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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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There's no source code of course, but this stuff isn't exactly opaque. Get yourself a copy of IDA Pro or SoftIce and dig in. You might learn a thing or two!
while the FA implies that Microsoft is somewhat neutral to this fellow's freelance updating, the software is still in "extended" support from MS.
It'll be interesting to see what happens the if they issue a 'critical' security update, and there is a conflict with Mr. Coskun's patch. The cynic in me says they'd almost *deliberately* make it incompatible... oops!
No man is an island, but Gary is a city in Indiana.
I use Windows 98se paired with 98lite on older machines that I still want to keep running and get decent performance out of. With manual tweaking, I've been able to get a working 98se system in under 12meg.
I'm interested to try these together, and see if 98se can be made reliable with the patches, AND un-bloated with 98lite.
someone actually modded you up? sheesh. the point is, your mom didn't, he did.
i've personally had to deal with manually installing the individual patches MS has released for NT4 machines one by one (by one... somewhere in the region of 25-35 patches per machine; MS' advisory on chaining patches without having to reboot after each one is useful but still doesn't help all that much) because MS won't release a proper service pack 7 with all the security updates rolled into it, and if i had to maintain win98se machines, i'd be very happy to run into this.
and as for all the other posters - offhand i'd say i trust him.
Since I am a mac user, I need to rely on virtual PC in order to accomplish those little tasks that I need windows for (Specifically Minitab/Maple - dont have OSX Copies of either). Well, 2k/Xp/2k3 are very slow in Virtual PC, but Win98SE seems to run well, however there was no support for my 2gigs of Ram and I could only give it 512. Well, now it looks like I can give it a full gig like i do 2000/Xp with this patch!
I am definitely going to check this out,
artlu
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artlu.net
No, it really IS timely. I just happened to have installed Win98SE last night. I have an old Presario that was tri-booting between Linux, Win98 and Windows 2000 for several years, but actually only ever running Windows 2000. I finally decided the registry just couldn't hack it anymore and it needed a clean swipe. If it was my work machine it would have been reinstalled a long time ago, but it's the family computer and it hasn't been a big priority.
...or not :)
Anyway, as if this story had any chance of getting interesting, I'll continue. Something happened to my Windows 2000 disk and it won't install. Call it karma, since my Windows 98 disk is one I actually bought off the shelf, believe it or not. So here I am actually bringing Windows 98 as up-to-date as is possible. Scary. I'm thinking of going out to buy XP later in the week to upgrade it, but it's only a K6 266 (with 384 MB of RAM... maxed-out, baby). I might actually need to buy the family a new computer.
Interestingly (yes, I'm actually continuing this drivel), I remembered last night what a hassle Windows can be, now that I've been a Mac OS X user for a couple of years. Motherboard video driver, monitor driver, oh yeah -- ethernet driver before anything else. This and that and the other. Hundreds of MB of downloads and a couple of dozen reboots so far, I guess. Yee-hah. Yes, it's my fault for still running an old computer with Windows 98. Anyway, worth a mention.
RP
It's good to see someone is still working on 98. I still have one machine left running Win98, but as it's hardly ever used I've never seen the point in shelling out for a more recent version.
Depending on what I hear from others who've tried the patch I might install it.
Microsoft will eventually abandon the Windows 9X platform, so they might as well release the source code or the full API list so some other company or organization can take it over. It is W2K/XP/2003 and above now. Soon to be only Longhorn.
:)
Someone else making security patches for the almost abandoned OS is a start.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I've tried this patch with mixed results:
On my main system (triple boot, XP Pro, 98Se, Mdk 10, a PIII 600 with 768MB RAM), the patch was a definite improvement, faster bootup, better USB and nicer (Win2000 ish) UI.
On my parents system (dual boot, 2000/98SE, PII 300), it screwed up 98 so badly that it wouldn't boot and so I had to reinstall.
So go figure.
I'd used the earlier 1.1 and 1.2 patches on my own system as well previously with success..
Linux fan and Win32 developer
The absolutely brilliant scheme Microsoft has come up with to date is product activation. When Windows XP goes off support in Dec 2006, you MUST upgrade if your PC gets hosed or you upgrade your hardware, because you won't be able to reinstall it. Of course, businesses are exempt (software activation not required for bulk purchases/installs), so there's little chance of backlash from the majority revenue markets. Us home users, on the other hand, are screwed.
Yeah, right.
I agree with what you've said here, but with a caveat that may seem obvious to some, not so to others: MOST big companies operate this way. Take for example the company I work for, which will remain unnamed here, but is a Fortune 500 company. The software we design is used in mission-critical systems as well as average not-so-critical situations. We routinely have hundreds of bugs that we know about, but choose not to fix. Why? Simply put, it's not profitable to fix them unless they rise to a level that threatens our revenue. Now that's not my decision, mind you, just the way things happen to be. I've got two friends who work at Microsoft, one of which works in an area dealing with OS bugs. Just before Win2K was released, I was sitting with him as he showed me the millions of bugs (yes, millions) that they (Microsoft) weren't going to fix... ostensibly for the same reason as my company.
I'm not saying that this is right, or we shouldn't strive to be better. It just sometimes gets old to hear "Microsoft bad" all of the time (and I'm not disagreeing) and not have the sort of group realization that, the way Microsoft operates is pretty much business-as-usual for most large corporations (and not just software corps).
That's why we need a strong regulatory climate (but not overly heavy-handed), and a market that takes care of the rest. And to all of those who say that Microsoft is too big to take down with just market-pressure, what about IBM? What about the little geek with an idea who juked one of the biggest companies in the world so bad they almost didn't recover? Someday... if the Linux idea keeps growing, it will reach a point where it too can do to Microsoft what Microsoft did to IBM.
Wow... looking back that that little rant, I seem to have wandered off the reservation. Hmmm... I wonder if I toss in a quick "Microsoft Bad" if it'll be enough to protect me from the inevitable flames?
"...The mice will see you now..."