Unofficial Windows98SE Patch

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Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday May 2, 2004 @03:08AM from the who-do-ya-trust dept.

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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Link and Download Mirrors by Mr.+Darl+McBride · 2004-05-02 03:09 · Score: 5, Informative

The author's page is here, from the end of the article. His 98 SE service pack page is here. He's got an Amazon.co.uk wishlist linked from that page (your Amazon US account works there as well). Be sure to check that out if you want to say thanks. :)
Mirrors of the 10.5meg patch are here, here, and here
Slashdot plagiarizes again by Revvy · 2004-05-02 03:28 · Score: 4, Informative

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. "
Actually, that line was writen by TechWeb News. It's the first paragraph of the article. Proper credit should be given when copying word-for-word.

Modding me down doesn't make me wrong.
Don't install this on non-english MS Windows by Henk+Poley · 2004-05-02 03:30 · Score: 5, Informative

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.
I prefer NT4 by enosys · 2004-05-02 03:41 · Score: 4, Informative

I prefer NT4. It's more stable and faster. My old computer is a Pentium 133 with 32 megs of RAM. I used to have Win98SE on it. Explorer was slow opening new windows because of all the web view crap that M$ added and while the OS itself tended to not totally crash I had to reboot it far too often because an app crashed and then wouldn't work right if I tried to run it again.
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.
Re:Winner: Most Pointless Screenshot of the Year by mindriot · 2004-05-02 03:45 · Score: 4, Informative

Except his service pack included the ME/2000 desktop icons...
Re:Microsoft's stance by Elminst · 2004-05-02 04:51 · Score: 3, Informative

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.
Has anyone else tried it? by eww · 2004-05-02 05:06 · Score: 5, Informative

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.

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 /w 128MB ram that has been running rather sluggish lately.

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 /w a $400+ video card. Plus everyone knows how to use it.
Re:"Windows 98" - *98* - 1998! - GET A LIFE by Gary+Destruction · 2004-05-02 05:33 · Score: 4, Informative

98 SE was released in 1999; the same year Windows 2000 was released.
Re:Wonder how this will work with 98lite by Frnknstn · 2004-05-02 05:47 · Score: 3, Informative

RTFA. http://support.microsoft.com/?id=253912 is what the specific fix is.

--
If it's in you sig, it's in your post.
Trying it on 3 diff computers by Darthmalt · 2004-05-02 05:59 · Score: 5, Informative

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
Re:The eternal question: by mAineAc · 2004-05-02 07:03 · Score: 4, Informative

Marshall, I believe, is who your are thinking of.
well, it works by VaXXi · 2004-05-02 10:47 · Score: 3, Informative

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).

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 :P).