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> From the user perspective, almost the only differences... From this user's perspective, Win98SE was far more stable and configurable, had vastly superior dri

> From the user perspective, almost the only differences... From this user's perspective, Win98SE was far more stable and configurable, had vastly superior driver support and ran more types of software better. It was fantastic for everything from internet to audio editing to gaming at a time when I was doing a lot of tinkering. I struggle to think of specifics now, but I know that when I was using it a lot I ran across numerous things I valued that I couldn't do on Win95. > Windows 98 probably had a longer lifespan than 95 did? It definitely did in my experience and that of several tech-inclined folks I was adjacent to. In households with kids who paid attention to details like which OS was running, I suspect greater numbers of those kids were exposed to 98 than 95.

lproven 5y ago
[Article author here] > From this user's perspective, Win98SE was far more stable and configurable, > had vastly superior driver support and ran more types of software better. I worked with it, installed it and supported it at the time, and it really really wasn't. Serious business users ran NT 4. In the trade we nicknamed W98 as GameOS.
- muststopmyths 5y ago
  I think they're saying compared to Win95, not NT.
  - lproven 5y ago
    Yeah, I know, I got that! :-) I didn't put in a lot of Win95, because it was before I went freelance. Then my work box ran NT 3.51, but a lot of the office ran W95 and I had to support it. So I did get quite a lot of experience on it. Later on, though, I put in W98 & W98SE for people with cheap & nasty PCs that couldn't run NT, and I supported a lot of boxes that were out there. It did have somewhat better driver support, yes, but every version of Windows ever has had better driver support than the preceding version. It was not significantly more stable, and on low-end or heavily-loaded boxes, I'd say _less_ stable. More types of software? About the same, I'd say. Better? On a narrow range of hardware, maybe -- things were changing fast then and by '99 or so new kit couldn't run 95 any more. It was a gamers' OS. The much-maligned WinME had better hardware support still -- for example, proper working Firewire support -- but by then everyone hated it. After a few updates it was a very stable release, it looked nice, it was a bit cleaner and faster to boot and to shut down, and it supported more memory. There was a particular period when very cheap, or old, PCs couldn't usefully run Win2K let alone XP, which really wanted 256MB of RAM or more, a big fast DMA EIDE or UltraIDE hard disk and so on, when WinME could deliver a decent internet experience on a single-core box with between about 80 to 128 MB of RAM on the low end to say 192 MB on the high end -- kit which gave a rotten experience with 2K or XP. But 98 wasn't a particularly sweet spot in my recollection.
    - muststopmyths 5y ago
      fair enough. I guess I misunderstood your response :)
- tssva 5y ago
  I supported a lot of large enterprise and government clients around that time. Almost all of them ran Windows 98 on their desktops. I didn't see much penetration of the NT platform on the desktop until Windows 2000 and even then it was by far the minority. The NT platform didn't really take over the desktop in the enterprises I supported until Windows XP.
  - lproven 5y ago
    Remarkable. That's pretty much the opposite of my experience. In 1993 I worked in the City of London, where NT 3.1 was used in production, because it was so much better than Windows 3.1 -- even for Windows 3.1 apps. By 1995, I tried to get people to use NT 3.51 in magazine production, but the GUI put them off. NT 4 fixed that, and it took off very well for everyone except cheapskates with rubbish PCs.
    - fuzzfactor 5y ago
      Deeply misguided commenter here. That doesn't hurt my feelings, I resemble that remark. I've confused people even worse, at more inopportune times, too. This time of course it was about Linux more so than Windows and my suggestion that orgs that have always used Windows can make a significant step toward everyday Linux by first using Linux only for the internet and continue to use Windows for everything else. Similar to the way small offices which had no early need for networking first got one dedicated PC for web use when they decided to start seeing what the internet was about. It didn't matter what OS the isolated PC was running, it was handled not much differently than a fax machine, it might as well have been Linux but Linux was not made for Windows people at all. Today desktop Linux is excellent for the internet at least, so might as well make that one step toward weaning away from Windows. Back in the 1990's around here offices which were big enough for networking to be worthwhile had already connected their DOS machines so when they got Windows they used that to continue doing what protocol they were doing. It was all over the place, you've shown some incredible details, I know some went from DOS to 3.1, others waited until 95, then some on 3.1 skipped 95 and waited until 98. In the mean time the internet began to get popular. Which is when plug & play LAN really came true for the mainstream small office whether they thought they needed networking or not. They may have a word processor on every desk but networking them for the first time was not going to happen if it required the services of some kind of professional they didn't already have on the staff. After a while everybody wanted internet on every desk always on all the time which big companies were already enjoying. So they bought a lot of LAN cards, routers and cable and plugged & played. Sometimes needing professional help to get it sorted out afterward. But we can be fairly old-fashioned and lots of our offices around the world still had a communication room where a DOS PC was in email service before any internet, and it was upgraded to Windows later. This was in there with the even more vintage facsimile unit and of course the traditional Telex machine for which the room was originally built. For some, the only suitable PC was a rubbish PC too, to add to the mix :\ But there's just something about communicating with the world that's a special condititon fundamentally. I don't claim to be that accurate on networking details, I didn't deploy it much in my office until I could plug & play myself. But for a while there I did have an old W3.1 box downloading MP3s even though it was not powerful enough to play them. And experimented with W95's just not TCP/IP, didn't deploy that just wanted to see what people were encountering at the time. I do remember it was the arrival of the 98 version combined with the dominance of TCP/IP, which first brought us to where it's like nobody's ever dreamed of a concept where all Windows PC's aren't on the internet at all times. I know a little more but I just didn't want to go there since I'm no expert. My message was too long already, and I didn't even think very many people would actually try using only Linux when accessing the web from an otherwise Windows PC. But it works for me not much differently than having a separate communication room, only more convenient. I hope my apology can be accepted for leading to such misinterpretation. I recognized you were reading my message quite literally, but it was good to have a more detailed account of these vintage conditions from an experienced early adopter. Quite a contrast to the vast number of small offices which only jumped on the bandwagon when it really took off, without any professional help at all. It's worth it, it makes everyone less misguided.
- ComputerGuru 5y ago
  I think most people that are overly fond of Windows 98 did not live through/experience the Windows 3.11 to Windows 95 transition. I just remember Windows 98 as bundling in some features that were only available with Microsoft Plus! such as active content on the desktop and heavier marketing of associated web-related tech/apps.
  - lproven 5y ago
    I think you're right. FWIW: The Win95 Plus Pack didn't add Active Desktop. In fact it added IE _at all_ -- it was not bundled with Win 95 at release. It was IE4 that added Active Desktop, to all current releases of Windows at the time: 95, 95 OSR2, and NT 4. It was bundled with 95 OSR 2.5, also known as Windows 95 C. https://archive.org/details/X03-56247 https://archive.org/details/X03-56247
    - ComputerGuru 5y ago
      Thanks for the correction. It’s been a long time and I’m going off my memory without having refreshed it since. You are bringing back vivid memories I didn’t know I had!
      - lproven 5y ago
        My pleasure. Hanging around in vintage-computer collector fora, where now people want "retro gaming rigs" based on late-'90s kit, I am often surprised at how people's memories of this stuff have faded... But then, it was my bread and butter at the time. Making a living depended on knowing this stuff and being able to fix it.

lproven 5y ago

[Article author here] > From this user's perspective, Win98SE was far more stable and configurable, > had vastly superior driver support and ran more types of software better. I worked with it, installed it and supported it at the time, and it really really wasn't. Serious business users ran NT 4. In the trade we nicknamed W98 as GameOS.

muststopmyths 5y ago
I think they're saying compared to Win95, not NT.
- lproven 5y ago
  Yeah, I know, I got that! :-) I didn't put in a lot of Win95, because it was before I went freelance. Then my work box ran NT 3.51, but a lot of the office ran W95 and I had to support it. So I did get quite a lot of experience on it. Later on, though, I put in W98 & W98SE for people with cheap & nasty PCs that couldn't run NT, and I supported a lot of boxes that were out there. It did have somewhat better driver support, yes, but every version of Windows ever has had better driver support than the preceding version. It was not significantly more stable, and on low-end or heavily-loaded boxes, I'd say _less_ stable. More types of software? About the same, I'd say. Better? On a narrow range of hardware, maybe -- things were changing fast then and by '99 or so new kit couldn't run 95 any more. It was a gamers' OS. The much-maligned WinME had better hardware support still -- for example, proper working Firewire support -- but by then everyone hated it. After a few updates it was a very stable release, it looked nice, it was a bit cleaner and faster to boot and to shut down, and it supported more memory. There was a particular period when very cheap, or old, PCs couldn't usefully run Win2K let alone XP, which really wanted 256MB of RAM or more, a big fast DMA EIDE or UltraIDE hard disk and so on, when WinME could deliver a decent internet experience on a single-core box with between about 80 to 128 MB of RAM on the low end to say 192 MB on the high end -- kit which gave a rotten experience with 2K or XP. But 98 wasn't a particularly sweet spot in my recollection.
  - muststopmyths 5y ago
    fair enough. I guess I misunderstood your response :)
tssva 5y ago
I supported a lot of large enterprise and government clients around that time. Almost all of them ran Windows 98 on their desktops. I didn't see much penetration of the NT platform on the desktop until Windows 2000 and even then it was by far the minority. The NT platform didn't really take over the desktop in the enterprises I supported until Windows XP.
- lproven 5y ago
  Remarkable. That's pretty much the opposite of my experience. In 1993 I worked in the City of London, where NT 3.1 was used in production, because it was so much better than Windows 3.1 -- even for Windows 3.1 apps. By 1995, I tried to get people to use NT 3.51 in magazine production, but the GUI put them off. NT 4 fixed that, and it took off very well for everyone except cheapskates with rubbish PCs.
  - fuzzfactor 5y ago
    Deeply misguided commenter here. That doesn't hurt my feelings, I resemble that remark. I've confused people even worse, at more inopportune times, too. This time of course it was about Linux more so than Windows and my suggestion that orgs that have always used Windows can make a significant step toward everyday Linux by first using Linux only for the internet and continue to use Windows for everything else. Similar to the way small offices which had no early need for networking first got one dedicated PC for web use when they decided to start seeing what the internet was about. It didn't matter what OS the isolated PC was running, it was handled not much differently than a fax machine, it might as well have been Linux but Linux was not made for Windows people at all. Today desktop Linux is excellent for the internet at least, so might as well make that one step toward weaning away from Windows. Back in the 1990's around here offices which were big enough for networking to be worthwhile had already connected their DOS machines so when they got Windows they used that to continue doing what protocol they were doing. It was all over the place, you've shown some incredible details, I know some went from DOS to 3.1, others waited until 95, then some on 3.1 skipped 95 and waited until 98. In the mean time the internet began to get popular. Which is when plug & play LAN really came true for the mainstream small office whether they thought they needed networking or not. They may have a word processor on every desk but networking them for the first time was not going to happen if it required the services of some kind of professional they didn't already have on the staff. After a while everybody wanted internet on every desk always on all the time which big companies were already enjoying. So they bought a lot of LAN cards, routers and cable and plugged & played. Sometimes needing professional help to get it sorted out afterward. But we can be fairly old-fashioned and lots of our offices around the world still had a communication room where a DOS PC was in email service before any internet, and it was upgraded to Windows later. This was in there with the even more vintage facsimile unit and of course the traditional Telex machine for which the room was originally built. For some, the only suitable PC was a rubbish PC too, to add to the mix :\ But there's just something about communicating with the world that's a special condititon fundamentally. I don't claim to be that accurate on networking details, I didn't deploy it much in my office until I could plug & play myself. But for a while there I did have an old W3.1 box downloading MP3s even though it was not powerful enough to play them. And experimented with W95's just not TCP/IP, didn't deploy that just wanted to see what people were encountering at the time. I do remember it was the arrival of the 98 version combined with the dominance of TCP/IP, which first brought us to where it's like nobody's ever dreamed of a concept where all Windows PC's aren't on the internet at all times. I know a little more but I just didn't want to go there since I'm no expert. My message was too long already, and I didn't even think very many people would actually try using only Linux when accessing the web from an otherwise Windows PC. But it works for me not much differently than having a separate communication room, only more convenient. I hope my apology can be accepted for leading to such misinterpretation. I recognized you were reading my message quite literally, but it was good to have a more detailed account of these vintage conditions from an experienced early adopter. Quite a contrast to the vast number of small offices which only jumped on the bandwagon when it really took off, without any professional help at all. It's worth it, it makes everyone less misguided.
ComputerGuru 5y ago
I think most people that are overly fond of Windows 98 did not live through/experience the Windows 3.11 to Windows 95 transition. I just remember Windows 98 as bundling in some features that were only available with Microsoft Plus! such as active content on the desktop and heavier marketing of associated web-related tech/apps.
- lproven 5y ago
  I think you're right. FWIW: The Win95 Plus Pack didn't add Active Desktop. In fact it added IE _at all_ -- it was not bundled with Win 95 at release. It was IE4 that added Active Desktop, to all current releases of Windows at the time: 95, 95 OSR2, and NT 4. It was bundled with 95 OSR 2.5, also known as Windows 95 C. https://archive.org/details/X03-56247 https://archive.org/details/X03-56247
  - ComputerGuru 5y ago
    Thanks for the correction. It’s been a long time and I’m going off my memory without having refreshed it since. You are bringing back vivid memories I didn’t know I had!
    - lproven 5y ago
      My pleasure. Hanging around in vintage-computer collector fora, where now people want "retro gaming rigs" based on late-'90s kit, I am often surprised at how people's memories of this stuff have faded... But then, it was my bread and butter at the time. Making a living depended on knowing this stuff and being able to fix it.