Hey there! I'm new to MSFN forums and I'm really liking the community and "feel" to this forum already.

Anyway, I wanted to get some feedback before making my final decision.

Before on my old computer* I had Windows 98 running very smoothly and I decided to try Windows XP Home Edition, so I did a clean install on my computer. However, as expected, XP ran very slow on my old system and I went back to Windows 98. Now that I've got a somewhat newly acquired PC that a friend gave to me(barely used), it runs on Windows XP Home Edition. Even with a somewhat faster PC (specs below) XP still feels slow and clogged. However, I really like the features of XP and all the program support. Blahblahblah, let me get to the point.

I really only use the computer for general use like talking on msn, browsing a ton of websites (running my own) and low-end gaming like The Sims. Now that I find XP considerably slow compared to 98, I'm wondering if I should go back. The only thing that is holding me back right now is the program support. I use quite a few programs on my computer like NOD32 (anti-virus), several image editing programs like Fireworks MX 2004 and the general programs. I'm scared that Windows 98 will not support these programs or low-end games.

I'm not worried about the updates for W98 because I see that MSFN has quite a few resources and downloads for that, so that is off my mind. It's only the program support.

So, should I go back to 98 or stay with XP? Opinions in general would be fantastic!

(*)Older PC specs (not important):

500mhz, 128mb ram, 10gb hd, 8mb video card.
OS used: 98SE(1st), Windows ME/2000, XP Home ED.

New PC specs:

AMD 1.6Ghz, 320MB RAM (plan to upgrade soon), 20 GB HD x 1 (main, for OS, installations etc), 140gb HD x 1 (for downloads & backups), NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 video card.


Cheers!


EDIT: Wow, I totally missed hardware support. I just wanted to mention I have software for all my hardware (supports 98) except my Nvidia FX 5200, I'm skeptical if there are drivers for my video card for 98 as I can only find drivers for 2000/XP.

Your system should run fine on 98 and XP.

You just have to tweak XP a touch. Turn off the fancy graphics and effects etc, make it look more like 98.

You can get 98 drivers that support your graphics card


Have you considered dual booting?

That's what I do. That way you can use both OS. You just pick the one you want to enter when you boot up your pc.

Hi there, thanks for the response.

I have tried dual booting in the past and I've had some problems, so I decided to leave that out of the equation.

Thanks for the tips, I guess I'll try tweaking XP a bit. My only pet peeve with XP is the long loading times and shutting down times. I'll see what I can do or find.

We have been compiling a list of certain programs that we know work with Windows 98 Second Edition.

http://www.msfn.org/board/Versions-Softwar...SE-t105936.html


Fireworks MX 2004 should work, but newer versions may not.

I've got XP running quite nicely on my Pentium 2 333Mhz so I'm sure you can get it going pretty fast on your machine.



Some good tips are here: http://www.tweakhound.com/xp/xptweaks/supertweaks1.htm



The easiest performance boost is a function built into XP to do most of the hard work for you.

Control Panel - Systems - click the Advanced tab > under Performance click the Settings button >
and select Configure for Best Performance

Yeah I saw that just a few minutes ago, I'm delighted that most programs I use are supported on Windows 98. Thanks!

Awesome, thank you for the link. I'm not really familiar with tweaking Windows but this should help a lot.

Your welcome mate

So happens, I'm running Windows 98SE with GeForce FX 5200 graphics card, at the moment. The last ForceWare ment for Windows 98 was 81.98, I think. And, it does support FX 5200 cards.

I'm running Windows 98SE as my primary OS and dual booting with XP on my second HDD.
I have a nVidia GeForce FX 5200 video card and have been using the unofficial 82.69 video drivers for the last eight months with no problems.
They are slightly faster than the official 81.98 drivers.
Have a look here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=97140

i use 98 because i disagree with WGA, and Activation.

that, and its fast.

also, windows 98 is alot less affected by viruses anymore.

If you are bound to an XP version because of a license and therefore cannot use Win2000, nLite is a tool for you. You can greatly decrease memory requirements by selectively installing only features you really need.

Upgrading to 512MB of RAM will make everything run smoothly.

Hey guys, thanks for the great feedback. I decided to stick with Windows XP Home Edition (did a clean install) and I managed to put some major tweaks onto it (BIG thanks to you, galahs). Booting times & shutdown times have decreased dramatically due to several tweaks I found, plus XP is a lot faster for me (again, tweaks). Though I do plan to install 98 on my older system since I'm feeling nostalgic.. ahh the memories with 98!

It's like a good cheese - One never wants it to end!
That's why I have both 98SE and XP on my PC - the memories go on.

BTW, A big welcome to MSFN!

Most software and hardware are dropping support for 9x. So it doesnt make a whole lot of sense going back. You can always dual boot like myself. That way you can use 98 for your old games and software. I feel your pain when you talk about xp being slow. Im running it on a p3 with 256 meg. Do what the others said. Turn theming off and put in more memory. It wont be quite so sluggish then. Another option is to go to windows 2000 or wait another year or so and reactos will most likely be beta.

if you upgrade that RAM (and RAM is cheap these days) that system will run xp fine. Turn off the superfluous crap, disable unneeded services, then enable the classic shell, use the windows classic theme and use the classic logon and it'll be fine. Windows XP is built on the windows NT kernel, windows 98 is DOS based. The benefits of the NT kernel far outweigh anything 98 has to offer. NTFS, better security, support for newer programs, better multiprocessor support, support for more RAM, less buggy, etc. Supported by MS still.

Thanks!


I've tried to install Windows 98 on the same PC as my XP, but it didn't turn out so good. Maybe if I leave my current XP on my main hard drive, then setup 98 on a secondary hard drive? I'm not sure what the end result would be. I would imagine it would be ok.

Maybe I'll give it a shot.

Hi Rockeh,
You have to install Windows 98 onto a different partition or hard drive than Windows XP.
However... Windows 98 should be installed before XP...
See this Microsoft KB including resolving 98 after XP: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/293089

Turning off eye-candy themes does very little or at all to improve overall performance.
W98 is still faster than XP and can work properly but it can be of some work to cope with all the updates.

If you want the easy solution, buy some ram and keep XP.
If you want the most of your machine try w98. It takes time but it's cool at the end of the day.
My advice: Reformat your HD to FAT32, and type "setup"...

Dual booting is obviously the best solution here. I'd recommend setting up two partitions, then install windows 98 on one of them and windows xp on the other. Install windows xp 2nd so that the new bootloader will be installed. If you need to set up partitions, you can either do it during windows setup, or you could use gparted, which is a free, handy boot cd with a partition editor.

Thank you for the link, I wish I would have read that a while ago!

I'll give it a shot then, should be fun!



Yeah I saw the amount of updates for w98, there's quite a few. I'm unsure how to install them (in which order and whatnot), I'll figure it out sooner or later though. I'm hoping to get some ram soon, I haven't had time as of late to go out and do some minor upgrades to my PC.

Thanks!



*writes this down*
Thanks for the tip! gparted, never heard of it. If I were to create a partition, could I do it with the old fashioned w98 boot disk and run the tool "fdisk" from there? For example, If I wanted to do a complete clean install of w98 and XP on separate partitions, should I do this? delete current partition, create new partition, format the first partition then create a second partition? That's how I've known how to do it.. hopefully I got it right.

The Autopatcher is your friend for this task...

If you want to do it this way, IMHO the best option would be to use two different hard disks. One for XP, the other one for 98. This way, the installation order wouldn't matter and you wouldn't even need a bootloader. The systems would be totally independant and you could avoid the delicate consequences if you ever need to reinstall one of the system (after a crash for exemple).
Just change the boot order in your BIOS and you can switch OS.

Just an alternative to keep in mind...

Oh my... You don't need 2 hard disks.

Here I wrote step by step instructions how to install both Win98 and WinXP on the same computer.
http://www.msfn.org/board/instal-2-systems...140#entry736140

You can install Win98 after WinXp, but two boot sectors (1024 bytes) and the boot.ini have to be updated. To update the boot sector I use... WinXP installer. Quite inefficient way to work with 512 bytes of data, but it gets the job done.

Ah the auto-patcher, I didn't think of that. I'll take a look.

True. I also would rather use two separate hard disks so that I can devote one hd for XP and the other for 98. Problem is, is that I have two HDs right now, one of them is for my OS and the other is for my backups/downloads and whatnot. I wouldn't want to format the hard drive. I'll find a workaround though.


Thanks for the link & tip j7n.

Use nLite, gets rid of the junk from XP so it runs alot faster, stay with XP
-Lego

I dont think u should ever go back but u should use the os that best suits the demands of your Pc.In otherwords use the os that run efficently on your current hardware.In xp case u get the use of current software and or updates.If dos is your thing 98 might be the way 2 go even if dosbox or virtual pc is around.Your might wantta use 98se if it runs your curreny hardware and suits your current needs or habits today but cutting yourself off from newer version of certain programs may only limit your experience,its really down to what your comfortable with and your needs.

Yes. Or the uSP3.0 by Gape. (see member's project subforum)

The auto-patcher seems more complete and more regularly updated while uSP is smaller in download size and straight to the essential.
Both are very good.

The patcher and the uSP as they install the most important updates, are enough if you want a w98 without BSOD. The latest updates to install individualy are only for us, w98 fanatics who want to be always at the top of the top.

Gparted
Kick a** partition editor. Burn the iso and boot off of it, then it uses a live cd to give you an easy to use interface with which to modify partitions. Easy, fasy, free (as in beer and freedom!) Also in the future if you want to change the sizes of partitions or add new ones, it can do that, too.

I'd advise deleting all of the old partitions, then making an XP partition and a 98 partition. Format the 98 partition with FAT32, and the XP one with NTFS.

The XP machine you have will absolutely run better with more RAM. Put a full gig in it and that should take care of that noticeable slowness. Just clean boot before you game with it and it should run older games fine.

Now the older of the two would be better off with 98 SE imo. I have an old Dell V350 with Windows 98 SE. Fully patched from Windows Update and the Unofficial Service Pack for 98 SE and it runs great. Sitting behind a router with a hardware firewall with regular manual virus scans and prudent surfing I don't worry too much about security.

Some programs allow you to convert partitions between NTFS<->FAT32, resize partitions, relocate them on the disk, even with data on them...
Personnaly I use an old "Partition Magic" for this job and did it quite a few times without damaging any data. However, this is payware.
You might wanna check similar programs like 'Gparted' that Idontwantspam told you about.

Having both XP and 98 partitions in FAT32 would let you modify any OS from the other one, which can be usefull for quick fixing / getting rid of virus... However, if your XP partition is already NTFS, you might wanna skip the pain of convesion.