Win 98 on newer PCs?


Recommended Posts

Hi,

I have a P 4 3.0 GHz with 896 MB RAM (1 GB shared), and Physical Address Extension. When I tried to install Win 98, it wouldn't install, and when I asked my computer guy about it, he said that in these new PCs, you can't install Win 98.

Is it true? And is there a way around it?

Thanx.

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/630856-win-98-on-newer-pcs/
Share on other sites

What would your chipset have to do with what software it can run?

Pretty sure DOS works fine on today's computers and Win98 is built on top of DOS.

It's not that his chipset can't run it, it's that windows 98 isn't compatible with his chipset! Everyone can run dos fine because it's running inside of something that is compatible with their chipset (ie, windows vista or XP).

Hi,

I have a P 4 3.0 GHz with 896 MB RAM (1 GB shared), and Physical Address Extension. When I tried to install Win 98, it wouldn't install, and when I asked my computer guy about it, he said that in these new PCs, you can't install Win 98.

Is it true? And is there a way around it?

Thanx.

what happen ? any error message ?

You'll be able to install it, no problems, but it's going to suck not having the correct drivers for your system.

That PC sounds like its about 4 Years old and thats when XP SP2 came out, and not many manufacturers were making anymore Win98 Drivers for their products anymore. So you're out of luck unless you can find the drivers for those components.

get either Vista or XP for the system dont bother with 98 cause 98se is not worth using

Every individual is different. You'd be amazed at how many people today still run Windows 95 or 98, both of which were released well over a decade ago. Especially among older people, even Win95 still runs just fine. It has a functional browser, can support an entire office suite, and even most modern software can still be installed on those old OS.

Just because you can't find a use for Win98 doesn't mean someone else can't.

I got the PC maybe five months back; I don't know the chipset, how do you find out. I ran dxdiag, and here's some info:

System Manufacturer: INTEL_

System Model: D11020M_

BIOS: Default System BIOS

Processor: Intel® Pentium® 4 CPU 3.00 GHz (2 CPUs)

Memory: 894 MB RAM

Page file: 776 MB used, 1389 MB available

My compu guy told me that Win 98 won't install at all on my compu. I already have XP SP 2; one of the reason why I want Win 98 is simply nostalgia, but apart from that, my XP (and I think everyone's XP) is slow, and I thought that for usual works like typing and all, I could use Win 98; that's how I ran my compu till I bought this new one.

So really, I want to install it; is there a way?

Thanx.

There's a large chance that you won't be able to load 98 on it. It often wont have driver support to work with any of the hardware, thus probably preventing you from using it.

The hotfixes to make it work with >512mb ram should still be available, but 98 has long since been unsupported.

If you have a real need to run it, I'd suggest using a Virtual Machine to do it instead.

Good luck!

It's not that his chipset can't run it, it's that windows 98 isn't compatible with his chipset! Everyone can run dos fine because it's running inside of something that is compatible with their chipset (ie, windows vista or XP).

there is no DOS in Vista or XP, the command pro,pt is not DOS.

Sometimes you have to update the bios in order to install different OS's. I had a system that I was trying to put Linux on and I couldn't install it for nothing. Read that something in the bios blocked Linux from being installed and I had to update it to run Linux on it. Installed fine after updating the bios.

The best thing to do though would be to run it in a virtual enviroment. That way if you have stuff that doesn't work with an older OS you still have XP right there and you don't have to go hunting to find all those little patches that make Windows 98 work on modern PC's.

Little side note for all those people with replies like: "LMAO at this" and "Why would you want that crap?". There are many, MANY people who still use Windows 95/98/ME. Older people who aren't hardcore PC users, businesses and schools still run them. I've seen more than a few ATM machines that run on Windows 98 actually. Hell, I got 2 older laptops that have 98 and ME installed on them still and I use them for older DOS games every once in a while and my little nephews are always on them to play older games as well. So stop acting like just because you don't use any of those old OS's then that means nobody else does either.

People who post responses like I mentioned should start getting warnings IMHO. They offer nothing to the thread except one more post to their precious post count.

Yeah, I'd go with what the previous people have just suggested using Virtual PC or VMware if they support it.

Honestly though, things will never seem as great as you may remember them being. I remember AOL and dial up being decent, Diablo having good graphics, and Warcraft II having a higher resolution than it actually does. Windows 98 is no different, being full of BSODs, viruses, and malware. Maybe not initially with viruses and malware, but it does not take long. On top of that, after having used an operating system with such time saving features and added customization, it's really hard to go back without saying things like,"Oh, I can't do that?" Hell, I remember doing the very same using 95 on my grandmother's computer after being on 98 so long.

Anyhow, you say XP runs slow? With the specs you listed, you should be doing just fine, as I'm running a 4 year old single-core machine @ 2Ghz.

Oh, I just want Win 98 to do typing stuff, not for games or anything. The only reason I want it is because whatever I do to tweak XP, Win 98 will still be faster. I don't plan to connect to the net at all with it. You all have spoken about a virtual environment; I have no idea about it; where do I get it?

I am posting a separate topic in the XP section, about my XP being slow, and more than slow, about it taking up the entire C:\ drive (10 GB) partition!

Thanx.

In that case, i'd suggest Windows 2000 and be done with it. I got it down to using 48mb of ram once too ;)

I did install Win 2000 once, but it wasn't as fast as Win 98, and I got rid of it; actually, it was on par with Win XP as far as speed is concerned.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • In what way is any of what I said incorrect? To install an update you need to close all browser instances, upping it from once a month to once a fortnight is an inconvenience for users. Particularly when updates don't offer functionality that users want (notably copilot). Security updates should come as they are needed, not on a release schedule
    • Dopamine 3.0.6 by Razvan Serea Dopamine is an awesome free audio player which tries to make organizing and listening to music as simple and pretty as possible. Dopamine has been designed for Windows 7, Windows 8.x and Windows 10 and plays mp3, ogg vorbis, flac, wma and m4a/aac music formats quite well. The best part? It's created by long-time Neowin member, Raphaël Godart. If you’re looking for a music player to handle a large music collection, you should definitely give Dopamine a try. Dopamine 3.0.6 changelog: Fixed Manually edited album covers are overwritten on the next collection refresh Fixed AppImage package not working on modern GNU/Linux distributions Deleting song from playlist sometimes fails Playback controls only work when clicking on upper half of the buttons It's unclear that files must be tagged with an external ReplayGain scanner (for example rsgain) before normalization can take effect. Change to Artist or Album tags is not reflected in the song list view nor in the Now Playing information ReplayGain issues Smart playlist filters ignore text containing accents or other special characters Some MP3 files trigger an "MPEG header not found" error due to a too-narrow initial MPEG header scan range Changed Updated the Vietnamese translation Download: Dopamine 3.0.6 | 122.0 MB (Open Source) Links: Home Page | Forum Discussion | Screenshot | Other OSes Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • BleachBit 6.0.1 Beta by Razvan Serea When your computer is getting full, BleachBit quickly frees disk space. When your information is only your business, BleachBit guards your privacy. With BleachBit you can free cache, delete cookies, clear Internet history, shred temporary files, delete logs, and discard junk you didn't know was there. Designed for Linux and Windows systems, it wipes clean thousands of applications including Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, and more. Beyond simply deleting files, BleachBit includes advanced features such as shredding files to prevent recovery, wiping free disk space to hide traces of files deleted by other applications, and vacuuming Firefox to make it faster. Better than free, BleachBit is open source. BleachBit has many useful features: Delete your private files so completely that "even God can't read them" according to South Carolina Representative Trey Gowdy. Simple operation: read the descriptions, check the boxes you want, click preview, and click delete. Multi-platform: Linux and Windows Free of charge and no money trail Free to share, learn, and modify (open source) No adware, spyware, malware, browser toolbars, or "value-added software" Translated to 64 languages besides American English Shred files to hide their contents and prevent data recovery Shred any file (such as a spreadsheet on your desktop) Overwrite free disk space to hide previously deleted files Portable app for Windows: run without installation Command line interface for scripting and automation CleanerML allows anyone to write a new cleaner using XML Automatically import and update winapp2.ini cleaner files (a separate download) giving Windows users access to 2500+ additional cleaners Frequent software updates with new features Going beyond standard deletion of files, BleachBit has several advanced cleaners: Clear the memory and swap on Linux Delete broken shortcuts on Linux Delete the Firefox URL history without deleting the whole file—with optional shredding Delete Linux localizations: delete languages you don't use. More powerful than localepurge and available on more Linux distributions. Clean APT for Debian, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Linux Mint Find widely-scattered junk such as Thumbs.db and .DS_Store files. Execute yum clean for CentOS, Fedora, and Red Hat to remove cached package data Delete Windows registry keys—often where MRU (most recently used) lists are stored Delete the OpenOffice.org recent documents list without deleting the whole Common.xcu file Overwrite free disk space to hide previously files Vacuum Firefox, Google Chrome, Liferea, Thunderbird, and Yum databases: shrink files without removing data to save space and improve speed Surgically remove private information from .ini and JSON configuration files and SQLite3 databases without deleting the whole file Overwrite data in SQLite3 before deleting it to prevent recovery (optional) BleachBit 6.0.1 Beta release notes: BleachBit 6.0.1 beta is now available for testing. This maintenance-focused release includes bug fixes, updated translations, and a range of safe enhancements. This release fixes a Windows security issue that could allow arbitrary file deletion during privileged cleaning (reported by Zeze with TeamT5). It also adds new cleaners (including a DNS cache cleaner, Claude Code, and Visual Studio Code forks), support for multiple Chrome and Edge profiles, new deep scan options for developer directories like node_modules and venv, and safer, faster file shredding. All Platforms Added cleaners for Claude Code, DNS cache, and many Visual Studio Code forks. Added support for multiple Chrome and Edge profiles. Chrome can now clean downloaded AI models. Deep Scan can optionally remove venv, __pycache__, node_modules, and .angular directories. Deep Scan is faster by skipping directories on the keep list. File shredding is safer, faster, and leaves fewer recoverable traces. Improved handling of cookies, symlinks, Unicode filenames, external processes, and configuration files. Improved Expert Mode warnings and long warning dialogs. Fixed crashes related to cleaner detection, invalid Unicode, and malformed cleaner data. Clipboard is now cleared automatically after shredding files via paste operations. Linux Added AppImage support. Added cleaners for Visual Studio Code, Codeium, Librewolf (.deb), Transmission (Flatpak), and Profanity. Improved Linux trash detection, including Snap-installed applications and mounted drives. Fixed Wayland root CLI issues and several Snap-related problems. Improved package dependencies, AppStream metadata, and desktop file handling. Fixed startup crashes when Python Requests is unavailable. Windows Fixed a security vulnerability that could allow arbitrary file deletion when cleaning with elevated privileges. Added %WindowsSystem% variable support. Improved clipboard clearing using native Windows APIs. Improved installer experience on unsupported Windows versions. Reduced installer size and improved application robustness. Fixed Unicode handling, filename anonymization, Git revision reporting, and splash screen stability. [full release notes] Download: BleachBit 6.0 | Portable | ~20.0 MB (Open Source) View: BleachBit Home page | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Month Later
      AndreaB earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Month Later
      agatameier earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      agatameier earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Week One Done
      ssd21345 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Contributor
      MarkHughes4096 went up a rank
      Contributor
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      516
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      193
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      147
    4. 4
      ATLien_0
      96
    5. 5
      Steven P.
      77
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!