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Unofficial Windows98SE Patch
usrid0 writes "A service pack for Windows 98 Second Edition has been released. Big deal, right? It is if it doesn't come from Microsoft. "
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Mirrors of the 10.5meg patch are here, here, and here
However, critical security updates will continue to be posted as necessary through June 30, 2006.
That means that in 2006 98SE users can get bugfixes for 2005, in keeping with how Microsoft makes fixes.
(\_/)
(O.o) This is Bunny. Add Bunny to your signature
(> <) to help him achieve world domination.
Modding me down doesn't make me wrong.
Don't install this on non-english versions of Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition. I don't think it will really break anything, but at least you will get mixed languages all over the place.
On the other hand, this isn't news, the guy has made previous versions available for some time now.
When I installed NT4 with SP6a there was a big improvement! Getting all the right drivers was a pain, and until I got that there was some instability, but now it's rock solid. Explorer is amazingly fast. (The "desktop upgrade" that you can get with IE4 makes it slower but it's still faster than Win98SE. I uninstalled it.) IE seemed to run faster. Applications in general don't crash, and if something crashes it won't mess anything up and can be run again without a reboot.
I ended up IERadicating IE and installing Opera and then web browsing was fast. For IM I installed Miranda IM and that is fast too. It's almost like I never needed to upgrade from a 133 MHz Pentium. NT4 may be a pain to install but it's fast and quite usable.
The only bad things about NT4 are the poor DirectX support and worse support for DOS games than Win9x. In this case I can live with that. That computer is too slow for most DirectX stuff anyways, and I don't care about old DOS games nowdays.
Except his service pack included the ME/2000 desktop icons...
Windows ME icons. Windows 2000 colour scheme.
RTF Service Pack's Page.
Hey, genius. Here's a clue for you, too.
He also added:
Solves 512 MB of RAM problem.
256-color tray.
Better Notepad.
Optimized swap file usage.
Better WDM and USB support.
General "USB 1.x Mass Storage Device" support.
Adaptec ASPI 4.60.1021 drivers.
Windows Scripting Host 5.6.
DCOM98 1.3.
OLE Automation Libraries 2.40.4522.
Dial-Up Networking 1.4.
Microsoft Installer 2.0.
Visual Basic 6.0 SP6 runtime library.
Visual C++ 6.0 SP6 runtime libraries.
Updates JET 3.5 files to JET 3.5 SP3.
Windows ME desktop icons.
Windows 2000 color scheme.
Some cosmetic and performance tweaks.
Seems to be a little more than just "70 hotfixes".
Not familiar with the term "Legacy" system are we? Actually I bought a steering kit for my 1968 MGB GT the other day. A great improvement over the stock parts.
You can already do this.
MS will send you a CD full of the current updates for FREE
We just grabbed a couple for use in our shop. Handy for going to custom sites with dialup.
No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
I have two Win98SE machines. I haven't needed to upgrade them. They are pretty stable so I don't need W2K or XP. 98Se works just fine for me.
:).
/w 128MB ram that has been running rather sluggish lately.
/w a $400+ video card. Plus everyone knows how to use it.
Anyway I just installed the patch on my machine. The machine's preformace increased A LOT! Windows boot faster and preformance in general was very SNAPPY. Why can't every OS be like that? It seems to be a bunch of patches plus a few tweaks!
After installing it of course it changed my background and all the colors to W2K theme. Not that I mind but I was rather suprised that it didn't ask me or anything like that. My icon's stayed the old Win98 ones until I went into my properties for display settings. Under Icon's it showed all the new ones. So I click on "use large icons" and then they all changed to the new W2K icons. I hate large icon's so I unchecked it and the icon's still stayed W2K theme.
I kind of like it. I am hoping to try out the USB Mass storage device option. Flash cards are so much fun. Under newer OS's I don't have to do anything. Just plug em in. Under 98SE I have usally had to install the drivers.
Oh. I have an Athlon 750Mhz with 256MB of ram. Win98 just screams with this patch!
Now to try it on a an old K6-2 400
If anyone wants KISS then they should use 98SE on their new machine. It's fast, simple, not confusing, has industry support and everyone knows how to use it.
If your smart you will put it behind a firewall and then add some simple FREE AV software (www.free-av.com) works great for me. It can do everything I need like email, word processing, some games (newer ones barely work), surfing the internet. The only problem is computer games. But hey using an Xbox is a whole lot cheaper than getting a new Athlon 64
As for needing 128 megs, NT4 definitely doesn't need that (though of course some applications might). I seem to remember even Windows 2000 ran acceptably with 128 megs. XP definitely needs more.
As for security, critical updates for NT4 and Win98 still come out. I wouldn't ever connect any Windows to the net without a firewall though.
If you happen to use 98lite SLEEK mode (like I do) you might be wondering how this patch interacts. Despite the warning that the service pack is only compatible with CHUBBY and OVERWEIGHT, I tried it anyway. After installing the SP, I ran 98lite again to go back to SLEEK (with the win95 shell). It seems that the sleek option no longer produces the desired result. After rebooting, I'm still seeing the win98 shell (as if I had chosen CHUBBY).
I'm going to stick with it for a while to see if I notice the advertised benefits of the service pack, since I use USB stuff and I have over 512MB of RAM. Unfortunately, I'll have to migrate some application user data, since some apps look in a different place to store config data with Win98SE as opposed to 98lite in SLEEK mode.
(Yes, I have a firewall, and no I don't use Outlook or MSIE with my ancient 98SE system)
Mozilla
98 SE was released in 1999; the same year Windows 2000 was released.
RTFA. http://support.microsoft.com/?id=253912 is what the specific fix is.
If it's in you sig, it's in your post.
The only thing that's missing is VxD Fix. VxD fix is a batch file that will extract missing VxD files from the Win98 CD to your system and vmm32 directories. Grant it, it's just a batch file. But it's nice to have to automate the task without making one yourself or extracting the files manually. This article explains VxD Fix and has a download for it. It's a must have for 9x/ME IMHO. I think it should included with the 98SE service pack.
works fine on an AMD 450 mHz seems to have sped it up a bit as well. pentium 350 mHz likes it as well. But the real test is an extremley unstable pentium 188 mHz That likes to randomly crash even if you have AIM and MSNmsg just sitting there doing nothing. I purposley (sp?) Ran too many progs at once and in combinations that usually cause it to crash. But I wasn't even able to make it crash when I tried. I recommend this to anyone using a win98se machine It now reports me as running Win 98se 4.10.2222 A
Slight correction. Windows 2000 was released in 1999 to manufacturers. It's official release was in 2000. Pardon the FUD.
ActiveX is used for IE components that can be downloaded from the net. They're native code, with full access to your machine, and they're often used for spyware. NT4 supports this perfectly if you have IE installed. You can disable it in IE if you want, and of course you can get rid of IE.
hate to burst your bubble, but with modern games, 2k or xp run it as good or better then 98 will. Besides many hardware vendors are no longer updating or optimizing their 98 drivers.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
Marshall, I believe, is who your are thinking of.
What on earth are you smoking man. NT4 was released in '96, and had minimum sys req of a 486/33 with 32mb ram. Now my math isn't great but it seems to me that 32 is a hell of a lot less then 256. 256MB on a desktop system in '96 would have been unheard of. And on a side note, 98 runs just fine in 32mb ram as well, if you had 128 you were laughing.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
I ask you this: Specifically, in what capacity is Microsoft accountable to it's customers?
Bravo. As a corporate C++ developer, I know first-hand how far Microsoft goes in fixing problems in Visual Studio (hint: not far...). You want bug fixes? Well, wait a year or more for the next release, because they sure as hell aren't going to fix any bugs for free unless they become a PR problem on CNET, like their security situation has become. You'll notice that they stopped issuing service packs on Visual Studio about the time Bill Gates became their new CTO (or whatever his new title was a couple years ago). It's policy now, so all you guys holding your breath -- you can stop now.
Installed it last night, went to bed, woke up, PC is buggered.
First warning was finding new hardware, motherboard, etc!! Then it tried doing something with the registery which failed. Now when it tries starting windows it's in an endless loop of trying to fix registery and rebooting. Fricken thanks Microsoft and someone playing with something they didn't understand. Lesson learnt, don't do stuff late at night without trawling the web for everyone else's feedback/problems first.
The funny thing was , this machine *was* the stablest WIN98 machine I had ever come across.
Oh well, guess I have a reason to upgrade to 2000 now if it can't be untangled.
I downloaded and installed it. Setup went smoothly, no errors. After rebooting, the "windows 2000 look" comes up (blueish background, changed icons in Explorer). Even if it only dod this, and still, I would have installed it (I'm a sucker for eyecandy).
:P).
Right now I'm writing from the machine running the unofficial service pack (AMD K6-II+/500 MHz, 96 MB SDRAM) and it's running fine. Congratulations to the author, he did a really great job (no more Windows Update on a 33.6 kbps dialup connection - yes, these really do still exist
Why should I trust him?
Ok Slashdot id# 15259, unless someone has swiped your identity and managed to keep your style and biases, your posts are representative of you and are, to the extent that it matters, trustworthy. If someone has swiped your identity, almost certainly something will be "out of character". You might be doing it all in preparation for some dastardly deed, but even if so, you will not waste all that effort on something cheap and irrelevant.
Similarly, it's much more plausible that it's really legitimate, particularly if he's been around for a while with a bias that patched and secured Win98 machines are better than unpatched and vulnerable Win98 machines. It's not what he says today that matters, but what he said 2-3 years ago. Any hint of mischief and most likely something will show up in this Slashdot article/commentary. With EOL on Win98 it makes sense that somebody would do something at least similar.
Now if you do have sensitive stuff and would be a prime target, and further if you would have to explain your actions if something did go amis, it's a bit too risky getting anything from unvetted sources. If you're a relative nobody like me, it's safe enough. If you do have sensitive stuff you would be more likely to be a producer of such rather than a consumer. There's a bit of risk in publishing your set of patches but if you've forgotten anything material, it's more likely that some good guy will inform you. If unpublished, I suspect the bad guys have means of finding out anyway and a not-so-pleasant way of informing you.
I like your sig. It's a more compact from of Hanlon's Razor from The Jargon File: "Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity."
Furry cows moo and decompress.