Love and HATE Windows 98

[Xenomorph]

it runs great. when it runs.

it runs DOS apps nicely. when it runs.

it lets me do a lot of stuff.

...when it runs.

i have a Laptop w/ a Pentium MMX 233MHz, 4.0 Gig HD, 96 Megs RAM.

Windows 2000 runs on it, but slowly. id really need more ram for Win2k to run smoothly. at least 128. unfortunately, 96 megs is the system max. also, while Windows 2000 runs ok, it means no DOS apps without dual boot, extra DOS drivers/configuration, etc.

Windows 98 runs great on the system. there is just one problem. blue screens.

the system ran fine for days. but then it would Blue Screen everytime i'd pop in my USB WiFi card. i ended up uninstalling lots of software, drivers, boots to safe mode, removing hidden devices, rebooting, installing drivers/software again, etc. i even re-installed Windows.

i got my USB WiFi card working again, but when i reinstalled my PCMCIA network card, the system hung. after a reboot, i got a blue screen again.

the system had Windows 98 SE, the latest unofficial Service Pack, all Windows Updates (except the April 06 ActiveX breaker), etc.

it was working fine and fast - but it just broke down after a while. Windows 9x seems to have a history of doing that. i have no idea what would have changed. why it would mess up like that after a while.

[LLXX]

Is your hardware stable? Memtest the RAM and Prime95 the CPU for a few hours.

[Xenomorph]

Is your hardware stable? Memtest the RAM and Prime95 the CPU for a few hours.

i believe it to be stable. i have ran Prime95, but not MemTest86 yet.

with Windows 2000, its uptime is several days without issue (except an extreme lack of ram).

even with Win98, if its just sitting there, it can go a long time.

when playing DOS games under Windows, i had a blue screen in relation to the Audio drivers, and of course recently with the Network card causing the system to blue screen.

i guess right now with the system, old/bad drivers are the cause. the Windows 98/Me drivers for a lot of stuff havent been updated in a while.

for video, i even have to use 1997 drivers as the more current 1999 and 2000 versions cause video corruption at 16bit color (NeoMagic 128XD chipset). 24bit color is too slow on it, and some games wont work at that, so i keep it at 16bit color and just use the older drivers. in the 6 years since the 2000 release, they obviously havent released a fixed set.

for the sound drivers, i have newer WDMs that dont work with DOS games, or the older VxDs that do work but caused a blue screen once.

and for the network card, current drivers work only in WinXP/2k.

[Fredledingue]

You say that the network card has drivers for XP and 2000 only and that your w98 system crashes when you reinstall it. A problem with the network card driver makes sens to me.

Try to look for a w98 driver that wold work with this ntwk card.

[Xenomorph]

You say that the network card has drivers for XP and 2000 only and that your w98 system crashes when you reinstall it. A problem with the network card driver makes sens to me.

Try to look for a w98 driver that wold work with this ntwk card.

i'm using the Win9x drivers for my USB Network card, which havent been updated in almost 2 years.

with those drivers, things were working just fine.

all of a sudden a few days ago, they werent working fine. i'd get a crash with the network card's .SYS file blamed on the blue screen.

when i go to get the latest drivers (from Nov05), they list they are for Win98SE/Me/2k/XP. i may try those in a bit, but i doubt anything i could do would stop Win98 from blue screening after a while. thats what it does. thats what its famous for.

[RainyShadow]

If your 98 worked fine before on the same hardware, there may be some corrupted files or registry parts. If it never worked fine, either the drivers are bad or the hardware is misbehaving. Try reinserting whatever h/w you have installed (RAM, MiniPCI, PCMCIA). If you have a testing program for your exact laptop model, give it a shoot.

The working Win2K doesn't prove that everithing is OK, different windows/driver versions access hardware in different ways and sometimes problems may stay unnoticed.

If you have some spare space on your HDD make a new partition and install 98 there to test if it works fine.

About the sound, better use the WDM drivers and set properly the BLASTER variable(or use a DOS sound-init program) so that DOS games can be noisy too.

[RJARRRPCGP]

But that don't mean that a Windows NT-based OS is much better. In fact, Windows NT-based operating systems are more picky. They like to BSOD even on new systems.

[Eck]

I'd say no to WDM audio drivers on an old system. They tax the limited resources, and his Dos games will no longer play FM synthesizer sounds unless using an actual ISA soundcard that has an FM chip on it. Vxd's play better with dos (and use less resources generally) as long as they have dos drivers. Wdm's don't need dos drivers, but they need games to have an MPU-401 general midi setting for the music as those that don't will not have sound (unless it's an ISA card with an FM Synth chip).

On a newer board, of course, WDM's are preferred as you can use the Dosbox program for dos games, music will sound better in most cases, and gaming shouldn't be a problem as newer computers have plenty of processing power to handle all the increased software calls by the WDM's.

Also, on older systems, lots of USB throughput such as using USB for networking, etc, is problematic. Limited processor and memory bus speeds slow everything down and blue screens will happen even with properly working drivers. This, because one piece of hardware will gobble up too much resources for its needed throughput and another piece of hardware will not have enough resources to operate. It shuts off and Windows reports a driver error as it doesn't know what else to call it as the hardware device isn't working.

And, .sys drivers like your network driver are mostly NT based drivers. Real VXD drivers are .vxd. I'm not sure how this pertains to your problem but I know that on my systems I cannot use Via AGP Gart drivers on 98SE newer than the ones on 4-in-1 version 4.43. I've gotta install the latest Hyperions without AGP and manually update the Microsoft PCI to PCI controller to the extracted AGP driver in the 4.43's. Only then do I install my ATI video drivers. The newer one's are .sys drivers that don't enable AGP on 9x. The card operates in PCI mode unless using the older vxd Gart driver.

You wouldn't need more memory than you've got if you were only using USB for minimal throughput stuff like mice and keyboards. But it might help for you to get some more memory if you really need to use USB for highly taxing tasks like high speed networking, Wi-Fi, etc.

Not sure if this will help but it might! Too bad even your older 98 networking drivers are .sys. I'm thinking that might be one of the problems. If I insisted on trying to get that old thing working I might try some added memory, but would be prepared to be disapointed as that slow system bus will still hamper things. If you did without the networking I'm sure for simple old gaming and low-speed (dial up or an ordinary ethernet PCI card connection) internet the box is still just fine.

[Jlo555]

If it was working before on the same hardware and you have reinstalled windows, then I'd say there is something wrong with either your USB port, the card or your chipset drivers. I had an 802.11b card that would cause my computer to BSOD every time I tried to use it, after I had changed the motherboard. Bear in mind that if it is the hardware that is causing the problem, NO operating system will be stable with it. The wifi card I had actually went through my family's washing machine, (double-spin) for about 25 minutes... the thing still worked, but the signal cut out every 5 minutes. IMO, either there is a problem with the chipset drivers or something happened to the hardware. And judging from the age of the drivers you're using, I'd say its that.

[rewtgh]

I'd say try Windows ME, it has much better driver support for USB devices but without updates it works unbelievably instable. You can pick it up from usenet if you know how that works

[eidenk]

I'd say try Windows ME, it has much better driver support for USB devices but without updates it works unbelievably instable. You can pick it up from usenet if you know how that works

You can get genuine Windows ME on eBay for quite cheap. I'd leave the illegal usenet download aside if I was you. Safer.

If you get one I also suggest updating it unlike what is suggested above as updates are fixing bugs or security holes.

[janus zeal]

Sounds like driver/hardware problems, not OS problems.

and most likely ME isnt going to work better then 98 if your haveing those types of issues.

[KingAuther]

Do a surface-scan on the HD to check for damage...

"Power Defrag" does a surface scan...

[Andromeda43]

BSOD's are not an inherant part of Winders 98.

I ran it for years and never had but one or two bsod's and there was always a good reason,,,,and it weren't the OS.

It don't like two programs trying to grab off the same piece of ram....and it don't like corrupted files and drivers.

So, Please don't badmouth Winders 98 for your BSOD's. :

Fix the problems on your computer and 98 will run just fine.

Cheers

PS: If someone is running the old Winders 98,

there's two things they should do.

1. Upgrade to Win-98/SE

2. Install the unofficial Service Pack 2

They will then have a much more efficient and stable running OS.

Edited June 18, 2006 by Andromeda43

[matera]

I use a computer that my sister gave up for dead a few years ago. Unless I play beta tester too much, it is very stable. But I use an alternative shell, have no Internet Exploiter integration, stick with DirectX7, and tweak the living hell out of it all. Also chopped the case and added a good fan.

I'll have XP when someone gives me their old computer with XP on it LOL As long as the GIMP and Fractal Explorer run, I'm happy.