[Jlo555]

It is virtually inevitable that windows 98 usage will go down as the months and years pass. I do find the statistics to be "good" considering the history with past OS's. According to www.thecounter.com, windows 98 usage on the internet is currently at 9%, as apposed to september 2004, where it was at 19%. (Windows Me makes up approximately 0%, along with win3.x.) I noticed that the numbers for win98 usage are decreasing slower than other OS's such as win95. By September 2002, windows 95 usage had declined to 3% (I was one of those 3% .) That was 7 years after the release of win95. It is now 7 years after the first release of win98, and the results for september 2005 state 9% of internet users are using win98 (both FE and SE.) I just found this to be somewhat interesting that 7 years after the release of a piece of software, there are still 9% of all computer users using it as their primary OS.

[wizardofwindows]

why not use 98se its only really been since 2003 2004 the companys are shifting to xp only installer but u gotta love 3rd party patches appz lol. so many people playing classic games and small business stuff works 98se 4ever.

[diluxp]

timeless, on Oct 17 2005, 09:52 PM, said:

why not use 98se its only really been since 2003 2004 the companys are shifting to xp only installer but u gotta love 3rd party patches appz lol. so many people playing classic games and small business stuff works 98se 4ever.

Well 98se is the best OS best for classic appz also hex editor still works best on it also dos mode is best which help is bios editing hex programming etc still the best. So what u need is motherboards which has support for win98 sorry to say nvidia nforce4 does not support 98

[Jlo555]

Meh, I have nforce2, so that's no big deal for me. Although, I can see a problem slowly emerging when I buy a new videocard soon. Most of the OS support for both ATI and nVidia has veered away from win98 and moved to the *shutters* NT OS's. The problem for me is that I don't play that many small games. The games that I do play are pretty hardcore when it comes to graphics and cpu requirements.

[kartel]

I think 98SE works mint. I see its not supported in new designs but I still find it the quickest, easiest and most reliable of all windows OS.
THE BEST for not including un-needed applications
Keeping a back up of your hard disk for f***ups and it will LAST FOREVER
I truly believe 98SE was ahead of its time

[Jlo555]

Nah, I think it was right on target. It was the last breath of the 1990's (the good ol' days.) As for windows XP, I think that was way ahead of its time. I think windows 2000 should've been moved to windows 2002 or something, and Windows Me should've never existed, or MS should've developed it more for another year.

[miko]

yes 98 does, for most things, still. (and is a 'good' (as in its time and adequate nowadays) OS imo)
it doesn't supprise me that people are still using it, to a lot of people PCs are just a tool.

PS. i'll probably buy 64bit Vista eventually (SP 2 or 3) or possibly even OS X

[wizardofwindows]

miko right .sure im a bit of a modder i like tech but alot my friend dont care what os they run as long as theres internet explorer yahoo msn messager and a few games work etc so 98se is adqueate.

[suryad]

You know you guys are actually tempting me to go and buy a copy of 98se and test it out on a machine.....I have just become comfortable with all the tweaks that are available with XP but I bet there is a lot to learn about tweaking out 98se! I just wont be able to handle the lack of bluetooth, and usb 2.0.

[Jlo555]

I may never have used bluetooth, but I can tell you that 98se definately is compatible with USB 2.0. You just have to manually install most of the drivers. I think you should certainly try it out. But beware of the driver support on your computer. That's where you might run into problems if you find your motherboard drivers or video card drivers only run on 2000/XP. It's happened to me before...

[Crash&Burn]

suryad, on Oct 20 2005, 04:04 AM, said:

You know you guys are actually tempting me to go and buy a copy of 98se and test it out on a machine.....I have just become comfortable with all the tweaks that are available with XP but I bet there is a lot to learn about tweaking out 98se! I just wont be able to handle the lack of bluetooth, and usb 2.0.

I do believe GAPE's 98 project has USB 2.02 ... just an FYI

You can prolly get 98 on ebay for a couple bucks *grin*

And I must say I had more "fun" tweaking 98...than any of the later OS's, it was also so much easier to get rid of infestations in 98. Boot to DOS delete thos F"in files from System32, or just kill the process and delete the file...

Win2K makes it almost impossible to do the above, once the file is loaded it wont let you delete at all

[aussiecanuck46]

The world has changed a lot since then. In 1998 there were an average of 300 new viruses coming out each month. Now there are thousands, And not just simple viruses, but new ways to infect computers. Companies aren't seriously interested in safe-guarding Windows 98 computers any more. It's enough to protect Windows XP. Windows 98 and 95 zealots beware.

[Crash&Burn]

aussiecanuck46, on Oct 21 2005, 10:56 AM, said:

The world has changed a lot since then. In 1998 there were an average of 300 new viruses coming out each month. Now there are thousands, And not just simple viruses, but new ways to infect computers. Companies aren't seriously interested in safe-guarding Windows 98 computers any more. It's enough to protect Windows XP. Windows 98 and 95 zealots beware.

Anyone that knows anything, leaves IE alone, and opts for Firefox or Opera (and I wont debate the better, its very much opinion oriented, they are both good, I prefer Opera)

98 has fewer backdoors to get into for all these "hacks" as it isn't running AdminLevel Services.
Any decent Firewall still supports 98, ie Kerio 2.1.5, which isn't even the current 4+ but it still kicks it.
Thus 98 is easier to secure, the reasons to not use it mainly are lacking driver support on newer MOBO's, its limitations w/ > 1GB ram, and the FAT32's limitation w/ > ~130G HD partitions (Which isn't so much a limitation, as much as it starts to get very inneficient past that point)

[jaclaz]

Why do I have a "DEJAVU" feeling ?
http://www.msfn.org/...showtopic=37402
(45 pages of posts on exactly the same topic)

jaclaz

[Jlo555]

Nah, that thread turned into a 98 vs. XP war. This one's just windows 98 usage in 2005, with no "un4given1" flamin the windows 98 users.
I'm not really worried about viruses or hacks with windows 98, mainly because neither of those things have ever affected me. On my XP computer, I used to find myself paranoid to the point where I'd hunt down NAV 2003 and BlackIce (both of which sucked). I got hacked and recieved viruses up the a**. <<In spite of the comment, I DON'T want this to turn into an XP vs. 98 war!

This post has been edited by Jlo555: 21 October 2005 - 04:35 PM

[ivman]

Quote

Anyone that knows anything, leaves IE alone, and opts for Firefox or Opera (and I wont debate the better, its very much opinion oriented, they are both good, I prefer Opera)

I just downloaded Opera, which is now for free. It doesn't have Java, so I've downloaded Sun's Java. I'm not sure which to install first, or if I even need Sun Java.

Any help would be appreciated.

ivman

This post has been edited by ivman: 21 October 2005 - 08:12 PM

[wizardofwindows]

opera first sun java 2nd and youll need java for alot of sites.

[Andromeda43]

I'm not saying that anyone in his/her right mind should upgrade from 98 or 98/SE to XP, but if for some weird reason he/she has to.....for God's sake, leave the HD in FAT-32 mode. Just use an XP Upgrade CD and keep your old FAT-32 hard drive.....so if you need to get into your files, you can do it with a simple Windows 98 boot floppy....Great for removing viurses, spyware or just doing drive maintenance.

Unknown to most of the world, XP will run just fine on the FAT-32 file structure. Some even say it runs faster.
I won't go there.....

I have six PC's that will run and they all have Windows 98/SE on them,,,,except this one.
That's because I had to learn XP for my computer business.
I'm able to tweak out 98/SE so it runs quite well, thank you.

I'm in full support of anyone who wants to keep their ol' 98, 98/SE.

Cheers,
Andromeda43

[Crash&Burn]

Just as a piece of small advice, next time you install Windows, just leave out the JVM (Microsoft's Java), and just install real java, save some diskspace, and really you only need one.

[saugatak]

You guys are tempting me to pull out my old Win98SE, see if I can tweak it to take everything out, and see how it runs on my old, old computers.

Heh, maybe give one to my parents so they can get emailed photos.

Anyone know an easy way to get rid of IE and Outlook Express on 98SE?