Win95b and Win98SE differences

I'm trying to figure out the how Win95b and Win98SE operating system works and their differences. Especially the kernel and the drivers differences.

I've tried searching google.com but can't find any detailed information or documentation.

Are there any utilities that can monitor the registry and file access from boot up until you reach the desktop? So that I can compare the two OS?

if you really want to do this, get SoftICE or a similar debugger. it can debug windows completely.

what goal do you aim at? i am sure there is easier ways to find out what you want to know than getting into assembler, c and microsoft programming all at once.

try to form a question of it: "why does win95 not interpret the line...... in msdos.sys" or whatever.
this could be answered much easier...

if you want to be most hard-core, try to debug NT, not 9x

not to be rude,
but unless you have 5-10 yrs of programming experience on ms-systems (and you are really good), you won´t find out anything this way....
since you ask this kind of question here, i doubt, you have.

Here's the background:

I replaced Win95b explorer.exe with version 4.72.3110.1. In order to make it run, I had to edit the registry and replace a few dlls. Before that, I copied icons from several Win98 dlls, used cool.dll with a bit of registry editing and with the help of BC++5.02 resource editor for some cut and paste operation. The end result is the Win95 OS looks similar to Win98.

I manage to accomplish that by comparing the registry of both OS and finding out their dependencies (i.e explorer.exe).

Now, I'm trying to install (DirectX 8.1) in Win95b but I'm not able to install all the files since DirectDraw requires one of the new NT features: IsProcessorFeaturePresent located in the Kernel32.dll (if I'm not mistaken) DirectSound will work fine though.

Since there was a kernel update earlier for Win95 released by Microsoft, maybe I can update the kernel with Win98's to make it compatible with the latest DirectX.

I got this crazy idea by looking at the bootlog.txt file:- I'll start by monitoring the file and registry access during boot up and from there I'll try to figure out their dependencies and what needs to be done/replaced.

Yes, I could install Win98 or XP Pro on my system and skip the tedious process, but I won't learn anything. Your signature says it all...

Please let me know your opinions and suggestions.

in this case, you really should have a look at softICE. it´s the most superb debugger that i´ve ever seen.
you cannot only debug any program for windows, but even windows itself, on NT-based machines even on kernel level (aka ring 0).

if you know a little about windows programming, it will tell you everything you never wanted to know about winXX

eg. but a breakpoint on the registerDLL function, then you will have assembler-level access to any windows function or program calling any dll. tell the breakpoint to only be activated when it is called by kernel32.dll, it will show you the exact way how kernel32.dll calls other dlls. setup a trace buffer of 1 MB and you can back-trace all calls and commands that occured in 1MB of code before your function was called.... i hope you get the point.

Have a lot of Phun