Stuckin98

Thanks Rick ....... Lots of good questions and answers I was able to follow. My problems revolve around my slow 28K rural dial up. A local computer tech thought that using XP would make my computer run slower on line. What do you think ? Everthing is faster, larger (bloated) and it chews up a lot of my time waiting for pages to load. I could get high speed, but everyone wants AT LEAST $40 per month. I'm on social security. Hard to make ends meet. Must be millions of people like me. Can't understand why some enterprising company can't offer a 150K wireless service for $25. I'd be in heaven. You asked about DOS. I do need to use it for some optical test programs (telescope mirrors). These programs were never redone for windows so I use a separate computer with an Epson dot matrix printer attached. I'm not constantly running out to buy ink. What a ripoff. Anyway, I just hit the F8 key as Win98 boots up. I also use this separate ( off line ) computer for music files and recording. The local library has high speed. Thank goodness for Flash drives. I like the idea of a dual boot for the on line PC, but would rather wait till they perfect Ubuntu if XP runs too slow. There's some talk about running Mac on a PC, but I haven't had the time to really check it out. I believe both these operating systems are more streamlined. If not let me know. I do enjoy the simplicity of 98se. Stability ? Vcom Fix It helps. Last: What I'd really like to say about Microsoft, would get me thrown off this forum. Thanks again

Hey everybody ........Thanks for all the great suggestions / info. Now all I have to do is find a copy of 2000

I've been using 98se for a long time and I was thinking about trying 2000 because Firefox won't update anymore. Q. Is 2000 more stable than 98 ? I would think it would do more (some programs imported of course) than 98. This is really important : ..... Do the official / unofficial updates give more stability to 2000 ? Nothing worse than a crash. Where do I get the best download with the updates and how big is the file ? Your time is truly appreciated ..... Thanks Alan

Thanks for your reply. Here it is .............

I have an older AMD Athlon board that I'm using as I write this. I would like to get it going faster and increase the memory speed as well. ....... If I go to someplace like ebay, what should I search for in a processor and memory ? I assume there are of course limitations to what this board can accept. It runs very nicely and and has a user friendly bios - I'll talk more about that farther down. Below you can see what's going on with the board right now. It also has the award (phoenix) bios, which in my opinion was the easiest to navigate and save settings. Does any manufacturer still use this format ? ........ Sorry it's so blurry BTW, I should probably change my avatar. I don't feel stressed out on MSFN. Everyone is so helpful and friendly. :-)

Thanks ! That was helpful. Walmart did have some small players for $30 that would accept a number of different disk formats. I don't know about the quality, but you can always return it. Alternately, I could try experimenting with my existing DVD player since it has some extra RCA outputs for audio.

Thank you loblo and Jolaes. I downloaded imgburn and tried it. I definitely have to go to their site and get some instructions about how to use it, because I did burn a disk that plays fine on the computer. Unfortunately, the same disk just goes buzzzzzzzzzzz, in my Onkyo player (Mfg. late 2007). One of the best and last of a dying breed. Sniff sniff. I know I have to stop being so inflexible, but I really like my old audio equipment with the gold anodized face plates. Wow ! Actual metal ! .......... Alan

One of my 98se computers stays off line since its primary purpose is to burn music. I had the unofficial updates on it. Seemed to work fine. Later I started to get dropouts on the CDs I burnt for the player in the living room, so I saved the music to my storage drive and erased the system drive. I reinstalled 98se and left out the updates except for nusb33 to activate the USB ports. I also found a brand new TEAC burner (2004), in it's original box which was factory sealed. Even after making these changes, I still get dropouts on my discs so I don't think the unofficial updates caused the problem. My computer saavy neighbor suggested making ISO discs for a smoother burn since the computer doesn't have to keep running back and forth to access files. I'm confused because I made good burns before without doing that. I don't know much about the ISO thing so I have to study up on it. Another possibility might be unnecessary programs that are running in the background (see below), but I don't know which ones are (some are obvious some are not) safe to turn off. Please advise. Maybe I need more speed or memory. Maybe the little dog in Win Patrol is peeing on my discs. Who knows ? Hardware / software: Gigabyte socket 478 with 384mbs of PC100 ram. TEAC burner, M-Audio 5.1 card, legacy video card. ---------- NERO 5.5.10.13, Windows Media Player 9, Audacity 1.2.6, Bonk Audio Encoder and V-COM fix it (Version 5). ......... Thanks for reading all this baloney.

Re: Win98se -----Where exactly does one go to get all of the very latest unofficial updates in one smooth download ? Sometimes the forum confuses me. I don't want to pick through files I don't understand. Give me a link I can save and I can go there every 3 or 4 months and see if it's a larger download. Thanks ......... Alan

Thanks everyone ! I'll try these suggestions out.

My wife and I are still using 98se with most of the updates (could be missing a few). Her Yahoo mail is getting grumpy and expects something newer,. Also Firefox 2 something, can't update and says we're unprotected. Any fixes for these problems ? Thanks I know ..... Install XP. Didn't really want to. My rural dial up will probably work slower.

My old CD burner is pooping out, so I bought a new CD-DVD burner and had to return it, because it wouldn't work correctly. I assume this is because of the firmware in the drive. Would someone please suggest some new burners that would work with 98se. Thanks

I would like to know if the Win98 (se for me) unofficial updates, is an ongoing project or is it falling by the wayside? If the updates will continue, where is the download site now? I would also like to see some explanation of what the files are for. Last: I'm still on a very slow rural dial up, but will probably be able to afford wireless broadband this summer. Will there (or are there) be any connectivity files available for that ? It appears that wireless broadband requires Win 2000 or better. Must be a way to squeek around that one ..... whoever you are, I know you can do it

Cable/DSL simply does not exist everywhere. Having worked a number of years with Qwest\USWest I can safely say that DSLAM's are expensive, and they just don't install them willy-nilly. To give an idea, back in 2001 they probably only had four CO's for the entire state of Wyoming. It's very possible that satellite and cellular are his only options, If the OP says DSL is not available in his area, i am inclined to believe him. Here is some information on how to check DSL availability online and a description of some of it's limitations. Anyways, back on subject. If you cannot use a USB modem or otherwise somehow get the drivers to install. The next best thing is gonna be a router with a PCMCIA slot. You should be able to plug in with a network cable (or use wireless ???) and it will handle connecting to your Cellular/Satellite provider. They are relatively cheap, so it shouldn't cost you that much more than you were already planning to spend. http://www.google.com/products?q=router+pcmcia+slot Which ISP's are you looking at ? Will this gizmo help solve anything ?

There are no cables or DSL here, only the phone line ...... sort of like tin cans and a string. I can see wireless towers some mile away, so the addition of the drivers would probably work with matching hardware. ....... Thanks for your comments