[RESOLVED] Windows 98 SE - Steer Clear Of It

I have just tonight installed ( after formatting a perfectly working system ) Windows 98 SE ( Second Edition ) , I am now regretting it!!!!!!!!!! NONE of the new features work properly if at all, especially the one that I most wanted , the Internet Sharing.

When installed I cannot even conect form my ' server ' to the ISP, yet along connect over the network.

The only good thing about it is that it recognises the CPU ( PIII ) properly.

As I have an OEM version, Microsoft will not support me as they told me to go back to the supplier of the system, which I told them I ALREADY HAD AS I F***ing Well BUILT IT & Supplied all the parts myself. To this they responded " You should know how to set it up then!!!!! ' to which I replied ' If you supplied me the information BEFORE releasing the **** , then I would !!!! '. The operator then replied ' are you a registered OEM or System Builder ' to which I relied ' Yes to both but I still need the info on why it don't work!!!!! '

If Microsoft won't support the OEM's how the hell are we supposed to support the customers who insist on using this really unreliable bag of ****e??????

As for all the compatability there is nothing that is different to the Original OEM 98, ( Which I am going to reinstall back again )and the pre-configured IE5 that I spent 12 hours downloading the IEAK distribution for will now not allow me to install it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Microsoft are not gonna get any more of my money. If Windows 2000 is going to be like this then GOD HELP US because it is sure that Bill Gates can't!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Who got game???? I know I do!!!!!!!

visit me @ http://www.ace-computers.co.uk

[mzcpu]

Thanks for the word of warning. I have had several customers inquiring about it and now I know better! Jeanne

[gnslngr]

I wish I knew how you folks were getting this already. I've been told Q3 this year before release, and late Q3 at that.
No I'm not an athorized anything to the evil empire, but even my contacts in Texas only have betas.

[ReBoot]

Hey Darren. Saw this post a couple days ago, so...I just had to try it. Here's the results:
New build PII 400 @ 400, 128 meg, 10 gigi HD, ASUS board. Nothing plugged in but the 2 meg PCI S3 video.
Had 3 "hard" restarts through the setup, forcing "recovery". 4 restarts through setup of hardware (don't know why, only 1 pci card plugged in). Finally got to the final reboot, and OS not found!!!
I pulled the HD, put it in my other machine as slave, worked Norton Util on it, and nothing wrong with HD. Boot sector in place.
Ok...I'll try reinstalling CD-ROM drivers with mscdex.exe in place, and reinstall winSE again...same scenario...3 hard restarts, only 3 soft restarts on hardware detect, and "no OS found".
Reformat, boot from CD, install old Win98, and 1 soft restart later on hardware detect, it runs perfectly.
Dashed off a nasty email to MS, with product serial# etc... I'll let you know what happens.

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Who needs a life, I have Internet!

[ellingtond]

For what it is worth, Office 2000 needs to be avoided like the plague also. . . it has more security holes than Stalag 13. Better yet, remember the stuff call agar that viri feed on in the laboratory? Let's just say they like Office 2000 better.

MS says that this creates opportunities for third party vendors to create security programs. Are you kidding me???

I work for an OEM and Win98 SE is nothing but trouble.

A few of the problems I have had:

1) TX Pro boards will not shut down or warm boot.

2) Visual Basic 5 simply fails to work.

3) Internet sharing never installs properly, and then when sorted does not work.

There are many others but it has now been removed from our machines so I cannot report them properly.

All problems experienced from clean installs.

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Gary Slatter

For What Its Worth......
I Am Running an AMD K6-2 450 on a FIC 503+
64mb RAM
1.7gb HD (slow fujitsu)
sb16 pnp Sound Card
Intergraph Rush Vid Card
ISA Modem Blaster (56k)

98se from A Fresh Install With no Probs..
did i do somthing wrong?

Hi!
I've installed W98SE on couple of dusins maschines, -uppgrades and fresh installs. No problems of any kind. Even Internet Sharing Works like dream,- much better/faster than wingate 3. My version identify itself as: 4.10.2222 A and opperates without a serial, and it is stolen!!

i have upgrade Win98 SE from Win95b... the thing that dissappointed me was that the Internet Connection sharing program didn't work...
the ICS feature didn't detect my ethernet card and only displayed dial up adapter and Aol adapter... and what the hell is a client disk that it asks me for?? sorry for being soo dumb in networking... is it my ethernet disk??? it also has disabled the ability to shut off my computer automatically which is a nuisance at times when i'm in a hurry... i have to shut it off manually which means i have to wait for "It is now safe to shut off your computer.." message... if anyone has any solutions to my problems i would greatly appreciate it.. oh btw.. i have a PII 400mhz, Asus P2B mb, 128 mb pc100 sdram, 16 mb viper v550 agp, tekram scsi card with plextor cdrom and ricoh scsi cdrw...

I have did a fresh install of Win98 SE & it seems to be very stable... I just wanted to let people know that Windows 98 SE is still the Windows 9x Family. In order to make 98 SE work properly I had to run the same install & motherboard patches, that i did with regular Win98. Just pretend that Win 98 SE is the regular as reguards to the install & you'll be fine..

Darren:


Just tried out Win 2000 Professional (Beta3) this weekend via the Corp Preview Program. I really thought I was going to have problems, but I am happy to report it works wonderfully so far. Seems a bit hard on my 200MMX CPU with 128Mb at times, but it works. Autodetected EVERYTHING fine (my IDE ZIP100 even worked fine out of the box, something I never got really NT4 to be able to do), played a few DirectX6 games without incident.

If all goes well with further testing and the final release, I am not sure why anyone would bother with 98 any more....(knock on wood!!!)

Hope you get answers on 98 SE. I had considered getting it for our machines here at work, but not now.....

Personally I havn't had a problem with internet sharing at all.
I've had SE running pretty much as an internet gateway for my network for right now and it's been up and running for about 3 weeks straight now without being rebooted and no problems yet.

well guys, first ill tell you this WIN98SE is SUPPERIOR in almost every way: stability, speed, and of course looks

the only problem is the internet sharing, which says teh ndis.vxd could not load it properly. but since i dont need net sharing, this is no biggie.
FYI i have FIC 2013 super 7 motherboard, 32mb 66mhz sdram, amd k6-2 450 cpu, 8.4 gb maxtor harddrive, 16mb voodoo banshee (quantum3d raven) video card, ess audiodrive 1868, 56k winmodem *pci*, 24x pioneer cdrom drive (its a home made computer)

once again, microsoft has *sigh* unfortunately created a masterpiece, one of these days i swear i wont buy another piece of micro$oft software: one of these days...

I have Win98SE installed on 5 systems.

The only problem was Dial Up Networking which through a fit & didn't allow me to change the dial properties. I always thought this system had some kind of a hardware problem anyways.

2nd system, 0 problems.

3rd system, the TweakUI autologon from Win98 stopped working.

4th system, same autologon problem.

5th system, after figuring out the IDE cable was bad, no problems.

In case you don't know this you MUST install from scratch! No, don't reformat, just copy the cabs into a directory called \WIN98SE boot to Command Prompt Only & rename your \Program Files & Windows directory. That way you can pull out any files. If you renamed \WINDOWS to \W for example DON'T let Windows install in C:\W change it to
C:\WINDOWS. Also never upgrade, an upgrade normally installs perfectly fine but you will have "hidden" problems.

I've also realized you must have a solid system, if your system is flaky in any, Win98SE is well lets just say a "great test" of your hardware.

Sorry, I didn't try ICS.

Be sure your cab files are dated 5-5-99
Also grab DirectPlay 6.1a, SE doesn't include this. www.microsoft.com/directx

WHAT HAVE I STARTED HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have looked in to the SE debate a bit more over the weekend and have come up with the following.

I admit it is a little bit more stable on lower end systems than the original 98, but not enough to warrant the price of the upgrade. It is a lot less stable on my PIII 500 which is 100% stable under all other variations of windows including NT with any of the service packs.

The Internet Connection Sharing is still a mystery as all the systems that I have tried to get it working on, it will still not let me dial out on the server let alone connect over the network. I have not though had the NDIS.VXD error which someone else has pointed out. The systems have ranged from Intel P166MMX systems all the way through to my own PIII 500.

It seems like games only run correctly after installation , like stated by someone , if Direct Play 6.1a is installed. This seems quite likely anyway as most games now need the DirectPlay 6.1a extensions anyway so this is excused.

Peer-2-Peer Networking seems to be as unreliable as Win 98 standard is . So no change here

From what I can see is the only good points for people who already own Win98 original is that it detects the CPU type correctly ( no more celerons being passed off as PII's )and the inclusion of the updates.

If you already own Win98 original then I see no real point in upgrading as there is nothing there that warrants the price of the upgrade.


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Who got game???? I know I do!!!!!!!

visit me @ http://www.ace-computers.co.uk

[This message has been edited by Darren Wilson (edited June 07, 1999).]