Sound Blaster 16 card requirement for old Wn95 tutorial CD

[greynold]

Hi guys,
Thought maybe someone could give me some insight on why a Win95-era tutorial CD I have installs Ok! on my Win XP desktop and plays sound when full-screen has sound but on a pop-up video that plays within the screen runs - No sound.
Background...
It's a learning cd with onscreen video/audio tutorial and works completely fine on my Win 95 Pentium Pro system since it was designed for it around 1996.
The hardware requirements are minimal by today's standards but it also requires Sound Blaster 16 or compatible audio card and Quick Time player.
What I wanted to do was install on a newer Win XP Dell system. The install on the Win XP went fine and software loads fine and begins to run with an opening intro with accompanying sound. Then you're presented with a 7 choice menu -- selecting one, a pop-up window for a video lesson with a live instructor appears on the right of the screen but NO sound of the instructor speaking.

I've tried installing on a Win 2000 system with a Sound Blaster Live audio card but got the same results. I've tried changing the 'Compatibility Mode' to run the program to 'Windows 95' and 'Windows 98/Me' with no effect on the problem.
I know there are many issues with differences between Win XP/Win 2000 that affect and sometimes do not allow a Win 95 program to run on it but ssince I was able to get as far as I did, I was wondering if anyone recognizes what I'm hitting and could suggest a fix or at least an explanation as to what's going on.
The tutorial software runs primarily off the install CD and I found the .WAV files associated with the video tutorial; and I can click them to run outside of the software. Also, I did the File Association to default .WAV file types to the Quick Time player; but that also did not change the problem.
Your time and replies are appreciated.
Gary

 

[evongugg]

You probably need codecs:

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_Lite_Mega_Codec_Pack.htm

If that doesn't work you can create a virtual windows 98 machine and run the CD under windows 98.

 

[greynold]

Evongugg,
Thanks a lot for your reply but can I ask you why Codecs, and perhaps more importantly, how Codecs would be able to bypass the issue encountered with WinXP install ? I've only heard of Codecs, never worked with them except coincidentally when I probably wasn't even aware of them. I'm not understanding how the tutorial CD will make the 'association' to use the Codecs once implemented --- and that all goes back to my lack of knowledge about them.
thanks for your patience.
Gary

 

[Joe_The_Dragon]

you may need quick time 2.xx 16 and 32 bit installed then reinstall quick time 7 after that.

 

[greynold]

Joe_the_Dragon,
I see where your going with this and that would certainly be an easy fix if so. Would you uninstall current Quick Time 7 though before installing older version or would there not be any conflict given re-install of QT7 as last step?
Thanks,
Gary

 

[Joe_The_Dragon]

you should be able to keep qt 7 instated and repair it after installing 2.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=24380
it is hard to find the 32 bit download I do have a copy of it on a old cdrom.

 

[mitch074]

frankly, messing up with older stuff like that is liable to send you direct to DLL hell. My advice: create a virtual machine that emulates a SB16 (Qemu does, and when you install the kqemu NT accelerator, it goes REAL fast), install win95/98 in it, and all your oldie softwares.
Cleaner, more compatible, faster, more secure.

 

[Joe_The_Dragon]

frankly, messing up with older stuff like that is liable to send you direct to DLL hell. My advice: create a virtual machine that emulates a SB16 (Qemu does, and when you install the kqemu NT accelerator, it goes REAL fast), install win95/98 in it, and all your oldie softwares.
Cleaner, more compatible, faster, more secure.

it's not the SB16 that needs emulated he needs qt 2.XX and it will run side by side with newer qt's

 

[mitch074]

due to their 16-bit subsystems, I think those old Quicktime versions don't work. Last time I installed one on a w2k machine was hell.

 

[greynold]

Thanks Joe_The_Dragon & Mitch074,
I have a test desktop to play with as I have time to explore what each of you suggested.
Mitch074, how difficult was it to recover from 'DLL Hell...' -- you couldn't simply uninstall the old version of QT and reinstall the new if it doesn't work?
Gary

 

[mitch074]

thing is, older Quicktime may delete and replace system DLLs - while system restore may help you in that regard, the problem comes to a head when you uninstall the older Quicktime - which may not recognise the DLLs and not uninstall cleanly, leaving stuff around (in registry notably) and registering/unregistering DLLs that shouldn't be touched.

Considering current system speeds and VMs completeness, you'll have a better time installing a VM, create an image (that you can backup) of the required system, and tinker with it.

 

[commanderspockep]

I noticed that QT 7 had fixed the compatability problems with the real old versions of QT. I think your problem is that you're trying to run it on a newer dell machine with onboard sound. Onboard sound allows for the least amount of comapatibility.

Having said that the most reasonable approach would be evongugg's.

 

[greynold]

CommanderSpockep,
Your point is understood, but I'll ask you what I asked in reply to Evongugg... I've not worked with Codecs before and do not understand basically what they are and how they would be integrated to resolve this issue. I really enjoy the forum and it always seems like I learn something new on each post. So, hoping you'll bear with me as this is a new area.
Thanks,
Gary

 

[ryanthesav]

hahaha

 

[mitch074]

codecs are short for CODer/DECoder. They are usually found in software and are used to convert a data flux fromone format to another. For sound, for example, you have an MP3 codec - which can get data streams in PCM format and convert it into MP3 format (coding it into MP3) or get an MP3 data stream and convert it into PCM. These codes allow one to playback files compressed in the format they are programmed against (AC3, AAC, Vorbis, MP3, ADPCM...).
Hardware-wise, codecs do the same as software ones - they get a stream, and convert it into something else. Hardware codecs are now found as integrated sound chips, which receive binary data from the CPU and convert it into analogue format or a specific binary format (Dolby, S/PDIF...) in both directions (sound playback and capture in a single chip, unlike the former DAC/ADC structure used in older Sound Blasters).

 

[greynold]

Ok! I understand what Codecs are a bit better, though I don't see exactly how it or they would 'hook into' the smaller video of the tutorial presentation for sound and run 'in-synch' with the instructors speech. As I mentioned earlier, I found the actual .WAV audio files of the pop-up window that runs with the video -- and they playback just fine by double-clicking them in Windows Explorer outside of the tutorial software.
I won't be able to look at this as soon as I thought -- but I do appreciate your insight.
Later,
Gary

 

[mitch074]

it could be that codecs may not be at fault - but that the tutorial would hit the hardware directly, which it can't do anymore due to the different hardware access Windows 2000/XP offers compared with Windows 9x.
It may also be a problem with specific codec versions: ADPCM in Windows 9x could be played back with MS ADPCM,and with Creadive ADPCM - if your CD requires a specific version, you may have to manually install the required codec.

 

[greynold]

Mitch074,
Your last post explained quite a bit and I think I understand How the association is done. As long as it is not a Hardware incompatibility, if the right Codec is installed, the tutorial CD will be able to 'find it' and use it with no other action or setup on my part necessary. Since the tutorial software specifies the Sound Blaster sound card, I should start with the older Creative ADPCM codec. I didn't download the earlier K_Lite_Mega_Code codec file Evongugg mentioned above. Can you just select the Creative or MS ADPCM codec files without installing the whole package? (I didn't look at it too much at the time because I didn't understand what codecs were ...)
Thanks as always.
Gary

 

[mitch074]

I don't thhink the K_lite codec pack would contain the Creative ADPCM codec. I think your best chance is to find an *adpcm*.acm file on a win95/98 Soundblaster driver CD (I don't know the file name precisely - it's been too long)

 

[greynold]

Mitch074,
Just out of curiosity, in looking through the various files on the tutorial CD I found a 3 files named: MSADPCM.AC_, MSACM.DL_,MSACM.DR_ .
There was another : IMAADPCM.AC_; all were around 10KB in size allocation. There were no others I guess associated with Creative ADPCM that I could identify but that doesn't mean anything I guess.
Does that give you any additional clues?
Gary

 

[mitch074]

those are probably the required files. You need to unpack them (the 'expand' command can do that for you, you should get a .drv, a .dll and a .acm file), then if my memory serves me well, copy them in your system32 directory and then register them.
However, sorry but I don't remember how to manually register codec files; I think you use the regsvr32 command, but after that... it's too far into the past, I don't remember.

Good luck.

 

[greynold]

Thanks Mitch074,
I'm leaving for vacation for a week ... I'll pick up on this when I return.
Glad for your help -- even though it's 'old hat stuff', it's new to me and I've never regretted learning anything. Invariably, somewhere down the line an answer to a new problem is found in what was done in the past.
Gary