[RESOLVED] Windows 98 SE - Steer Clear Of It

[ellingtond]

1. Win98 SE - Thanks for the heads up. I have asked my clients to avoid it for now. Maybe in a few months I will put it on new installs. That will give you guys enough time to work out the bugs for me

2. If someone is not willing to take the time to register, I don't care to hear there opinion.

3. Darren, you don't have to tell me your qualifications. That would be, (As we say in the south US) "Preaching to the Choir." I really appreciate the help you have been to me on numerous problems.

4. If these little boxes were not so damn small, it would be easier to check the spelling

5. If really had a choice, we would all be using Macs. Someone asked me once, if you like Macintosh, why are you a PC consultant?
I reply, "Ever try to make a living supporting a product that works perfectly out of the box, is easy to use, and never breaks down or crashes for no reason?" Exactly. As long as Microsoft acts like a monopoly, I will make money.
So why the bashing? Because we are the poor bastards in the trenches, trying to make this crap work, in every situation and configuration. I have EARNED the right to bitch.

I really appreciate hearing when it doesn't work, and the setup. And when it does work and the setup. These forums keep us from going back to the time where I would beat my head against a wall trying to solve a problem someone else had already figured out. . .and tech support was completely unaware of.

Keep up the good work. . .and require posters to register.

Derek Ellington

[alioops]

well..... just reading the posts, and found some of them to be useful. Thanx to the people who had problems, and the one's that decided to help, thanx to you too...
No, I am not running win98SE, but I know that I will have people asking about it, and now I have some answers, at least until I have the time to try it out myself... and that is the good thing about a bulletin board.
Unfortunately, there are some people out there who feel that they must run people down because they are not as "smart" or "perfect" as them. I'd be really curious to know how havoc and his (hhmmmm) similarly long winded friend treat their customers, if this is the way that they treat their collegues. Unfortunately, there are too many people like him, uh, sorry, them.... who are in this industry. It ends up giving the rest of us a bad name. I know a few people who are training to become techs, and will be good ones, who are almost ready to go into something else because they have had just one to many experiences with pompous people in the industry, and are not looking forward to working with such people.
I really enjoy my work, and look to the bulletin board to both see if there is anything that I can help anyone with, or if I can find a fix to a problem that I have encountered. I am grateful to those who have more experience than I for taking the time to help with a problem, and things like tech tales gives me a chance to laugh at things very similar to what I encounter. For those reason I registered, and check in at least a couple of times a week. Unfortunately, there is always some one out there who likes to ruin something for everyone else.

Keep up the good work here.

Alicia

[This message has been edited by alioops (edited June 10, 1999).]

[Darren Wilson]

RIGHT ENOUGH OF THE FLAMING.

I started this forum to try to solve my problems and state the problems that I had come across. Why do people get so much pleasure out of putting people down???? I posted my last message in response to the fact that I was being told ' that I know nothing and shouldn't be a moderator '. I, myself and a lot of others ,take the time to inform people of little bugs or quirks in the equipment or software that we use, for the reason of seeing if somebody else can come up with the solution or has had the same problems.

Look at the flames that Tom Pabst ( http://www.tomshardware.com ) got when he posted his Quake 3 Test results on his website before anyone else could????? He was stating his own findings and yet he was being told by the game programmers that he could not have done this as the feature was not coded into the demo. How can this be when I done the same tests as Tom in the same way??????

Other people are entitled to post what they like, but being disrespectful to people who take the time to help others out should not be allowed to work in the industry. These people are probably the same people who charge unsuspecting customers for repairs that do not need to be done.

I am sure that GENUINE users of WINDRIVERS.COM are sick of the flame posts.

I ask that people please refrain from posting flames & stick to what the forums stand for .TECHNICAL SUPPORT .

Right now I have got that off my chest, this is my current situation with SE.

I still have not managed to get the Internet Connection Working properly, but I can at least now dial out on the ' server '. B4 people start saying ' the network must be wrong ' , the network is 100% stable with all the normal protocols. & yes I am using the drivers supplied by Windows.

Have found that a couple of older legacy modems do not like SE, but these items are irrelevant as they are 28.8 or less and are no longer supported software wise on the relevant manufacturers websites.

USB support is a bit better than before.

AGP support for non-Intel chipsets, still require the latest patches,but that is nothing that we didn't know anyway.

Microsoft still haven't managed to get the IRQ sharing perfect but it is a little more leniant than before.

At least the Y2K updates that MS posted on the web, are no longer needed.

I will keep you all informed on the latest findings from myself & other UK techs who I have contact with.

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

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

[rusabus]

Seeker . . .

The client disk that 98SE is asking for is not the same as the disk for your NIC. It is a diskette 98SE will create for you that you can use to configure ICS on your client machines. (supposedly automatically)

Dont install ICS until you have your NIC working.

Also, with your power button, the soft power off feature is an advanced power managment function. Make sure you have APM turned on in your bios, and that there is a system device in the device manager called "advanced power managment controller" or something to that affect. Obtain the latest flash bios for your motherboard. (did you say a P2B?) I am not sure, but I think the P2B supports ACPI, which is a bit better than APM. If it does support ACPI, enable it in the bios, boot into windows 98, go into your device manager, and remove the plug and play bios from the system section. Exit the device manager, DONT RESTART, go into add new hardware and manually install an "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) Bios." Now restart your computer. It will re-detect all your hardware, and enable some cool power managment features (push the power button, and the system will do a proper shutdown OR go into suspend mode OR -- if supported -- use hibernate mode, where all information in memory is written to the hard driver and the computer is shut off. Hibernate only works with FAT16 drives with 98. I used 2000 beta 3 and it's hibernate worked on my FAT32 drive. The system could reboot from hibernate mode in under 15 seconds.)

[pfilias]

I have installed this Windows 98 Second Edition on my computer at home, fresh, and had not a single problem.

My brother and my friend both had some problems installing it, and I don't know why. Now, neither of them has problems.

Haven't tried the ICS as cable modems are the wonder of the world! Sorry dialup suckas!

[Jonathan Harker]

I think Havoc's advice was good, solid advice, but I also think the moderator knows what he's doing, too...

Personally, I like to find out what's causing these sorts of problems--aside from the new networking code, I can't think of anything about SE that's different from my current Win98/IE 5 retail build, aside from all of the obvious things that I, and probably most other people, have already downloaded from the Windows Upgrade site.

So, what's the mystery? Does SE add new core/system dlls, etc., that aren't found in Win98?--I don't mean any of the things you can download from the Windows upgrade site or IE 5 or the networking code...but what's different about SE otherwise.

Can anybody help me out? Thanks.

[it]

I installed Windows98 SE on 2 systems and it runs fine. I haven't experienced any problems at all. Just so you know i have a dual 333 (used for dual boot) system with 128 megs ECC Ram, voodoo3, sblive!, DXR2 decoder, Shotgun Technology modem from Diamond on a TYAN 1696d w/aha-3940uw.

[it (part2)]

hav0c is right when he says people that know what they are doing will get it running right (i do this for a living). Everyone seems to be saying that upgrading from Win98 to Win98 SE is a bad decision. I upgraded myself and have had no problems. The thing i question is the fact that everyone is jumping on the Linux bandwagon. Reports indicate 17% of the market is now using Linux. Does the report indicate that the 17% is still using NT? I'm willing to bet they are (i'll go as low as 16% of the 17% is still using NT/Win98 for arguments sake). Eveyone is expecting the perfect product, THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!!!. Unix? Take my mouse away and die!!

[Phate]

I've been running SE for about a week now, and I still have yet to find a reason to warrant $89 for the upgrade (or whatever insane price that Full will cost, which is what I am using)

The build I am using is 4.10.2222 A, with CAB files dated 4-23-99, and, beside it having IE5 installed which saves me about 10 minutes that it would take to install it, I really don't see anything better. In fact, my sound will not work properly with the new version. Before you jump all over me for saying that, consider I'm using quite a crappy soundcard - a Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrum 16 Studio Audio w/SCSI. It's on it's way out anyway, but at least it worked without problem solving under Win98 4.10.1998.

Basically, if you have Windows 95 and want to upgrade to 98, or just really like spending $90 on an upgrade patch, Win98SE would be the way to go, in my humble opinion. But for those of you that spend hard earned money on software and already have Windows 98, I really don't think there's much of a reason to get SE, with Win2000 coming 'soon'. I would go so far as to say I don't think it is worth the time to download a 650MB CD image of Windows 98, unless you're on a T3, etc. Of course, I would know nothing about things like that
*cough*

~Phate~

[hair]

Hey everybody, I am new here, but I read around a lot, and I am glad to see that people still have enough sense to be passionate about what they believe in.

To the moderator, I think you are doing a good job of keeping people to the subject at hand. Keep up the good work.

Just as a little dig to Havoc and Co, you don't need ANY certifications to be a good tech. I am self-taught, probably like most of the people here. Please don't trample on us, we make the computer industry what it is, and dare I say it, we still have the objectivity to try different things and to look at things alternatively.

That being said, I have used Win98 the minute it came out, and have to say I have had many network related issues with it. I run a mixed peer-to-peer network with NT 4, Linux, and 95/98 in my house.

Usually, for my paying customers, I will run 95, which seems to do OK.

98, on some of my machines, seems to forget its Network protocols, and Network settings every now and then...

Very frustrating, because the only thing that has seemed to work, is the good ol' "format c: /u"

Did 98 SE fix any of these funny occurences with you? I run mostly 3COM cards, which have been nothing but rock-solid with NT and 95...

I have tried all the usual tricks, but to no avail.

I would really like to have a stable multi-OS network in my house. It's a bit of a showpiece for my buddies. They love it, and we frag together for fun...

Any similar problems?

[Sean]

I just formated my system and installed 98 SE for many of the same reasons as Darren. I am allready connected to a network proxy for Internet (cablemodem) and so I can't get the damn Internet sharing to work becouse I only have 1 adapter (it worked fine with WinProxy). On top of that, i'm haveing unusal misc. problems with my system! /w nothing but SE installed! it was great with Win98!

Linux! here I come!
Sean Perkins
[email protected]

[mbfreak]

To all of you out there who are having trouble with ICS in Windows 98 SE. Don't install ICS on your host, that is not how it was designed, all you have to do is install ICS on the clients and it works fine.

[Larusco Benetti]

I just want to do ICS. Is it worth it?

[AL]

Since i'm in the computer business, I've gone through quite a few Windows installations... I'm using Win98SE on 2 computers... and experienced no problems other than with WinAmp (2.22 and 2.23)... it seems to skip when i perform other operations (e.g. right click on a file)--and this is on a PIII 550, with 384MB RAM, SBLIVE, etc...
My friend experienced the same thing on his system with the new windows... don't know what could be causing it...

But anyway...

To get Internet Sharing working... don't bother installing in the initial installation of Win98SE--cause it won't install correctly.
The proper way to do it is:
1. Clean install Win98SE
2. Once installed, goto 'add/remove programs' in control panel
3. Click on the 'Windows Setup' tab
4. Double click on "internet tools"
5. Check "internet connection sharing"
(note: if it's already installed... uninstall it by unchecking it... reboot.. and repeat these steps)
6. Click OK for everything...
7. Now an "internet connection sharing WIZARD" will come up...
8. Just follow the directions...

(NOTE: only one computer can be the host to the internet... DON"T install internet sharing on the other computers connected to your network (cause you'll screw everything up--think of internet sharing like a "SERVER"(computer with IS installed) and the other computers the "hosts".. they'll detect it automatically after you finish with the instructions of the wizard)

[email protected]

[AL]

Just a quick note:

If you want to learn more about Internet Connection Sharing, then just open up Windows98 SE's help (START-->Help)...
click on the "Search" tab
type in: internet connection sharing
Highlight "internet connection sharing overview" and click on the 'display' button

(Also note: DO NOT do the following as suggested above:
mbfreak posted 06-10-99 06:48 PM CT (US)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To all of you out there who are having trouble with ICS in Windows 98 SE. Don't install ICS on your host, that is not how it was designed, all you have to do is install ICS on the clients and it works fine.)


*smooches*
Al
[email protected]

BTW: in the previous post, I meant to say: to think of ICS as a Server/Host and its clients/workgroups... blah! you get the idea.. i hope...