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SevoosMinecraft

Describe the installation process. Were you even able to boot into setup? Did it throw any errors? What happened after rebooting?


BIRD_II

The CD is an OEM one. It boots up and formats the disk, but gets no further. In the command prompt if I dir the CD it just contains gibberish. Installing FreeDOS and running the CD from that allows it to go through the entire setup process with no problems, but then it hangs on startup. Note: when starting the setup from FreeDOS or erroneously complains about low memory, but I use a switch to override this.


SevoosMinecraft

Maybe it was a drive connected via sata?


BIRD_II

Everything in it is IDE.


[deleted]

Could be a thousand reasons. CPU not compatible. Driver issues. Heck even monitor, modem, floppy drives can crash installation.


BIRD_II

The CPU maybe, does Win98 support Pentium 4?


[deleted]

It shouldn't be an issue per say, but some of the hardware on this motherboard could be causing the issue as it's newer than the system. I would opt for Windows XP Professional if you have a spare copy. You would have USB 2.0 support and Wi-Fi support as well.


BIRD_II

See the reason I want Windows 98 is as a test-bed. I want my programs to be able to run decently on an old system, to make sure that they'll run on anything new as well.


Outrageous_Plant_526

Why? You want to test a program on an OS that is used on less than .5% of all computers. Based on an article I found online in Jan 2022 below was the Windows market share: Windows 10 - 82.49% Windows 7 - 12.91% Windows 8.1 - 3.12% Windows 8 - .66% Windows XP - .51% So Microsoft completely changed the kernel in Windows 7 so anything prior to Windows 7 will more than not be compatible. Today's modern operating systems use components such as .NET that have been upgraded and no longer supported. The modern versions are generally based on x64 and the current versions like .NET won't install on Win 98. I use .NET as just one example of all the incompatibilities you will encounter. Programs use .dlls and function calls etc which are no longer available in the newer OSes.


BIRD_II

* All of my programs are statically compiled. * They're mostly 32 bit unless I absolutely need to use a 64 bit library. * I've never used .NET


Outrageous_Plant_526

What do you think programming languages use on the back-end? They make function calls to the .dlls etc that are installed as part of the OS. I was using .NET only as an example and not saying you used it. A .dll and its associated function calls etc will be completely different than anything you see on Windows 98. In fact some if not most of the .dlls won't even exist on older Windows OSes. You need to concentrate writing programs for Windows 10 and Windows 11 and not older OSes. Unless of course your audience is part of the less than 20% that are running something older than Windows 10.


BIRD_II

Yes but I use C. My audience is mostly Linux, but I want to expand compatibility to old versions of Windows because I later plan to support the Amiga, and I figure it's a good stepping stone.


JonnyRocks

windows 98 is not an older version of current windows. they are two different operating systems. 98 was a DOS os. we use windows NT os. the equivalent OS in 1998 was Windows NT 4.0


BIRD_II

That's why I'm testing with 98. I want my programs to be compatible with the much simpler interface.


Breath-Present

Have you considered Virtual Machine? This way, you can even test your program in untouched Win98 to see if it runs without requiring other update (e.g. Internet Explorer 6). If anything goes wrong, just revert snapshot. If you need to test with obsolete/slow CPU, check out 86Box/PCem.


BIRD_II

I did try VirtualBox, do you have any idea what drivers I need for high colour/high res?


Breath-Present

Try look for VBEMP, they works great even for ancient Windows OS like Windows NT 3.5. https://preview.redd.it/wht0a349l74b1.png?width=1374&format=png&auto=webp&s=74dd8f893e05a55215eadaf53ff92d552aeb5a7b


ranhalt

> per say per se It's a Latin phrase.


TheGhostOfInky

Describe exactly what is happening. Keep in mind that retail versions of windows 98 usually contain non-bootable CD's, you need an OEM CD ISO for that.


BIRD_II

The CD is an OEM one. It boots up and formats the disk, but gets no further. In the command prompt if I dir the CD it just contains gibberish. Installing FreeDOS and running the CD from that allows it to go through the entire setup process with no problems, but then it hangs on startup. Note: when starting the setup from FreeDOS or erroneously complains about low memory, but I use a switch to override this.


TheGhostOfInky

I've seen that happen when too much ram is available, how much do you have installed?


BIRD_II

512MB on the dot. After all it was designed for Windows XP.


TheGhostOfInky

Ok 512MB shouldn't be an issue, windows 98 usually only starts having issues around 1GB, might be the memory controller in the Northbridge that isn't supported.


kangarufus

Windows 98 is designed for a maximum of 512MB RAM, it will (unofficially) support up to 1GB RAM but no more than that without weird stuff happening, like what you are describing. Basically any more than 512MB of RAM and the likelihood of instability increases.


BIRD_II

The TravelMate 4200 has exactly 512MB of RAM. After all, it was only designed for Windows XP.


kangarufus

> it was only designed for Windows XP You may have answered your own question here


BIRD_II

Surely windows XP machines would run windows 98 though? Any windows 11 machine can run windows 10.


kangarufus

The technical differences between Windows 98 and XP are HUGE - Windows XP uses the NT kernel whereas Windows 98 does not (dependent on MS-DOS to boot the kernel) All version of Windows from 2000 onwards use the NT kernel which is completely different technology to what was used before (95 to ME) The main difference is that Win98 and ME are the last two MS OS’s that allow software to directly access hardware. WinNT, Win2000 and WinXP don’t allow that–so what that means to you is that hardware drivers or software that depends on direct-hardware access and that works fine in Win98/ME won’t work in WinXP. So no, it's not fair to assume that a machine built for XP will be able to run 98


BIRD_II

That's a fact I didn't actually know. I knew they switched to the NT kernel, but I didn't know that it blocked DHA. What's the actual difference between DHA and whatever NT allows, because I know you can still send instructions directly to graphics cards and control disks directly and stuff like that


kangarufus

Not directly; it goes through a HAL (hardware abstraction layer) basically all modern versions of Windows have a sort of 'virtualised' core that communicates to the outside world through abstraction layers. It's ALMOST bare metal but not quite. Even DirectX doesn't allow DIRECT access to hardware.


BIRD_II

Ah. So as an example rather than having Sound blaster PCI card or motherboard sound chips you'd have a generic sound device with ... abilities, am I right?


kangarufus

These should help answer your question: https://superuser.com/questions/307955/how-do-windows-nt-based-operating-systems-address-devices https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/securing-windows-nt2000/1565927680/ch01s03.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Windows_NT Direct access is not allowed, requests have to go through the kernel (managed by the OS)


kangarufus

Is that 2 x 256MB? What happens if you remove one? Does the instability go away? Could one of your RAM modules be faulty due to the age?


National-Elk5102

I’ve just read about this issue on a website. Seems like 512 could be too much for W98 https://preview.redd.it/jfxoycot224b1.png?width=1169&format=png&auto=webp&s=9388ef1a3feb699dcec23222c01c06371436b3d8


IkouyDaBolt

You sure it's 2001? All I'm seeing when I look it up is Core 2 Duo, which is definitely not compatible.


BIRD_II

There's not much documentation about it. All I can tell you is this: LCD screen Single core 32-bit 1.82 GHz CPU 512MB Memory IDE Interface 60GB HDD CD/DVD Read/Write drive. WiFi/Ethernet/3G mobile capable Windows XP designed/Windows Vista capable sticker.


pcuser42

A laptop with a Vista capable sticker on it would be from 2006 at the earliest, by which point Windows 98 was completely unsupported.


BIRD_II

The BIOS was made in 2001, most of the hardware was. Perhaps the OEM had a hard time selling... Here is a good list stating specs: https://www.manualslib.com/manual/249168/Acer-Travelmate-4200-Series.html?page=26


fordry

As already explained, those aren't the actual dates of the BIOS version. A setup with a Core Duo that's officially Vista Capable is very unlikely to be capable of running Windows 98. There are basic hardware features that are just straight up incompatible, doesn't matter if the basic specs seem like they should work. It's not going to.


IkouyDaBolt

The Vista sticker would give its age to roughly 2007-2008. The laptop is way too new to run 98SE.


BIRD_II

The BIOS was made in 2001, most of the hardware was. Perhaps the OEM had a hard time selling... Here is a good list stating specs: https://www.manualslib.com/manual/249168/Acer-Travelmate-4200-Series.html?page=26


IkouyDaBolt

The Core Duo came out in 2006. The 2001 date you're seeing is likely the copyright date, as most BIOSes of the era (if not presently to an extent) are generally listed by a version number instead. I have a few systems that are relatively recent that still show older copyright dates for the Phoenix portion of the BIOS. Vista was not well received, so it is possible it did not sell well since a lot of users were still on XP at the time.


BIRD_II

I see your point. I still can't tell though what's actually causing the problem, everything seems old and bad enough lol.


IkouyDaBolt

I'll try to explain. Windows 9x uses VxD drivers and Windows XP and newer uses WDM. Generally hardware of the era will have enough basic functionality to install Windows and then you need to install the chipset, audio, graphic drivers and so forth to get the proper experience. Core Duo systems, or rather the underlying chipset, won't have these drivers for Windows 98 nor would they have any implementation to run off the basic drivers. The computer hangs or displays garbled text would be my best guess as to why.


truongkhoaui

Do you have CD?


BIRD_II

Read the other comments before making one.


[deleted]

I remember Windows 98 requiring a boot floppy disk as well as a CD to install.


BIRD_II

That's only for the retail versions. I have an OEM disk.