Installing Real Alternative in Win95

I want to install Real Alternative on my Win95 4.00.950 B system with DirectX 7.0, to play streaming RealAudio files.

I install Real Alternative 1.27 - the codecs and DirectShow Splitter - but setup reports an old version of DirectX, and three similar installation errors then occur:

"Error writing to registry key
RegSetValueEx failed: code 87
The parameter is incorrect."

I choose "Ignore" from Abort/Retry/Ignore.
The three keys affected are:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Software\RealNetworks\RealMediaSDK\6.0\Preferences\CookiesEnabled
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\RealNetworks\RealMediaSDK\10.0\Preferences\CookiesEnabled
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\RealNetworks\RealMediaSDK\6.0\Preferences\CookiesEnabled

After this attempted installation of Real Alternative, Ultra Media Player will still not play .ra files from hard disk or .ram files from internet. The files go on the playlist, but the time remains at zero and nothing is heard.

For comparison, here is what happens with some other media players. After the attempted installation of Real Alternative, Windows Media Player 6.4.07.1112 plays .ra files, but not .ram files (format not recognised). Media Player Classic 6.4.8.2 doesn't run at all on my system (the hourglass shows for a few seconds, then goes away).

Also for comparison, using my downloads on an XP system, Real Alternative installs without errors, and both Ultra Media Player and MPC play .ra files from hard disk. (I did not install DirectShow Splitter in XP, hence I don't expect Windows Media Player to do anything.) I cannot try out streaming RealAudio files in XP, as my XP machine has no internet connection.

My question is:

Is it necessary to upgrade DirectX further, on my Win95 system, in order to fix the installation problems with Real Alternative? And can I safely do so? - I have the impression that DirectX 7.0 is as far as I can go with DirectX under Win95.

If not possible, or if it fails to get those players playing streaming RealAudio, is there an old version of RealAlternative that works in Win 95B?

Thanks for any ideas.

you need to upgrade to 2000,real alt. is based off realone which is used on win xp,2000,me,98.Sorry win95 not supported.

If you update DirectX I think it will be fixed.

You can safely try to upgrade your DirectX. If that doesn't support win 95b, then the DirectX installer will most likely tell you and abort.

Keep in mind that Windows 95b is very old and there is not much new sotware anymore that supports it 100%.

Thanks for the replies. Just to report back...

I upgraded to DirectX 8.0a, apparently without ill-effects. However, this brought no improvement in dealing with my problems. While installing Real Alternative 1.27, I no longer got the message about DirectX being out-of-date, but I still got the three registry key errors. There was no improvement in the behaviour of Ultra Media Player or MPC with streaming RealAudio files.

I downloaded DirectX 9.0c, but it warns against installing it on Win95.
I've now reverted to DirectX 7.0a (from a backup of my complete disk).