why is windows98se a pain in the you know what?

[alpha]

Simple soloution;
Install Debian!

[Mntsnow]

Well I answered your questions over in the OS thread http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif I have not had a bit of problem with Win98 or win98se installs. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif Sorry to hear you have had so much pain http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif

Mntsnow

[deep_sky]

alpha..if you can tell me where to get a free copy of it, then i might consider running an alternative os....

[medo]

Hello,

I installed WIN98SE three times in two weeks and all of them went without a problem (I'm not in love with Bill).
It recognises everything without a problem.
Small problems were only with internet sharing. USB was OK.

Medo

http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[pickel]

I had the same problem with my USB Iomega
100Mb Zip drive. Everytime I restarted my computer the icon would disappear unless I had a disc inserted into the drive and had the drive energized before I booted my computer. Then, finally, it got where it wouldn't recognise it at all. Tried several re-installs of Iomega software. No luck. Finally had to format and reistall Win 98 4.10.1998 after deleting Win 98 2nd edt. and have had no problems since. I hope this of some help...

[Richard_Cranium72]

Am I being overly simplistic to ask if you tried the MS patch for usb support at Windows Update? Forget exactly where it is but I think it's under one of the y2k items. DrVette

[ENVY]

It does do a decent job of plug and pray, but if you are around it a lot you will see horrific networking and dial-up networking problems that the only fix for is to reformat. This is the suggestion for the fix of workstation seeing the network but no other workstations can see it! or vice versa or the auto ip assignment getting stuck on. Microsoft says reformat. Or how about the modem will pick up but refuses to dial,passes all diags, just won't dial.REFORMAT!
These and several other types of problems are known issues in 98se that seem to be registry related. So it might work now,but the problem can appear on its own. Microsoft says that even a manual repair in regedit does not seem to fix these problems, but can make them worse.
I myself have found 98 to be more stable than se,but 95c is the slickest,fastest of the win os's. Ya just have to install your own hardware drivers.

[oblivion]

deep sky,win2k is not a solution to your woes,it will be much harder to use then win98
,in fact win2k is simply the new version of NT,with a little more win98 ease of use features,many people seem to have a misconception that they will install win2k and be a stable gaming fool,but it is not true in fact there are hardly any games that officially work on win2k,and even less drivers for hardware.Yes you may be able to get some stuff to work on it,but it will not be easy and the perforance will generally be worse then win98.

[Jinx67]

Windows biggest downfall is in the fact that it attempts to be all things to all people. I cant tell you how long it took me to whittle Win98 down it,s current 68 meg size A whole lot of trial and error and reinstalls, but it was worth the effort. Its actually a pretty stable OS once you take out the trash. So the only advice I can give is keep plugging at it. " And under no circumstances delete Rundll32" Thats a whole different post under the "Dont's" section lol http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif.

[deep_sky]

i have done so much reg editing and reg cleaning it has become second nature. but it just was not happing, installed all drivers, controllers, patches and anything else and no go, so i got pissed and got out the boot disk and put the wrath of fdisk and reformat upo my comp...i have finally gotten everything working now, but what a hassle.

oblivion, i am not die-hard gamer, so games are not that important to me. i work with nt at work now (terminal server with 64 megs on a server can be trying), but i am getting user to the nt environment, and prefer it in some respects. 'sides, i just want to try it if i can...if not i won't lose sleep over it http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[oblivion]

you can always dual boot.........

[deep_sky]

i got sickntired of not being able to access my usb zip so i formatted my hard drive and reinstalled windows, which did fix the problem. However, I do not have a network neighborhood icon, some things are missing from my system tools, and other small things are gone as well? i did the install the exact same way as the last time and things are different. Has anyone noticed that windows installs are different everytime??

[oblivion]

Cause it is a patch over a hack.
Also if you did install the se upgrade,you should have done it over a very fresh install. I have had nothing but trouble wity
SE,and almost everything that is on SE you can get from windows update.

[deep_sky]

nope no upgrade...started out with a formatted drive with nothing on it, and installed win98se....i am thinking about win2k....getting tired of win98 being a pain all the time...there is always something complaining....sigh....

[alien_from_io]

The Win98/95/NT depate will undoubtedly go on forever. Deep Sky, are you using a Win98 generic disc or is it one of the "corporate" discs(HP,IBM,Compaq)these seem more problematic than the generic ones. I've had very little problems with my 98generic or the three upgrades that I've bought(Win3.1/95 to Win98) Also on the deletion of items, I've had very poor luck doing so even with aftermarket programs such as McAfee or Remove-it98. It seems that they drag out some critical file even if you mark "no to all" then you can't find the lost file on the "Corporate" discs.. am I drivelling again? Take me to your leader.

[deep_sky]

alien..
nope got a generic disc....i hate how windows says to insert the disk to copy a file, and then can never find the file on the disk...how dumb.....

[RobRich]

deep_sky, if you have some serious bandwidth, check out www.linux.org (http://www.linux.org) . This has links to the most popular linux distributions, plus the accessablity to download them. The best release for first time users yould be RedHat or Mandrake. Mandrake is basically RH with a few more options.

I happen to like Slackware, since it seems to have better performance, but its installation can be very frustrating and difficult for first time users. You might also want to check out WinLinux 2000 Beta. It comes with a complete installer that will allow you to install it on FAT32 drive (no repartitioning) and comes with a nice defualt configuration. It also loads the appropriate drivers for your hardware, and is easy to use. The download is also mauch smaller, since it doesn't include all the extra's such as programming compilers, web servers, and other items most users never need. It does include networking options, X-Windows, and the KDE desktop manager. Here's the link: www.winlinux2000.com (http://www.winlinux2000.com)

[This message has been edited by RobRich (edited 02-06-2000).]

[deep_sky]

that is what i would want to do, although if anyone has a free copy of rh linux to send me, triple boot could be option too...