Someone reviewed v on Jul 5, 2022

Pros: 555

Cons: 555

Bottom Line: 555

sidvel reviewed v2.1a on Feb 20, 2007

goog

manu1963 reviewed v2.1a on Oct 24, 2006

I want to know weather pen drive works or not

Frostek reviewed v2.1a on Aug 31, 2006

"Good that this was made though , why dont you guys just use win 2000 ? it handles great with old computers."

Perhaps because they haven't got the spare cash to lay out for a Win2K licence for what's probably a spare second or even third PC. Plus it'll probably be an older machine that's only being used till something major fails and then it's getting dumped.

I hope you weren't suggesting they just download 2000 off the net or something naughty like that? ;-)

I used this for ages on my Win98SE machine till I upgraded to Ubuntu. If I need XP, I run it in a virtual machine.

The guy who made this pack certainly seems to have put a lot of work into it, enough that I used 98SE for about 7 years without needing to upgrade. Well done, dude! :-)

Nikkie reviewed v2.1a on Jun 27, 2006

Good that this was made

though , why dont you guys just use win 2000 ? it handles great with old computers .

1uk3 reviewed v2.1a on Mar 6, 2006

Very good! I resurected an old pc the other day and did a fresh install of 98se. Glad I came across this pack. :)

imanino reviewed v2.1a on Dec 26, 2005

Absolutely think this program is outstanding. Incidentally, I'm not cheap..I just like 98SE. The reason..sure it's buggy..but it's fast on older machines AND WHEN it crashes, you can just put the disk in and without any major fanfare reinstall the whole OS in about 15 minutes. Take THAT XP...with XP its more stable but when it truly goes (talking about novice users here)...put the disk in and just reinstall is NOT the option unless you want your hard drive to say nighty night. Patch 98SE with this pack and add the REvolutions Pack for some XP interfaces, Kick in some ME DLL updates and folks you've got a machine that can stand up to Linux right nicely, though it cannot compete with internet safety. If anybody's interested, I'm trying to develop some software for the immediate post Microsoft 98Se support for fellow resisters (I do have all the Windows OS, so I'm not a total loss).

mynamehere reviewed v2.1a on Nov 30, 2005

I haven't had a chance to install this version on my son's pc yet (I'll do it on Saturday when I'm there), but if past releases are any indication, this will be great as well. It sure makes difference in stability, and the "unadvertised by MS" updates sure are nice.

@ anyone raising their flaming swords, his pc is used mainly to run educational software, and MOST of it simply will not run under XP. It has nothing to do with it being dinosaur either(Athlon XP 2000+, 512MB RAM, etc, not bad for an 8 year old). He gets my hand me downs.

@ ModderXManiac...keep us abreast of your progress, I'd love to have a dual boot with both OS's being 64 bit! (in my experience, 98 has always been much faster when gaming).

gkar reviewed v2.1a on Nov 30, 2005

The unsung hero of Windows 98/SE, Alper Coskun.

Kramy reviewed v2.1 on Nov 29, 2005

I give this to all my cheap friends! :)

98SE works great on a slow 400mhz comp I have. It's nice having people provide you with easy to install updates, aswell. :D

horsecharles reviewed v2.1 on Nov 28, 2005

Excellent update, no issues to report. FYI for those thinking updates like for instance, DCOM are not new-- that update, even though its version number was left unchanged by MS, is way larger in size.

I'd recommend to anyone experiencing any issues to visit the msfn homepage-- as not just the author, but many there are very knowledgeable and provide workarounds such as modded system files, etc. I've yet to see any issue go unresolved-- usually it's some system setting or peripheral that gets in the way.

Some Guy: i've NEVER needed a third party boot manager NOR partition utility. As long as you install in the release dates order for MS & leave Linux(2.which MUST contain Grub, NOT Lilo boot manager!!!) Say: 1.Dos 2.Win9x 3.Win2k&later 4.Linux I recommend Ubuntu linux(but choose Gnome vs KDE desktop for your older system), its bootable install cd allows multi partition, format, assign&access any file system. Initial screen gives choice of linux or winnt, if select winnt, immediately get choice of it or win9x, select the latter & get choice of it or dos...all w/ no time wasted. Good Luck.

some guy reviewed v2.1 on Nov 28, 2005

great job, think I will put 98se back in my 200mhz laptop, xp is really dam slow in it.

clasys
could you give me more info on the dual boot sys,

I would like to put another os on my desktop,
what software did you use to choose the os boot at start up?
nacho3232@hotmail.com

ModderXManiac reviewed v2.1 on Nov 28, 2005

Awesome, goodie goodie, much needed, if only msvbm60.dll were included so I didnt always need to install it...

And as for the "negative" Windows 98 comments, put your money where your mouth is, Windows 98 beats the living crap out of Windows XP in performance, and now with native NTFS isntallation abilities, it will be usable for several more years to come. You just have no know what your doing, I dont care how much "easier" Windows XP is, it's a bloated OS. And software developers oughtta be ashamed for dropping support given the potential that open-source has brought out of Win 98.

BTW, I have started a developers team working on full 64 bit hardware and software compatibility on this platform. The software pack is still in alpha stage, but it's pretty eciting seeing it all come together. I'm talking support for up to 64 gigs of ram, dual-core/ multi processors, SATA, terabyte of storage, the works.

GimieGimieGimie reviewed v2.1 on Nov 28, 2005

What an idiotic review, people, please ignore the bad reviews that are based on people who are against older operating systems, it's so childish.

This program does exactly what it says and has worked flawlessly on 5 Windows 98 computers i have install it on, it's a update problem, it keeps things up to date and doesn't cause any side effects, it's that simple.

Instead of attacking the program/author for what program he or she decides to program, we should be praising them instead, for taking the time & effort in replacing the whole Microsoft team (who have abandoned their work for profit) and continue to bring us these "very important" updates for a peice of software that is still VERY USEFUL!

No matter how far along we come in technology, older technology will still be around, and be around forever, thus we need the software that the hardware was built & optimized around to be updated for as long as possible too.

As long as the software allows you to do what you need, then it doesn't matter how old it is, Windows 98 is still up to the job of performing MANY of today's tasks.

For example, i still use my PII 266mhz laptop (which is about 8 years old) for playing movies & watching IT training videos which can actually get you a good job to earn the income to be able to invest into buying a new laptop.

Not bad for a relic peice of hardware/software NOW is it? ;)

roj reviewed v2.1 on Nov 28, 2005

If you're stuck on dinosaur hardware and either don't have the means (feasible, albeit unfortunate), are too cheap to upgrade said hardware, or even if you have some hoary old application that you absolutely need and the only thing it runs on is 9x (yes, those do actually exist), then this has limited value.

Other than that, it's right up there with flogging a (thankfully LONG) dead horse. Of course you'll get the myth of "98 has better performance" which can never be substantiated by any benchmarks other than "it boots faster" and on and on and on, but those are essentially comments from those who either are uneducated about the OS or have chosen to be. To prop up an aging and decrepit OS is one thing but to intentionally mislead and misinform people by claiming that "It is simply the most robust operating system created by Micro$oft" and to laud this as a magic bullet for that OS is just plain stupidity. The security "reasoning" outlined by the aforementioned afficionado is even more hysterically funny - 98 is widely known to have absolutely no security whatsoever.

Three stars for a crutch for an old OS which has long been mercifully retired.

SEForever reviewed v2.0.2 on Aug 30, 2005

This is possibly one of the best things to happen to computing since the invention of the transistor... Ok, maybe not QUITE that strong, but...

I write this because I am definitely a very avid user of Win98SE and of 8 machines I personally own, I have SE installed on 6 of them. It is simply the most robust operating system created by Micro$oft (heh, sorry)... I have been using the 1.5 release of the service pack for a while now and have just recently started using the 2.0.2 release. I am going to keep running 98 until the planet falls apart, because, as stated, NT based systems just are too vulnerable to the crap that is out there now. I fix these damn things on a regular basis, and have found that 98 is simply not nearly as compromised as ANY NT based system is. I only have one fear; I'm sure someone else has thought the same - What happens when software can no longer be installed on 98 at all.. Is there something in the works with the 'service packs' that will 'trick' any (maybe every?) app into thinking it is being installed on a NT based system? Keep up the good work guys, and BTW - Love the XP ripoff for the splash! ;) Nice touch.

Steve

clasys reviewed v2.0.2 on Aug 11, 2005

I come to write this review not as an end user, but as a contributor, so pardon my "bias" which I interpret as instead expertise.

We don't need any more go-with-the-flow XP bigots, or anyone else with an ignorant opinion posting here, or anywhere else for that matter.

Here is where the thing stands now:

Due to the amazing contributions of many people [I consider myself a small contributor!] the latest Service Pack [2.02 as of this writing] represents probably about 95% of what is possible to do with 98SE. It is still being worked on due to the contributions of dozens of people supplying fixes, critiques, beta-testing, etc. on the MSFN forum. [Check that out!]

I wish we had all of these fixes years ago, for that blame Microsoft, since most of them have been UNAVAILABLE FOR YEARS, yet actually written!

Yes, some fixes were available soon after 98SE was released, yet held back from the general public for nonsensical self-serving reasons like "hasn't been fully regression-tested yet" but that just never was advanced. If you can get an improvement, why deny the fix to the user with the problem?

Of course, it turns out that the so-called "testing" was a bureaucratic ruse, and the code was eventually obtained and is now in the Service Pack.

I submit that the widespread claims of instability that have caused many to be overly attracted to the next great windows thing, the latest being XP, is actually traceable to this.

When I, and others use a clean install of 98SE followed by the Service Pack, we basically do NOT get any of the problems widely reported.

In some cases, some of the fixes are relatively new, concurrent with XP getting some of the same fixes, say in 2002-2003. There are a few recent fixes, even into August, 2005!

[BTW, Windows 98SE suffers the awkward name of a year it was NOT released in! It should properly be called Windows 99. Note also, that Windows 2000 is only about 10 months newer!]

In any case, NO release of 98SE has ever had all of the extreme security grief we have seen with XP. You just simply cannot get "bit" by many of the pointed NT-family-only security attacks out there, etc. Go look at Microsoft's security bulleting and see the phrase essentially "does not apply to Windows 98, 98SE, ME" that is repeated throughout most of the fairly recent security bulletings, etc.

A few other things:

1) The Service Pack is NOT a fix-it tool. If you have a broken install, reformat your disk and install it correctly, make sure you have MODERN drives for your hardware, THEN apply the Service Pack. Why would you want to gripe about this compared to the truly gargantuan effort of patches and fixes that have to be applied to XP?

2) Unlike XP, the defrag utility from WinME can run on 98SE, typically about 15-200 times as fast as that crap in XP, or even if you buy the pricely Diskeeper big-brother version.

3) Even with all known XP patches applied, there are basic misfunctions in XP, namely the hopelessly broken search, which works fine in 98SE. Even the ability to just copy bunches of files is known to lose something, like an attribute bit on some files at random, or sometimes an entire directory sub-branch, or the busy-body aspect of having certain files "updated" just because, but no sense to it. Even Windows 95 can do better!

4) Here is the reason why I will NEVER deliver a machine with ONLY XP on it: There are "smart" viruses out there now that can climb in so deep into XP, such as contaminating SVCHOST.EXE, that CANNOT BE DETECTED by XP, NO WAY, NO HOW! You run any number of anti-malware programs and they all say XP is completely clean.... and they are COMPLETELY WRONG!

All you have to do is have a dual-boot system where the 98SE is on another drive that can scan the XP-based drive. You will find the problem in short order with things like Trend Micro Housecall run from the 98SE system, etc. where the virus stands out like a proverbial sore thumb etc.

Still want to throw away 98SE, guys?

One more poke at some ignorance here: Some hae complained that it's "impossible" to take pieces from NT-based systems and put into 98SE. Your ignorance is showing! Both systems are 32-bit. In essence, we are NOT talking about the KERNEL files, just the supplied/bundled APPs' files!

Without the Service Pack, it's a whole lot of work to implement the patches, assuming you could get them. With it, it's just a short procedure to get something that, unless you run it, you don't even have a right to an opinion.

In short, with the Service Pack, this ain't your father's 98SE!

cjl

poisonu reviewed v2.0.2 on Aug 3, 2005

Good Day,

I have used previous releases of same before. Without Any problem(s) Whatsoever.

Of Course, You Must ensure that Your system is already healthy, before You apply any major "patch rollup" (referred to aa a Service Pack) like this.

This Should Also be the case Before installing Any software, No matter how small or minor it may be.

Cheers & Best Wishes from Downunder,

poisonu
The Land Downunder

tipsyboy reviewed v2.0.2 on Aug 2, 2005

This worked like crap on my machine. Froze it all over. Had a hard time getting it going smoothly again.

So - for me this is just not acceptable.

joeshmoe7 reviewed v2.0.2 on Aug 1, 2005

It's awesome. For machines that still can't handle XP, 98SE is still a great alternative. And this pack really makes it shine. GOOD WORK!

newruler reviewed v2.0.2 on Aug 1, 2005

This is a phenomenal update and comes as a blessing to all those that still use the fully functional Windows 98 SE operating system. I have used applied it to numerous customer machines that are still running that OS and have always had a positive outcome. As for Roj's comment...if you aren't using this update then you have no right to give it a review of "1." Your opinion of Windows 98 SE as an operating system for use doesn't belong in a review of an update.

compusucker reviewed v2.0.1 on May 28, 2005

Hi,
I was eagerly waiting for this sort of 98se update.
Thank you Very Much
God Bless You.

BlackDragon64 reviewed v2.0.1 on May 18, 2005

tohemi,
If you had read my earlier post correctly, you would find it is the sound causing the problem. I have tried this on SEVERAL machines using different everything EXCEPT the sound card is always from the same company. It's a SOUNDBLASTER.
Win2k and XP both (because of the NT kernel) shut down Descent 1 from running because it tries to directly access the SOUND CARD.
One of the MAJOR problems with NT based OS's as far as several people I know are concerned is it CANNOT abide anything daring to acees the hardware directly without it acting as a go between first.
So, that is why I still use 98SE, as well a number of people I know because they ALL have the same problem with the sound causing the game to lock during startup on NT based OS's.
And as I said the machines all vary as to motherboard, video, etc. EXCEPT the SOUNDBLASTER remains a constant. Why they insisted on meddling like this with the NT based OS (NO direct HW access) I will never know.
So, I have seen a number of older games have to be given up on because of some people I provide support for insisting on using an NT based OS.

[deXter] reviewed v2.0.1 on May 17, 2005

Mark Gillespie, you better do some research the next time you start saying things that you don't know about.

One of the first unofficial rule in reviewing is that 'if you don't need/use the software, don't review it'

1) Personally I don't use 98 either. But then there exist a million people out there who use 98. When I recommened people to upgrade to XP, many say that they like 98, their system isn't up to running XP etc.. When I try my best and its absolutely impossible for me to pursuade them, I do the works. Enter 98 SE Service Pack2. Other than just the updates, this pack comes with pleanty of enhancements, like new colour schemes, new icons, new program replacements, and ofcourse with loads of tweaks.. which makes 98 into one of the most lite, stable and compatible OSes. Some people have dual boot xp/98, and use 98 for many purposes, like 98 dedicated for gaming (For that extra FPS), 98 for old and incompatible programs (many companies still rely on them, like old accounting and DB proggies).. and so on.

2) I really can't believe you on this one. Where were you all these years, in the himalayas or something? Or was it the amazon jungles? Cause anyone whos a regular here or any major tech site/forum/portal knows about this. 10000s of people have and continue downloading this pack. I even know the author infact, and if you were a regular at the MSFN forums, even you'd have. The program would as a result be scrutinized and disected by 1000s of users. If any such you know what "extras" were found, then the author would have had it. Besides, theres no reason for anyone to bundle any "extras", because this product ain't sponsered by some company, and its freeware if you noticed.

Avoid? Sure, if you only use XP and never touch a 98 based system.. This is of no use to you. As it clearly says on the label ".. Windows 98 SE Service Pack" which means, duh. I haven't seen a single 98 user who knows about this and hasn't installed it yet.

Canuckistani reviewed v2.0.1 on May 17, 2005

That's pretty paranoid and bitter my friend. The pack is just fine, all of the components passed testing and scans which I am required to do before deployment.

Mark Gillespie reviewed v2.0.1 on May 17, 2005

1 point.

1/ Is anyone still using flakey old Win98 anyway? There are much better alternatives these days (hell, evem NT4 runs better than 98 on the same hardware)

2/ Do you know that the author of this unofficial service pack has not added any other "extras"??

Avoid...

Cerviperus reviewed v2.0.1 on May 17, 2005

I have used this on several Windows 98SE computers that our company still has in place. This is a great package. Not only do I like the Win2000 look, but I've actually had some miscellaneous errors be corrected upon installing this pack. Great work. I'd definitely reccommend this to anyone still using Windows 98SE (in any setting).

Canuckistani reviewed v2.0 on May 5, 2005

This is so great! I recently aquired two dozen Pentium 233MMX/Windows 98SE OEM boxes from a business to rebuild for poor students and this pack has made my life so much easier. Talk about timing.

jon8rfc reviewed v2.0 on May 3, 2005

Very handy! It's nice to have it all in a big clump to download.

"7 years too late"--a horrible and irrelevant review, if you choose to even call it that. Don't pay attention to mindless "reviews", such as that, given by Klusternisse. This is a useful download for all win98 users.

giwo reviewed v2.0 RC3 on Apr 8, 2005

Seems like a good pack, and certainly a great idea (wish Microsoft would have done it themselves).

The only issue I have with the Service Pack, currently, is when I installed it on an old 98SE machine, the machine would hang at bootup (after the splash screen) permanently.

In order to fix this I had to uninstall and reinstall the Intel storage device drivers and let them automatically re-install on the next bootup (though it took a bit of work to figure that out).

Aside from that issue (which was a rather major one, at the time it was happening), everything seems to be working quite well.

horsecharles reviewed v2.0 RC3 on Apr 5, 2005

Edit: you're right giwo: happened with a previous beta version...
I just like all the work done over at MSFN by him, MDGX, TiHYI, & others-- there's about 3 or 4 additional apps besides it: if one applies all, one creates an UBER Windows with the best parts of subsequent versions of ME, XP & 23K-- w/ 32bit icon / interface; for WMP: some parts of v10 are used & a one of the codecs is tweaked to attain a higher bitrate than possible even w/ v10, etc., etc. All this can be found in the win98 section of MSFN.

Klustemisse, and you're 3 years too late reviewing it-- this is the umpteenth version in a long & constantly-updating development period.

what a lame thing you just did!

what are the bugs or missing items that merit a 1 review? Which competitor does this better?

If you're on XP, and this is not of use to you, then let the relevant users review this instead.
BUT if by chance you are using win98, then you don't have enough info about it:

between it and companion addins(go to its home thread at MSFN)-- for about half of the files updated, used for this are updated versions from winME, win2K, WIN2K3, and/or winXP-- plus a bunch of system tweaks to run the OS as fast as possible, to use over one GB of ram, to use some new peripheral types not natively supported, add 32bit support for xp themes, remove unnecessary windows components, etc.

There is almost no way anyone could install/make all these changes manually without taking a month off to dedicate to this: you'd need to install each OS on your computer, then go to Windows Update for each OS version, patch everything, then copy over tens of thousands of files AFTER first testing to see which versions were compatible. Also, some of these have been manually hexed where needed, you couldn't get them anywhere else. Then there are a bunch of third party additions that replace some native windows components-- usually because they have more functions & use up less resources than what they replace.
This product is not something slapped together hastily--& it's in constant updating even as we speak: all updates issued for other OS but not win98, are constantly being tested for inclusion to it.

No win98 user should be w/o it.

Tenoq reviewed v2.0 RC3 on Apr 5, 2005

Don't be a knob - better late than never, isn't it? Perhaps you should have developed one 7 years ago, when all these patches weren't even available?

Grow up.

Good work here - nifty way of updating a machine.

Klusternisse reviewed v2.0 RC3 on Apr 5, 2005

7 years too late

TheQuestor reviewed v2.0 RC2 on Mar 22, 2005

Brovo sirs, Bravo.

Riff_Raff_50076 reviewed v2.0 RC2 on Mar 21, 2005

Let's Not forget the mom & pop computer users around who bought the computer fo simple tasks Like E-mail and some web surfing They dont need or want a super speed loaded pc , M$ doesnt support 98 anymore because it has no profit margin. I say Good work and Keep it coming .350 Mhz pentium 2 320 mb ram works perfectly for 98 se .

Dmass73 reviewed v2.0 RC1 on Feb 21, 2005

Hey Fox,
As a computer repair technician, I've seen many nasty things in my time, and the most useless, utterly stupid piece of software in my book is Windows ME. Absolutely horrible!!! I ran it for all of a week before I decided to switch back to 98. If it wasn't for Windows XP, I'd have linux on all my machines.

sweathog reviewed v2.0 RC1 on Feb 2, 2005

It's interesting how Roj can get so exercised about software without actually testing it. On my system, Windows 98se with the Unofficial patch and Axcel's 98/ME MDGx's Killer Replacements is MUCH faster than Windows XP with SP1 and can run on very old computer equipment. True, there are downfalls, Windows 98se doesn't exploit the 1 gig of memory on my system like XP does and the Microsoft updates rolled up in Unofficial Windows 98 SE Service Pack 2.0 RC1 aren't individually listed in the Windowss Add-Remove utility and, as a result, aren't recognized as installed when you visit Microsoft's update site. There is also the issue compatibility with other software that is checking for certain versions of files.

But overall Windows 98se has always proved reliable to me except under extreme multitasking. I'd say this is a noble effort, quite worth it for those unable or unwilling to spend hundreds of dollars to upgrade to Windows XP.

TwoTailedFox reviewed v2.0 RC1 on Feb 2, 2005

Roj, WIndows ME would seem to disagree with you.

Windows ME was created as a Stopgap release, between Windows 98 and Windows XP. As such, it had the Windows 98 Kernel, but it also incorporated elements such as System Restore, from the Whistler (Windows XP/2003) Project.

Owned ;)

horsecharles reviewed v2.0 Beta 3 on Jan 28, 2005

This Program is excellent & has a slew of surprises in store during the next 30 days: a la the style of the Autopatcher & NLite for the other OS. This Service Pack, combined with MDGx's Killer Replacements-- documentation & home: http://www.mdgx.com/98-5.htm#KRM9S download the guide, plus news, support & info: http://www.msfn.org/board/?showtopic=37302
will extend the life of the OS almost indefinitely... a lot of the newer core & system files from the other OS: WinMe, WinXP, Win2K3 are inserted to create a sort of Úber Windows. Able users there like Azagahl, are able to further tweak Windows98 to do unthinkable things like run on an Athlon XP64 / IGB memory system...

Anything & everything is possible when one marches to the beat of a different drummer: no pablum for certain masses.

Disclaimer: Absolutely no unlicensed files are provided when tweaking this windows OS, users utilize the files from the computer systems and/or install disks of other software they legally own.

If you thought this Service Pack was good, watch out in the upcoming weeks: you ain't seen nothng yet.

And this is the prototypical spirit of the open standards community: providing a valuable service to & improving the lives of computer users--- nay people in general. Most commendable.

utomo reviewed v2.0 Beta 3 on Jan 27, 2005

Lets test it and report it here or the original website.
and if nothing is serious lets go for the Final version

Arieligena reviewed v2.0 Beta 3 on Jan 27, 2005

Any way to play descent 2 online ?

A friend was mounting virtual pc for playing old games sucessfully.

tohemi reviewed v2.0 Beta 3 on Jan 26, 2005

Just a reply to BlackDragon64...Descent does work on my XP Pro box using my Voodoo 3 video card. Runs fine. I think this is a great program for all Win 98 users.

BobTheVeg reviewed v2.0 Beta 3 on Jan 26, 2005

Nice work !

Win98 SE is the lastest most stable MS OS that doesn't run on NT core. Many software that compagnie does not update anymore MUST be run on DOS/Win9x compatibility machine. Many old device's driver are not compatible with NT technologie.

Mark Gillespie :
hell, evem NT4 runs better than 98 on the same hardware
=> You are mistaken

Pursuit :
I agree, cheap-asses, UPGRADE! PC parts are getting cheaper and cheaper by the day.
=> if users still use Win98 SE, it's especialy because they are not going to re-invest.

rijp :
There is no reason to keep running 9x.
=> Read the top portion of the post.

jacjan reviewed v2.0 Beta 3 on Jan 26, 2005

Excellent piece of software.

And for the ignorant poster here who doesnt understand why someone uses win98 still:

We got about 1000 computers running win98se on all the schools here, to run win2k or something higher would mean changing about 800 of those computers, and not many can afford to buy hardware like that.
Even used, we are talking about $100.000 USD for 800 P3-667 machines (we just got 100 of these, and that was about $11.500 Usd)...

Win98se works for lots of people still :)

blackcherry reviewed v2.0 Beta 3 on Jan 26, 2005

wonderful!

BlackDragon64 reviewed v2.0 Beta 3 on Jan 26, 2005

I too use Win98SE.
rijp doesn't even have a clue.
I and a number of people I know like to play some of out favorite older games (case in point DESCENT) and guess what????
Descent WILL NOT RUN under Win 2000 AT ALL.
Why? Because ALL NT based OS's do not allow the older games to make direct calls to hardware.
Because the OS insists on being the go between between software and hardware. As soon as Descent tries to load, it gets shut down because 2000 REFUSES to let Descent handle the sound card directly (and BTW this applies as well to XP and above, EVEN trying Microsofts precious compatability modes).
So you can see that for those of us who REFUSE to constantly jump on the latest bandwagon passing by Win98SE helps a lot.

So, until you truly understand these things, keep mouth shut and don't rag on people who still use 98SE.

MrUp reviewed v2.0 Beta 3 on Jan 26, 2005

I run Win98SE in VMWare window within my WinXP Pro. Thanks for all who help keep this version working well.

Kamika007z reviewed v2.0 Beta 3 on Jan 26, 2005

rijp,

You are an idiot. Obviously you're not intelligent enough to think up of a single reason as to why people would find this update useful.

Targaff reviewed v2.0 Beta 3 on Jan 26, 2005

It's reassuring to know that wherever you are and whatever you're doing, there'll always be someone who completely misses the point. Congrats, rijp, you are that person; some of us have it installed for good reason, alongside our "cutting edge" other OSes. Works fine for me here, it's really handy to have this one update do everything for me.

hurt reviewed v1.6.1 on Sep 15, 2004

great to see this package still being updated, still waiting for the windows 2000 color scheme to be optional though ;)

bourgeoisdude reviewed v1.6.1 on Sep 15, 2004

Questions and answers:
"Is anyone still using flakey old Win98 anyway? There are much better alternatives these days (hell, evem NT4 runs better than 98 on the same hardware)"

First answer: Yes, many many organizations still use windows 98. Why? MS made the mistake with Windows XP Home edition. In the past, MS made the home use product limited by disallowing file-level permissions and only allowing FAT/FAT32 file system. Since XP Home has NTFS, there needed to be another restriction so more people would purchase XP pro, so ms took away the ability to join a domain. The problem is that EVEN WINDOWS 95 (with Dcom, a free download) CAN JOIN A DOMAIN, as well as windows 98/98SE/Me/2000. Second part about nt4 and 98: NT4 is more stable and runs better than Windows 98, yes, but it's 8 years old--no plug and play, no usb device support, and a pain in the a$$ to support AGP video cards. Also the latest directX version supported on NT is 3.2a (which could be a good thing if you don't want employees wasting time playing mechwarrior or something). As far as this unofficial patch I have been searching for this sort of thing for many years and I am very impressed with it. I only wish it came with IE6 SP1 and the critical updates for that as well--no biggie.

patmc7 reviewed v1.6.1 on Sep 15, 2004

With Microsoft decieving dumb people into thinking one always has to upgrade their latest product, this comes in handy. For those not into games, there really isn't enough difference between the operating systems to justify the extra expense. I have a PIII that works just fine, and upgrading the OS could affect or even prevent some of the hardware from working properly. And even XP isn't without it's bugs.

hte123 reviewed v1.6.1 on Sep 15, 2004

Great, thanks.

There are still a lot of old PCs running well in small offices. No need to upgrade for the wise man. I am running W98se on my Libretto 50. There is no way to upgrade it and i'm still using it everyday.

So please folks, if you cant use a piece of software, dont rate it. Just shut up ;-)

Mark Gillespie reviewed v1.6.1 on Sep 15, 2004

2 points.

1/ Is anyone still using flakey old Win98 anyway? There are much better alternatives these days (hell, evem NT4 runs better than 98 on the same hardware)

2/ Do you know that the author of this unofficial service pack has not added any other "extras"??

Avoid...

Hassada reviewed v1.6.1 on Sep 14, 2004

Not everybody have the money like you are... Some old PII laptop with 64MB of ram is better running Windows98SE. If all you need is checking email, browsing internet and using some office application... Windows98SE is all you need.... why pay $80 for WindowsXP?

Pursuit reviewed v1.6.1 on Sep 14, 2004

I agree, cheap-asses, UPGRADE! PC parts are getting cheaper and cheaper by the day.

If your going to live in the PAST you may as well go back to the old Commodore 64! haha

Geeeze, even XP is getting long in the tooth these days, XP is almost 4 years old! the longest gap between the Windows releases so far.

If you insist on using 6 year old software, u can expect to have issues with compatibility and the overall 'look'.

Upgrade, simple!

Musashi_Sama reviewed v1.6.1 on Sep 14, 2004

rijp, maybe some people aren't riches like you and don't can use newer "OSes" like WindowsXP that is a resource hungry...

utomo reviewed v1.6.1 on Sep 14, 2004

Microsoft need to repacking the windows 98, so it contains all the upadte till now, so user which cannot use the win xp yet, still can use thw win 98 with better situations.
if they insist to stay with old CD it is not so good.
and the important things also Microsoft need to consider to refresh the IE which is very old/since 2002

Skee reviewed v1.6.1 on Sep 14, 2004

For those still using Windows 98SE (like my dad, any NT-based OS crashes on his box and he doesn't want ME), this is PURE GOLD.

kostas reviewed v1.6 on Sep 3, 2004

bad bug in version 1.6... it deleted msasn1.dll and many programs
died, so i copied the origial msasn1.dl from 98se cd and everything
works again, but i still need the lastest version of msasn1.dll
the one with security fixes?..

eddie reviewed v1.6 on Sep 2, 2004

animeusa: This is for Windows 98 SE (Second Edition).... not the original Windows 98 ;)

animeusa reviewed v1.6 on Sep 1, 2004

Although I like what this service pack offers, I tested it on a Windows 98 machine and it completely messed it up. Explorer.exe kept crashing and it wanted to use file checker. But nothing worked. I just had to reformat the whole thing in the end. So, maybe if you install this service pack after a fresh installation, it might work. BE VERY CAREFUL! DO NOT USE ON ANYTHING OTHER THAN A TEST MACHINE.

(I did this on a Windows SE machine)

mmebane reviewed v1.6 on Sep 1, 2004

Very, very useful. Saves a lot of time when I have to install the odd machine with Win98 SE.

@kostas: You should email the author.

kostas reviewed v1.5 on Jul 20, 2004

all this needs is an option to choose
what to install, i did not want the icons
and system tweaks, took me a while to remove
those 2 things, its still good and timesaving,
i will give it 4.

NXTwoThou reviewed v1.5 on May 3, 2004

Killed my 98 SE machine, after install, rebooted, it gave an explorer.exe crash after login, then kept going in microsoft registry checker restoring on every boot afterwards. I'm trying to get it back up and running now. I certainly am not going to install this on the 20+ other 98 machines we've got.

urbanriot reviewed v1.5 on May 3, 2004

Good idea, and great job! I normally install all the patches available through IEAK 6, but this is pretty neat. Is there any way to do a silent install so I can add it to my OEM preinstall? I'll give this a 5 when I can do that, as well as selectively choose what packages I want don't want (such as the swap file "tweak").

dr_goodbytes reviewed v1.5 on May 3, 2004

hmmm. i like the idea, but i have 2 problems with this: #1) no custom install. i don't need half the patches included as i don't have SCSI, PCMCIA, Firewire, etc. and don't want unrequired files on my computer stuffing things up.i would suggest using a different installer with options such as:"All Patches", "SCSI Patches", "FireWire Patches","Network Patches" (etc). #2) i unpacked the installer (just to get the files i needed) and found that not all the patches are complete! for instance, the wordperfect patch (kb#827656) is supposed to be included, but the wordperfect filter is missing! it's not right to say "we can patch X" when not all the files are there! Shows a lot of promise though.

Painkiller reviewed v1.5 on May 2, 2004

Really nice piece of software (ok updates)..But also has the shell of windows ME (2000), i don't use 98 but some client still using it so is really very good to has this piece of software...Also you can update a Windows 98 version in another language (i tried with spanish version) the only thing that you have to bear in mind is when it ask you about overwrite somes language files..the which you must answer to keep the old files..Just That.

Thanx

felix reviewed v1.5 on May 2, 2004

It's a bit late but very nice anyhow. :-)

war593122 reviewed v1.5 on May 2, 2004

Small, fast, perfect. :)

bodycik reviewed v1.5 on May 2, 2004

Good Job! Tebrik Ederim ;)

Black-Wolf reviewed v1.5 on May 2, 2004

Good job!
Thanks for the package.

patmc7 reviewed v1.5 on May 2, 2004

Useful if one has to re-install W98SE and doesn't have internet access to auto-update.