OT: Win98se/ME support lifetime extended by Microsoft

[Darthy]

I actually started the download of BeOS yesterday and then cancelled
it because I figured I would hardly use it. I see it's under 300mb so
I may still download it another day.

There is a mini-version that creates a software partition... quite
old, but about 70mb. A more advanced interface compared to WinXP -
but not as colorful (BeOS was designed in the mid 90s)

I ended up installing WinME so
now I have Win98SE, WinME, XP and Mandrake 9.2 all on their own HDD's.

WinMe is for????

Mandrake 9.2 is pissing me off though because it doesn't support the
wheel on my wireless Logitech mouse and when I try to play a music cd
I get no sound but when I startx up the Arts sound module loads and I
get the drum roll sound so my soundcard (Audigy2) is working. I've
looked at all the mixer settings and can't see a problem. I go through
this every time with Linux, so many things just don't work as well as
they do in Windows and all I end up using Linux for is a curiosity
item and some web browsing.

Thats not a "Linux" problem, more of Creative Labs problem of not
providing proper drivers or information for others to develop them.

 

[Darthy]

Unreal 2 isn't one of the "latest" games, not by far. It's been out
for a year, hasn't it ? Didn't it come out just after DirectX 9 ?

Unreal2 comes with DX9... yeah its almost year old. It and UT2 have
lots of details of a modern game.

The date of my U2 files say "1/30/2003"
I'm talking about drek like DX2, Halo, and slow (but very pretty) non
drek like Far Cry.

Halo is not a modern game, it a converted DX8 game developed for the
POS X-box. Its graphics ability isn't even close to UT2003/U2.

I want to see how AMD64 fares with the new PCI express and the DDR2
standards later this year, and the socket format wars....

AMD kinda fubared the socket situation a bit. But it may work out...
They are sellings failed AMD64s and AMD-XP32bit. So they may leave
the Socket 75x for the low end, replacing SocketA. Socket 940 =
Opteron. The AMD64 FX51 is a slightly different version of the
Opteron.. So they want the powerhouse version of desktop to not
support multi-CPU setups. They shouldn't have bothered with Socket
939... thats whats screwing people up.

But hey, the P5 will have its own socket/board setup as well... so its
not much of an issue.

 

[Flow]

XP is stable, no argument. However, I've had installs of 98*SE* that have
been just as stable, and a shit-load faster. Just a few tweaks is all it
takes, fixed swap-file, a few others and it's a damn good OS. Far better
than 98FE or ME. I've even installed 98SE on an nForceII 400 Ultra chipset
mobo with integrated everything, no problems at all. It's been running three
months and not one BSOD.

that the new pair of shoes is made from the old shoes material.

 

[Xocyll]

Pretty naive since every hardware comes with the needed drivers.Full
potential?

I can only assume you've never bought anything but retail boxed
hardware.
Lots of OEM stuff comes without drivers.

That said, you can usually find the drivers needed in a short time.
Most companies are still supporting win98se because they know lots of
people are still using it.
Assuming everyone upgrades right away is a good way to put yourself out
of business.

Microsoft is the only one that figured it would die just because they
said it was time, and even they changed their tune.

I still use 98se, it's nice and fast and stable.
It didn't _come_ that way, it took tweaking, since MS defaults are the
most ungodly "feature" laden, unstable mess possible.

Xocyll

 

[McCrack]

Win98se and WinME? Sounds like a waste of a hard drive to me. Practically
the same OS but with a GUI update.

Ben

Yea, but I now have 320gb of hdd space for games.
I would rather have a copy of Win2000pro though but that will cost me
money.

 

[McCrack]

*And* a stability downgrade.

So some people say but I have installed ME to two systems now and see
no evidence to support that claim. And ME has system restore which
Win98SE doesn't.

 

[McCrack]

Yeah, I had my machine dual-booting XP and Man 9.2 for a while but, even
though I got all my devices working correctly, Man was just a novelty for
me. A few months later I reformatted and claimed the space for XP. What can
I say? I'm a gamer and until there is a viable alternative OS to MS products
for games or games are retro-ported to Linux (like, how could they do that?
I still play a lot of 'older' games) I'm stuck with the Evil Empire.

Yes, I agree. I've got my sound and mouse working properly now in
Mandrake and it's good for things like using the internet (IRC I won't
even use on a Windows system), ripping music cd's, office apps etc.

 

[McCrack]

There is a mini-version that creates a software partition... quite
old, but about 70mb. A more advanced interface compared to WinXP -
but not as colorful (BeOS was designed in the mid 90s)

I'll think about it.

WinMe is for????

More games, and just because I had a copy to use. This way I'm not
breaking any Microsoft EULA by installing Win98SE to two HDD's.

Thats not a "Linux" problem, more of Creative Labs problem of not
providing proper drivers or information for others to develop them.

I've got the Audigy2 working ok now. Can play music cd's using Totem
but it crashed when I tried to play a DVD. Already installed all the
updates available too.

 

[~misfit~]

So some people say but I have installed ME to two systems now and see
no evidence to support that claim. And ME has system restore which
Win98SE doesn't.

It does if you use "GoBack" (Roxio?). Apparently far superior to system
restore. I got it on a mobo CD. Works really well.

 

[McCrack]

It does if you use "GoBack" (Roxio?). Apparently far superior to system
restore. I got it on a mobo CD. Works really well.

I have Roxio GoBack on a Norton System Works Pro disk but have never
installed it. But the system restore in ME and XP is by Roxio so how
is GoBack better?

 

[Bill Seurer]

I have Roxio GoBack on a Norton System Works Pro disk but have never
installed it. But the system restore in ME and XP is by Roxio so how
is GoBack better?

When Microsoft sticks those things into Windows they put in a stripped
down version, kind of like the built-in Save/Restore or the "Firewall"
in Windows/XP.

 

[McCrack]

When Microsoft sticks those things into Windows they put in a stripped
down version, kind of like the built-in Save/Restore or the "Firewall"
in Windows/XP.

OK, I'll install GoBack to Win98SE and see how it is. Thx.

 

[~misfit~]

OK, I'll install GoBack to Win98SE and see how it is. Thx.

Yeah, what Bill said. GoBack was in the "Best Software 2003" category in the
magazine I think is the best and most accurate.

 

[Andrew]

More games, and just because I had a copy to use. This way I'm not
breaking any Microsoft EULA by installing Win98SE to two HDD's.

I wouldn't have thought there is a problem with separate installs, as
long as you don't use them concurrently.

 

[Joachim Trensz]

Darthy wrote:

....

Er... dont count on it. In the past 12 months, driver support and
patches have gone down hill big time.

I can't confirm that. Everything I have has been getting updated WinME
drivers released together with the 2k/XP drivers every time new drivers
were released.

Achim

 

[Joachim Trensz]

Rudolph McCrack wrote:

....

And you seem to forget that XP is based on the NT OS and not the
Dos/Win3.1 OS as Win98 is. XP is *much* better than Win9x in the
stability area.

I wouldn't agree to what you're saying about stability where WinME is
concerned. I've been using both WinME and W2k since they've been
released, and both systems have been stable for me, to the extent that
I've forgotten what a blue screen looks like - no kidding or bragging
intended, it's really worked this way for me.

W2k has a clearly better Network stack, but in terms of stability, it
can't get much better than what I've seen from WinME.

Achim

 

[Joachim Trensz]

Darthy wrote:

....

Yeah, WinXP sucks at a completly different level. XP does some cool
things (And Im using it right now)... here is the ONLY reason I use
WinXP.

1 - Driver support (win98 driver support is now shit)
2 - Proper Memory support above 512mb.
3 - Proper support for HDs over 130GB
4 - Memory mangement.

Having a stable system is important, new hardware is blowing chunks on
Win98 nowadays. other than that, I prefer the reliablity of Windows98
being easily accessable in case of failure (the way WinXP is not) and
the activation issues.

I've been using WinME and W2k ever since they were released and found
WinME to be very stable and quite good. W2k's memory management is
better, but WinME does work perfectly stable with 1GB of RAM here. I
like W2k's network functions better, they're easier to handle, and it is
a bit better in several ways than WinME, but for games, ME is still
faster, and that's an important argument.

Achim

 

[Joachim Trensz]

McCrack wrote:

....

So some people say but I have installed ME to two systems now and see
no evidence to support that claim. And ME has system restore which
Win98SE doesn't.

I'll confirm any day that WinME is a very stable OS.

Achim

 

[Ben Pope]

Yea, but I now have 320gb of hdd space for games.

So uninstall ME or 98se and claim some more...

I would rather have a copy of Win2000pro though but that will cost me
money.

And then I'd say:

"Win2K and WinXP? Sounds like a waste of a hard drive to me. Practically
the same OS but with a GUI update"



Ben

 

[Ben Pope]

Rudolph McCrack wrote:

...

I wouldn't agree to what you're saying about stability where WinME is
concerned. I've been using both WinME and W2k since they've been
released, and both systems have been stable for me, to the extent that
I've forgotten what a blue screen looks like - no kidding or bragging
intended, it's really worked this way for me.

But if one application goes it can still take the OS with it... If an
application messes with the hardware it can take the OS with it... of
course, if you always use stable applications it doesn't matter, but in my
experience of Win2K, a crashing application practically never affects even
one other application, let alone the OS.

Ben