[vfetke]

I have an old desk top with win. 95 and I want to put on win.98 (ha ha, I like win 95) because it doesn't have a usb or ethernet plug (because win 95 can't suport it,right?) Do I just put the win 98 disk in and follow the directions or do I have to remove win 95 first?
My other concern is I once installed a hard 20 gig hard drive and had to split it into 10 drives because win 95 couldn't handle it, what will hapen to those drives when I install win 98, will it turn into one drive automatically or do I have to use that disk to install the hard drive and make it one drive?

[Byteman]

I'm taking your post seriously, because I like to. I don't automatically belittle anyone who want to fool around with the older operating systems, however it is pretty much universally accepted that winows98 although it certainly can run and hold it's own no longer can be considered secure enough to use because there is not a big amount of protective software you can run on it to keep malware out of the computer. That, plus the contained Internet Explorer 5, even if updated to the latest it can handle IE 6, is no longer being supported by a lot of websites.....

But don't let that deter you, just that I have to include that little speech or there will be a ton of replies calling us both nuts.


What version of 95 is on there now? A
95B 95C

To find out> http://www.pcguide.com/proc/id/win95-c.html


Which version of win98 are you planning to use?

(Hard drive will have to have the paritions deleted one by one.....it explains the process in the links included. You wil be able to use
the drive as one whole partition or you can subdivide it -your call)

There is plain Windows98, or Windows 98Second Edition which I reccommend (if you are going to do this, at least use 98SE) You will need a CD of the win98SE and the valid Product Key for that version of 98.

You cannot just throw in a CD....you will have to type in the Product Key.

Read about the procedure below, it's the preferred way to go about this.

Pay attention to the present hardware names in your Device Manager now, you will need to know the tech name of your video adpater, sound hardware, chipset, and some other odds and ends.........

It would help if you have documentation of the motherboard in the computer now....and, if it is a brand like an HP, Compaq, Dell etc you might want to see if there are Win98 drives available for your system because the win98 CD will definitely NOT have them all.

http://www.everythingcomputers.com/reformat.htm

http://www.windowsreinstall.com/win9...exfullpage.htm

http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/topic...ll-windows-98/

You must back up any files like Favorites, Pictures, documents etc that you need to keep[. You have to put these files on either CDs or onto another hard drive. I do not mean to back up programs, you have to reinstall all those....just your
files like music etc. If there is nothing to save then you are almost ready.

You have two choices: to Upgrade to win98SE, or to do a full or clean install, where the entire drive is formatted and your files are not going to be there when you are done. It is highly reccommended that you do the full clean reinstall.

Just doing an Upgrade can leave the computer with no Internet connection so you must have the drivers for and the Ethernet card handy for when you want to connect....or another computer handy to download stuff with......

There is a lot of other helpful sites about reinstalling, tips to get updates in a bundle (I use Windows98 Unofficial Service Pack)

Take a look at this site for good info about USB on win98SE > http://www.usbman.com/win98seusbguide.htm

http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html or.... http://majorgeeks.com/UNOFFICIAL_Win...ack_d4131.html

[SDFOX 7]

That, plus the contained Internet Explorer 5, even if updated to the latest it can handle IE 6, is no longer being supported by a lot of websites.....

Thank goodness...there's always Firefox!

[flavallee]

Originally Posted by SDFOX 7

Thank goodness...there's always Firefox!

No help there either. To my knowledge, 2.0.0.20 is the most current version of Firefox that Windows 98 will support.

Byteman brought out some points about why using Windows 95, 98, ME is no longer advisable.

---------------------------------------------------------------

[vfetke]

I just use this computer as a word processor. I hate to even admit this but I use an old version of word perfect to type estimates. I would fax them but now everyone wants e-mails, then they were telling me that they can't read it. so I down loaded a program to make it into a pdf file. so I copy it onto a FLOPPY, open it in word perfect, change it into a pdf file then e-mail it, I'm tired of doing this, I thought if the desk top had enternet I could download the program that changes it to a pdf file and just email it from one computer. any time I mess with computers it takes me forever and in the summer I don't have the time. I just wanted to know what type of problems I may run into.

[Byteman]

If you were very careful you might not ever come into contact with malware.... it would be impossible to say, because there is

user behavior to factor in. Doesn't sound like you would be a victim based on behavior.

If you want to try it out, make sure you have a good knowedge of reinstalling, have a list of the hardware devices in the computer, and that the software you need to use, can work with win98SE or whatever you are going to run.

Under Win98SE you should be able to use a network adapter, I guess you were thinking of a USB type, should work....or an added in card since you have a desktop type computer, maybe there isn't a slot available..... therefore USB,.

As long as you can install the converter program to make your estimates into .PDF's if you had Internet you would be easily able to send the files as attachments to an email, which the end user would save to his computer and open it.

Here is one such online file coversion site> http://www.zamzar.com/conversionTypes.php#documents

Take a look and see if it will convert any document you have handy to a .PDF. There are several more sites that you could try, too.

[SDFOX 7]

Originally Posted by flavallee

No help there either. To my knowledge, 2.0.0.20 is the most current version of Firefox that Windows 98 will support.

Byteman brought out some points about why using Windows 95, 98, ME is no longer advisable.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Firefox 3.x runs under Kernel Ex; see my earlier post.

I think it is highly unlikely that malware will affect MS-DOS based Windows 9x. First off, it's a different file system without vulnerable accounts (Windows 9x had no concept of "Administrator" or separate user accounts), and secondly, who's wasting their time attacking Windows 9x when Windows XP is such a fatter and juicier target? Sorry for the metaphors; we had a Labor Day picnic today, LOL.

If you are concerned about being attacked by older viruses that CAN affect Windows 9x (it's unlikely newer ones will), download Avast 4.8. It's still supported and I receive updates on my laptop, despite the fact that updates were supposed to be cancelled at the end of 2009. See my earlier post here.

[SDFOX 7]

Originally Posted by vfetke

I just use this computer as a word processor. I hate to even admit this but I use an old version of word perfect to type estimates. I would fax them but now everyone wants e-mails, then they were telling me that they can't read it. so I down loaded a program to make it into a pdf file. so I copy it onto a FLOPPY, open it in word perfect, change it into a pdf file then e-mail it, I'm tired of doing this, I thought if the desk top had enternet I could download the program that changes it to a pdf file and just email it from one computer. any time I mess with computers it takes me forever and in the summer I don't have the time. I just wanted to know what type of problems I may run into.

If you want a program that is compatible with Microsoft Office 97 and up, just download OpenOffice, the free open-source office suite.

If this is the only reason you are upgrading to Windows 98, there is Open Office for Windows 95.

Archaic Release: OpenOffice.org 1.0.3.1 (for Win 95) (archived 4/15/2003 17:00) Using WinRAR or WinZip, extract to a new folder on your desktop, then execute SETUP.EXE.

According to the Wikipedia.org article table, version 1.1.5 also works on Windows 95, but I have not confirmed this, and it would probably run slower anyway.

Legacy Release: OpenOffice.org 1.1.5 (archived 6/10/2005 16:55) Using WinRAR or WinZip, extract to a new folder on your desktop, then execute SETUP.EXE.

Also, OpenOffice includes an PDF creator and exporter, as you said in one of your posts that you create PDFs.

[vfetke]

Thanks for the info, I have open office on my laptop, but without internet or usb I don't think I can get it onto the desk top, that's the whole problem

[Byteman]

If you don't have a CD burner drive, perhaps you know someone who could place the OpenOffice download installer for the version which runs on win95 onto a CD for you to take to your computer and copy to install from.

Does the computer that needs OpenOffice have a CD reader drive?

[vfetke]

To byteman, right now I have plain win95,4.00.950a. I want to upgrade to win. 98 upgrade second edition. the comp is a gateway p5-120. I have all of the disks that came with the comp. and product keys. is it still going to be that difficult. I also have the disk that I used when I put in the new hard drive.

[vfetke]

You know I was just thinking about the cd right before you said that. My laptop has a burner, the desk top had a cd rom that is the same as a cd reader drive, right.
the file converter I usually use is called pdf995, the open office that I downloaded was because I couldn't read something someone sent me, I wasn't aware it could change my estimates into a pdf, I also didn't know they had a win95 version. I would have tried to take it off my winxp laptop. So if I burned a cd and installed I still have the problem of not having internet, so I can e-mail and usb would be nice. I am pretty sure I have open slots. mabe I should look in the back mabe I do have an ethernet plug but I don;t think so. I'm not real experienced but I did play around with a 486 (years ago) I used formatC: I guess I forgot the s, actually I didn't know about the /s untill I tried to reinstall windows. But after hours and hours I finally got win95 on it (it had win3.0) after that I got rid of it, it was just a learning experence. I get obsesed when things don't go right and I waste my time on it instead of doing what I should be doing. I also have a laptop with winvista so I'm not that much in the dark ages.

[SDFOX 7]

You have two options, the first will only work if you have a CD-ROM drive:

1) Burn OpenOffice to CD-ROM, then install on your computer, or

2) Take the drive out of that desktop, set it to slave, and install it in your other desktop. Use the desktop to copy the install package to the slave drive (the Windows 95 drive). Then, take that drive, set it back to master, then put put back in your computer. Finally, boot to Windows 95, locate that file, and install from there.

If this sounds confusing, write back and I'll be happy to provide more specific steps. It's really not that complicated, probably take about 5-10 minutes.

At 120Mhz processing speed, I do not recommend upgrading to Windows 98. I personally believe it would make that machine painfully slow.

If you have dial-up or high-speed internet at home, I have Windows 95-compatible modems and network cards that work immediately when you plug them in, no additional drivers needed. If you want me to mail you one, let me know.

**Also, depending on what you are planning to do with this computing, in my opinion, you would gain no advantage by upgrading to Windows 98. With the exception of Internet Explorer 6, if you are looking for mainstream computing like office documents, spreadsheets, etc and internet browsing many programs written for 98 will run on 95; that is, if they will run at all on a 120MHz system. Even Limewire and BitTorrent work, LOL.**

[Byteman]

I suggest a newer PC, one already running win98 SE with some usb ports and a Network (same as Ethernet or broadband or high speed connection) port or card installed. If you only have dialup service, having 98 isn't going to change much. As long as you can get by that's all you need.


These older computers are pretty much given away anymore......it shouldn't be hard to ask around for one even if you had to pay something for it.

If you stay with win95, you will need the items SDFOX07 has told you that you could have..

Query: This is the program you use to creat the .PDFs? > http://www.pdf995.com/

It says this> pdf995 is the fast, affordable way to create professional-quality documents in the popular PDF file format. (Win 95, 98, 2000 and Me, NT 4.0 and XP).

It may not run well or at all with Windows Vista. Yes, there is a compatibility mode that you can try to use older programs on Vista, but it may not be possible. Maybe the support people for pdf995 can verify that for you.

[vfetke]

ok you've convinced me not to upgrade, it sounds like to much trouble.Can I just install a pcmcia, will win 95 support that or a ethernet plug?
I remember the slave & master thing when I was playing with the 486, you must thing I have two desk tips, I have one desk tops and two laptops working I wouldn't even know how to do that with a laptop, if you even can.
Talking about getting a new comp. I actually have one my daughter gave me, it's a gateway also (win 2000 I think) she took the harddrive out and it was having problems like mabe a virus, and i'm not sure I have all the disks for it, I just thought upgrading was easier.
This win95 desk top never gives me problems (mabe because I don't go online) and I like typing on a normal keyboard, that's why I don't want to give it up, if all else fails, I will replace the desk top with the winxp laptop and attach a keyboard.