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. "

Comments

Re:The eternal question:

[Mr. Darl McBride]

I don't know about you, but I'll rather be keeping my win98 systems safely protected behind nat and a strict firewall than trusting some stranger offering me unofficial service packs.

Most of what he's done is to update libraries. You can find byte-for-byte identical ones in newer releases of the OS and VS/VB libraries. As far as the rest goes, it's not just security. It adds things like the newer start menu, support for >512 megs, and better USB support.

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!

New Alt. for Virtual PC

[artlu]

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

I've tried it with mixed results...

[mike_diack]

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..

Re:The eternal question:

[Some Clown]

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?