[RESOLVED] Windows 98 SE - Steer Clear Of It

[GIG-O-Tech]

okay. I've just got my first copy of win98se and it went on a very very cheap machine and installed excellent while I was having all kinds of problems with the orig win98 to even begin the setup... the system consists of cyrix6x86mx-233 16meg ram built on the motherboard, 2 8meg simms added in, sis 6215 svga chipset on board, cmi8330 (I think) sound, seagate 4gig drive 24x cdrom ... I haven't tried ics on it but It was in the list of one of the things I had to remove from the device manager.

hopefully every win98se goes as smooth as this one did

Jeremy

[scoobie]

Oh man what entertainment reading this debate has been.

Now before I get slammed I am not any affiliation with Havoc, and I have posted helpful hints (in other groups) and I am registered. (why any of that matters is beyond me)

I find it funny that the moderator of this group, whether he offers good advice or not, would have the attitude he started this off with.

He gave Microsoft and their products the same attitude that Havoc gave him. Then got mad at Havoc. I don't get it.

Think about things a bit here.

Win98SE is an OEM version. It's intended audience is those OEM's who pay Microsoft bucks for features and enhancements. Some examples are Dell, Gateway, Micron, etc.

Their operations pump out thousands of PC's all exactly the same. That is their market.

The fact that others build computers without the same quality control methods as the big boys and are allowed access to the OEM versions is a benefit to us, not a shortcoming of Microsoft. Imagine installing This OS the retail way, without the benefits of OEM enhancements.

Buy the retail version and then call the retail tech support que! Don't buy the OEM version and call the retail support que and come unglued on the poor tech answering the knowledge base.

If you are indeed a registered OEM reseller, go through your channels, don't take the easy way out and don't throw your weight around and opinion on a one time experience.

I am sure all of us here that service computers have had problems with a piece of hardware that we know works perfectly on another computer.

Also take into account that the product is new, therefore a new paradigm is in place. Your old methods might need to be tweaked to work here. Do you install Win98 the same way you installed Win3x? I think not, things evolve and change and your attitudes must also. How can you work in an industry so full of change and be so intolerant.

I will say I am pleased that Mr. Moderator at least posted his history and some solutions.

It was interesting to watch people take sides in the debate at hand.

I also find it interesting to see the politically correct group bashing Microsoft, promoting Mac's, Linux, Unix and the like.

None of the superior products according to some have done the one thing that Microsoft/IBM have done. Put PC's everywhere and helped automate the world. This does not mean that Microsoft hasn't made mistakes, or could do a better job of making products.

After all those paid to work on computers would not have jobs if it weren't for problems.

Now lets get the title of this forum changed from "Windows 98 SE - Steer Clear of it" to something positive and get back to fixing PC's.

scoobie

[rusabus]

This is for Larusco Benetti


Sorry that nobody has really answered your question "I just want to do ICS, is it worth it?"

That really depends. Do you currently have a third party ICS program i.e. wingate?

If you do, it is probably not worth it -- that is if your program fills your needs.

Last time I checked, wingate was quite expensive. Furthermore, it wont work with a lot of online games like Everquest.

ICS in Win98SE works with Everquest, and any other program (that I've thrown at it) that uses the internet, flawlessly (once you get it to work). Based on my experience with ICS, I would say go for it. If you've been reading these posts, you will see that I had a dandy of a time getting ICS to work, but I still reccommend it. It is not as feature rich as wingate (no remote administration or remote disconnecting) but it is much more transparent to internet applications, so more of them work.

Just my opinion. (which may be too late for you)

[SoccerFiend76]

First of all I have to thank Darren, if win98SE worked *perfectly* then this would not be neccesary The point is that one WILL experience problems with computers. Imperfect machines run by imperfect software all made by imperfect beings. Accept the fact that NOTHING is perfect and this discussion is to provide HELP to those who are experincing problems.

As for linux, the OS is free but my time is not. If i had 3 days to get a top of the line ati/riva/voodoo3 working then maybe it is viable. Oh what does linux sound like again? Linux is great for servers but is crap for client (non-server) machines.

Back to the point. WIN98SE DOES HAVE PROBLEMS. It does not work on all system configs (that seems obvious to me and I do not have 10+ years experience in the biz). Lets try to help those with problems instead of slagging them. Kudos again to Darren for not getting dragged in to a flame war. Win98se has the most problems on older boards/cpus in particular. I have noticed few tx boards on this discussion. My QDI tx works fine under 98se but an ASUS tx-e (with updated bios) does not. Problems appear mainly with ISA devices, especially NIC cards. It may be neccessary for you play with the bios settings for ISA timings etc. Perhaps more conservative settings are required or switching to PCI based cards. Win95/98 appear to be more fault tolerant as well as more overclock friendly (coincidence?) than 98se. i run my 233 at 292 under win95/98/linux/nt4 but system locks in 98se. The ASUS board is still not functioning under 98se (except under safe mode, no problems reported under device manager)

I will be trying a USB ethernet adapter as well as newer NIC cards (both ISA/PCI) later today when I am at home. The card functions under 95 perfectly (disk caddy) but the fresh 98se locks up on boot (right around the "normal" pause with NICs installed)

Has anyone else had any similar problems with a 3com509b isa? FYI the ASUS is a p-166mmx, 64mb sdram(pc-66)10.2 Western Digital, 4 meg ati (mach64) pci. sb16awe32, pci-usb adapter

Any help/ideas would be appretiated,

Thanks ppl,

Gustin




[This message has been edited by SoccerFiend76 (edited July 11, 1999).]

[houseisland]

I am running W98SE on a multiple boot system with NT. For most of what I use it for it works adequately well, but it is not without problems. It produces an alarming number of blue-screen errors. It sometimes hangs, locking the system up completely. It sometimes loses my modem. It sometimes loses SB16 emulation drivers. It crashes in start up sometimes. It sometimes goes through multiple self-induced reboots when starting up. It seems highly allergic to anti-virus software. In the end, it always seems to repair itself, though, and it eventually does what I need it to do. I just have to be patient. However, for the price of the OS, I think I have the right to expect a little more reliability and convenience.

[Seamus]

Hi there
I've had alot of problems with Win98SE as well for example: PC locking up programs freezing up, some things i have noticed are when win98se locks up if i leave it for about 5 mins it will reboot the PC also if i try to multi-task between different programs the computer will start to slow down greatly until it crashes a bit stupid whenever i have a PIII 450, 256MB ram, 25GB HDrive 32MB videocard, if this is not enough for win98se then maybe a cray super computer, come on you guys at MS it's time to take us into the future not back to the stone age.

I will a wait the next release with some due care.

[gnslngr]

Just got done with a training exercise in a class of newbees. We took a perfectly good Win98FE machine, did a del tree and installed Win98SE and had no problems at all. It even detected the nic and set it up properly along with the ATI graphics card's drivers. I'm Impressed.

[madmax2]

hiya gents, would like to comment on a few points here,i work for a large computer co, in london and we are actively installing win98 and win98se on all the systems we supply, with no abnormal issues , i.e. nothing out of the ordinary for microsoft, the o/s is as stable as it should be. No, I am not a microsoft groupie, my personal system runs redhat6.0, but lets give credit where credit is due. P.S. we are using oem version on win98se and to date still havent got ics to function correctly, both machine can see each other fine, the host can dial out and handshake correctly BEFORE ICS installation, but after ics installation the host can no longer complete the login process. removing ics does NOT cure the problem, all network protocols, clients and adapters must be removed and reinstalled after a reboot to get the host operational again... go figure!
p.s. windrivers is probably one of the better sites around, thanks guys!

[rnusbaum]

I have had no problems with Win98 SE. I have it installed on a PII 450 with 256MB of SDRAM. I have found it to actually be more stable.