This is a quick patch which prevents use of GDI32 Escape() on Win9x. This may close (unknown) Win9x holes in SetAbortProc() or others. MS deprecated all Escapes() except QUERYESCSUPPORT and PASSTHROUGH by October 2001 per my MSDN docs. My printer works, both network and local, both spooling and spool management (job cancel) with this patch in place.
This was inspired by Ilfak’s fix for XP. I have several machines that still run 98 (I actually do have a pretty good set of excuses for this ). I heard that MS may not be planning to provide a patch, so … The code is copyleft, and you’re use if any is at your own risk. I wrote this for me, I’m happy with it’s effect, but I have no idea if it’s going to be good for you.
There is a source + executable buildable tree (VC6)
or just the release executable in a zip
a readme provides a somewhat terse overview

If you decide to use this patch…
fixgdi -
will provide instructions
fixgdi
will install the patch into gdi32.dl2

The code ‘edits’ the code for gdi32 in a file on the disk. Natually it can’t do this on the copy that windows is currently running, so it does this on a copy of the file - gdi32.dl2. After the program confirms the edit with “Update successful…” you may need to boot to “DOS” (or edit autoexec.bat and reboot) in order to copy gdi32.dl2 to gdi32.dll

If you have Windows File Protection or similar features enabled, it may be difficult to replace your original gdi32.dll

REMEMBER TO MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR ORIGINAL GDI32.DLL.
YOU MIGHT FIND A PROBLEM THAT I HAVEN’T SEEN AND NEED IT!!

REMEMBER THAT ANYTHING YOU DO WITH THIS CODE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK;
YOUR USE OF THIS CODE CERTIFIES THAT YOU ARE ABLE TO EVALUATE THAT RISK

So, if you still want to use this
The code substitutes

xor eax, eax
ret 0×14

in place of the Escape() entry code. The effect is to simply return zero from any call to Escape(). I have no idea whether any existing programs depend on Escape() functionality. Many pieces of code insist on ‘finding’ the Escape() function, but so far I’ve seen no anomalies associated with Escape() doing ‘nothing’. The function definitions are in wingdi.h. Incidentally, I have verified that the printer escape example from the Oct ‘01 MSDN docs doesn’t in fact work on the existing unmodified GDI32.DLL FWIW.

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