VLC: unicows.dll error

VLC Media Player itself is not fully compatible with Windows 95/98/Me. No developers have them and the player is no longer tested on those platforms. It says this on the Portable VLC page, too. The quote from the VLC page says "Windows 95/98/Me users: Please note that these versions of Windows are not officially supported. No VideoLAN developer uses any of these systems, which makes them hard to support.
VLC should mostly work with them, but some incompatibilities might appear. You might need to download The Microsoft Layer for Unicode on Windows 95/98/Me Systems. The two MSLU files need to be put in the C:\Windows\System32\ folder."

All that said, it sounds like it's a unicode issue and it will be fixed by installing the MS Unicode Layer they mention. You can find it here:
http://www.microsoft.com.nsatc.net/globaldev/handson/dev/mslu_announce.mspx

If it works, cool. If not, you're out of luck.

if you copy the unicows.dll file that comes with openoffice.org 2.0.4 and is located in c:\program files\openoffice.org 2.0\program
and put it in the same directory as vlcportable.exe it works in win98 (I haven't tested in in win95 or winme)
if you don't have openoffice.org , it also comes with java JRE 1.5.x

It would be nice if this dll could be added to the vlcportable distribution.