It kinda doesn't matter

I usually always opt for windows 98 whenever it's possible the machine can run it as I dislike the obvious downgrade in the windows 95 interface. But the os's are so similar it kind of doesn't matter. But get ready for a flood of opinionated responses.

95 certainly does take less space. Most of 98's bulk is in IE4/IE5+ISPs which can be shed off by 98lite and a 95 shell transplant.

While 98SE is technically the better and more compatibile OS, i'm more fond of 95's early art direction and overall design (especially for their Plus! system icons)

Are there W95 drivers for USB mice?

Honestly, I'd say it's up to you to decide which one you like better. If you plan on using a newer system (like a Pentium III or 4) for 98SE, I'd use 95, otherwise, I'd use 98.

You can use this example on how I have my two 9x rigs managed, sure I could run Windows 98 on my Celeron-433 rig, but since I have a Pentium III rig for 98, I'm using Windows 95OSR2 on that build. There's no reason to induce OS redundancy by using the same OS on two rigs when I can use an older, but still compatible OS on the older rig.

The advantage of going with 95 on your P1 build is it's lighter on resources so it should run smoother with the 32MB of RAM that you have (I hear that 64MB is the soft spot for 98), but 98 does have the advantage of being compatible with newer (~2001-2007) software although there might not be a lot of 98-exclusive programs that'll run smoothly on your system.

On a Pentium, use 98SE. It runs well with 32 MB RAM and almost perfect with 64 MB. Windows 95 (B/C, don't bother with the a-version) is quite a bit faster and hence the better choice for a 486. But in many ways, it's also way more primitive and has no advantages over 98 (footprint aside) on a machine fast enough to handle either of them.

Why not both of them? Multiboot is another option. (look at my sig for the DOS/W9x/W2k setup)

I pretty much always try to opt for 98SE on Pentium and above computers. I always try to include it on my PIII computers too, though it's often as a secondary OS there.

Windows 95 I always reserved for 486 systems, with 3.11 for 386s. Below 386 I don't tend to bother with Windows for anything other than the pure gimmick factor.

tayyare wrote:

Why not both of them? Multiboot is another option. (look at my sig for the DOS/W9x/W2k setup)

Because having Win95 installed too makes no sense if you can run Win98SE. Win95 on a Pentium has no advantages over 98SE.

I prefer using Win 98 SE on Pentiums and faster. Win 95 may be somewhat lighter, but the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. At least in my opinion. If you are planning to use a USB keyboard or mouse, you'll need Win 98.

98 lite can make 98 use the shell of 95, so it'd be just as light, but without the disadvantages. Runs great on a Pentium that way. 😀

Thanks everyone for your opinions. I will go for this box (in my signature) finally with Win98. Runs so far with 32MB pretty fast and not even the light version. But I am building a second 486 box beside and there it will be DOS6.22 and maybe win95 serve 😀

Dani-01 wrote:

At least in my opinion. If you are planning to use a USB keyboard or mouse, you'll need Win 98.

Is there no way of getting USB mice to work on W95C? This is a deal killer for boxes that don't have PS/2 ports.

I think that really depends on the motherboard. Motherboards that don't have USB ports on them probably don't support having a keyboard or mouse during BOOT and therefore might not have Windows 95 support during the OS install either. But some MBs may support USB keyboards during BOOT. If that's the case, I'm sure Windows 95 would be able to see and use it too, though you may have to find a driver in order to enable any special keys. I don't know. I've always had a PS/2 keyboard and mouse to use while fiddling around with my retro hardware.

win95 was pentium 1 era
win98 was pentium 2 - pentium 3 era, because everybody used win98 instead of Millenium error edition

Errius wrote:

Dani-01 wrote:

At least in my opinion. If you are planning to use a USB keyboard or mouse, you'll need Win 98.

Is there no way of getting USB mice to work on W95C? This is a deal killer for boxes that don't have PS/2 ports.

I think there are some boards that let you enable USB keyboard and mouse support in the BIOS, but I certainly haven't encountered one before that's Socket 7. Using Win 98 with onboard USB or a PCI card avoids the problem at least.

If I remember correctly there are a very small number games that work fine with 95 but may have some sort of issue with 98 however its been ages since anyone mentioned anything like that here. Personally going with 98 for a P1 system is pretty safe as it is not too demanding and a lot of people did it back in the day for daily use. For a Pentium 2 and above 98 and ME work just fine, I liked ME.

Windows 95 came out two years after the original Pentium processor was introduced to public in 1993. The minimum processor to run Windows 95 is an Intel 386DX processor at 20MHz, which is slow and somewhat performance-intensive. The recommended processor to run Windows 95 is an Intel 486DX/DX2 or Intel Pentium. Keep in mind that it may cause timing problems in Windows 95 when running on a processor that above 350MHz.

Windows 98 (FE) was released during the Pentium II era. Windows 98SE was released in May 5, 1999, three months after the release date of the first Intel Pentium III processor in two configurations, 450 MHz and 500 MHz. Despite the minimum processor to run Windows 98 was an Intel 486DX2 at 66MHz, a Pentium processor (particularly Pentium 133MHz until Pentium MMX 233MHz) would be fast enough, but somewhat slow. If you are using a Pentium II processor, then you have an optimal compatibility and performace when using Windows 98. The Pentium III is the fastest processor to handle Windows 98 and it is compatible with a majority of software titles from 1998 until 2007 (or 2008).

I installed win98 se on my pentium 133 with 32 mb back in the day and it ran like ass so i had to go back to win95. Win98 was not really acceptable with less than 64 mb of ram.

I started with Win95 and then went to Win98SE on my Pentium 233. I didn't notice any loss of performance. The reason I changed was that I wanted to upgrade my IDE controller (which turned out to be well worth doing) and couldn't find any compatible drivers for Win95

derSammler wrote:

tayyare wrote:

Why not both of them? Multiboot is another option. (look at my sig for the DOS/W9x/W2k setup)

Because having Win95 installed too makes no sense if you can run Win98SE. Win95 on a Pentium has no advantages over 98SE.

...and what we do with our ancient hardware and software here in vogons, makes all the sense all the time, eh? 🤣