# What should I do with this Windows 98?



## fwLogCGI (Oct 14, 2009)

I wanted to see if Windows 98 would work on my Acer Aspire 3003LCi, it does work except for the wifi.
So now I have it dual-booting 98 and XP.

Partitions:
http://i694.photobucket.com/albums/vv305/fwlogcgi/Drives.png

Pictures:
Desktop
"System Properties"
More "System Properties"
My Computer
Video and Audio settings
Screensaver

So what should I do with it?


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## Sinjo (Oct 15, 2009)

use the disc as a frisbee.


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## net-cat (Oct 15, 2009)

Delete the partition and get your 2GB of space back?


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## Runefox (Oct 15, 2009)

Play DOS games and uninstall the network driver. Also, instruct Windows to burn off all but 64MB of memory - As I recall, more than that and it leaks something fierce.

Oh, but wait, DOS games require base address/IRQ/DMA for ISA sound cards and generally have no provisions for PCI - you'll need some kind of emulation in order to run them with sound. So even that isn't very attractive.


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## net-cat (Oct 15, 2009)

Runefox said:


> Also, instruct Windows to burn off all but 64MB of memory - As I recall, more than that and it leaks something fierce.
> 
> Oh, but wait, DOS games require base address/IRQ/DMA for ISA sound cards and generally have no provisions for PCI - you'll need some kind of emulation in order to run them with sound. So even that isn't very attractive.


Runefox, I love ya, but don't talk nonsense.


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## Runefox (Oct 15, 2009)

Look, the guy went to the trouble of installing Win98 and now he's looking for things to do. I'm not exactly assuming the guy's sane or anything.


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## Xerox2 (Oct 15, 2009)

Buy a larger hard drive.


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## fwLogCGI (Oct 15, 2009)

Runefox said:


> Look, the guy went to the trouble of installing Win98 and now he's looking for things to do.


Removing it is also ok but 2GB isn't much.


btw, It fixed the fragmentation problem on my laptop,
It went from being over 75% fragmentation to 1%.


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## ToeClaws (Oct 15, 2009)

Get rid of Windows 98 - it's obsolete, a security nightmare, and unstable.


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## FaSMaN (Oct 15, 2009)

There really isnt much you can do with it,maybe play some system shock 2 or some other retro game that doesn't work in dosbox or needs windows 9x .

It would have been a far better to just install windows 98 in a virtual machine (VMWARE or Virtual PC) if you were feeling a bit nostalgic,network etc... would work then...


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## Sinjo (Oct 15, 2009)

MMmm play Omikron


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## net-cat (Oct 15, 2009)

Runefox said:


> Look, the guy went to the trouble of installing Win98 and now he's looking for things to do. I'm not exactly assuming the guy's sane or anything.


You misunderstand. I'm saying most of your post is wrong. 



Runefox said:


> Play DOS games and uninstall the network driver.


Not actually a bad idea, which is why I snipped it from the post. 



Runefox said:


> Also, instruct Windows to burn off all but 64MB of memory - As I recall, more than that and it leaks something fierce.


He's running 98SE, which is good up to at least 512MB out of the box and more if you tweak SYSTEM.INI.

More info: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/253912



Runefox said:


> Oh, but wait, DOS games require base address/IRQ/DMA for ISA sound cards and generally have no provisions for PCI


... all devices, even modern PCI Express devices, have "Base Addresses." Granted, they have a lot more of them and the vast majority of the data transfer is via MMIO these days, but that's besides the point. Most modern cards aren't "SoundBlaster Compatible," which is what most DOS games _actually_ require.

Actually, I kinda wonder if my SoundBlaster Audigy 2 is SoundBlaster Compatible.


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## Volpino (Oct 15, 2009)

Doorstop?

Actually, your best bet for obsolete software is to use the MS Virtual PC software. It's less likely to honk things up. I didn't check the stats on your PC, but Windoze 7 is actually pretty reasonable on its system requirements and has pretty good built-in emulation.


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## Runefox (Oct 15, 2009)

net-cat said:


> You misunderstand. I'm saying most of your post is wrong.


 That could be, most of this is ancient memory now.



> He's running 98SE, which is good up to at least 512MB out of the box and more if you tweak SYSTEM.INI.
> 
> More info: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/253912


Yeah, but that's not what I meant (well, not exactly, anyway); I'm saying that computers with larger amounts of RAM than 64MB tended to suffer from major memory _leaks _- My P4 1.5 with 128MB of RAM right on the cusp of XP's release ran 98SE, and unlike the computers that I'd run before it, with 64MB of RAM or less, it became incredibly unstable and slow after a number of hours; I recall there was a lot of talk about it back in the day on local newsgroups.

That's not to say you wouldn't end up rebooting 98SE every few hours anyway, but...  64MB tended to be the agreed-upon sweet spot around here.



> ... all devices, even modern PCI Express devices, have "Base Addresses." Granted, they have a lot more of them and the vast majority of the data transfer is via MMIO these days, but that's besides the point. Most modern cards aren't "SoundBlaster Compatible," which is what most DOS games _actually_ require.



I mostly added that as an afterthought, but yeah, that'd be what I'm saying, though; Perhaps I should have been more clear about that; However, SB-compatible directly implies ISA addressing. Why's that important? It isn't, really. Of course, I mostly do that in DOSBox nowadays, without having to run any TSR drivers or anything, so I guess that's all a jumble now. More reason why this idea is silly.



> Actually, I kinda wonder if my SoundBlaster Audigy 2 is SoundBlaster Compatible.


Not officially, I don't think; If I'm not mistaken, the last card they wrote a DOS wrapper for was the SoundBlaster Live, and I remember finding that thing to be a nightmare to actually find, much less get running.


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## ArielMT (Oct 15, 2009)

Port Firefox back to 98.  =)

No version since 2.0.x has been compatible.


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## LizardKing (Oct 16, 2009)

Play Daggerfall :3


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## fwLogCGI (Oct 16, 2009)

ArielMT said:


> Port Firefox back to 98.  =)
> 
> No version since 2.0.x has been compatible.


http://sourceforge.net/projects/kernelex/

But I'm not going to be using that 98, but still am keeping it on the harddrive.


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## net-cat (Oct 16, 2009)

fwLogCGI said:


> http://sourceforge.net/projects/kernelex/


... why. Oh, god why.

Context: I was never much of a Win9x user. Win9x was never good. Back when it was all I had, I was constantly looking for alternatives, eventually settling on NT4.


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## ToeClaws (Oct 16, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Context: I was never much of a Win9x user. Win9x was never good. Back when it was all I had, I was constantly looking for alternatives, eventually settling on NT4.



Seconded.  9x was maintained for games, NT4 for serious Windows-based stuff, FreeBSD for other stuff for me, back in the day.

OP: Why not just wipe the Win98 install off and put something more useful in that space like Puppy Linux - it's small, will take up the same if not less room than Win98, and with WINE added, will probably run most of the same apps along with modern versions of Firefox, Thunderbird and whatever else you might need.


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## net-cat (Oct 16, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Seconded.  9x was maintained for games, NT4 for serious Windows-based stuff, FreeBSD for other stuff for me, back in the day.


I remember back in the day... dual booting NT4 and DOS 6.22. The latter being for my old-skool DOS games. :3


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## SailorYue (Oct 16, 2009)

nothing really WORKS on 98 anymore. things arely work on 2000ME. XP is the lowest one should EVER go on an OS, unless the laptop is a million years old. i had a really old laptop that oupld only boot 98. and it waa like a 10lb laptop. now the thing's CPU died so i ripped out the HD and tossed the hunk of plastic out.

now i just gotta buy one of those HD reader thingys to get my stuff off.


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Oct 16, 2009)

Install a bunch of DOS games, then kill 98.


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## ToeClaws (Oct 16, 2009)

net-cat said:


> I remember back in the day... dual booting NT4 and DOS 6.22. The latter being for my old-skool DOS games. :3



Wait a minute... weren't you like... 5 then? 

And yeah - miss the awesome classics like Rise of the Triad.  Best cheat codes EVER.


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## net-cat (Oct 16, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Wait a minute... weren't you like... 5 then?


I was 11 when NT4 was released in 1996. Though I didn't know about it until I was in Highschool, in 1999. Before that, there was a brief flirtation with RedHat 5.2, but let's face it. Linux on the desktop was abysmal back then.


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## WarMocK (Oct 16, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> OP: Why not just wipe the Win98 install off and put something more useful in that space like Puppy Linux


*g


ToeClaws said:


> it's small, will take up the same if not less room than Win98


approx. 300 Megs IIRC on a full installation, and about 100 MB on frugal install (I would recommend the latter as 2 Gigs of disk space is really slim)


ToeClaws said:


> and with WINE added, will probably run most of the same apps along with modern versions of Firefox, Thunderbird and whatever else you might need.


Or he could just install FF and thunderbird under Puppy Linux with a native dotpet. After all, installing a dotpet is not really any different from installing an app under Windows. ;-)

@OP: Nuke Win98. It's a waste of diskspace.


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## ToeClaws (Oct 16, 2009)

net-cat said:


> I was 11 when NT4 was released in 1996. Though I didn't know about it until I was in Highschool, in 1999. Before that, there was a brief flirtation with RedHat 5.2, but let's face it. Linux on the desktop was abysmal back then.



*chuckles* Awww... cute.  And I was just kidding - I knew ya were more than 5, just poking fun.  You're quite lucky in a way - my exposure to PCs at 11 was pretty limited since we didn't have one yet, and they were still not that common in the schools.  Well... not that they did much anyway at that time.

And yeah, Linux on the desktop was pretty nasty, IMHO, until quite recently, when LiveCDs and nice, polished ones like Ubuntu, Puppy and such came along.



WarMocK said:


> *g
> Or he could just install FF and thunderbird under Puppy Linux with a native dotpet. After all, installing a dotpet is not really any different from installing an app under Windows. ;-)



*nods* Agreed - I was referring to using WINE to run any other Windows apps that aren't natively available as a Linux binary.


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