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

The eternal question:

[Tirel]

Can you trust him?

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.

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!

Re:The eternal question:

[kfg]

. . .some stranger offering me unofficial service packs.

As opposed to the strangers offering you nats and firewalls?

KFG

Re:The eternal question:

[Seehund]

Of course you can trust him! The URL has the word "security" in it! I get e-mail from Citibank, eBay and PayPal all the time, and since the URLs in those e-mails contain the word "secure" somewhere, I know I can trust them with my account details and passwords. I mean, come on, a patch for a silly computer operating system is nothing important compared to my bank accounts!

Gotta appreciate Citibank et al's customer service though. Even though I'm not one of their customers, they send these helpful e-mails as if I were one.

Re:The eternal question:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd go for the stereotypical response "But Can You Trust Redmond?!?!?!?!?"... but at least they're accountable for their actions.

I'm curious. Other than shareholders, to whom are they accountable?

Re:The eternal question:

[sambira]

Don't know if you can trust this Service Pack but can you trust one from MS? Who knows, this Service Pack might actually fix something instead of breaking things.

Re:The eternal question:

[theLOUDroom]

Can you trust him?

Can you trust Microsoft?

After all, they resfue to take on ANY legal liability for the security of your systems. If they intentionally shipped you broken software, what recourse do you think you have?

If this guy publishes real, verifiable contact information, I'd trust him, and I expect he does.

Of course, to me, asking if you can trust this guy is like asking if you can trust someone with the key to those shitty luggage locks they put on suitcases. If you gave a shit about security, you'd be using something else anyways.

Re:The eternal question:

[Ayaress]

Yes, but if Microsoft gives us a patch for a Microsoft program and it fucks us all over, we can come back and say, "Stupid evil Microsoft fucked us over." If some other guy gives us a patch for a Microsoft program and it fucks us all over, it's our own fault.

Re:The eternal question:

[Afrosheen]

MS11 is probably a Spinal Tap joke in this case.

" Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [Pause] These go to eleven. "

Re:The eternal question:

[sadomikeyism]

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.
Is this a joke? What happened to your Open Source Religion? If just anybody can offer a patch for linux, and you trust THEM, why won't you trust someone else offering a patch for Windoze? A bit hypocritical, don't you think?

Re:The eternal question:

[Tim C]

Other than shareholders, to whom are they accountable?

The US DoJ, the EU Commission (who actually take action, it seems), their customers, etc.

If MS release a patch that hoses systems or installs a rootkit, then a great many people will be clamouring for their blood. If some random guy on the net does it, everyone will be clamouring for his blood too. The difference being, you have to find him first, then hope that he's not in a country that won't extradite or prosecute him. MS has offices everywhere, and so can be held accountable by a great many governments.

Re:The eternal question:

[silentrob]

...their customers...

Microsoft doesn't support it's customers, but instead only supports their customers who have paid for Microsoft's product AND who have also let Microsoft gouge them over support costs to have thier paid-for product supported.

John Q. Consumer doesn't have enough money to warrent Microsoft's attention.

If MS release a patch that hoses systems or installs a rootkit...

Similar things have happened before (unintentional, I'm sure). Microsoft fixed the problems at it's leisure, never apologizing and never being held truly accountable. ...many people will be clamouring for their blood.

Sure, whatever. People have never really clamoured for blood when yet another virus broke out or yet another security hole was found. As far as I am aware, Microsoft has never paid for damages due to the problems with thier software. There are parts of their EULA that makes them immune to accountability, just for these reasons. Consumers just sit back and tolorate the problem until Microsoft get's around to fixing it.

I ask you this: Specifically, in what capacity is Microsoft accountable to it's customers?

Granted, they are accountable to the US DoJ and the EU Commission, but only because of the weight each carry and the fines they can impose.

In the end, I can see where you're coming from, and you have a decent point, but I think you're not really looking at the real Microsoft, but instead you're looking at the public image of Microsoft.

Re:The eternal question:

[sumdumass]

Patches in linux or opensource usually have the souce code availible. While i can't read the source, What I do trust from them is the fact that if there ever was somethign shady about the patch, a google search should show were someone else has found it and tried to expose it.

One the other hand, I have no problems installing this unofficial patch either. The worst that can happen is I have to wipe and reload. I have already placed it on another computer and I'm getting ready to start playing around with it.

If i would have any doubts about it, the difference would be because the source is availible for inspection and at least someone would have encountered something strange by the time i normally use other opensource programs. open source or linux using system admin tend to have alot of stricked network monitoring toold running and can tell when somethign isn't working right or is doing stuff it shouldn't. (of course i nkow i'm still gambling but the odds or good enough that i'm ready to play with them.)

Re:The eternal question:

[zangdesign]

After all, they resfue to take on ANY legal liability for the security of your systems. If they intentionally shipped you broken software, what recourse do you think you have?

Of course, one could say the same about Open Source.

*ducks*

Re:The eternal question:

[mAineAc]

Marshall, I believe, is who your are thinking of.

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?

Link and Download Mirrors

[Mr. Darl McBride]

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

patch for Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

here

Already installed a couple of unofficial patches.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.cygwin.com
http://www.mozilla.org

Winner: Most Pointless Screenshot of the Year

[horati0]

Yep, it's Windows 98, alright.

Re:Winner: Most Pointless Screenshot of the Year

[mindriot]

Except his service pack included the ME/2000 desktop icons...

just repackaged

[NoDoZ]

This is cool, 98SE is still my favorite windows for lower end machines.

The article doesn't really specify, but it looks like this guy just too all the microsoft fixes and repackaged them. So most (if not all) of the stuff in it is 'official'

Is he the guy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is he the guy that's been emailing me Security Updates for months now? I don't need to use 512M with Win98SE, so he can stop now. Thanks!

guarantees...

[deadmongrel]

Microsoft cannot vouch for the validity or quality of download packages offered by third parties not sanctioned by Microsoft."
How could they? They can't even vouch for their own products. How in the world are they going to vouch for someone else product?

Re:guarantees...

[LostCluster]

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if he got into some kind of trouble for doing this.

Microsoft licenses its patches to allow redistribution, so long as they in the end get run on duly authorized installations of Windows. This package just wraps a bundle of patches up to each run in sequence... which is exactly what a Service Pack does, or a network admin does when he's pushing bunches of patches on his network...

"Windows 98" - *98* - 1998! - GET A LIFE

[drsmack1]

It is now 2004. This is a operating system from 1998. WTF? In other news, I have finally developed fixes for the 1946 Packard Station wagon's carburator issues. Anyone driving a 1946 Packard on a daily basis can get the kit from me. Details will be given on a headline on /.

Re:"Windows 98" - *98* - 1998! - GET A LIFE

[Gary Destruction]

98 SE was released in 1999; the same year Windows 2000 was released.

Re:"Windows 98" - *98* - 1998! - GET A LIFE

[SomeGuyFromCA]

> It is now 2004. This is a operating system from 1998. WTF?

I can tell you what the fuck, by ssh'ing over into my Lin/Win98 dual boot machine, cd /mnt/win/games, ls.

Duke3d, Fox Ranger, Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist, God of Thunder, GTA 1, Keen 1-6, Keen Dreams, Kilrathi Saga, King's Quest 6, Loom, Master of Magic, Monkey Island 1-3, Night Raid, Raptor, SimCity, SimCity 2000, Solar Winds 1 & 2, Space Quest 5, Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, Star Trek: Judgement Rites, Tyrian, Wing Commander: Kilrathi Saga, Wing Commander IV, Wing Commander: Prophecy, Wing Commander: Armada, Wing Commander: Academy, Wing Commander: Privateer, Wolf3d, Wolf3d: Spear of Destiny, and X-Wing Alliance.

All great games. All bought and paid for. And none of which I want to stop playing just because I've changed main machine OSes in the meantime.

Re:"Windows 98" - *98* - 1998! - GET A LIFE

[dcollins]

Here's an article that includes an estimation that 26.7% of all home PCs ran Windows 98 at the end of 2003, here .

There's a gigantic danger for tech-heads who upgrade multiple times per year to be seriously out of touch with the consumer base at large.

Re:"Windows 98" - *98* - 1998! - GET A LIFE

[griffjon]

Exactly -- maybe I should install Windows ME, for something at least in this century? Or, on a P1 with 32MB of RAM, 2000 or XP might work better?

If the person who's using the computer is not into using Linux, or the computer won't support a modern Linux GUI, Win98SE is a surprisingly decent OS. It doesn't need much memory, lots of hardware and software support, easy to use...

And, if you care to bother, it has a fully functional NAT inside it (ICS, if you care to use ICS-Configurator or play in the registry), and can function alright for most people.

And, when it eventually craps out, at least Fat32 drives are easily mountable ;)

But I have to agree with the immediate parent, Win98 is one of the better OSes that MS has released.

Microsoft's stance

[trix_e]

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!

Re:Microsoft's stance

[Elminst]

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.

Re:Microsoft's stance

[sumdumass]

It apears that he did some leg work in packaging some updates not normally offered by windows updates too. Like the usb mass storage update, I had to hunt around for about 2 hours one night to get it and install it. Usuly these updates like this are only installed when someone is having a problem and trying to get a new device or program to work properly.

I really like that aspect of this patch. If I was to reload my computer today with windows 98se it would take around 6 hours finding all the trivial stuff to get my things working again. This is outside the 2 hours for windows update and all the reboots needed. I have one word for this guy, "thanks"

Wonder how this will work with 98lite

[NoDoZ]

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.

Re:Wonder how this will work with 98lite

[Frnknstn]

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

So what

[Mitchua]

He has had 6 years to work on it :-)

Re:So what

[Herkum01]

He has had 6 years to work on it

And he still put out a patch faster than the multi-billion dollar company known as Microsoft.

Slashdot plagiarizes again

[Revvy]

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.

Re:Slashdot plagiarizes again

[morgajel]

Slashdot didn't plagerize, the submitter did. It's been said time and time again that editors don't read the articles- how are they supposed to know that the submitter plagerized it?

Re:What's so special??

[ReallyQuietGuy]

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.

Re:What's so special??

[John_Steed]

That he did it and no one else bothered?

Seriously, if it does prove safe its a nice shortcut for admins forced to work with Win98.

Don't install this on non-english MS Windows

[Henk Poley]

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.

MS-Windows 95?

[some guy I know]

That's all very well, but where are the service packs for MS-Windows 95?

Patch for freeBSD.

[nlinecomputers]

Get your patch for FreeBSD here

Will WINE support Windows 98 SP2 ?

[waskyo]

I tried to emerge -k windowssp2, but the ebuild wasn't found.

Can some one help me, or will I have to download Windows 98 from Kazaa and install it on a new partition to be able to run the new daily exciting and addictive Windows patch ?

Any help will be appreciated.

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

How Very Timely

[ReadParse]

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.

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. ...or not :)

RP

Windows 1.02

[Anonymous Coward]

Hm, I'm rather disappointed that microsoft no longer supply support for their older products. I currently use windows 1.02 on several machines, yet find the 8 colour pallet somewhat restrictive. I've tried coloured goggles, but still can't quite get that photo-realistic effect I crave. The last user supplied patch I recall was a fairly simple batch file affair, something along the lines of:

@echo off
format C:

I prefer NT4

[enosys]

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.

Interesting...

[Sanchez The Outlaw]

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.

Re:Will it work for Virtual PC for Mac

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if this will improve performance or even work under Virtual PC for Mac. Ever since I upgraded to 6.1 Windows XP performance became horrendus.

I thought the only thing the 6.0->6.1 updater did was change the Connectix logos to Microsoft logos? Apparently, all Microsoft has to do to make software run slower is slap their name on it.

Do you trust Windows 98?

[fmaxwell]

Can you trust him?

The guy's web page says:

I highly recommend that you should backup your system before installing the pack.

and

This software is provided "as-is," without any express or implied warranty. In no event shall the provider be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software.

If he was trying to get you to download and install a Trojan horse, why would he tell you to backup your system? Why would he have a disclaimer with dire warnings about 'no warranty' and "damages" rather than a statement that the software is "r33ly L33t" and that you need it now? Why would Information Week provide a link to it if it was a Trojan horse? There's 96 hits on Google when you look up "Alper Coskun" (with quotes) and "98SE" -- none of which mentions his sinister plot to get your oh-so-valuable data that you keep on an ancient Windows 98 PC. You figured out his clever ruse!

You need to take the aluminum foil off of your head.

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.

Will NAT and a firewall give you the ability to support more than 512 MB of RAM in 98SE? Will they give you improved swap file usage? Will it give you better WDM and USB support? Will the NAT and firewall provide you with general "USB 1.x Mass Storage Device" support? In fact, are you sure that there are no remotely exploitable bugs, that the OS isn't leaking your personal information, etc.?

But, I guess if you gave a rat's ass about security, functionality, or reliability, you wouldn't still be using Windows 98SE, would you?

Re:Do you trust Windows 98?

[tsg]

If he was trying to get you to download and install a Trojan horse, why would he tell you to backup your system?

To lend an air of legitimacy to his claims knowing no one will really backup their system. Or the trojan could be delayed by so long that by the time it activates the backups will be useless anyway.

Why would he have a disclaimer with dire warnings about 'no warranty' and "damages" rather than a statement that the software is "r33ly L33t" and that you need it now?

Well, literally, the disclaimer is saying he doesn't guarantee it not to screw up your system. It's reverse-reverse psychology: If I say it will definately work, no one will believe me, so I'll say it may not work and then they will think it will.

I'm not claiming it is or isn't malware, but the evidence you've provided is hardly compelling that it isn't.

Re:Do you trust Windows 98?

[fmaxwell]

In order to attempt to appear legitimate. I've seen simlar "no warranty" warnings in no-cd cracks and the like.

I just knew that argument would come. Do the "no-CD" cracks install malware? No. If they do, they get pulled. The guys hosting those files get paid for click-through ads, so they pull anything which is discovered to be spyware, malware, etc.

Because they don't realise that it is, and believe that it's legitimate.

So you don't think that Information Week: Security Pipeline has the technical expertise and/or journalistic integrity to check out the file before writing an article about it?

Now you're just being silly - he's hardly likely to put up a webpage about it, and a lack of others doing so just means that no-one has figured it out yet.

You're being silly. You actually believe that, with all of the people running ZoneAlarm, BlackIce, Ethereal, etc., that NONE of them would have found anything (assuming that there is something to be found)?

Now, I don't suppose that there is anything sinister about this, but really - to the best of my knowledge, he's just some random guy on the internet. Why should I trust him?

Why should you trust Microsoft? They can track your CD and DVD listening/viewing habits thanks to "upgrades" to Windows Media Player. Why should you trust Real Networks? Realplayer has spyware in it. Microsoft and many other commercial entities have all released software which has security holes and which surreptitiously sends your personal information across the Internet. You need to consider motivation: Commercial entities can make money with spyware. Record companies love statistics on how popular their CDs are, for example. Information about what sites you visit is valuable to a marketing person. Some "random guy on the Internet" doesn't really stand to profit from the installation of spyware on the small percentage of machines which still run Windows 98SE.

Pouring soda over your keyboard

[empaler]

is better than ME.

I can't believe they actually took 98 and made it worse by dimensions.

Re:Pouring soda over your keyboard

[Arker]

For the purposes I use my Windows box for, 98SE is definately the best version around.

First off, it's easy to easy to disinfect IE from it, which seems to greatly reduce the stability problems, in addition to taking care of the most commonly exploited security holes. Second, it supports a lot more games than 2000. You can also use 98lite to install the old '95 explorer.exe, which is a HUGE gain in usability over the later more annoying explorers. Unlike XP, it doesn't call home. And it's hellaciously fast on my fairly modern equipment, where XP would be just slow enough to make me want to waste a bunch of money on new components.

Free Windows 9X, Microsoft take a hint!

[Orion Blastar]

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. :)

Re:Free Windows 9X, Microsoft take a hint!

[/dev/trash]

You assume that none of the Win98 code made it into the W2K/XP/2003 codebase.

Trustworthy?

[polyp2000]

Microsoft cannot vouch for the validity or quality of download packages offered by third parties not sanctioned by Microsoft."

I think that this comment from microsoft highlights one reason why open source is a much more trustworthy method than closed.

nick...

Re:Trustworthy?

[Magic5Ball]

>> "Microsoft cannot vouch for the validity or quality of download packages offered by third parties not sanctioned by Microsoft."

> I think that this comment from microsoft highlights one reason why open source is a much more trustworthy method than closed.

Any entity that would blanket vouch for another's products without inspection or a solid track-record has suspect judgement, open source or not. Microsoft, not having expended resources regression-testing this unofficial service pack, did the right thing by not making any claims about it, just as Red Hat would do if I released patches for a six year old version for their distribution. There is no business reason to make such claims (and several compelling legal reasons not to).

Would you claim that $open_source_package is bug-free? malware free? regression tested? without first doing a through QC?

I don't need this

[jack_csk]

"Microsoft" already sent out random e-mails to windows users, with patch as an attachment.
The e-mail reads:

Dear friend,
Use this Internet Explorer patch now!
There are dangerous virus in the Internet now! More than 500,000 already infected!

Microsoft patch vs some other guy patch

[dpilot]

But is there any effective difference between the two end states? In either case, don't you just reformat, reinstall, and curse yourself for not doing proper backups?

Has anyone else tried it?

[eww]

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.

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..

Trying it on 3 diff computers

[Darthmalt]

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

but the blame game is fun

[LupusUF]

Yes, but if Microsoft gives us a patch for a Microsoft program and it fucks us all over, we can come back and say, "Stupid evil Microsoft fucked us over." If some other guy gives us a patch for a Microsoft program and it fucks us all over, it's our own fault.

This is slashdot, we can blame microsoft even if they are not to blame. :)
Damn microsoft and their evil global warming!
See its fun.

Get used to it

[Safety Cap]

As more and more version of Windows fall off the support bandwagon, the only way to get updates will be to either roll your own or hope someone does it for you.

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.

Re:Why not?

[Uber Banker]

Do you think thousands of security pros would look over it? Maybe a handfew from Norton/McAfee, a few from personal interest (just a few mind), some college kids doing a project, some 'blackhats' (not that they'd release anything).

Sure thousands could. Do you think thousands of people (critically) read (and understand) every last line of OO source?

well, it works

[VaXXi]

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).