY types who want to roll their own hosts list.. This is what I found as of several weeks ago..

The manual hosts list nobby pointed you, pie v3.2 to has 3 IPs.
When I tested the pieautoupdater, it installed a hosts list with just 2 of those IPs, so if your manually installing, v 3.2 has/had 50% more IPs :) This may very well change if it hasn't already by whoever controls the pie update list.

Last time I looked, the OTHER mxpie division was offering v3.5. It contained 4 IPs and it added a section for winmxgroup.com hosts since these were coded into some 3rd party winmx programs. This section provides connectivity for them.

So those 4 IPs are easily known, and fairly stable, static. If you want to make the effort, you can also add the IPs used by the DLL patch group. As I noted, they don't want to give the IPs out, since several are dynamic IPs that are subject to more frequent changes. The last time I looked, they had 7 to 10 other IPs, maybe more now. They have published a list of 30 hostnames on 4 or 5 different TLDs to which these IPs are linked. So all you have to do is perform a DNS lookup for those [then] 30 hostnames and see what IPs are currently active. If you elect to add these, then updating it is up to you and IPs no longer in use should be removed else you're just knocking on a closed door, bothering them and delaying your connect.

So whether your list has 2, 4 or 15 IPs is up to you. IF the people who control the pieautoupdater host list decide to make and maintain a composite hosts list, that may be a decent solution for you and eliminate the need for you and countless others to frequently research the IPs currently in use. I wish they had added an option to get the current list and save it to hosts-winmx.txt so I could review it and then manually edit any changes into my hosts file. But even a simple webpage could provide that function.. one which would do an hourly update on the DLL hostnames etc. and give an IP change history too, so that the more static IPs they use could be distinguished from the dynamic ones.

And don't forget.. if you decide to run as a primary, you should run some sort of IP blocker program and use the flooder blocklist to keep them from connecting through you.

Life will be much easier IF those working on a DLL solution release it as open source and with user options to control the blocking, filtering and autoupdating.

I dont think this patch is too far away and im reliably informed WILL be open source, however i seriously doubt there will be any user options available.